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

60 Women offenders: after the Corston Reportestate or the prison regime will not address the fundamental problems that make prisondisproportionately damaging to women.” In her oral evidence to us, Frances Crook stated:“[...] a review of the estate cannot just look at the prison society, what happens in aprison…We do not want to look at what happens to women in prison because we want tomake sure they do not go there in the first place. It is expensive and damaging and it leadsto more crime. What we should be looking at in any review is a much wider vision ofsentencing options, sentencing practice, community provision, funding arrangements andgender specific services.” 306 Clinks believed that a substantial debate is required aboutwhether imprisonment is an appropriate response to levels of risk and the types of offencescommitted by women. 307 On the other hand, Juliet Lyon reminded us that prison can play aprotective role:“[...] women sometimes have their lives saved by going to prison. We could step fromhere into Holloway now and we would see women arriving in the most terrible state,women who have been sleeping on the streets, women who have been trafficked intooffending, women who are so rattling with drugs, or for whom binge drinking hasbecome something that is so habitual and they are in such a terrible state, that thatperiod of time in prison will stabilise and sometimes save their lives and improve theirhealth. It is a terrible indictment that for some women prison is a safer place than anyoptions they have in the community [...] I would not ever underestimate either whatprison can do in the current circumstances or indeed what staff try and do” 308153. The MoJ appears to have adopted a relatively narrow interpretation of whatconstitutes a “radical” review. Michael Spurr said that the focus was on rationalising theprison estate to make savings whilst improving service provision. 309 Specifically, it will lookat: how the custodial estate for women is used; how it can be operated more effectively bydelivering services differently, or more efficiently; and whether establishments are of theright configuration, type, specialism, and size. 310 He stated that there were no plans to lookat the sentencing framework within the scope of the review but he believed that this wouldbe addressed by the Department’s priority to improve the range and availability ofcommunity based options for sentencers. 311 The review does not seek to answer thebroader questions that we consider earlier in our report, for example, about: how many ofthose women in prison should arguably not be there because they are there for breach of anorder that would not have resulted in prison anyway; how many of those women are thereon remand; how many of those women are there for under three months, or under sixmonths; and what else could be done in the community for vulnerable women who did notrepresent a serious risk to the public?" 312154. It follows from the thrust of our argument in this Report that we consider that thescope of the Government’s custodial estate review is unduly limited in taking the size of306 Q 152307 Ev 89308 Q 148309 Q 287. See also Q 307 [Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice]310 Q 287, Q 309311 Q 287312 Q 100 [Ms Russell[, Q 144 [Ms Lyon]