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

Women offenders: after the Corston Report 49rehabilitative provision for all prisoners is overdue. Over half of women leaving prison(51%) are reconvicted within one year – for those serving sentences of less than 12 monthsthis increases to 62%, higher than the equivalent rates for men. 241 At the beginning of ourinquiry we heard from women who had recent experience of prison that planning forresettlement could be poor. It was especially concerning that a recently released lifesentenceprisoner, who should have been receiving pre- and post-release support fromprobation services, told us that she had been asking for various types of support to be putin place since well before she left prison but was effectively left to do everything on herown. She concluded: “I think you really need to know how hard it is. I know where I’vebeen and what I’ve done in prison, but for anybody to come out it is so easy for [them] toreoffend again.” 242 Two of the women we took evidence from spoke specifically about thevalue of peer-support. 243Potential challenges124. We now turn to the potential challenges that will need to be addressed during theimplementation of these reforms if they are to be successful in achieving a revolution in therehabilitation of women who offend and if progress is to continue to be made in achievingBaroness Corston’s recommendations. The responses of several witnesses suggested thatthe proposals represented another example of the Ministry of Justice’s extension of a maleoriented penal system to the treatment of women. Jackie Russell described the proposals as“in no way gendered”. 244 Both she and Clive Martin were critical that the Government didnot seek to engage with the VCS or the women’s community sector in informing theproposals’ development, despite Women’s Breakout bidding to be involved in developingthe infrastructure for VCS engagement in payment by results, and Clinks’ involvement inproducing a systematic review on women offenders. 245125. The Government wishes to commission for all offenders at scale with a view tosecuring a more cost-effective set of services. 246 It was recognised by our witnesses thatwomen were most likely to be managed by a new provider, because the majority of themare deemed to represent a low risk of harm to the public. The key concern expressed wasthat despite these risk levels, women are very high-risk in terms of need as a result of thecomplexity of factors that often underlies their offending behaviour requiring intensivesupport and specialist engagement. 247 Evidence from the Nelson Trust, describing the workit does at ISIS women’s centre in Gloucester, illustrates the effort that may be required toget a woman sufficiently stable to begin tackling their offending: “in order to reach a pointwhere we can directly address crime-specific attitudes and behaviours, we need toundertake work on a number of pathways:- Homelessness prevention and alleviation,tenancy sustainment, enabling women to address physical and mental health needs, toengage with domestic violence services, motivational work to begin addressing substance241 Ev 103242 Q 41243 Q 37, Q 71. See also Q 191 [Ms Halford]244 Q 87245 Q 86, Q 134 [Ms Russell], Qq 142–143 [Mr Martin]246 Q 312 [Mr Porée]247 See for example Q 91 [Ms Doal], Ev w41