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

Women offenders: after the Corston Report 47120. Women’s community projects are central to providing a distinct approach to thetreatment of women offenders. They offer a challenging environment for women to servetheir sentence as well as a broad range of practical and emotional support to enable themto change their lives for good. These centres also play an integral role in supportingwomen at risk of criminality who need to access other community services. Theireffectiveness therefore depends to a considerable extent on the availability andappropriateness of other services for vulnerable women. The network of women’scommunity projects must be retained. Funding and referral processes should have theflexibility to allow for referral at every stage in the system; including for women at risk,pre-court, post-court, as part of an order, and following a custodial sentence. TheGovernment must find an alternative approach to funding these centres to avoid thecriminal justice system being the primary gateway through which vulnerable womencan access appropriate support. At the very least women’s centres must be given centralsupport to navigate the new local commissioning arrangements, and to enable them toconcentrate on delivering the very good work in those areas where they have specialistexpertise.