Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Stern Excerpts

Wednesday 15th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I added my name to the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, because I wanted my noble friend to have a voice from behind him. I know that he needs no prompting on this issue; it is something about which he feels strongly. Therefore, he will recognise that my adding my name is in part a tactic in what I hope will be discovered to be a thought-through strategy.

I was attracted to the amendment because of the issue that it addresses but particularly by its reference to so many facets of women in the criminal justice system and areas beyond that system, including housing, social services and employment. The knock-on effects of the treatment of female offenders on their children, their housing situation and the likelihood of their becoming homeless are well understood and I do not need to reiterate them at this time of night. However, as has been said, women in this situation have particular needs and are affected by particular factors.

I was attracted by four words in the noble Lord’s Amendment 182C: namely, “just and appropriate treatment”. I stress all those words. I was also attracted by the reference in the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, to “services to women”. That is a very important phrase to include in the amendment. I hope that the Minister will give us a positive response. Therefore, I do not wish to take up any more of the Committee’s time as I am aware how much business we need to get through tonight.

[Baroness Stern]

My Lords, I support the aims of these amendments. In my view the issue of women in prison is one of the great injustices that have still not been dealt with in our society in spite of tremendous efforts by totally dedicated people and many excellent reports all saying the same thing. To impose punishment on someone who manifestly needs help and treatment is inhuman, degrading and quite unacceptable. I wish to concentrate my brief remarks on those women in prison who are seriously mentally ill.

What a long history we have of locking up such women and failing to find another way. I still remember the 2006 BBC2 film that opened with a young woman cleaning up the blood of the latest incident of her cutting herself very severely. The basin was filled with blood, as was the toilet bowl. The film related that every night several of the prisoners tried to hang themselves and showed prison officers running from one attempted suicide to the next. Has this problem been solved? Not according to Clive Chatterton, the former governor of Styal Prison, whose comments have already been quoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Gould. In his letter to the Lord Chancellor, quoted in last Sunday’s press, he describes a 20 year-old on remand for theft who repeatedly slashed her arms, then attempted to hang herself before setting fire to her body. When taken to hospital, she tried drinking a bottle of toxic disinfectant. Her last failed suicide bid involved swallowing a tampon and drinking water in the hope that the cotton would swell and obstruct her windpipe so that she would choke. Self-harming, he observed, was frequently the single element of their lives where the women could exert control.

Rachel Halford, director of the excellent campaign group, Women in Prison, said that these women “have no power, which mirrors their previous experiences of abuse and neglect”. A woman in prison told her, “Putting the blade in and watching the blood come down is the only time I can control something that’s happening in here and stop the pain”.

Nick Hardwick, Chief Inspector of Prisons, has just reported on Styal women’s prison. He said that the condition of the women in the mental health unit was,

“more shocking and distressing than anything I have yet seen on an inspection. Despite the best efforts of the staff at Styal, the Keller unit remains a wholly unsuitable place to safely hold and manage very seriously damaged and mentally ill women”.

I understand that the Government are in talks with the Department of Health about putting an end to holding mentally ill women in a totally unsuitable place—a place of punishment. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us how these discussions are progressing and whether the Government see a way of ending a situation that many of us in this House have talked about time and time again. I see that the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, is present. She has raised this issue frequently. Under this Government will some arrangements at last be put in place along the lines of the measures proposed in these amendments so that this disgraceful situation does not continue for another 19 years?

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, I have spoken on this issue on a number of previous occasions. I particularly recall the moving debate on this subject initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.

We must accept that factors which affect female offenders are fairly complex. The use of more non-custodial options seems to bypass female offenders. We are told that the reason why we do not have a separate framework in law for women is because we have a different structure for them.

When I last spoke in a similar debate, I was told that to go down the route towards a women’s justice board could risk marginalising women further when what is needed is to mainstream the provision that we give women and ensure that under the national offender management structure sufficient priority is given to service provision for and management of female offenders.

The fact remains that there are shared issues and special and specific issues which affect women. I wish to spell out in what ways female offenders’ characteristics and needs are different from those of male offenders, and what needs to be done about this. First, a much higher proportion of female prisoners have mental health problems than do male prisoners. Surveys show that more women prisoners have a psychiatric history before entering prison. Many more have histories of self-harm than male prisoners, as explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Stern. More have personality disorders, neurotic disorders, learning disabilities and problems of substance abuse, and much more, as far as having more than one diagnosis is concerned. Many more women prisoners have suffered past physical or sexual abuse at the hands of adults or partners.

Secondly, a much higher proportion of women prisoners are sole carers for young children. In most cases where male prisoners are parents of young children, the child’s mother is looking after them on the outside, but in only a quarter of cases of mothers in prison are the children being looked after by their current or former partners.

Thirdly, because there are far fewer prisons holding female prisoners, women are much more likely to be imprisoned a long way away from their home areas. This makes visits from their children and other relatives more difficult.

Over the last 18 years the courts have responded to the growing mood of toughness in penal policy by adopting a more punitive stance towards women offenders. During that time the number of women prisoners has risen more than twice as fast as the male prison population. Yet most women sent to prison are neither violent nor dangerous and the majority have few previous convictions.

Against this background, what is the case for the establishment of a women’s justice board? The analogy the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, made with the Youth Justice Board is very appropriate. The Youth Justice Board has set standards for provision for young offenders; commissioned provision for young offenders; and developed initiatives ranging from intensive supervision and surveillance schemes for persistent young offenders, to youth inclusion programmes for young people at risk of offending.

There is an equally strong case for the establishment of a women’s justice board. A women’s justice board with responsibility for commissioning provision for women offenders could set standards to ensure that provision meets women prisoners’ particular needs. This would include standards meeting women offenders’ needs for mental health services, for the maintenance of family contact and for culturally appropriate support for foreign national prisoners. A women’s justice board could commission smaller units for imprisoned women spread around the country, so that women could be held nearer their families and home areas.

In short, the establishment of a women’s justice board could be the single most important step we could take towards improving the treatment of women offenders. These amendments will go a long way to deal with the issues I have identified.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Stern]

My Lords, I rise briefly to speak in support of the amendment which has been moved so ably by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. I recall how encouraging it was to see the coalition Government, when they came into office, making it clear that new laws were not the answer. Speaking at the Liberal Democrat annual conference in September 2010, the Minister said:

“Labour created thousands of new offences and used a steady stream of criminal justice and anti-terrorism laws to ratchet up the powers of the state and to diminish the rights of the citizen. This coalition comes into office to reverse that tidal flow of laws …Which is why my department, the Ministry of Justice, will now check each new criminal offence. And if we don’t need it, it will be blocked”.

In the light of that admirable sentiment, I wonder if I could ask the Minister why, having heard the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, he still feels that this would be a good new offence to introduce.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on having put this issue before the Committee. I am not sure that I see some of the points she made as quite as clear-cut as she suggests they are. There can be tremendous complexities and very real, painful stories behind houses that stand empty for longer than six months. There may indeed be social issues that in themselves need to be addressed. But what I think she is absolutely right about is that if a high percentage of the people who are squatting in the way described are particularly vulnerable with a disproportionate number of problems, for the life of me I cannot see how adding criminalisation to all the other complexities that they face so inadequately will help them to sort out their lives. It seems to be a cynical and cold-blooded approach. I have moments, when listening to the Minister, when I fear that he has got embarrassed about liberal principles and feels he must distance himself over and over again. I certainly do not recognise any liberal principles in this piece of legislation.