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

Women offenders: after the Corston Report 29umbrella shielding you from the rain”. Courses had challenged their thinking, encouragedthem to think about victims, and the approach of the staff helped them to see being onprobation as an opportunity to change their lives. 130 Inspire, and many other projectsprovide childcare, to enable women to attend appointments, including with probation tosupport compliance, but this is not universal. 13166. We also heard about the broader value of such projects for women who are at risk ofoffending, including having already completed their community sentence or period ofstatutory supervision after leaving prison. Centres can build relationships with women tosupport them through relapse and crisis that can extend long beyond the time that they arein contact with the criminal justice system. 132 As a woman attending Eden House in Bristolsaid:“The sort of women coming here, if they went to prison they would only get a coupleof weeks, or a six month sentence and serve half. That’s not enough time to make adifference. They just carry on as they did before. But with Eden House, you getstructure, a variety of things to do, and the help and support of staff. These are allthings you don’t get inside, like one to one time with a staff member.” 133Other forms of women’s community provision67. In areas where there are no women’s community projects, some probation trusts andlocal partnerships have developed other forms of provision. 134 For example, in Swindon inWiltshire, Barnardo’s runs a service at one of the family centres, where women can go andbe seen by their probation officer, and other areas had created unpaid work projectsexclusively for women, with female supervisors. On the other hand, the Inspectorate wascritical of the fact that this was not universal practice. 135 During our Role of the ProbationService inquiry, witnesses expressed concerns about the capacity of probation trusts todeliver a differentiated service to women. We concluded:The probation service’s approach—where resources tend to be directed towardsdealing with offenders who present the highest degree of risk—can fail adequately tosupport women offenders. The approach recommended by Baroness Corston for theprovision of holistic services that address all women’s needs is still a long way frombeing realised, even though this would greatly increase the effectiveness of probationwork in diverting women from further offending. Rather than requiring extraresources, it would save public money by reducing the prison population and itsassociated heavy social costs. 13668. We asked the women offenders who gave evidence to us about their experiences of thecriminal justice system and about what support they felt had, or would have, made a130 See also Q 148131 Ev w16, Ev w48, Ev w57132 Ev w28133 Ev w63134 Ev w16, Ev w41, Ev w63, Ev w99, Ev w101135 Ev 80136 Justice Committee, Eighth Report of Session 2010–12, The role of the Probation Service, HC 519–I