Women: Deaths in Custody

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that question and for ensuring that we focus on this important issue. He is quite right: if you look at the sentencing pattern for women compared with that for men, you will find that we are a law-abiding sex, it seems. Although only 5 per cent of prisoners are women, they are in prison for lesser offences than are men. That, surely, is not how it should be. In many cases, those women are extremely vulnerable; there is a high incidence of mental illness, drug abuse, other substance abuse and so on. The noble Lord is also right that they usually have dependent children. The previous Government took the Corston report forward and sought to address this. We will be doing as much as we can to take that further forward. I point the noble Lord in the direction of the sentencing review that is shortly to come out.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, women prisoners are over three times more likely to inflict self-harm as their male counterparts and have higher levels of psychological distress than male prisoners. What will the coalition Government be doing to deal with this unacceptable situation and ensure that when women enter prison—and we hope that far fewer will do so in future—they are properly assessed for appropriate treatment?

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is right; there are high levels of self-harming among women prisoners. I point her in the direction of my previous answer. The first thing is to address the disproportionate sentencing of women to prison, and I hope that that can be looked at in the context of the sentencing review. I hope that noble Lords, like the noble Baroness, will play a full part in looking at that and ensuring that it addresses the issue of self-harm. If we can divert women from prison, that will be very helpful. For those who are in prison, there has been a positive shift to address the issue, led partly by the moves of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, to ensure that prisoners are covered by the National Health Service rather than by the Prison Medical Service. There is a mental health White Paper coming down the track from the Department of Health, and that too should help to address the issue.