Support for Women Leaving Prison

Carolyn Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered support for women leaving prison.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. When you look at the female prison population, you are faced with the stark reality that, for the most part, it is nurture, not nature, that has led these women down the path they are following: a path of destruction; a path that embodies a lack of self-worth; a path that has been created for them by life experiences and subsequent complex needs.

Nearly 60% of women who come into contact with the criminal justice system are survivors of domestic violence, and more than half report having received emotional, physical or sexual abuse during childhood. Both of these figures are likely to be underestimates. If we add issues such as poverty and addiction to that, we can start to see the full picture of how past trauma leads to crime, conviction and imprisonment.

I could talk—and I have talked—at great length about the need for alternatives to prison for many women in the first place. The female offender strategy gave me a sense of real hope that more would be done to advocate for women’s centres, with the emphasis on supporting and rehabilitating women in a more constructive setting. In the strategy, the Government signalled a commitment to a new programme of work for female offenders, driven by three priorities: early intervention, an emphasis on community-based solutions, and an aim to make custody as effective and decent as possible for those women who have to be there.

I was therefore shocked and disappointed by the Ministry of Justice’s announcement earlier this year of 500 new prison places for women, at a cost of £150 million, particularly when co-funding for women’s centres, which are proven to reduce offending, is being cut.

Today, I want to look at what happens to women when they finish their sentence. What support is available to them to help them rebuild their lives? What more needs to be done to reduce the number of women whose initial conviction becomes a catalyst for a lifetime in the criminal justice system?

I recently met representatives from the Safe Homes for Women Leaving Prison initiative. Shockingly, they told me that over half of all women leaving prison have nowhere safe to go. They walk through the gate with three things: the paltry £46 prison discharge grant, a plastic bag full of belongings, and the threat of recall if they miss their probation appointment. For some, the simple fact that they have been in prison a long way from home means that they have no local connections when they are released. For others, who are victims of abuse, returning to their homes, and consequently the perpetrators, comes at a huge personal risk. Yet what other options are there?

A lack of secure housing is a significant barrier to rehabilitation. According to a report by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of probation, between 2019 and 2020, 65% of men and women who were released from prison without settled accommodation reoffended. Without somewhere to live, the chances of finding employment are minimal and the impact on mental health is devastating. A return to familiar surroundings, harmful behaviour, substance abuse and crime is almost inevitable.

The duty to refer in the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 is failing vulnerable women leaving prison. The Government must take urgent action to change this and improve the Act’s effectiveness. Although the announcement of dedicated staff to act as brokers for prisoners in order to give them faster access to accommodation on release is welcome, having this resource in only 11 prisons around the country will not come close to solving the problem. These staff need to be placed in every women’s prison in the country and be fully trained to address the challenges faced by women when they leave prison.

Likewise, the new pilot announced by the Government of temporary basic accommodation for prison leavers at risk of homelessness does not go far enough. It has been launched in only five of the 12 probation regions in England and Wales. It is limited to a maximum of 12 weeks’ accommodation and does not address the particular needs of women at all. This needs to be a national scheme that takes into account the specific issues faced by vulnerable women with complex needs and offers safe and secure permanent accommodation to enable them to achieve resettlement and rehabilitation.

Leaving prison should be the chance for a new beginning, but the way things stand, it is just the start of another battle for many women—a battle to find somewhere safe to live, to get a job, to stay clean and to not reoffend. It is a battle to avoid being recalled, because that £46 was just not enough for a fresh start.

Will the Minister look again at the Government’s commitments in the female offender strategy? Will they make commitments to take an approach that addresses vulnerability, follows the evidence about what works in supporting them to turn their lives around and treats them as individuals of value? Will he consider what could be done to improve women’s life chances on release, be it an uplift in the prison discharge grant; a pledge to look again at additional prison places, given that it is clear that women’s centres provide better outcomes; extending dedicated support across the whole female justice estate to help with accommodation before release; making available guaranteed accommodation for all those leaving who are at risk of homelessness; or perhaps all these things?

We know that the majority of women with convictions have experienced trauma. We have all heard the harrowing stories of abuse, addiction, coercion, and self-deprivation that have led these women to commit crimes in the first place. We need a system that supports their rehabilitation and offers them freedom from the past, to help them avoid recall and allow them to choose a different path; not a system that is set up for failure from the very start.

If we are to see an end to this injustice, so much more needs to be done to offer women the support and tools they need to build themselves a better future. I talk to very many women who started on this vicious journey because of the environment in which they lived. I have met women whose original crime was not having a TV licence. Unable to pay the associated fine, they ended up in prison. I have met women whose children refused to go to school. Again, unable to pay the fine, their punishment was prison. When they are released they have lost their family, their home and their dignity. They now live on the streets, and too many are working the streets and financing the pimps and the drug dealers. We have to break this cycle. The Government must act now to prevent this cycle of inevitability.

--- Later in debate ---

[Carolyn Harris]

I thank all Members for their contributions—I am pleased to see so many people here. I came to this debate feeling really apprehensive about the subject—it is something I have sleepless nights about. I am leaving terrified at the prospect of 20,000 extra police on the streets spending a large proportion of their time filling 500 spaces for women in prisons in order to justify the money that the Government have spent on this. That is certainly not what we need to be doing. We need to provide a different service for women. We need to recognise the fact that women have specific needs. They are in large part victims, despite the fact that they have been labelled as criminals. Most of them are victims of society and, I am afraid to say, victims of this Government’s disinterest in providing anything for them.

We have to stop perpetuating the cycle of criminality and incarceration, criminality and incarceration. We have a moral duty to provide sustainable, productive, appropriate and holistic support and to encourage these women to be productive and to re-engage with society. That is a far better way of using taxpayers’ money than freeing up spaces in prisons. We have to be more humane in the way that we provide for these vulnerable and all too often exploited individuals. That is where we need to concentrate our efforts, not on putting them in prisons. I ask the Minister to please rethink the strategy. Too many women will lose their life, dignity, children, families and homes. We cannot perpetuate this any longer.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered support for women leaving prison.