WHAT ABOUT WOMEN IN PRISON?
In September 2021, there were 3,129 women in prison, representing just 4% of the total prison population. Immediately, we can see a significant difference between male and female offenders: most are male and it is rare for a woman to be imprisoned.
When we look at patterns of offending, the difference between male and female offenders continues. Women and men commit different types of offences and for different reasons. Overall women commit significantly fewer serious and violent offences than men. For example:
• Women make up only 3% of all arrests for sexual offences
• Women make up 5% of murder convictions receiving a life sentence
• Offences for which multiple men and no women received life sentences in a given year include: attempted murder, GBH, robbery and kidnapping
By contrast, some ‘lower-level’ offences are over-represented amongst women. For example:
• Women commit 55% of all benefit fraud
• 30% of all prosecutions for shoplifting are of women
Overall, 72% of prison receptions to the female estate are for non-violent crimes. However, women are more likely to receive a custodial sentence for a first offence than men: 23% of women in prison have been imprisoned for a first offence, compared with 14% of male prisoners. This disproves the not infrequent perception that the low numbers of women in prison mean that women are somehow ‘getting away with it’ or ‘have it easier’. Black and minority ethnic women are more than twice as likely to be arrested than white women, and are more likely to receive a custodial sentence on conviction at Crown Court.
There are strong links between women’s acquisitive crime, for example theft and benefit fraud, and their need to provide for their children. These links are considerably less likely in the case of male acquisitive crime. Coercion is also an important factor in female crime: almost 50% of women committed their offence to support the drug use of someone else, usually their male partner.
As a group, women in prison are very different both from men in prison and from women in the wider community. Women in prison are regarded as an exceptionally vulnerable group and are acknowledged to be more likely to have experienced violence and abuse, often since childhood. They are more likely to have mental health problems and to self-harm. For example:
• Over 70% of female prisoners report mental health problems
• Over 50% of female prisoners report experiencing physical, sexual or psychological abuse as a child
• Almost 60% of women report experiencing domestic violence
• There is a high prevalence of significant head injury amongst female prisoners (78%). Many such injuries are caused by a male partner
• An HM Inspectorate of Prisons report published in February 2022 found clear evidence of acutely mentally unwell women going to prison, often on remand, because of a lack of suitable provision in the community. In some instances, prison was being used as a “place of safety.” As the report concluded, “nobody would agree that prisons are the right place to keep women who are acutely unwell safe.”
• Experience of abuse and trauma can lead to substance misuse, both as a coping mechanism and as a result of coercion. 40% of women entering prison have drug or alcohol problems.
• The rate of self-harm in the female estate is shockingly high at 3,808 incidents per 1,000 prisoners. This is 7 times the rate of self-harm in the male estate.
There are important social differences between female and male prisoners, with female prisoners far more likely to be primary carers of young children:
• Over 50% of women in prison report having dependent children
• An estimated 17,000 children are affected by maternal imprisonment each year. These children are at increased risk of future unemployment, substance misuse and coming into contact with the criminal justice system.
• Only 9% of children are cared for by their father when their mother goes to prison
• Each year an average of 600 pregnant women pass through the prison system
The comparatively small number of women in prison means that there is only a small number of female prisons. As a result, women are typically held at distances that are over 20% further away from their families than men. Some women are held at considerable distances from their families: as there is no female prison in Wales, women may be held over 150 miles from home. This frequently has a negative impact on their relationships with their children and family. By contrast, men’s home lives outside prison usually continue during their absence in prison.
