Recall of Women to Prisons

Chris Evans Excerpts

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on securing this important debate. With our prisons stretched to breaking point, it is important to have a mature and considered debate about penal reform in the country. From statements made by the Prisons Minister, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), and most recently the Secretary of State for Justice about the futility of short prison sentences, it seems that on this occasion the Department wants to engage in a fruitful discussion.

Two weeks ago, I had a debate on short sentences where I called for a ban on prison sentences under six months. I believe that short prison sentences should also be at the front and centre of today’s debate on the recall of women to prisons and that is where I will focus my remarks.

Short prison sentences are an ineffective way to address the root causes of criminality, as they cause disruption to people’s lives, as my hon. Friend so eloquently described. They are too short to help inmates to rehabilitate and serve only as a punishment, which leads to increased reoffending rates. It is important to have this debate because, more often than not, women in particular are caught in a cycle of short prison sentences; and reoffending or recall despite their being convicted of non-violent offences adds to the chaos and uncertainty in their lives.

The 2017 “Guide to Proven Reoffending Statistics” found that both men and women who receive short-term prison sentences were considerably more likely to reoffend in the future. Most women receive prison sentences of less than 12 months and are more likely to reoffend than a male who has a comparable sentence. Short sentences place greater strain on an already overcrowded prison system and do not provide inmates with adequate time to become involved with rehabilitative programmes. Not only are our prisons facing staff shortages, but cuts to prison services mean that inmates cannot access important services that prevent reoffending.

The Government can and must do a better job of bolstering social programmes that aim to reduce the rate of offending among individuals who commit petty crimes. Many who do so feel they have no other option, especially if they are affected by addiction or mental health issues.

It seems to me as well that we cannot talk about this issue without talking about the Prison Service and the real problems that people within it are facing. Over the weekend, a constituent of mine appeared in The Daily Mirror and talked about leaving the Prison Service after only five days, simply because the training was not good enough; he felt intimidated and scared. How can Prison Service staff deliver rehabilitative programmes if they are leaving the service because of lack of training and because of intimidation and threats of violence? The Government need to address that.

It seems that the justice system is blind to the impacts of short prison sentences on mothers and their families. Women are more likely to be a child’s primary carer, so these sentences have greater impact on their lives than on the lives of their male counterparts, who do not often have that experience of being primary carers. Children of women in prison find themselves struggling when it comes to basic necessities, including housing, health and education. In many respects, many of them have failed in the system before they have begun.

The Government can do something about that. According to a Prison Reform Trust report in 2018, every year over 17,000 children in England and Wales experience their mothers going to prison. Just imagine that: suddenly the primary carer in their life is gone; suddenly there is discord and disharmony in their life. Their education will be disrupted, whether they like it or not. The children of prisoners are more likely to be ill. Often, they are displaced from their home and their lives are uprooted. They have to enter new schools, often with the stigma of knowing that their classmates know that they are the children of prisoners. They may be separated from their siblings. All of this sounds almost like a Charles Dickens story, but it is happening in this country in the 21st century, and it is something that all of us, as Members of Parliament, should be concerned about and should do something about.

According to the 2018 female offender strategy document, roughly 60% of female inmates are victims of domestic violence. As a result of horrific abuse, these women find themselves in dire situations, with a limited pool of supportive resources. They may be coerced into a life of crime by an abusive partner, or they may turn to petty crime to provide for themselves and their children. If somebody is particularly shoplifting for food, it seems common sense to me to ask why. Are they hungry? Rather than make them criminals, is it not far better to offer them hope?

Women with abusive partners often find themselves cut off financially and unable to keep up with a variety of payments, ranging from bills to council tax payments. Women sent to prison due to non-payment become entrenched in a cycle of instability. How are they supposed to create a better life for themselves and become proactive citizens if they are imprisoned and thrown back into the exact same situation that led them into trouble? If someone is falling behind on their bills, such as council tax, the wrong place to send them is to prison, because that just criminalises them.

I firmly believe that women do not belong in prison, especially if they have not been convicted of a violent crime. They need support and should be placed in a facility that is at least designed to rehabilitate and educate them. These women require a safe space where they can learn valuable skills that allow them to live independently, thus removing their need to return to crime; instead they can become useful citizens to society.

The probation service does not facilitate support for recently released inmates. Indeed, as the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) said, since reforms such as the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 were made, recall numbers for women have risen by 131%—a shocking statistic when compared with the 22% recall rate among men. Something is wrong when for so many women the system is not working. Between 2017 and 2018 more than 1,700 women were recalled to prisons, which is roughly half the female prison population.

In addition to attempting to restabilise and normalise their lives, these women have the added stress of maintaining contact with their probation officers. The constant threat of being recalled creates a lack of trust between offenders and probation officers, and trust is key to ensuring that those women do not return to a life of crime. Offenders have no one to turn to if they face having to slip back into petty crime in order to survive. If a probation officer is on the lookout only for a perceived risk of offending, it seems unlikely that they will be someone to whom an at-risk offender can turn for help.

