Baroness Jean Corston’s report on women in the criminal justice system, published in 2007, wasenormously influential. As Liz Hogarth points out in this review, it was the catalyst for a range ofgovernment initiatives to make the various parts of the criminal justice system more responsive to thesocial and emotional needs of criminalised women. It also mapped out a vision for a holistic network ofservices aimed at preventing many women being criminalised in the first place.

Ten years on from the publication of the Corston Report, this review offers an analysis of the roleenvisaged for woman-centred services in the systems-change proposed by Baroness Corston: the‘radically different, visibly led, strategic . . . holistic, woman-centred integrated approach’. It charts theirdevelopment and success in proving their effectiveness: an achievement to be celebrated, given thechallenges in a justice environment that often seemed more hostile than enabling and one that saw theloss of some innovative projects.

The review sets out reflections from a policy perspective on what happened more broadly: what wentwrong and why and suggests the need for a reality check. Behind the professed cross-party support forthe Corston proposals and the somewhat inflated claims in briefings on progress delivered, the realityis one of persisting systems failure not systems change: failure to halt the use of inappropriate shortsentences and to avoid the needless loss of life with deaths in custody. The shocking total of 12 self-inflicted deaths in 2016 alone is a stark reminder of that failure.

Liz Hogarth argues that change is achievable and that woman-centred projects have a pivotal role insecuring that change. She sets out thoughts on how future policy and practice can reclaim and realisethe original Corston vision.

Prisons across England and Wales are in crisis. The probation service is in disarray. Community-basedservices for women at risk of criminalisation are closing through lack of funding. This timely review byLiz Hogarth explains how we got here, as well as how we might develop a sustainable model forwomen-centred services in the future.

Richard GarsideDirector

Trapped in the Justice Loop? Past, present and future of the woman-centred services at theheart of the systems-change called for in the Corston Report

Liz Hogarth

Briefing 18May 2017

Centre for Crime and Justice Studies2 Langley LaneLondon SW8 1GBinfo@crimeandjustice.org.ukwww.crimeandjustice.org.uk

©Centre for Crime and Justice StudiesMay 2017ISBN: 978-1-906003-53-1

Registered charity No. 251588

A company limited by guaranteeRegistered in England No. 496821

The views expressed and the dataused in this document are thoseof the authors and not necessarilythose of the Centre for Crime andJustice Studies.

Foreword

The call for an expanded network of holisticwomen’s projects, building on the work of theTogether Women Programme (TWP) (2005)2 waspivotal to the argument that it is patently wrongthat women experiencing severe and multipledisadvantage (SMD) and often repeatedly failedby health and social care systems, should only getattention, support and a policy focus onceenmeshed in the CJS. It is pertinent to note thatthe specification for the five TWP women centres,aimed at diverting women ‘at risk’ as well as‘reducing re-offending’, was based on two well-established centres: Calderdale WomenCentre,which had a long established track record insupporting women’s complex and often health-related needs in the community and Ashawomen’s centre, set up by Jenny Roberts, a ChiefProbation Officer, who had direct experience ofthe limitations of a CJS-only response to women,given the extent of unmet health needs. Thedesign of the TWP model challenged theunhelpful ‘woman offender’ label that riskeddefining women by their offending alone, as ifthey were somehow a different species from otherwomen in the community affected by poverty,violence, health and other social inequalities, inneed only of CJS interventions to change their‘bad’ behaviour. Grappling with how best todefine ‘at risk’ inevitably threw up challenges; butrecognition that the solution for women whoshould not be in prison lay with gender-sensitivemainstream services in the community and notthe CJS was crucial. It opened up the potential toachieve the systems change needed. A singularfocus on the CJS alone was seen as insufficient:once caught up in the justice loop of courts,probation and prison, the limited range of non-custodial sanctions quickly run out in the face ofrepeat low level offending, making short repeatprison sentences almost inevitable.

