Women Offenders and Older Prisoners

Debate between Lord Beith and Philip Davies

Thursday 16th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

I rise rather apologetically to my feet again, but taking the two reports together at least spares the Chamber a third speech from me this afternoon. I shall present the two reports in this speech. I do so with a heavy heart in one sense, because one or two Members who would have spoken in the debate are not able to do so, as they are at the funeral of our late colleague, Paul Goggins. He took such a close interest in criminal justice and had so much experience of it that I regularly tried to persuade him to join the Justice Committee, but he was already committed in a number of other ways, including as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Our Committee missed out on having the benefit of his considerable wisdom, which we would have greatly appreciated.

This debate is on two reports that we produced this Session on groups of people who are minorities in the criminal justice system, but whose circumstances and needs place particular demands on that system, which is really geared towards dealing with young men. We wanted to examine the extent to which policy and practice are responding effectively to the needs of women offenders and older prisoners.

Older prisoners are the fastest growing group in the prison population, and our inquiry focused primarily, but not exclusively, on their treatment in prison. In our inquiry on women offenders, we looked at provision in the custodial state, where there are 3,845 women in a total prison population of 84,000, and more widely, including community provision for offenders and ex-offenders, and for women and girls at risk of offending. The Minister, whom we are glad to have here, will respond to the debate and cover both subjects. I shall return later to ministerial responsibility, particularly for women offenders, because that has been an issue.

All this goes back to 2006, when Baroness Corston was commissioned by the Home Office to examine what could be done to avoid women with particular vulnerabilities ending up in prison. That was prompted by the death of six women in Styal prison. Her report, published the following year, identified three categories of vulnerabilities for women: those relating to domestic circumstances and problems, such as domestic violence, child care issues and being a single parent; those relating to personal circumstances, such as mental illness, low self-esteem, eating disorders and substance misuse; and socio-economic factors such as poverty, isolation and employment.

The Corston report made 43 recommendations. I shall not go through all of them, but they included improvements to the way in which the issue was dealt with at Government level, the reservation of custodial sentences and remand for serious and violent women offenders, and the use of small local custodial centres within 10 years. They also included improvements to prison conditions, making community sentences the norm, and improvements in health services and support for women offenders. The then Government accepted 41 of the 43 recommendations.

There is much common ground on policy on women offenders. There appears to be fairly wide, although not universal, agreement that the majority of women offenders pose a limited risk, or no risk at all, to public safety, and that imprisonment is frequently an ineffective response. That is not about treating women more favourably or implying that they are less culpable, but about how to respond appropriately to the kinds of problems that women bring to the criminal justice system, and about what action is required to be effective in addressing their offending behaviour. In many cases, that is different from what is required to achieve the same thing in men.

It should be recognised that important progress has been made on the Corston recommendations. As has been illustrated by reports from the Howard League, the Prison Reform Trust, the prison and probation inspectorates and the all-party parliamentary group on women in the penal system, that includes better prison regimes, the ending of strip searching, reduction of self-harm, the establishment of a network of women’s centres, and acknowledging the need for differential treatment. However, levels of imprisonment for non-violent female offenders remain high, as do levels of self-harm by women. A study published before Christmas showed that there is still 10 times more self-harm among women prisoners than among their male counterparts.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I wonder on what basis the right hon. Gentleman claims that the majority of women offenders in prison are either not violent or not dangerous. Let me give a snapshot of the prison population. There are 3,477 women in prison, and murder, manslaughter, other violence against the person, sexual offences, robbery, burglary, arson, blackmail and kidnapping account for half the female prison population. Which of those categories is he saying is not a serious offence and involves people who are not dangerous to the public?

[Sir Alan Beith]

I chose my words carefully. I said not that women were put in prison for offences that were not serious—courts would normally regard either the offence or the fact that they are repeat offences as a serious matter, underlining their decision to give a custodial sentence—but that many of the women, if they were not in prison and were otherwise effectively supervised, would not constitute a danger to the public. That is not true of them all, which is why there will always be some women in prison, some for very long periods, but those numbers will be relatively small.

