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

72 Women offenders: after the Corston Report218 Centre, GlasgowThe 218 Centre in the centre of Glasgow is funded by The Scottish Executive. Women can self-referor they can be referred by GPs, social workers, or schools, for example, if girls start truanting. Theyhave one floor that is secure, so women who are not able to leave the centre, who are there byorder of the court, can be held. Staff from the centre go into the court on a regular basis whenever awoman is coming before the sheriff court. They are entirely accepted by the court as professionals,who can make judgments and recommendations about the most appropriate way to deal with awoman who is coming before the court. The court now uses the Centre routinely. 390The Dóchas CentreThe Dóchas Centre, meaning centre for hope, is a custodial unit for women within the vicinity of amale prison in Dublin. It comprises six individual houses, with single room accommodation, plus apre-release and health area unit. Once inside the buildings, there is nothing to indicate that one is ina prison. The regime is relaxed (staff wear civilian clothing) and the prisoners are givenresponsibilities to take decisions themselves on the running of the various houses. The prisoners arenot handcuffed when being escorted, not even to court. Emphasis is placed on operating a regime asclose as possible to living in ordinary accommodation outside of the prison, with training anddevelopment activities structured like a normal working day. 391187. Baroness Corston’s proposal was made alongside other proposals designed to reducethe prison population. She told us that she estimated that only 140 women at any one timewould need to be kept in secure circumstances; 392 provision for smaller custodial unitswould therefore need to be considered on the basis of a much smaller prison population,with resources potentially freed by prison closures. There was widespread support for suchunits amongst our witnesses, although not all mentioned the units explicitly but arguedinstead that the use of high security custody could be further restricted to those womenwho have committed serious offences. 393 For example, Val Castell of the Magistrates’Association thought it feasible to limit the use of high security to “where it is reallyneeded”. 394 Another spoke in more abstract terms about the potential to radically reducethe prison population if a more pragmatic approach was taken to give a higher priority toreducing reoffending than punishment. 395188. There certainly appears to have been limited consideration by Government ofBaroness Corston’s proposals for small units thus far, perhaps on the assumption that costswere prohibitive. Witnesses variously highlighted a need to consider the bigger pictureoriginally set out by Baroness Corston. Jackie Russell did not consider that the issue hadbeen looked at seriously, and thought it had never been fully costed. Juliet Lyon outlinedthe approach that she believed the previous Government had taken:“the review that occurred was an inhouse review conducted by officials who took alarge prison and reduced it so that the economy of scale no longer applied and theyrealised how very expensive it would be to build small custodial units for women. It390 Q 26391 Irish Prisons Inspectorate, Mountjoy Prison and the Dochas Centre Inspection, 2003392 Q 24, Frances Crook estimated that there would be a requirement for up to 100 places for public safety (Q 145)393 Q 101 [Mr Kilgarriff, Ms Russell], Q 144 [Ms Lyon, Ms Crook], Q 224 [Ms Calderbank], Qq 230–232 [Mr McLennanMurray], Ev w4,Ev 89, Ev w124394 Q 224395 Q 232