Two weeks ago, I called on the Government to abolish the practice of administering short sentences to non-violent offenders, and instead to focus their efforts on establishing rehabilitation services, residential centres, and the use of community service orders. For women who are also themselves victims, short stints in prison only cause more problems in often chaotic lives. I am impressed that the Secretary of State acknowledged that short prison sentences do not work. I urge him and other Justice Ministers to put their words into action, to abolish short prison sentences for women, and to create a system that benefits and builds trust in the whole of society.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on a typically thoughtful and persuasive case. Indeed, I think that every Member in the galaxy of talent here today has contributed thoughtful and persuasive arguments.

I agree absolutely that hon. Members are right to express serious concern about the huge increase in the number of women recalled to prison. As we heard, the number has tripled since the introduction of the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014. That is truly an extraordinary and shocking development. I understand that the latest statistics show that there are 29 recalls to custody for every 100 releases of women offenders on licence. I am not usually one to make comparisons with other jurisdictions, but I will do that today. Although there are difficulties in making direct comparisons, it is interesting to note that in the 10 years to 2015—the figure is not completely up to date—the comparable figure for Scotland is between four and five recalls per 100 releases—one sixth or less of what we are now seeing in England and Wales. We have to ask why that is.

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) made a very honest speech about how she had been persuaded at the time of the 2014 reforms, but now, in the light of the numbers, she has reconsidered. I think that if I had been in this place in 2014, I would have been attracted by what the Government were apparently proposing, but the numbers in themselves do seem to make a case for repeal of the 2014 provisions relating to supervision after sentences of less than 12 months. At the very least, there must be a significant review of how those provisions are operating. Even during the passage of the Bill, prison reform organisations warned that many people serving short prison sentences have complex and multiple needs, which increase the likelihood of breach of licence conditions. As the hon. Member for Swansea East said, the Prison Reform Trust is among those who have concluded that that is exactly what has happened, referring to a “coercive response” that was brought about by the Act creating a distrust between offenders and responsible officers. The trust stated:

“The threat of recall accentuates the fault lines in relationships that are already fragile, inhibiting women from confiding in their responsible officers about difficulties that, eventually, lead to their recall.”

Accordingly, two fifths of recalls for women are apparently down to a failure to keep contact with a responsible officer, which contrasts with the figure provided by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston that suggests that only a quarter of recalls relate to further offending behaviour.

For the second and final time I will compare this system with how things operate in Scotland. In Scotland there is no automatic requirement to supervise those released after a sentence of less than four years, although judges can impose a supervised release order in certain cases where that would be necessary for public protection. That might provide a better balance and focus than the system introduced in England by the 2014 Act, and a lack of compulsory supervision does not mean that support is not available.

[Chris Evans]

I know this is a strange thing to say, but most people who reoffend were released on a Friday when there is no access to services such as housing, social security or whatever. What is the experience in Scotland? Has anyone considered the days on which prisoners are released?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I must confess that I do not have the answer to that today, although the issue has been flagged up to me previously. I will look at it again to see whether a policy is in place to try to address that issue, as it seems significant.

There is broad agreement that women who are released on licence desperately need more support, and we are finding that supervising officers are simply not able to resolve or help with problems of unstable housing, debt, abusive relationships, mental health and the various other issues that hon. Members have highlighted. In fairness, the Government recognised that in their most recent female offender strategy, published last summer, which notes that a

“lack of access to supportive community services can contribute to recall to custody”

and that the aforementioned problem of not keeping in touch with supervising officers was driven by a lack of safe accommodation, as well as substance misuse and other issues.

Few Members present would not agree that residential support in the community that provides holistic support to turn lives around is far preferable to prison recall. The Government’s strategy document gives various examples of successful residential support options, including the marvellous Turning Point 281 centre in Glasgow. Such places are not soft options; they are a serious challenge to help women turn their lives around and address the root causes of their being on the wrong side of the law, whether that is substance abuse, adult or childhood trauma, financial problems or debt, mental health issues, or domestic abuse. As hon. Members pointed out, we need a coherent, comprehensive and joined-up network of services, and that requires resourcing a whole-system approach with sustainable funding, such as that described by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston.

My most important point—here I agree with everyone who has spoken in the debate so far—is that short-term prison sentences of less than a year are, to all intents and purposes, pointless. As the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston said, the Scottish Government are moving to a presumption against sentences of under 12 months, which hopefully will lead to a significant reduction in the number of women receiving custodial sentences. I also welcome and support the positive moves made by the UK Government. Short sentences do not allow time or space to address the root causes of offending behaviour, and as hon. Members have said, they often exacerbate existing problems, breaking up families and social networks and disrupting employment and housing.

Reform could make a significant difference and help far more women to turn their lives around than locking them up and making things worse. I encourage and support the Government in that endeavour. Again I congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea East on securing this debate. She is right in what she has argued for today, and I very much hope that the Government have listened.