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[Philip Davies]

I do not accept my hon. Friend’s premise that not sending women to prison—I will come on to why in a second—will make the kind of difference that he thinks it will. I want to examine the types of people who are in prison.

[Sir Alan Beith]

May I recommend for the hon. Gentleman’s bedtime reading a report that we published just before the general election—a long report, much longer than this one, called “Cutting crime”, which deals almost entirely with male prisoners?

[Philip Davies]

I suspect that I have already had it as bedtime reading, because I seem to have read almost every report going on these matters. We can have an argument on the effectiveness of prison per se at another time. I am a big fan of sending more criminals to prison: for example, each year some 3,000 burglars with 15 or more previous convictions are not sent to prison, which is a national scandal, and I suspect that most of my constituents think so too. We can discuss that on a different occasion, and perhaps the Select Committee might want to consider why so few persistent burglars are sent to prison. My constituents would welcome that.

One point that crops up time and again is the idea that women offenders are, by definition, more vulnerable than male offenders and therefore need special protection. I want to address that first because I believe that much has been made of the special case of women offenders, but next to nothing has been said about the problems that men face. I have been interested to discover that some of the facts show that much of what is being said could apply equally to men. The House of Commons Library, for example, says that almost the same proportion of sentenced male prisoners as of sentenced female prisoners ran away from home as a child—47% compared with 50%. The Library also states that, although a third of female prisoners were excluded from school, a larger half of male prisoners were excluded from school. A quarter of both male and female prisoners are thought to have been in care when they were growing up. Although about one third of female prisoners admit to hazardous drinking, it seems that the figure for men is more like two thirds.

When we talk about those figures, we have to bear in mind the overall prison population figures. For the record, as of last Friday, 10 January, there were 3,845 women in prison and 80,413 men. Clearly half of the male prison population is a very large figure and half of the female prison population is a relatively low figure, so if campaigners are really concerned about the personal circumstances and vulnerabilities of individuals, they perhaps ought to be clear that far more men than women are in the position they describe of being vulnerable prisoners. On sheer numbers alone, one would therefore think male prisoners would be given far more attention than women prisoners.

Of course, the favourite subject among some campaigners is mental health, which is also mentioned prominently in recommendations 1 and 2 of the Select Committee report, and it is addressed in the Government response. Of course the figures in the report are only for women offenders, so in the interest of ensuring that we have the real picture, and not the one that some would like us to be left with, I will compare female offenders with such problems with male offenders in the same position.

In 2011, two women committed suicide in prison. I do not know the circumstances of those cases, but one might conclude that they were clearly vulnerable individuals. In the same period, 55 men took their own life. That is a stark example of the most serious end of the argument and it shows why it is unbelievable that so much time is spent compiling reports about vulnerable women, yet so little time is spent considering the hard facts about the deaths of male prisoners.

Even more recent figures show an alarming trend of which I hear little mention. Although the number of female self-harmers decreased from 1,429 in 2005 to 1,065 in 2013, the number of male self-harmers increased in that period from 5,692 to 6,823. Perhaps more starkly, over the same period the number of female self-harm incidents decreased by half, from 12,014 to 6,236, while the number of male self-harm incidents increased from 10,109 to 16,741. Again, according to the Ministry of Justice, 145 female offenders who self-harmed in 2013 required hospital treatment, whereas 10 times as many male offenders who self-harmed had to be taken to hospital. If people are concerned—and it may well be a legitimate concern—that women are vulnerable in those circumstances, surely men in such situations must be of equal concern. If that is the case, why do we have Select Committee reports simply on female offenders? Why do we not have the same reports on male prisoners, which we never seem to get?

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

If the right hon. Gentleman is listening to my speech, he will have heard me say at the start that I thought I was making some headway because this debate is the first time that I had heard him acknowledge that fact. It is not that I am not listening to him; it is a question of him not listening to me.