Leverage at last?The Corston Report really did seem to have thepotential to be a game-changer. In the earlystages of implementation of the acceptedrecommendations a number of factors fuelledhopes that substantive changes to policy andpractice were possible. Strong leadership and aministerial champion upped the profile of women.Strong and influential women like PatriciaScotland, Fiona McTaggart, Vera Baird andHarriet Harman gave the Corston agendaadditional leverage across governmentdepartments, making it easier to gain

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The Corston Review1 was initiated amidst thegrowing sense of outrage at increasing numbersof women dying in custody. External pressuregrew with disquiet voiced by people like theCheshire Coroner, Nicholas Rheinberg following aseries of inquests into six deaths in custody inHMP Styal within a 13 month period: ‘I saw agroup of damaged individuals committing for themost part petty crime, for whom imprisonmentrepresents a disproportionate response’.

Baroness Scotland’s ministerial statement on 28March 2006 on the commissioning of the Reviewincluded a commitment to learn lessons from thedeaths: ‘The review will be focused on thosewomen in whom a multitude of risk factorscoexist and which could lead them to harmthemselves in prison’. Furthermore, it ‘will profilethe characteristics and histories of some of thewomen who have died in custody in recent yearsand look at the pathway through the criminaljustice system that led them to that point’.

The Review took the opportunity to look in detailat what was happening to cause so many womento get sucked into the CJS who should not havebeen there in the first place: in particular womenreceiving short and repeated custodial sentencesfor petty offences, who often had issues aroundmental health or dual diagnosis, (coexistingsubstance and mental ill health). The reportcalled for ‘a fundamental re-thinking about theway in which services for this group of vulnerablewomen, particularly for mental health andsubstance misuse, are provided and accessed’.‘Prison is being used to contain those for whomthere is no proper provision outside prison, orwho have already been excluded from society’.

There were then, two clear elements to thesystems change called for by the Corston Review.It was not only seeking internal systems changewithin the CJS; but crucially also set out the needto go up-stream, putting prevention firmly on theagenda in demanding a focus too on women ‘atrisk of offending’ and wider system failures:‘Much more needs to be done to divert low-leveloffending women not just from court but alsofrom prosecution’. This represented a significantpolicy shift. Coupled with the insistence on theneed for a gender-specific response, – putting thewoman-centred model at the heart of thesystems-change required – it signalled the intentto look outside of the CJS for solutions tostemming the flow into custody.

1 Corston, J. (2007), CorstonReport: a review of women withparticular vulnerabilities in thecriminal justice system,London: Home Office 13March, p70-71.

2 TWP (2005), £9.1 m fundingfor holistic women’sdemonstration projects;announced by HO ministerPatricia Scotland 17 November,HL Deb cols ws 99-101.

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declared cross-party support for the CorstonReport also created some optimism for longevityand hope that what the ministerial Champion,Maria Eagle, termed the start of ‘a long-termsustainable strategy for change’ could really proveto be just that.

Unforeseen impact of ‘a simple twistof fate’4: the peculiar case of the‘women at risk’ disappearanceWhile there was a real sense of momentum inprogressing the initial cross-government three-year programme of work detailed in the NationalService Framework, implementation of the‘women at risk of offending’ element of thestrategy faced challenges from the outset.Sometimes it can be a relatively smalldepartmental change that can have a majoradverse impact and throw an initiative off course:the simple twist of fate not always foreseen bymundane risk management. Thus it was that the‘women at risk of offending’ element – theprevention component – was dealt a severe bloweven before the implementation of the Corstonagenda got underway. The dual strategy –stemming the flow and reducing the number ofwomen in prison – both essential to achieving thesystems change goal, came under singleownership in the Home Office. The syphoning offof prison and probation responsibilities from theHome Office to the newly created Ministry ofJustice in 2007 ended that. Strategic leadershipon women’s policy and the Corstonimplementation was despatched, along withNOMS (Prisons and Probation) to join Courts,becoming embedded firmly within ‘Justice’.Reducing the number of women entering thecriminal justice system remained the first priorityin the National Service Framework for WomenOffenders (not ‘women at risk’); but the splitmeant that some of the areas in the Home Officekey to stemming the flow, such as policing,community safety, drugs and the Violence againstWomen and Girls Strategy, would be harder toinfluence at a distance or might slip off theMinistry of Justice’s radar.

