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

56 Women offenders: after the Corston Reportare doing much more of the same sort of thing, and we will not have quite this linearapproach [to sentencing] [...] However, it could go the other way: if you also have therehabilitative element, it could lead [sentencers] to say that there is not the harm in acustodial sentence because you have the other work going on as well.” The additionalelement of supervision also increases the opportunity to breach which could further drivegrowth in the female prison population. 286142. As we noted in chapter 3, whilst the national women’s team was in existence there wasa focus on raising the complex and distinct needs profile of women offenders with criminaljustice boards and sentencers. 287 Our witnesses believed that a strategic approach toengagement between sentencers and probation providers—a role that is currently fulfilledby Probation Trusts—will continue to be required, not least because sentencers must havefaith in any new provider and the interventions they provide. 288143. The Government’s proposals for Transforming Rehabilitation have clearly beendesigned to deal with male offenders. Funding arrangements for provision for womenappear to be being shoehorned into the payment by results programme, resulting in thelikelihood of a loss of funding for broader provision encompassing both women offendersand those with particular vulnerabilities that put them at risk of offending. In addition,the risk of sentencers using short prison sentences as a gateway to support undermines thepost-Corston direction of travel in reducing the use of custody for women, and doesnothing to mitigate the detrimental impact of short sentences on women, their familiesand the likelihood of reducing re-offending. If the Transforming Rehabiltation reformsare to work, improvement of information to sentencers about the alternatives tocustody, which we have repeatedly called for, must take place. In that context theremust be clarity about responsibility for that effective liaison with sentencers to raise theawareness of the judiciary about the range of available interventions, which hashitherto been vested in probation trusts.Realising the broader social benefits of a distinct approach for women144. Respondents to the Government’s consultation observed that “paying by results acrossa cohort of offenders would lead providers to develop homogeneous services that fail torecognise the requirements of some offenders with complex needs or particular protectedcharacteristics.” 289 Some suggested that services for women offenders especially should besubject to specific commissioning arrangements. A range of alternative commissioningarrangements were proposed by our witnesses. Clive Martin suggested that another optionwould be to hive off commissioning for women offenders: “[...] there is a distinctionbetween national commissioning for the whole estate as it is proposed in the rehabilitationrevolution-and, as a result of that national commissioning, some service or other getsdevolved locally for women-compared with maintaining a national commissioning modelfor women separate to the general commissioning model”. 290 Others favoured joint local286 Q 225. See also Q 139 [Ms Lyon]287 Ev 120288 Q 210 [Ms Rijnenberg], Ev w45289 Ministry of Justice, Transforming Rehabilitation: Summary of Responses, 2013, p 16290 Q 160. See also Ev w104