[Mr David Amess in the Chair]

I am grateful, however, because we are starting to make some progress. Everyone appears to be falling over themselves to say that men are more likely to be sent to prison than women. When I made that comment the other day and in previous debates, I have been told that that clearly is not true. Now, everyone is falling over themselves to say that what I am saying is right, and that they were there first. I do not want to be precious about this, and do not want it to seem that I was there first; if people want to claim the credit, I am happy for them to do so. I am just pleased that we are making some headway, and that the facts are for once beginning to rear their ugly heads.

The Ministry of Justice answered a question that I asked in September about pre-sentence reports and its recommendations for sentences in court. It was confirmed that probation staff are twice as likely to recommend custody for male offenders due to be sentenced in Crown court cases than for female offenders. For men, the figure is 24%, while it is just 11% for women. Even repeat offenders are more likely to fare better if they are women. For those who have committed more than 15 offences, pre-sentence reports recommend custody for 39% of men, compared with 29% of women. All that shows that it is wrong to say that women are more likely to be sent to prison than men. We seem to have agreed among ourselves that men are more likely than women to be sent to prison for committing exactly the same offence. That is the reality.

It is also true, however, that men will be sent to prison for longer than women. I refer again to the Ministry of Justice’s published figures, which state that women given an immediate custodial sentence for indictable offences receive shorter average sentence lengths than men. It is 11.6 months for women, compared with 17.7 months for men. That is not a minor difference. That figure shows that the average male prison sentence is over 50% longer than the average female sentence. That is something that those who allege that they are keen on equality may want to think about.

Not only are women less likely to be sent to prison and more likely to be given a shorter sentence, but they are more likely to serve less of the sentence in prison than men. The Ministry of Justice helpfully points that out in its offender management statistics:

“Those discharged from determinate sentences…had served 53 per cent of their sentence in custody… On average, males served a greater proportion of their sentence in custody—53 per cent compared to 48 per cent for females”

in the same period. It continues:

“This gender difference is consistent over time, and partly reflects the higher proportion of females who are released on Home Detention Curfew.”

Other published Ministry of Justice figures confirm that. In fact, there is quite a disparity. In the past few years for which figures have been published, women have had 50% more of a chance than men of being released from prison early on home detention curfew. I hope that we have finally nailed the idea that women are treated more harshly by the courts than men. Men are clearly treated more severely by the courts when it comes to being sent to prison.

The other myth that we hear—the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd hinted at it earlier—is that most women in prison are serving short sentences for petty, non-violent offences, and that they would be better off being dealt with elsewhere. Let us take a snapshot of the sentenced female prison population at a moment in time and look at the detail of all these “poor women” who are serving prison sentences and who should—apparently—be out and about in the local community. Which women prisoners do those who advocate reducing the female prison sentence want to let out? I asked that question of the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), who has been good enough to come back again today, for which I am grateful. The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd gave the impression—although he perhaps would not want to subscribe to this—that as much as 80% of women prisoners should not be in prison. That was the impression that he wanted to leave us with when he made his comments.

I have the latest Ministry of Justice figures on the female prison population, and I want to know which of these people the right hon. Gentleman and others think should not be in prison. Is it the 231 who are in there for murder? Is it the 61 who are in there for manslaughter? Perhaps it is the 73 who are in there for other and attempted homicides. Is it the 391 who are in for wounding? Is it the 52 in for assault? Perhaps it is the 56 who are in prison for cruelty to children, or the 85 who are in for other violence against the person. Maybe the 83 who are in there for sexual offences should not be in prison. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman has in mind the 328 who are in prison for robbery. Is it the 208 who were unlucky enough to be sent to prison for burglary? They must have been persistent burglars to have been sent to prison.

The right hon. Gentleman probably does have in mind the 508 women who are in prison for theft and handling stolen goods, but maybe it is the 574 who are in for drug offences; perhaps they are the ones who he thinks should not have been sent to prison. Maybe it is the 86 women who are in prison for arson, the 24 for criminal damage, the 12 for blackmail or the 37 for kidnapping. Maybe the right hon. Gentleman has those people in mind when he says that these women, who apparently pose no danger to the public, should not be in prison. When those numbers are added up, they make up far more than half of the female prison population. Let us hear which ones should not be in prison. I would like to know.