There was a valiant effort by the newly createdcross-departmental Women’s Unit to secure sometraction for the work needed upstream to stemthe flow of women into the CJS and to widenstrategic ownership. The support of the CabinetOffice’s Social Exclusion Task Force was enlisted

commitments and cross-departmental join up.Unlike the light touch predecessor to the Corstonproposals – the Women’s Offending ReductionProgramme – systems were put in place to drivedelivery:

● a detailed National Service Frameworkpublished in May 2008, with measurablestrategic outcomes tied into the Ministry ofJustice Departmental Strategic Objectives;

● central oversight of local delivery;● an Inter-Ministerial Group under-pinned by a

cross-departmental officials’ strategy group.

All this was held to account by open monitoringand regular reporting to parliament.

The securing of specific ring-fenced funding forvoluntary sector holistic woman-centred serviceswas a major score and change-enabler: initiallywith the £9.15m for the TWP demonstrationprojects in 2005 and then the £15.6m to expandand strengthen the network of women-specificservices, a key Corston recommendation.Harnessing external forces brought additionalbenefits in maintaining pressure and momentumto the work. The innovative partnership,established in late 2009, between the Ministry ofJustice and the group of charitable trusts andfoundations in the Corston Independent Funders’Coalition with the Women’s Diversionary Fundnot only brought in additional funds and muchneeded grant-giving expertise but also anadditional level of accountability to bear thatincreased leverage on some officials who hadpreviously seemed to have little appetite forgiving women a greater profile.

The Fawcett Commission between 2004 and20093 had maintained a helpful long-termpressure on the National Offender ManagementService (NOMS) to ensure that its focusremained steady. The Fawcett Society itself was akey source of support for the Women’s PolicyTeam in its work to ensure NOMS had a grasp ofthe 2006 Gender Equality Duty: countering theoften quoted phrase ‘but women are only 5% ofthe prison population’ that was seemingly takenby some as a kind of indicator of the level ofattention these women merited. Looking beyondthe CJS in developing a collaborative approach topolicy and practice with experts from thewomen’s sector and academic researchersbrought energy and fresh thinking to strategy. The

3 Fawcett Commission onWomen and the CriminalJustice System (2009),‘Engendering Justice – frompolicy to practice’, FawcettSociety, May.

4 Dylan, B. (1975), Simple Twistof Fate, second track on Bloodon the Tracks album, BobDylan, released January 1975.

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Work on scoping the project would, though, haveat least explored ownership of and responsibilityfor the problems needing resolution – outside ofthe CJS – and helped identify the role of women’sservices in fostering relationships and facilitatingchange. It would have set out too the cleardelineation needed between ‘support’ and‘justice’. Unfortunately the opportunity presentedby the SETF model to at least expedite progresson early intervention and diversion and to buildon the expertise of the women’s sector, puttingthem at the heart of the model, was lost with achange to the Head of the cross-departmentalWomen’s Unit in 2009. The proposed model wasimmediately parked, and then abandoned.

