Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood is right about one thing: when it comes to addressing crimes committed by women, prison doesn’t work.
Mahmood said at the Labour party conference on Tuesday that she is looking at alternatives to custody, such as community-based sanctions and programmes. Having campaigned on behalf of numerous women in prison over the decades, I have seen the reality of what life is like behind bars. There is very little rehabilitation, drugs are usually available – and pretty much every woman, with a few rare exceptions, has previously been subjected to horrendous male violence, including domestic abuse and rape. A significant number grew up within the care system, and have histories of neglect and self-harm. Prisons have become dumping grounds for the most disenfranchised women in society. But whatever the background of these women, there are currently far too many in prison.
People mention that some women – Rosemary West, Lucy Letby – are extremely violent and dangerous, and need to be contained. Yes, there are exceptions. Mothers also shouldn’t be allowed to get away with crime, just because they have children. Yet most primary carers are women, and the effect of separating mothers from their children can be catastrophic for all parties. Women removed from their children tend to self-harm, develop serious mental ill-health, and are even more like to turn to drugs and other coping mechanisms. The children are often placed in care, and so the whole cycle begins again. Mothers should not be given get-out-of-jail-free cards – but we really should consider matters very seriously before we lock them up.
As for the men in the prison estate, many of them should not be locked up either. It is of course true that more men commit violent crimes, including towards women and girls, and those men, particularly where they are repeat and serious offenders, should be contained. But men’s prisons are full of violence, rape and sexual assault, and we should be doing everything we can to keep nonviolent male offenders out of prison.
For women, prison can be even more devastating, particularly given what we know about the problem of sexual harassment and assault by some male prison staff. The women’s prison population in England and Wales has increased rapidly over the past two decades: we now have one of the highest rates of women’s imprisonment in Western Europe. Numbers of women imprisoned are growing at a faster rate those of their male counterparts: there are currently 10 per cent more women in prison than there were a year ago, partly because of increased poverty, so women might be shoplifting or committing fraud, and also because mandatory sentencing guidelines have changed and tend to be much more punitive. There are also a number of women in prison for defending themselves against domestic violence.
The causes and patterns of women’s offending are usually significantly different from those of men, and most can be managed within the community. It is now 15 years since the Corston report on women in prison was published, and few, if any, of its recommendations have been implemented. These include not just a reduction to the numbers of women in prison, but also a fundamental rethink about women in the criminal justice system. The gist of that report was that unless a woman is a harm to the public, she should not be in there. In 2018, the government published a Female Offender Strategy, which looks brilliant on paper but has simply not been implemented. The recommendations include early intervention and crime prevention, as well as effective community programmes.
When we put women in prison we increase the harms inflicted by the criminal justice system on women, their families and their communities. Fewer women should be in prison, and there needs to be an end to custodial sentences for nonviolent offences, or offences where the woman has simply defended herself against ongoing sexual or domestic abuse..
Levels of self-harm amongst female prisoners are higher than ever, and the charity Women in Prison has found that 82 per cent of female prisoners suffer from mental ill-health. We should be looking at the prevention of crime and why women break the law. So many women are jailed for petty crimes, whilst many others have offended in order to support a man’s drug habit. We must stop pretending that prison is always a means of keeping the public safe. These women are the public, and prison is not safe for them.
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