[Sir Alan Beith]

rose—

[Philip Davies]

The Chair of the Justice Committee will tell us.

[Sir Alan Beith]

I have a suggestion for the hon. Gentleman. I would like him to take a trip to Texas to meet some right-wing Republicans who have decided that there is no point in spending so much money on putting so many women in prison on short-term sentences for drug offences when they could be got off drugs and restored to a decent life through methods in the community. It is right-wing Republicans who are saying that.

[Philip Davies]

I am delighted that the Chair of the Justice Committee is leading with his chin on this issue. He fails to acknowledge that the prison population in Texas is far higher, so it is starting from a much higher base. I would be delighted if we could agree that the prison population in the UK should be the same as Texas’s. If he is suggesting that we should emulate Texas in our criminal justice and sentencing system, consensus will have broken out in this Chamber. If that is the direction of travel that he thinks we should go in—Texas—I am all for it, and more power to his elbow.

At least the Chair of the Justice Committee had a bash at answering my question, for which I give him credit. He seemed to indicate that it was the 574 women in prison for drug offences who should not be in prison. That number includes 166 for supplying drugs, 113 for possession with intent to supply, and 140 who were importing or exporting drugs. They are the ones who he believes should not be in prison. I give him credit for putting his head above the parapet, but no one else who says that all these women should not be in prison is prepared to identify which should not be there. The reality is that these women are not in prison for minor offences, and it is an absolute disgrace that people try to suggest otherwise.

I want to emphasise how serious the offences are for which some female offenders are in prison. The argument is made that all these women are in prison for short sentences and perhaps should be serving community sentences instead. That is an absolute myth. According to the prison population figures, just under 16% of women in prison have sentences of less than six months. That is clearly quite a minority. If some do not class six months as a short sentence, I will be charitable and go up to a year; a further 6% of women are in prison for between six months and a year, so 22% of female prisoners are sentenced to less than a year in prison. Some 78% of female prisoners are sentenced to more than a year, and who can say that they are not serious offenders, when we already know that they are given shorter sentences than men? These are clearly serious or persistent offenders, and I hope that we can start nailing that particular myth too.

Sentences of more than a year mean that the magistrates court felt that the offenders’ crimes were so serious that they were not capable of sentencing them. They had to send the cases to the Crown court, otherwise the offenders could not have got those sentences. Let us end the myth that all those women in prison are in for short sentences and for not very serious offences.

Transparency and Consistency of Sentencing

Debate between Lord Beith and Philip Davies

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

These debates on criminal justice matters always resemble a lawyers’ dinner party; it is all very fascinating, but I am not sure that most of my constituents will be entirely impressed with the conclusions drawn from a lawyers’ dinner party. Once again, we have a cosy consensus in this place, and that usually precedes a disaster in public policy. There was the exchange rate mechanism, which all the parties fell over themselves to agree with, and which was, of course, an unmitigated disaster; and the Child Support Agency, which all parties thought was absolutely marvellous, but which, again, ended up a complete disaster. Today, all three parties are falling over themselves to agree on the merits of sending ever fewer people to prison. Once again, we face consensus, which is a disaster.

I am sometimes misunderstood, so I should say at the start that I think the Secretary of State for Justice is a great man. He would be a greater man, however, if he was in charge of a different Department. That should not be misconstrued as my lobbying for him to become the Minister for Europe, by the way, but I do think his talents would be better used in another Department.

We have had a sterile debate on this issue for far too long. I believe that the first duty of any Government is to protect the public. There has been a long-running debate in which people are characterised as belonging to one of two separate camps: the camp that believes in prison, and the camp that believes in rehabilitation. The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) seemed to reinforce that view towards the end of his speech, and it is a false division. I believe in sending people to prison; I also believe in rehabilitating people while they are in prison, and I do not see why a difference should be seen between the two. We must have a more sensible and nuanced debate.