A further barrier to progress emerged inaddressing the Corston health recommendations.The MoJ’s interface with the Department ofHealth was between NOMS and Offender Healthwhere focus on improvements tended to bewithin the custodial environment. Negotiatingstrategic outcomes became mired in delay. Thevital work on diverting women at the first point ofcontact with the CJS was transferred forconsideration under the wider brief of The BradleyReport on mental health and learning disabilitiesin the CJS; but that took until April 2009 tocomplete. Other health recommendations werenot progressed at all. Well into 2009, there weremere aspirational statements of intent rather thantangible commitments with time-lines for deliveryfrom the Department of Health. For example:

The Department is responding positively to thehealth recommendations contained in theCorston Report. The Offender Health andSocial Care Strategy will have a distinctpathway for women in contact with thecriminal justice system and will look atimprovements in health provision throughoutthe process, including at arrest and in court, aswell as more generally in the community6

As a result of the challenges and missedopportunities, stemming the flow, a fundamentalstrand of the dual strategy needed to realise theCorston vision, was not progressed. By 2009 itwas, in effect, lost altogether. Instead, the focuswas firmly only on the more entrenched end ofthe CJS: the world of courts, probation andcommunity orders as ‘tough alternatives tocustody’ and embedding holistic women’sservices into the system as a component of the‘tough alternatives’.

and, drawing on the expertise of the establishedvoluntary sector women-centred services, itproduced a model for early intervention thatsought to develop a more systematic approach tolinking women into mainstream services andsupport at their first point of contact with theCJS.5 It highlighted that:

… in delivering systematic change there is greatvalue in complementing existing provisionwith earlier, intensive and tailored support. Bybuilding on the most exciting existing practiceand by using initial contact with the CJS asan opportunity to identify and engage womenwith complex problems much earlier on, thereis an opportunity to further improve outcomesfor women offenders and their families and toensure early and effective provision for thoseat risk.

The proposed model inevitably had itslimitations. The aim to divert women at the firstpoint of contact with the CJS, and to curtailfurther progression through the system, reflectedthe reduced policy levers available to the MoJ. Itsreach could not extend to preventing women atrisk entering the CJS. An attempt to help stem theflow of women was the best the MoJ could offer.It could not leverage the social policy changeneeded for the prevention agenda that would see‘women at risk’ in the community bettersupported and mainstream public sector servicesoffering improved, appropriate, well-coordinatedgender sensitive responses.

The systems change required for prevention wasclearly identified. The aim of the MoJ’s Women’sDiversionary Fund was ‘to ensure early andeffective provision for vulnerable women in thecommunity’ by increasing capacity and coverageof holistic woman-centred services. The NationalService Framework flagged the intent to look to‘the need to create adequate services in thecommunity to meet these women’s needs,including detoxification and mental healthservices’ and ‘any necessary re-allocation of fundsfrom custody to community’. (The re-allocation ofresources from prison budgets to non-CJScommunity services being dependent onachieving reduced numbers of women in prison:something hardly likely to enthuse or incentiviseNOMS’ implementation role). As the lead ondelivery, the MoJ simply was not in a position tomake these changes happen.

5 Social Exclusion Task Force(2009), ‘Short Study onWomen Offenders; SocialExclusion Task Force’, London:Cabinet Office, p. 3.

6 Department of Health ‘(June 2009), The Health ‘and Personal Social ServicesProgrammes, p163.

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proved them right. The locus for change has to beoutside of the CJS: it cannot rest with thejudiciary; it is not within their remit. As the‘keeper of the law’ on behalf of society, the role ofthe judiciary is to punish the ‘transgressor’: theoffender who has broken the law. Howeversympathetic towards a woman offender who hasbeen failed by health and social care systems, orimpressed by the support offered by a holisticwomen’s project, there has to be a punitiveelement to the sentence. That was the clearmessage from magistrates captured in the TWPevaluation: they just could not see attendance at awomen’s centre as an ‘alternative to custody’.Carol Hedderman’s Empty Cells or Empty Wordsprovides a comprehensive and cogent analysis ofwhy looking to magistrates and judges to beagents of change within the existing sentencingframework and without restricting sentencingpowers simply cannot alone achieve the soughtdecrease in short prison sentences and actuallyrisks net-widening and up-tariffing.

