New factsheets showing detailed breakdown of use of imprisonment for women in each police force area
The Prison Reform Trust has today (14 May) published factsheets showing a detailed breakdown of the criminal justice response to women in each of the police force areas in England and Wales. The factsheets have been compiled from analysis of 2022 local court data.
These factsheets follow on from the publication of data resources in October last year of ‘at a glance’ data tables summarising the use of custody for each local police force area between 2014-2022.
This analysis of local data reveals significant geographical variations between police force areas. This variation may, in part, reflect areas with more effective coordinated approaches to women in the criminal justice system. In some areas, such as Manchester and London, there have been concerted local efforts to develop more effective responses to women’s offending through joined up working between police, courts, and women’s services.
However, in many police force areas, women continue to be sent to prison on short sentences, for non-violent offences. ‘Theft from shops’ accounted for more than a third (36%) of all prison sentences for less than six months in 2022*.
This is despite widespread recognition of the ineffectiveness of these sentences. The government’s own Female Offender Strategy aims to reduce the women’s prison population and its national concordat provided a framework for cross-government working to improve outcomes for women.
These strategies, while welcome have been backed by little action on the ground, and this local area data shows that four years after their publication, there is still a long way to go to reduce the number of women being sent to prison on short sentences.
The government has recently announced it is pausing plans to build 500 new prison places in the women’s estate. HMPPS says this is, in part, because “our Female Offender Strategy and Delivery Plan makes clear that we want fewer women serving short sentences in custody and more being managed in the community”. Whilst the announcement is welcome, the latest prison population predictions continue to predict an increase in the number of women in prison. The number of women in prison is projected to climb from 3,642 today to as high as 4,800 by November 2027. These predictions are unable to consider any future impact of the Female Offender Strategy or Delivery Plan because “work is still on-going to assess the impacts of this policy”.
Commenting, Pia Sinha, chief executive of the Prison Reform Trust, said:
“Whilst these figures show some encouraging signs of movement in the right direction, the majority of police force areas are continuing to send women to prison overwhelmingly for non-violent offences to serve sentences of less than a year.
This is despite widespread recognition of the futility of short sentences, which cause significant harm to women, and do nothing to address the often multiple and complex needs surrounding their offending.
More needs to be done to replicate the areas of good practice and break down barriers which are hindering the use of community alternatives to women’s imprisonment.”
Local area factsheets & 'at a glance' data tables
Click here* For more detailed figures on women’s imprisonment, see PRT’s Bromley Briefings Prison Factfile
The Ministry of Justice’s Prison Population Projections: 2023 to 2028 are available here. The current prison population figures are available here.
