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

36 Women offenders: after the Corston ReportGuidance issued by the Sentencing Council for some sentences states that primaryresponsibility for the care of children and dependants should be a mitigating factorinclining the court against imposing a custodial sentence. Frances Crook did not regardthis as a sufficient safeguard for child welfare, which she believed was effectively ignored incriminal courts, unlike during proceedings in family courts where a child advocate wouldbe present. 179 We heard of a couple of examples of alternative international approaches tothis issue. 18087. We do not consider that substantive changes to the overall sentencing frameworkwould be helpful at this time and recommend that emphasis is placed on ensuring agreater consistency of provision to the courts to enable them to sentence from a rangeof options specifically appropriate to women, including robust alternatives to custody.More attention must be paid to the potential impact of imprisonment on dependentchildren both during the sentencing process, and once a parent, whether female ormale, has been imprisoned. These issues should be addressed as a priority by theAdvisory Board, which could usefully both examine whether lessons can be learnt frominternational practice on taking child welfare into account during the sentencingprocess, and ascertain how the children of prisoners could be better identified andrelevant services, including schools, subsequently notified. We welcome the SentencingCouncil’s inclusion of primary child caring responsibilities as a mitigating factor insentencing guidelines and we would appreciate an update from the Council about theextent to which this factor is taken into account in sentencing decisions. Similarly wewould like to be kept informed about the impact on sentencing of introducing themitigating factor on vulnerability to exploitation in the drug offences guideline.88. Generic community provision for women offers a route for diverting vulnerablewomen from crime and tackling the root causes of offending. Significant steps have beentaken towards achieving Baroness Corston’s vision for a network of such provision, andthere are promising signs that this seems to have begun to have a positive impact ontrends in women’s imprisonment, albeit at a disappointingly slow pace. Over half of thosewomen sentenced to custody still receive short sentences. There appear to be severalexplanations for this: appropriate community provision remains unavailable; the courtperhaps did not know there was adequate provision available; or the court was notconfident that the community provision was appropriate or acceptable to wider publicopinion. This agenda has not progressed at a sufficiently fast pace since 2007, and wehave not found evidence of the systematic change in approach that Baroness Corstonadvocated. It is not acceptable for ineffective prison sentences or fines to be imposedbecause of a lack of provision for appropriately challenging community sentences andfacilities. Sentencers must be fully informed about the range of community provisionavailable for women, its effectiveness in preventing offending, and the ineffectiveness ofshort custodial sentences for women who have not committed offences so serious as torequire a custodial sentence.179 Q 157180 See Ev 63 and Ev 114. In the Netherlands women are given 48 hours to make arrangements for their children ratherthan being sent immediately to custody. In South Africa sentencers are specifically required to consider the welfareof a mother’s children before sentencing her to custody.