Government response to Women’s Justice Board report falls short of ambition needed
Today the government has published its response to the Women’s Justice Board’s (WJB) report.
The WJB report, published in March, made the following recommendations:
- The Ministry of Justice and Welsh Government should establish a two- to three-year Women’s Justice Reform Programme
- To drive and track gender-informed implementation of the Independent Sentencing Review and Independent Review of Criminal Courts for all women
- To support intensive development of the whole system approach in local areas and develop a toolkit of options for establishing effective, gender-specific accommodation and healthcare pathways
- To develop and promote proposals to transform funding of women’s specialist services and unlock other sources of support for women
The government response reiterates its commitment to improving outcomes for women and contains some helpful elements, including continued ministerial leadership and cross-government action.
However, it does not respond to the substance of the WJB’s recommendations and falls short of the drive and ambition needed to deliver a sustained approach.
Yesterday PRT published its report, Resetting the approach to women’s imprisonment: a case for change, which called on the government to adopt the recommendations of the WJB in full.
It said that a sustained approach to investment and implementation was needed to achieve the government’s ambitions for women’s justice.
The report points to Greater Manchester’s long-standing whole system approach to women as a positive example of what can be achieved. The approach shows how mayoral and local leadership, specialist women’s services and statutory partners can work together to intervene earlier, divert women from custody and address wider drivers of offending.
But the report warns that local innovation cannot substitute for national leadership. Models like Greater Manchester’s need to be enabled, resourced and replicated through the government’s next phase of women’s justice reform.
Commenting, Pia Sinha, chief executive of the Prison Reform Trust, said:
“The government’s response to the WJB report contains some welcome commitments but falls short of the clarity and ambition needed to build and sustain the momentum for reform.
“The government’s decision not to respond directly to the WJB recommendations is particularly disappointing. Those recommendations provided a clear, practical route forward; instead we now have a statement that once again feels vague about how change will be delivered.
“PRT recently urged the government not to lose momentum on its commitment to reduce women’s imprisonment, calling for decisive and sustained focus on investment and implementation. Today’s announcement keeps the agenda alive, but without the substance required to move forward with confidence.”