Remaining caught up in the ‘justice loop’ with thelead role resting with the MoJ and NOMS riskslosing sight of the key concern identified by theCorston Review, supported by cross-partyagreement, that prison remains adisproportionate and inappropriate response formany women. It is easy to get caught up in therhetoric geared to reassuring the judiciary andpublic, without pausing to ask exactly who are allthese women whose offending poses such a riskthat community orders need to be ‘tough’,‘robust’ and ‘punitive’ with additional coerciverequirements such as tagging and curfews. Thatmay be so for some; but surely not those pettyoffenders described by Corston as in need ofdecent mental health support, safe housing andlong-term help in dealing with deep-seatedtraumas, where such disproportionaterequirements would make breach inevitable? Orthose victims of modern day slavery who are thePrime Minister’s priority: those migrant womenwho are victims of trafficking or forced labourlanguishing in prison because of failure to identifythem at the point of arrest?

‘Justice loop’ impact on the woman-centred servicesThe holistic woman-centred services, thecornerstone of the Corston systems change, havenot fared well within the confines of the justicearena. The rapid progress achieved with the ring-

‘Justice Loop’ constraints:‘lockdown’ on systems change?Despite the cross-party support for the CorstonReport and claims from NOMS as recently as July2015 that the government ‘has since adoptedmany of the Report’s recommendations’,7

concerted, coordinated efforts to implement themajority of the accepted recommendations hadstalled by 2010. The mechanisms to drive delivery,the inter-ministerial group, the strategicframework, and departments held to accountthrough external scrutiny by regular reporting toparliament all disappeared. Commitments aimedat improving women’s community provision –like the £2 million allocated to develop enhancedbail accommodation and support and redesigningApproved Premises to actually meet the specificneeds of women – failed to materialise. There hasbeen some ad hoc small scale activity, includingsome continuation of the Corston ‘joined-upintegrated approach’ such as that initiated in theManchester area. This has now been re-brandedas the MoJ testing out the exciting ‘whole systemsapproach’ for women in contact with the CJS.Building on previous good practice this approachis going quite well, albeit with a less well-resourced and diluted role for women’s services;but could hardly be described as ‘systemschange’. Funding for the women’s projects wasextended for a period too, to support the work on‘alternatives to custody’.

A singular focus on trying to halt theimprisonment of low risk women offenders bychanging the internal workings of the CJS wasnever going to achieve the systems changerequired. Well before the Corston Review, theprevalent premise was that the solution to cuttingthe over-use of short prison sentences for womenwhose offending did not merit custody lay withthe judiciary. Targeting efforts towards increasingawareness of gender specific needs by probationand the judiciary, improving court reports and therange of community options for women, so theargument went, would influence the judiciary tohave greater confidence in and opt for communityorders as ‘alternatives to custody’ in place ofshort prison sentences. The Women’s OffendingReduction Programme (2004) and the TWPdemonstration projects (2005) reflected andtested out this premise.

Some advocates for change in the treatment ofwomen in the penal system challenged thepremise early on and research and analysis

7 Stewart, L. and Gobeil, R.(2015), ‘Analytical Summary:Effective Interventions forWomen Offenders, A RapidEvidence Assessment’, NOMS, p2.

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recognition, support and funding so that they cancontinue to help these women and makecommunities safer’. The iconic Asha Women’sCentre, key in informing the model for women’scommunity projects closed in early 2017. Othersare unlikely to thrive or survive if they remain inthe ‘justice loop’ under the control of NOMS’ newincarnation, HM Prison and Probation Service.