Sources:
HM Inspectorate of Prisons: Life in Prison Contact with Families and Friends, August 2016
HM Inspectorate of Prisons: Focus on Women’s Prisons, February 2022
Kincaid et al: Children of Prisoners Fixing a Broken System, February 2019
McMillan et al: Associations between significant head injury and persisting disability and violent crime in women in prison in Scotland, UK: a cross-sectional study, The Lancet Psychiatry, 2021
Prison Reform Trust: Why Focus On Reducing Women’s Imprisonment?, July 2021
Prison: An insight into life behind bars at women’s prison Foston Hall, Channel 4, 2020
THE CORSTON REPORT & THE FEMALE OFFENDER STRATEGY
The Corston Report, published in 2007, examined women in prison and in the criminal justice system. The report found that “women have been marginalised within a system largely designed by men for men” and recognised “The need for a distinct, radically different, visibly-led, strategic, proportionate, holistic, woman-centred, integrated approach.” The report concluded that the fundamental differences between male and female offenders and those at risk of offending meant a distinct approach was needed for women. Female-only spaces and services were seen as key to this and to enabling women offenders to successfully tackle the issues around their offending.
Since the Corston Report, the importance of women-only environments for female offenders has been consistently emphasised. Evidence shows that women-centred initiatives providing women-only services work, leading to a reduction in arrests, a reduction in prosecutions and a reduction in the number of women sent to immediate custody.
The Female Offender Strategy published in 2018 makes an evidence-based case for addressing the distinct needs of women in the criminal justice system, who have worse outcomes than men. This commitment to delivering better custody for women in prison includes a focus on improving safety and becoming ‘trauma-informed’. Trauma-informed approaches recognise the profound effects that previous trauma may have and seeks to avoid re-traumatising through institutional practices, such as exclusion, seclusion, restraint or force.
However, a report published by the National Audit Office in January 2022 gave a damning critique of how the Female Offender Strategy has been implemented and its impact assessed, concluding that whilst there was clear value in the aims of the Female Offender Strategy, the MoJ has not prioritised investment in the programme and that there has only been limited progress in implementing the strategy. Several aspects of programme management and accountability including setting aims, governance and monitoring/evaluation arrangements were judged to be weak. As a result, the MoJ can only have a poor understanding of the impact of the programme’s interventions, meaning that evidence-based funding decisions cannot be made.
The National Audit Office report was also critical of the basis upon which the decision had been made to build an extra 500 places in the female estate, as part of the government commitment to building additional prison capacity. This calculation had not factored in the Female Offender Strategy aim of having fewer women in custody.
In the meantime, women in prison remain vulnerable and at risk, with provision in some parts of the female estate extremely poor. An HM Inspectorate of Prisons inspection of HMP Foston Hall in 2021 found significant concerns around safety outcomes with early days provision assessed as being particularly lacking. Levels of self-harm were the highest in the female estate, yet no strategy was in place to reduce this and very vulnerable women were left with no plans to direct their care. Thirty percent of women reported feeling unsafe. The use of segregation was found to be very high, with inadequate oversight and record-keeping. Many women were segregated whilst there were concerns about self-harming. Messages on the prisons crisis hotline had not been checked for 6 weeks and women were making 1,000 calls to the Samaritans each month: the prison capacity is 283.
Sources:
The Corston Report, 2007
HM Inspectorate of Prisons: Report on an Unannounced Inspection of HMP & YOI Foston Hall, November 2021
MOJ: Female offender strategy, 2018
MOJ: Prisons Strategy White Paper, 2021
National Audit Office: Improving Outcomes for Women in the Criminal Justice System, January 2022
WOMEN PRISONERS NEED SINGLE-SEX PRISONS AND SERVICES
Women prisoners are entitled to single-sex prisons for the same reason that all women and girls are entitled to single-sex spaces and services: for reasons of dignity, privacy and safety. The right to these is provided for in the single-sex exceptions in the Equality Act (2010) at Schedule 3, paragraphs 26, 27 & 28 and Schedule 23, paragraph 3. Where these are denied, this is arguably a violation of the Article 3 rights of women and girls not to be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Human Rights Act, 1998).
In our view, whilst traumatised female offenders, many of whom have been the victims of serious physical and sexual abuse, are housed alongside male offenders, who include those convicted of serious violent and sexual offences against women, provision in the female prison estate can never be ‘trauma-informed.’