Found: Government in its Female Offenders Strategy, have been explored in depth by others, notably by Baroness Corston

Found: In 2006 Baroness Corston led an independent review of women in the criminal justice system, brought

Found: Government in its Female Offenders Strategy, have been explored in depth by others, notably by Baroness Corston

Found: More broadly, we have also considered progress made since the publication of Baroness Corston™s 2007

Found: Lord Carlile of Berriew, Baroness Corston, Lord Dholakia, Baroness Eaton, Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Found: Baroness Corston (2006).

Found: held in custody cross the 12 women’s prisons in England as of 30 September 2023.25 In 2007, Baroness Corston

Found: experiences in the criminal justice system 5 Chair’s foreword In 2007 a landmark report by Baroness Corston

<p>I'm grateful to you, Deputy Presiding Officer. One of the privileges of elected office, of course, is that we do have the opportunity to see and visit and speak with many different people, and we have the opportunity to see things and to experience things that perhaps you wouldn't necessarily experience in other walks of life. I think one of the things, as I look back over perhaps too long in this place—. I look at the things that have affected me most profoundly. And I have to say, prior to being appointed to ministerial office with some responsibility for justice, the justice system had never seriously crossed my path. I haven't been in prison, none of my family have, and I haven't had that personal experience of it. And I was shocked by what I saw when I visited the secure estate in Wales. I was shocked by what I heard was happening to people in my constituency, from my constituency, from our communities up and down Wales, on a daily basis. I was shocked by the way that people are treated in the criminal justice system and by the criminal justice system, and on every single occasion, without exception, the failures that are visited upon the male population in prison, and on the secure estate in different ways, are visited on women to a far, far, greater extent. I can think of not a single occasion—and I think men are poorly treated by the criminal justice system—where the experience of women gets anywhere close to the experience of men. And that is a standing rebuke to us all, and it's a standing rebuke to everybody who argues that the criminal justice system as it stands today succeeds in doing anything except visiting unnecessary cruelty on people and families. And on every occasion, without exception, the experience of women is much, much, much worse. And the experience of women from Wales is worse than the experience of women in England and Scotland.</p>
<p>How can anybody come here—? How can anybody come here—? Wherever you sit in this Chamber, how can anybody come here and argue for the continuity of a system that fails and does harm day in, day out? Women will be failed, Gareth, whilst you were making that speech and whilst you're on your journey home to your constituency tomorrow, and people you represent will be failed, and harm will be done to them. Harm will be done to them and their families. We cannot stand by and allow that to happen. We cannot stand by and be spectators. We can not stand by and wring our hands on a Wednesday afternoon, saying how bad everything is, and do nothing and not argue the case for change. Read the Thomas commission. Read it. Read it, and see what it says—[<em>Interruption</em>.] I'm not arguing devolution means everything is better, and I accept the points you make about some of the health services in north Wales—I accept that—but you cannot stand by and see the systemic failure of women in the criminal justice system in Wales and do nothing. That's not acceptable. Whatever your point of view, that isn't acceptable.</p>
<p>When Baroness Corston published her report, I think it was in 2007, she could not have imagined for a moment that in 15 or 16 years' time people would still be debating it without it being delivered in all its key ways. When we delivered the blueprint for criminal justice and women in the system, I think it was in 2019, we were looking back at a decade of failure already. That's what we were doing. And we were putting sticking plasters on that—let's be clear about it. Because what we need to be able to do is to deliver policy in a holistic way. And what really frustrated me—what really frustrated me—was visiting and speaking to women in the criminal justice system in Scotland and seeing how they were having services delivered to them. And it's not always good; I accept that, Gareth. It's not always good, and nobody is suggesting that this is the panacea for everything, but they had the holistic approach to policy that we lack here in Wales, and, as a consequence of that approach, Welsh women are being failed, and English women are not being failed, and Scottish women are not being failed, and that is something that you and me and all of us here have to accept. [<em>Interruption</em>.] I'll give way.</p>

<p>For me, it's about women's centres, and Baroness Corston was very clear about women's centres and what works and what should work, and I think what's happened since then is we haven't had enough speed and enough, maybe, political will right across the models of really putting those into place. Different variations on the theme have been talked about, and there has been some investment in the existing women's centres, but we don't yet have that Corston vision of a woman's centre, available for every woman who needs it, with a holistic model of support to build on, and that would certainly be Clinks's view.</p>