‘We have to stop now’12

Ten years on from the Corston Report andnothing has really changed: prison still remains adisproportionate and inappropriate response forfar too many women. The fixation with internaltinkering with the CJS within the ‘justice loop’ hasachieved nothing. From 2002 to 2016 the overallnumbers serving short sentences have remainedthe same. The use of community orders hasactually gone down. In the 12 month period fromMay 2015 to June 2016, 70% of women enteringcustody were sentenced to six months ofimprisonment or less.13 Back in 1993, only a thirdof women received such sentences.14 Thepercentage of women sentenced to 12 monthsimprisonment over the last decade each hasremained stable at around 25 per cent. Eighty fourper cent of women entering prison havecommitted non-violent offences.15 Optimism thatthe introduction of the ‘no real prospect (ofcustody) test’ (Schedule 11 of the Legal Aid,Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act,2012) would slash the numbers of custodialremands proved unfounded. The anomalyremains that around 50 per cent of womenremanded in custody do not go on to receive acustodial sentence, or are acquitted. The relativelyrecent small drop in the women’s prisonpopulation is welcome – it had dropped to 3,844in February 2016; but crept back up to 3,953 at thebeginning of March 201716 – but cannot beattributed to greater use of ‘alternatives tocustody’ and is hardly a cause for celebration.There is a risk too that any downward trajectorywill be reversed as a result of the drastic cuts tocommunity drug services currently underway.

Over ten years ago deep concern about women’sdeaths in custody was pivotal to the decision toembark on the Corston Review: urgent changewas needed. The situation now is much worseand shockingly so. In 2016 there were 22 deaths;12 known to be self-inflicted and 6 still awaitingclassification. The women who have died arechillingly similar to those described by the

fenced Women’s Diversionary Fund (WDF) sawthe creation of a network of 40 women’scommunity projects by 2010,8 including manythat were small and new to the CJS world. Allneeded time to develop; support in building theinfrastructures needed to meet increased demandand in creating effective data capture systems andhelp from NOMS to champion and embed themodel at local level, securing stable fundingstreams from local mainstream services too.However, once funding was delegated to NOMSin 2010 and it was no longer held to accountthrough the strategic framework, the vitalprotection was lost. Support from the centredwindled and interest focused solely on NOMS’remit: offenders, not those at risk of offending.The onus shifted onto the projects being requiredto prove they reduced re-offending.

The ‘justice loop’ and the focus on ‘alternatives tocustody’ at least meant funding for the women’sprojects continued through to 2013; but at thatpoint NOMS chose to devolve commissioning ofwomen’s services to Probation Trusts. There wasno requirement to keep funding the WDF projectsor to maintain the integrity of the holistic woman-centred approach. A number of projects had theirfunding cut, some of those new to the CJS foldedand others struggled with requirements fromTrusts to extend their reach to cover an entireprobation area. There was no attempt to extendthe network of projects to fill gaps in coverage.

The even more devastating impact of NOMS’decision to leave women’s projects to battle forfunding in the competitive market with theTransforming Rehabilitation (TR) payment byresults model (PBR), despite clear warnings thatwomen would fare badly,9 is well-documented.10 Itis ironic, given NOMS’ lack of commitment to thewomen’s projects, that they did indeed provetheir worth by NOMS’ criteria. In May 2015, theMoJ’s own Justice Data Lab confirmed thatwomen’s centres had evidenced their impact onreducing re-offending with statistically significantresults.11 Their value is clearly better appreciatedby the Probation Inspectorate. ‘In recent years,dedicated funding for women has virtuallydisappeared and so the future of some services,and in particular those provided by Women’sCentres, was in doubt. The Inspection foundcases where Women’s Centres had been pivotal inturning women away from crime and helpingthem to rebuild their lives’. The Inspectorate saidin September 2016. It added: ‘These centres need

8 Ministry of Justice (2011),Diverting Women Away fromCrime: Guide to the Women’sCommunity Projects; London:Ministry of Justice January.

9 Gelsthorpe. L and Hedderman,C. (2012), ‘Providing forWomen Offenders: the risks ofadopting a payment by resultsapproach’, Probation Journal,59:374.

10APPG on Women in the PenalSystem (2016), Is this the end ofwomen’s centres, HowardLeague.

