Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to stop women being sent to prison for non-violent crimes.

Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

As set out in the 2018 Female Offender Strategy, the Government is committed to ensure more women are managed successfully in the community and that fewer women go to prison, particularly on short sentences.

We are investing tens of millions of pounds over the next three years into community services for women, drug rehabilitation and accommodation support, so fewer women end up in prison. We will open the first Residential Women’s Centre (RWC), in Swansea, which will offer an intensive residential support package in the community for women at risk of short custodial sentences. Under powers in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, we will pilot Problem-Solving Courts targeting specific cohorts with underlying needs, including one pilot exclusively for female offenders, to provide robust community sentences as a more effective alternative to custody where appropriate.

In addition, we have launched a Pre-Sentence Report (PSR) pilot in 15 magistrates’ courts to evaluate how higher quality and more timely PSRs can best inform sentencers’ decisions in relation to female offenders (and other groups).

We will publish a Delivery Plan for the Female Offender Strategy later this summer. This will set out our ambitious cross-Government approach for the next three years.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the report by Hibiscus Initiatives and others, entitled Tackling double disadvantage, published on 22 January 2022.

Answered by Kit Malthouse

The recommendations included in the "Tackling Double Disadvantage” report are being considered by the Female Offender Minority Ethnic working group established by the Ministry of Justice.

Collecting data allows us to monitor the prevalence of violence against women and girls amongst different groups and further integrate a diverse range of victim experiences into conversations and policy decisions. The Home Office is committed to establishing a data collection on offences where the crime has been motivated by a hostility to the victim’s sex, with discussions with police forces ongoing. A voluntary collection on the ethnicity of victims of all crime began on 1^st April this year. Together, these collections will allow us to assess gender-based violence by ethnicity.

The Home Office does not collect information on whether a victim or perpetrator of crime was a migrant or not.

In July 2021, we published our cross-Government Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy and on 30^th March published the Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan. For the first time, our Strategy and Plan were shaped by the public’s views – we ran a national Call for Evidence on Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls which received an unprecedented 180,000 responses. We actively sought input from underrepresented groups and held focus groups to ensure that we heard the perspectives of people from ethnic minority backgrounds and refugee and migrant women expert service providers. In the Tackling VAWG Strategy, we committed to working with the Office for National Statistics to review current available data on violence against women and girls and identify the priorities for data improvement.

The report states its aim to improve outcomes and reduce inequalities for ethnic minority and migrant women in contact with the criminal justice system. We agree it is vital that police officers and criminal justice staff have the right competences and values, and an understanding, especially when dealing with the most vulnerable in our society. The College of Policing’s foundation training for all those entering the service includes substantial coverage of police ethics and self-understanding, including the effects of personal conscious and unconscious bias. The initial training undertaken by all officers also covers hate crimes, ethics and equalities, and policing without bias. In addition, the College of Policing have developed specialist domestic abuse training, the Domestic Abuse Matters programme, which has been, or is in the process of being delivered for, the majority of forces (32 Home Office forces have either completed the training, are currently in process of, or are mobilising). The first responders training makes covers dealing with the specific vulnerabilities of different victims.

The new full-time National Policing Lead for Violence Against Women and Girls, DCC Maggie Blyth, has included building trust and confidence as a key pillar of the Policing VAWG National Framework for delivery. This includes working with charities supporting ethnic minority and migrant women and girls to avoid their specific needs being overlooked.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many women entered prison between June 2020 and June 2021 to serve a sentence of (a) less than one month, (b) 2 to 3 months, (c) 4 to 6 months, (d) 7 to 12 months, (e) 13 to 24 months and (f) over 24 months.

Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

The information requested is provided in the attached table.

Sentencing is a matter for the independent judiciary. The Female Offender Strategy set out the Government’s vision of fewer women offending and reoffending; fewer women in custody, especially on short-term sentences, with a greater proportion of women managed in the community successfully; and where prison is necessary, better conditions for those in custody.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many women aged (1) 18 to 24, and (2) 25 and above, went to prison in each of the last 10 years; what was the sentence length in each case; and what type of offence was committed.

Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar

The attached tables show data on the numbers of women convicted by offence type and the length of sentence from 2011 to 2020 for those aged 18 to 24 and above 25 years of age.

The Female Offender Strategy set out the Government’s vision of fewer women offending and reoffending; fewer women in custody, especially on short-term sentences, with a greater proportion of women managed in the community successfully; and where prison is necessary, better conditions for those in custody.