Women offenders: after the Corston Report - United Kingdom ...

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Ev 126Justice Committee: Evidencefor women reported that although there was a lack of women-specific provision for bothunpaid work and offending behaviour programmes, women-only groups, where run, weregenerally successful.3. Sustainability of many projects is questionable. It was announced in January that NOMS will provide£3.5 million funding for 30 centres in 2012–13. Some are partly funded by Local Authorities and some relyentirely on charitable or private funding. It is unclear what effectiveness criteria will be used for Payment byResults and whether some of the projects will survive as providers of community sentences. If local ProbationTrusts do not see the work being done by a project as a priority and fail to commission its services for a year,those services are unlikely to be available later should priorities change. Uncertainty about the longer termviability of projects leads to reluctance to order sentences of 12 months or more which rely on their services.4. Courts deal with offences which occur within their catchment area. The offenders may not live within thesame area and the sentence will depend on what is offered by the probation services where they live.Furthermore, the reduction in court houses and benches means that some benches now cover very extensiveareas which include many Local Authority areas. With inconsistencies in the provision of sentences availablefor women offenders, it is increasingly likely that benches will receive different sentence recommendationsfrom probation services for very similar offences. These discrepancies may lead to very visible unfairness.(f) The Corston report of 2007 identified that “Up to 80% of women in prison have diagnosablemental health problems”. Although prison may exacerbate these problems, it is likely that theywill also be present in those sentenced to a community order. It would therefore seem thatappropriate provision for women with mental health problems should be incorporated into anyservice for women offenders. Generally we believe there is little separate provision for foreignnationals or those of different ethnic origins but we consider that it would be more importantto be sentenced as a woman and attend placements with other women, than to attend with menof the same nationality or race. Additional support may well be needed but should be assessedand provided on an individual basis. Sentencing for under-18s is of course distinct from adultsentencing, community sentences are overseen by YOT rather than probation, and sentencesare carried out at separate premises. However, there is not usually any difference in communitysentence provision for young men and women. While some Women’s Centres have crèchefacilities, these are not universal or necessarily full-time. Very many women in the CJS aremothers (including many under 18) and childcare difficulties can often be the cause of missedappointments. Unpaid work placements are not generally viable if a child has to be taken toschool and collected as the hours are too long. If small children have to be taken toappointments, this would also make it even more important for the sentence to be carried outin a safe environment. Several women’s prisons include mother and baby units but this thinkingdoes not seem to have carried over to those on community sentences.September 2012AnnexLetter from Crispin Blunt MP dated 19 April 2012CORSTON RECOMMENDATIONSThank you for your letter of 20 March 2012 concerning a motion passed by the Annual General Meeting ofthe Magistrates’ Association last November about implementation of the Corston Report, and in particular theavailability of suitable community sentencing options.I am pleased that the Association’s motion recognises the work of the Government to give effect to thefindings of the Corston Report, and in particular to reduce the number of vulnerable and non-violent womenin custody. As you will know, our continued work to reduce offending by women and to provide alternativesto custody in appropriate cases has seen a significant reduction in short sentenced receptions (down 13% inthe first quarter and down 4% in the second quarter in 2011–12 from the previous year). Reduction in demandmeant that it was feasible to close HMP Morton Hall as a women’s prison last year, meeting our plan to reducethe number of places in the women’s estate by 400.I would like to assure you that the Government remains committed to addressing women’s offending, bothfor their own good and that of the public. We must ensure that women who offend are successfully rehabilitated,whether they serve sentences in custody or the community, and that we take an approach to women in thecriminal justice system that recognises their different needs, including developing responses to their mentalhealth and substance misuse problems.I welcome the Association’s support for greater use of alternatives to custody for female offenders. We wantto increase confidence in community sentences, demonstrating that they are meaningfully punitive and canprovide good options for offenders with caring responsibilities where being sent to prison could cause chaosfor children and families. We currently spend an estimated £80 million a year on adult females servingcommunity and suspended sentences, and women are doing slightly better than men on these sentences.paragraph omitted in the interests of brevity
