Women's Prisons

(asked on 29th June 2018) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much money his Department previously allocated for the (a) construction and (b) operation of female community prisons.


Answered by
Edward Argar Portrait
Edward Argar
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 9th July 2018

We have consulted with stakeholders as part of the development our strategy for female offenders and reviewed the evidence about custodial and community interventions. The overwhelming response, and the strength of the evidence, demonstrated that we should shift our emphasis from custody to the community, and as such will not be perusing plans to build community prisons for women.

On 27 June we published our strategy for female offenders, which sets out our vision to see fewer women in custody, especially on short-term sentences, and a greater proportion of women managed in the community successfully. The strategy launched a programme of work to deliver better outcomes for women, their families and wider society, supported by £5 million of cross-government funding over two years. We have also committed to work with local and national partners to develop a pilot for ‘residential women’s centres’ in at least five sites across England and Wales.

The publication of this document is the start of a new and significant programme of work to deliver better outcomes for female offenders at all points of the justice system. This will take some years to deliver and we will have the opportunity to revisit funding issues as we take work forward.

I remain committed to delivering these key reforms, which includes the female offender strategy, and ensuring there is sufficient funding for female offenders

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