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

Women offenders: after the Corston Report 33practice to ensure that more vulnerable women are diverted from the criminal justicesystem. 156 We heard from two individual magistrates who called both for more flexibility insentencing guidelines, particularly with regard to the custody threshold, and for betterresourced community sentences, including local provision for bail hostels as alternatives toremand, and residential treatment as alternatives to custody. 157 While Helen Grantexpressed a commitment to reducing the number of women in prison, she would not bedrawn on the scale of reduction she wished to see. 158 She saw the Government’s role inreducing the prison population as limited to giving sentencers viable, robust alternatives:“It also needs to be remembered that who goes to prison is a matter for theindependent judiciary. It is not a matter for Helen Grant or for anyone else. That ishow it will have to remain. The judge has access to all the circumstances and facts ofthe case and will have to weigh them up and make a decision. What we want to dofor that judge—that sentencer—is to give him or her the maximum number ofoptions possible in terms of where they send a woman.” 159Segmentation of women offenders78. Michael Spurr conceded that “[f]or a long time, [NOMS] did not do anything likesufficient work with women.” He also acknowledged that, despite some progress, NOMSmust continue to do more to target interventions to meet the specific needs of women. Headmitted that they still needed to get better at understanding the distinct needs of women:“[t]here is still not sufficient evidence about what the specific needs of women are; to bequite frank, there is a frustrating lack of it.” 16079. NOMS is in the process of “segmenting the female offender population” i.e. separatingout groups in a way which enables providers and commissioners to understand their risksand needs, and target resources accordingly. 161 This exercise identified, for example, thatHMP Drake Hall was delivering a thinking skills programme, whilst the needs of thewomen there—in particular their lower risk levels—demonstrated the need for a differentgender-specific programme focused on practical resettlement. 162 The Prison Reform Trustemphasised that there is currently limited support for offenders who span multiple groupswithin NOMS’ model. They proposed that “commissioners should be aware that manyoffenders have multiple and complex needs and cannot easily be classified according toseparate subgroups. Therefore, the model of segmentation will need to be sophisticatedenough to allow offenders to ‘belong’ in multiple categories and to identify services mostappropriate to their individual needs.” 163156 Ev 114157 Ev w11, Ev w12158 Qq 291–292159 Q 293160 Q 255161 Ev 96162 Q 297163 Ev 103