Justice Committee: Evidence Ev 127I am concerned to note that the Magistrates’ Association feels that there are currently too few women’scommunity services providing viable alternatives to custody. Women’s Community Services, which aim toaddress the underlying reasons for many women’s offending, such as drug and alcohol addiction, mental healthand their often long histories of domestic violence and abuse, are an important part of our holistic approach towomen in the criminal justice system. I am pleased that NOMS has identified £3.5 million to support theseservices for 2012–13, which will be in addition to Probation Trusts’ basic settlements, and will be given withthe contractual expectation of enhanced services to women offenders.Given the Government’s strong commitment to localism, you will not be surprised if I say that the futurefor women’s services lies at the local level, with responsibility for many decisions transferred from Whitehallto Probation Trusts. Going forward, we will be looking to see more locally devolved commissioning to ensureprovision is integrated into local services. I envisage that Probation Trusts will play a vital role in deliveringour strategic priorities for women at a local level. I recognise that Trusts have already changed much of theirworking practice over the last few years, and following the Corston Report, the provision of women onlysessions or venues for probation delivery has been embedded within the standards set in ProbationSpecifications.I note your concern that localism may lead to inconsistency and unfairness. I would like to reassure you thatthe National Offender Management Service sets its commissioning intentions for the provision of communityservices on a national basis. This means that Probation Trusts are required to demonstrate how they will ensurethat appropriate provision is available to enable women to complete their sentences successfully and that theirrisks of reoffending are addressed through a broad range of women’s community services. This nationally setapproach is designed to engender the delivery of targeted services on the ground in response to local needs, aswell as ensure that the responsibility for providing gender-specific and holistic services has been built in to thefabric of every Probation Trust as a part of comprehensive local service delivery. Stronger commissioningrelationships will enable Trusts to work closely with the Women’s Community Services to improve optionsavailable to courts in the community. Localism will ensure provision is better matched to the needs of localcommunities and the move to establishing Trusts as the local commissioners of Women Community Servicesis a clear early demonstration of this principle.I share your view that, as with all our attempts to reduce reoffending, it is important that we can effectivelyevaluate the services we invest resources into. And, again as with all services, it is both challenging andessential that we focus as far as possible on measuring outcomes. NOMS are revising the information collectedfrom providers to focus more clearly on custody and reoffending rates for the women they work with. As partof the local commissioning arrangements the Probation Trusts and providers need to work together to decidewhat data, evaluation and measurement will enhance engagement with Sentencers, Local Authorities and otherpartner organisations.I welcome your support for Female Offender Specified Activity Requirements (FOSARs). These are currentlyavailable in 26 of the 35 Probation Trusts in England and Wales. I appreciate that means that FOSARs is notan option for all sentencers and the concerns that this raises. The National Offender Management Service iscurrently commencing a review of Specified Activity Requirements (SARs), including those designed forwomen offenders. The review will examine the available evidence in order to establish how SARs can betargeted most effectively to achieve best outcomes. This evidence will support the commissioning decisionsmade at a local level and will inform the national NOMS commissioning intentions.You have suggested that a more intensive order is also necessary, and that there should be an intensive“alternative to custody” (lAC) pilot for women. I do not believe that such a pilot is needed. The lAC pilotsthat ran between 2008–09 and 2010–11 involved both male and female offenders, including the creation oflAC packages designed to meet the needs of women. The pilots were undertaken in seven areas six of whichincluded women offenders (Manchester targeted male offenders aged between 18 and 25 years). Those pilotareas which included women offenders (West Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Merseyside, Humberside and Wales) havemainstreamed lAC services for women. The Wales Probation Trust which incorporated two of the pilot areashas mainstreamed lAC for women across the whole Trust area.paragraph omitted in the interests of brevityCrispin BluntSupplementary evidence from the Ministry of Justice following the evidence session of 26 March 2013PROPOSED CORRECTIONS TO TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCEThank you for giving me the opportunity to review the transcript of my oral evidence to the Justice SelectCommittee on 26 March 2013, as part of your inquiry into female offenders. I would like to take thisopportunity to clarify a couple of points in my evidence, as follows:
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