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

6 Women offenders: after the Corston Reportprompted by the deaths of six women at HMP Styal. 1 Her report identified three categoriesof vulnerabilities for women related to: domestic circumstances and problems such as domestic violence, childcare issues,being a single parent; personal circumstances such as mental illness, low self-esteem, eating disorders,substance misuse; socio-economic factors such as poverty, isolation and employment. 25. The Corston Report made 43 recommendations, the key themes of which included: improvements to high level governance and cross-departmental working for womenoffenders and those at risk of offending, including the establishment of an Inter-Ministerial Group to govern a new Commission for women who offend or are at risk ofoffending; the reservation of custodial sentences and remand for serious and violent womenoffenders and the use of small local custodial centres for such offenders within 10 years; improvements to prison conditions, including sanitation arrangements and a reductionof strip-searching in women’s prisons; community sentences used as the norm and the development of a wider network ofone-stop-shop community provision for women offenders and those at risk ofoffending; and improvements in health services and support for women offenders.6. Juliet Lyon, Director of the Prison Reform Trust, and herself a member of the Corstonreview team, explained that the Corston Report added weight to previous inquiries,including reviews by Dorothy Wedderburn, the Fawcett Society, the Cabinet Office and ajoint prison and probation inspectorates report, which had all drawn similar conclusions:“There were a number of reviews, all of which said pretty much the same thing, thatit would be perfectly possible in relation to public safety to reduce the number ofwomen going to prison, that the emphasis should be on proportionality, sentencingand fairness and there should be options in the community, bearing in mind thatmost women were nonviolent, petty persistent offenders in the main and that manyhad primary care responsibilities for their children.” 31 The Home Office Minister, Baroness Scotland, made a Statement on 17 November 2005 about developments at Styalprison following these deaths between August 2002 and August 2003 and further work planned relating to womenoffenders. The Minister noted the need to take stock of the work being done and to look again at the measures inplace to address the needs of these vulnerable and damaged women, and subsequently commissioned BaronessCorston to undertake the review. HL Deb, 17 November 2005, cols WS99–101.2 Home Office, The Corston Report: A report by Baroness Jean Corston of a review of women with particularvulnerabilities in the criminal justice system, March 20073 Q 138. See Justice for Women: The Need for Reform detailing the findings and recommendations of theindependent Committee on Women's Imprisonment, chaired by Professor Dorothy Wedderburn.