PRT comment: Justice secretary makes historic commitment on women’s justice
Commenting on the justice secretary’s speech at Labour party conference, Pia Sinha, chief executive of the Prison Reform Trust, said:
“The justice secretary’s commitment to establish a women’s justice board tasked with the aim of reducing the number of women in prison represents a historic moment for women’s justice reform.
“For more than 25 years, PRT has advocated for separate oversight of women’s justice and to reduce the numbers of women in prison. These recommendations are based on the incontrovertible evidence of the distinct needs of women, which are ill-served in a justice system where men make up 96% of the total prison population.
“The majority of women sent to prison are convicted of non-violent offences and receive short sentences of six months or less. Rates of self-harm in women’s prisons are more than eight times higher than in the male estate. Many women are primary carers for children, which means prison can have a devastating impact on those left behind on the outside as well as on the women themselves.
“Mental ill health, trauma and drug addiction are often at the root of women’s offending. In order to be effective, a women’s justice board must provide a framework for better use of liaison and diversion services and community alternatives for women. This will ensure women get the treatment and support they need to address the underlying issues that often drive their offending.
“After decades of advocacy on this issue by us and others, we are delighted by today’s announcement and look forward to working with the government to turn the promise of a fair and effective justice system for women into a reality.”
Notes
The Prison Reform Trust has long called for a reduction in women’s imprisonment and a step change in how the criminal justice system responds to the needs of women.
- In 1998 PRT commissioned a ‘Committee on Women’s Imprisonment’, supported by The Nuffield Foundation, City Parochial Foundation and the Eleanor Rathbone Charitable Trust, and chaired by Professor Dorothy Wedderburn amid concern about the rapid increase in the number of women prisoners. The 2000 report ‘Justice for Women: the need for reform’ presented the findings of the committee and called for “the immediate establishment of a statutory commissioning body – the National Women’s Justice Board – charged with producing a plan for action within the next two years”.
- In 2011 PRT, supported by the Bromley Trust, established a time-limited, high level, independent Women’s Justice Taskforce, to make sure that vulnerable women in the criminal justice system were a priority for government. A key recommendation of the final report of the taskforce was “reform of the women’s justice system could reflect planned changes to the governance, oversight and delivery of youth justice. This may include the appointment of a director of women’s justice and the establishment of a women’s justice agency”.
- From 2012-2014, supported by The Pilgrim Trust, PRT worked on a strategy to reduce women’s imprisonment and published ‘Brighter Futures – working together to reduce women’s offending’.
- From 2015-2020, supported by the National Lottery Community Fund, PRT ran its large scale ‘Transforming Lives: Reducing women’s imprisonment‘ programme which aimed to reduce the number of women in prison.
For more information about PRT’s work on women visit: https://prisonreformtrust.org.uk/project/women-the-criminal-justice-system/
