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

76 Women offenders: after the Corston Report6 An effective ‘whole system’ approach?198. The Government’s stated strategic priorities include a wish to take a ‘whole system’approach which acknowledges the need to work with partners outside the justice systemand to “raise the profile of female offenders and factors associated with their offending”. 416When we asked Helen Grant to explain what was meant by a ‘whole system’ approach shereferred to the Transforming Rehabilitation proposals to extend assistance to all prisonerson release and the role of women’s centres. 417 When questioned she acknowledged a needalso to consider both preventative and diversionary approaches. 418 She also described thestrategic priorities as her aspiration for a direction of travel in improving outcomes forwomen in the criminal justice system. 419 She acknowledged that these did not constitute afull strategy, and saw it as the Advisory Board’s role to consider them, test them, and to usethem to devise a fuller strategy and subsequently drive its delivery. 420An integrated approach to vulnerable women and their families199. Witnesses identified various examples of how a broader approach could be takentowards women offenders and those at risk of offending to achieve the joint benefits ofreducing demand on the criminal justice system and broader social outcomes. This couldbe done by capitalising on existing strategies through closer and more transparentintegration of different central and local government services and responsibilities. 421 TheReducing Reoffending Third Sector Advisory Group analysed the key routes of girls andwomen into and out of the justice system and found evidence of “successive failures todivert girls and women into gender-specific and supportive community-based services”.They suggest that this has “allowed the escalation of chaos in their lives and perpetuatedthe vulnerability to abuse that very often leads to tragic consequences for the women, theirfamilies and communities” and concluded that lasting transformation in their treatmentrequires a “system re-design”. 422 Wales Probation proposed a ‘whole system’ review, whichwould include joint commissioning approaches for the creation of women’s centres, ‘onestop-shops’outreach facilities, and halfway houses; Wales has specific needs in this respect:there is no women’s prison, and few support facilities are available, including no approvedpremises. 423200. Bedfordshire and Wales Probation Trusts and the Together Women Programme,among others, identified several recent initiatives that together had the potential to providean integrated approach to address the root causes of women’s offending including: the‘Troubled Families’ Programme and other agendas for supporting families; theintroduction of Police and Crime Commissioners; changes to commissioning for victims416 Ministry of Justice, Strategic objectives for female offenders, March 2013417 Q 284418 Q 285419 Q 281420 Q 282421 Ev w1422 Ev 89423 Ev w41