There are two myths about the criminal justice system—first, that we send far too many people to prison; secondly, that prison does not work—and I want to try expose them both. The liberal elite are always conditioning us to believe that we send too many people to prison, but according to figures provided by the House of Commons Library, for every 1,000 crimes recorded in the UK, we send 17 people to prison. That compares with 29 in Ireland and 31 in Spain—in fact, virtually every other country in the European Union sends more people to prison for every 1,000 crimes committed than we do. Of course, in America they send more than 200 people to prison for every 1,000 crimes committed. People may mock, but they have a crime rate that is less than half the UK’s.

I got the House of Commons Library to produce an interesting piece of evidence showing the prison population per 1,000 crimes committed, and the crime rate, in 45 different countries around the world. Obviously, there was not an exact correlation, but it was striking how close it was. The countries with the highest prison population also had the lowest crime rate. That really should not come as a great shock to people, because to be perfectly honest, most of the public would think it blindingly obvious that the more criminals we send to prison, the fewer we have on the streets committing crimes. It is blindingly obvious to everybody—apart, it seems, from the cosy consensus of the three major parties in this country.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made the case again today that crime goes up when we have an economic recession and down when we have a boom. I asked the Library to test that theory, too, and it produced a graph showing the crime rate, prison population and gross domestic product in this country since the war. There is a striking, remarkably close correlation between the prison population and the crime rate: as the former goes up, the latter tends to go down. There is absolutely no correlation whatsoever between GDP and the crime rate, so that is an absolute myth. It might seem logical to think that such a comparison exists, but all the evidence from the Library shows absolutely no link whatsoever.

I would argue not that there are too many people in prison but too few. Of course, under the previous Government and the end of custody licence scheme, 81,578 prisoners were released early, including 16,000 violent offenders, 1,234 of whom went on to commit 1,624 new offences—including at least three murders— during the time when they would normally have been locked up. That is 1,624 unnecessary victims of crime as a result of having fewer criminals behind bars.

A district judge told me about a bizarre situation that arose. On a Saturday morning, he sentenced somebody to six weeks in prison for theft. Three days later, on the Tuesday morning, the very same person came before him, having already committed another crime, despite having been sentenced to six weeks in prison just three days earlier. I asked how on earth that was possible. The judge explained that only half such a sentence is served, which automatically brought the sentence of six weeks—or 42 days—down to 21 days. Everybody was being released 16 days early, so that brought it down to five days. The individual in question had spent five days on remand before his trial, so, despite having been sentenced to six weeks in prison, he was let straight out. What an absolutely farcical situation. It is an utter farce and then we wonder why nobody in this country has any confidence in the criminal justice system.

The Government’s policy is also based on a premise which we heard again from the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith)—the idea, which we are encouraged to believe, that it is so easy to be sent to prison in this country. A myth has built up that someone can commit a minor offence and will be mopped up by the police, marched straight to the courts and, without a by-your-leave, sent to prison. If only that were the case. I would love to live in such circumstances, but it is far from the case. In the real world, people commit crime after crime and go to the magistrates court where they are given community sentence after community sentence until, eventually, a magistrate or district judge gets bored and finally says, “I have no other option, I have sent you on every possible programme going and I now have to send you to prison.” That is what happens in this country despite what the right hon. Gentleman said.

[Sir Alan Beith]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman has a look at the evidence given by two ex-offenders who appeared before the Justice Committee during our probation inquiry, who both told us separately that their community sentences were extremely demanding, that they were fed up with them and that they had committed further crimes to get into prison, where they got three square meals a day and had much less to do.

[Philip Davies]

They must have had to commit an awful lot of crimes to get themselves into prison, because it is very difficult to get sent to prison in this country.

Let me emphasise the point. In 2009, according to the Ministry of Justice, 2,980 burglars and 4,677 violent offenders with 15 or more previous convictions were still not sent to prison. Today, the Secretary of State was saying that if someone commits a burglary they should expect to go to prison. In one year, however, 2,980 burglars with 15 or more previous convictions still were not sent to prison, which seems rather to defy the message that the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed is trying to give.