Women: Custodial Sentences

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Healy, on securing this debate. I declare an interest: I am a member of the Women’s Justice Taskforce, established by the Prison Reform Trust in 2010 to consider the needs of women in the criminal justice system and to further look at how women’s justice might be reformed, both in terms of economic benefit and helping to reform lives. We published a report, Reforming Women’s Justice, in 2011.

Although, as the noble Baroness said, women form a very small part of the total prison population, over the past 20 years the numbers have doubled to 3,899 women in prison on 20 June last week. It is said that going to prison often ruins people’s lives. Nowhere is that more true than for women—and not only for the women themselves. They are often linchpins of families so it can also ruin children’s lives. For women on the breadline, even a short spell in prison can mean losing everything they have.

The task force believes that those who commit crimes should be punished. Clearly, some women’s offending is so serious that there is no other option but prison. However, punishment should be appropriate, proportionate and support rehabilitation. As the noble Baroness pointed out, most of the women held in prison are serving short sentences or are on remand for non-violent crimes—usually petty crime such as theft or handling stolen goods, often to feed their children or their drug habit.

In 2009, two-thirds of all women sentenced to custody were serving sentences of six months or less. More than half of women entering prison do so on remand. They spend an average six weeks in prison and 60% of them do not then go on to receive a custodial sentence. Worryingly, one-third of women prisoners lose their home and often all their possessions, which makes it difficult for them to restart their lives when released. Some 41% of women leaving prison did not have accommodation arranged. They come out with almost nothing and have nowhere to go. We heard at Holloway that some women would return voluntarily to prison and beg to come back, or reoffend the same day to ensure a return to custody.

Why make women a special case? First, as we heard, a high percentage of women prisoners have been victims of violent crime themselves—domestic or child sexual abuse. Women are often primary carers for disabled or elderly relatives and, as we heard, an estimated 18,000 children per year are affected by their mothers being sent to prison. Only 5% of those children remain in their own home. While many are cared for by friends and relatives, some are taken into care. Taking a child into care all too often condemns them to a life of underachievement. Research suggests that children with an imprisoned parent are three times more likely to have mental health problems or to engage in anti-social behaviour. How can you learn in school when you are frightened and confused about what is happening at home? Nearly two-thirds of boys who have a parent in prison will go on to commit some kind of crime themselves.

The consequences for the woman herself are devastating. There is a very high incidence of self-harm in prison. Visiting Holloway, we met the “listeners”—those prisoners there for others to talk to—and got some understanding of all this. Imagine, as a mother, what it is like to be in prison and hear that your small child is unhappy and missing you or, even worse, that they will be removed from the family and never see you again. It was felt that, for both social and economic reasons, alternatives to prison should be sought at every opportunity. Economically, robust community orders for low-level offences make more sense, costing between £10,000 and £15,000 per annum as opposed to more than £50,000 for a prison place, not to mention the unquantifiable ongoing social costs of, for example, children in care, creating future offenders, mental healthcare, et cetera. The positive work of the voluntarily run women’s centres was highlighted to us.

One of the most important recommendations made by the task force report is the need for sustained government leadership and oversight of women’s justice. The ministerial Advisory Board on Female Offenders is a step in the right direction but dedicated government infrastructure such as a women’s justice commission would probably enable us to halve women’s prison numbers, thus enabling some closures of prisons and the reduction of reoffending. This model has already proved transformative with youth justice.

This subject is not new. The 2007 review by the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, recommended reducing the women’s prison population. I hope that some progress can truly be made. I look forward to hearing my noble friend the Minister’s response.