11 Justice Data Lab (May 2015),‘Re-0ffending Analysis:Women’s Centres Through-outEngland’, London: Ministry ofJustice.

12 Noble, A. (2009), We Have toStop Now, Peccadillo Pictures.

13 Bromley Briefings (2016),Prison Fact File, autumn.

14 Hedderman, C, (April 2012),‘Empty Cells or Empty Words:Government policy on reducingthe number of women going toprison’, Criminal Justice.

15 Ministry of Justice (2016),‘Women in the CJS 2015’,updated in November 2016 aSection 95 publication.

16 Ministry of Justice (2017),Prison Population Stats w/c5/3/17.

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that ensured external governance and holding toaccount and the recommendation that the thenDepartment of Community and LocalGovernment should take over the lead onimplementation within three years.

An inter-face with justice is still needed here; butit lies with the police. They are gate-keepers of theCJS and have an integral role in the systemschange needed to stem the flow. It is thereforeencouraging that there have been markedreductions in recent arrest rates. The number ofarrests fell by ‘around 60 per cent for femalesbetween 2008/9 and 2012/13’ and the totalnumber of arrests for females by 26 per centbetween 2011/12 and 2015/16.18 This is a gooddevelopment and one worth building upon. Thereis real potential for the police to be the first andonly point of contact with the CJS, if support is athand with women-centred services able to fosteraccess to appropriate mainstream services in thelocal community. There are some good practiceinitiatives that easily could be built on. In 2016,Together’s Rotherham Pathways Project, workingclosely with the police in supporting vulnerableyoung adults, achieved an impressive 44 per centreduction in the number of young people cominginto contact with the police.19 Liaison anddiversion schemes in police custody suites orcourts were a priority in the Corston vision.Progress in implementing the Bradley Report(2009) recommendation for such schemes hasbeen painfully slow; but after pilots in 10 areasfrom April 2014, national rollout is now underway.Emerging good practice highlights particularbenefits for women, as long as well-fundedmental health and other services are available.

The way forward/RecommendationsIn the current sentencing framework, prison is theultimate sanction on the punishment spectrumavailable to the courts. It is meant to be reservedfor those who commit the most serious offencesand to protect the public from those posing aserious risk of harm. It is never appropriate to useprison as a place of safety for vulnerable and/orhomeless women, or those deemed by thejudiciary to be at risk of harm from herself orothers in the community. Nor should prison beused as a pseudo ‘hospital’ to assess, contain ortreat those with complex mental health issues oraddiction problems. As the Corston Review soclearly identified, such women do end up inprison, often for repeated short periods in

Cheshire Coroner17, and those identified in theCorston Review as women affected by severe andenduring multiple disadvantage getting suckedinto the CJS because of failures in the health andsocial care systems: women who should not be inprison. The issue here is one of ‘rights’: thesewomen have a right to access appropriateservices that are responsive to their needs and aright not to be imprisoned inappropriatelybecause of systems failure.

Progress on implementing the Corston Reportstalled over six years ago. The singular focus onthe CJS has helped to mask the reality that whatcould have worked to halt needless deaths andimprove women’s life chances – the ‘prevention’element of the proposed systems change – hasnot yet even been fully explored and tried out.Conditions for women in the hard end of the CJSare much worse than ten years ago: the systemboth in prison and the community is nearlybroken and the solution does not lie in theplanned prison reform. Spending £50 million oncreating five new ‘community prisons’ that will nodoubt be filled with yet more women who should,or do not need to be there is not the answer.Justice policy remains stubbornly prison-centricdespite the fact that most offenders do not go toprison and many women who do certainly do notneed to be there in terms of the severity of theiroffence or risk posed to the public. The currentpolicy focus on prison and portraying‘rehabilitation’ as its ‘key purpose’ now risksdrawing yet more women into prison: there stillappears to be a tendency amongst somemembers of the judiciary to view prison as apotential place of safety and only where a womancan get the help she needs, despite all theevidence to the contrary.

