PRT comment: Hidden Harms Summit

Commenting on today’s announcement by the government ahead of the Hidden Harms Summit, Katy Swaine Williams, Senior Programme Manager at the Prison Reform Trust said:

“We welcome the Hidden Harms initiative and the Prime Minister’s commitment to ‘support the most vulnerable and keep them safe from harm and exploitation’.

“Official figures show that nearly 60% of women in prison are victims/survivors of domestic abuse and this is likely to be an underestimate. Far from helping them, the state often compounds their victimisation. Many have been driven to offend by their experience of abuse. Yet while victims of trafficking rightly have a statutory defence where they are compelled to offend, there is no such legal protection for domestic abuse survivors. The government should use the Domestic Abuse Bill to modernise the law by providing equivalent legal defences.”