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

44 Women offenders: after the Corston ReportAudit Office to determine the extent to which these new arrangements have resulted in:increased gender-specific provision; a shrinking of the network of women’s centres; or anarrowing of their criteria for referral to women offenders rather than those at risk ofoffending. Their report Funding of women’s centres in the community, published in May2013, found: the data collected from centres up to 2012 is not useful for understanding theireffectiveness in terms of reducing reoffending; the majority of centres have used softer“distance travelled” measures of effectiveness, for example, related to health outcome,taking responsibility and other life skills the Ministry of Justice does not see itself as responsible for people who have notoffended and will no longer fund work with women who are at risk of offending; ifcentres wish to continue providing a service to women at risk, they will need to findalternative sources of funding some existing centres have been able to continue their work with non-offenders byredistributing existing funds, but others have had to start turning such women away. 224114. The changes in funding arrangements could potentially alter the whole dynamic ofwomen’s centres that do not have diverse sources of funding, which could prove toundermine both their effectiveness in working with women who offend, and theirpreventive role. Baroness Corston explained her rationale for proposing the widespreadextension of generic support:“The great thing about the structure we had before was that, with the help of theCorston Independent Funders’ Coalition [...] there was the establishment of 39centres across the country that adhere to this agenda. Women can self-refer.Somebody in my family is a GP, and I remember saying, when I was putting togethermy thoughts on this report, "What happens when you have a woman who is a ‘heartsink’ patient?" A "heart sink" is someone who walks into your surgery-it is somethingwhich happens to Members of Parliament, I know, from my own experience-andyour heart sinks because you know this person has a problem but you know youcan’t do anything about it. I remember saying, "How would it be if a woman like thatcame into your surgery and you were able to say, ‘Look, go down to 26 Clark Street,or wherever, to the women’s centre and talk to them’?" The response was, "Thatwould be wonderful." That is happening, but, if you don’t have any kind of nationalguidance as to the fact that this is an important priority, it either doesn’t happen or itcan’t be sustained.” 225In addition, Peter Kilgarriff and Jackie Russell believed that it is the generic nature ofwomen’s centres that provides the most benefits to women who have offended:There seems to be evidence that not only is [dealing with non-violent femaleoffenders in the community] cost-effective but it is more effective in terms ofreducing reoffending, and in terms of the well-being of the women. There is evidence224 National Audit Office, Funding of women’s centres in the community, May 2013.225 Q 13