There is an urgent need to break out of the‘justice loop’ now and broaden the focus, shiftingattention up-stream on how best to stem the flowof women into the CJS. Focussing efforts on whatis needed to support women who may be at theearliest stage of contact with the CJS or evenbefore that point presents a real opportunity toreclaim and finally realise the original Corstonvision for ‘women at risk’. It is essential to locateownership of the ‘prevention’ agenda outside ofjustice, with those in control of the systems in thecommunity that need changing. BaronessCorston recognised the risk that progress couldstall if focus stayed with and solely on the CJS;hence her insistence on the need for structures

17 INQUEST (2014), ‘Preventingthe Deaths of Women inPrison: the need for analternative approach andINQUEST’s monitoring service,Deaths in Custody figures’,2016.

18 Ministry of Justice (2016),‘Women in the CJS 2014 and2015’, updated November 2016a Section 95 publication.

19 Together for Mental Wellbeing(2016), Rotherham PathwaysProject: part of the T2A AlliancePathway Programme.

there are devolved powers for health and socialcare as well as housing.

Recommendation 3: Responsibility for expeditingthe ‘whole system’ approach needed to bettersupport troubled women without criminalisingthem must be devolved to local communities androbust local governance arrangements put inplace.

PCCs have a particular contribution to make insupporting the ‘whole system’ approach. As gate-keepers of the CJS, front-line police can help limitcontact with and progression through the system,not just with out of court disposals for low-leveloffending; but also by diverting women fromprosecution. There are good examples of policeworking closely with long-established womencentres, in referring women on for support ratherthan criminalising what in essence are often‘nuisance’ behaviours. Such wrap around supportcan include help to access and engage withappropriate mainstream services. When that isnot an option, proactive liaison and diversionfrom police custody suites can help stem the flowof women into the CJS.

Recommendation 4: PCCs should maximise thepotential for the police to divert troubled womenaway from prosecution whenever possible and, inany event, for police to be the only point ofcontact within the CJS for women with multiplecomplex needs who commit low-level offences.

Priority must be given to the work needed torebuild, expand and nurture the network ofholistic woman-centred projects at the heart ofthe Corston vision, reclaiming the original intentthat work in local communities with women whomay be at risk of getting caught up in the CJS isas vital as any support given to those alreadyaffected by the CJS. This is not about pitting onepart of the women’s sector against the other. Aswell as the network of women’s projects, a rangeof specialist provision is needed too, such as safeaccommodation for women escaping violence orwomen exiting prostitution. All have a role to playin working alongside mainstream services in thewhole system approach.

The woman-centred projects are the glue that canhelp bring communities together, fosteringrelationships with and between mainstreamservices; bringing together too women and theservices they need to navigate through, access

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custody and will continue to do so unless thefocus finally shifts to prevention. This is a socialjustice issue: such women should not be sent toprison and they certainly do not deserve to die inprison. The locus for change has to be outside ofthe CJS and needs to be on improving andincreasing woman-centred support and servicesin the community for women with extensiveexperience of abuse and trauma.

Recommendation 1: A shift of focus is needednow away from sentencing and the CJS to ‘wholesystem’ thinking: the holistic, woman-centred,integrated approach identified in the Corston‘Blueprint’, along with the delivery structuresneeded, that will help avoid needless anddamaging contact with the CJS.

There is a need for bold thinking now: the Corstonvision that would see far fewer women imprisonedand save lives can be realised. The Blueprint andlessons learned from the last ten years helpinform thinking on governance structures neededto deliver the systems change required.Appropriate ownership of the prevention agendalies with the Department of Communities andLocal Government (DCLG), leading the cross-departmental group needed to drive and over-seedelivery from the centre. Health should have aprominent role on the group; but not OffenderHealth. A strategic framework with cleardeliverables is essential, with external monitoringand holding to account to ensure changehappens. Alignment with the remit of the Ministerfor Women and Equalities would be helpful. TheWomen and Equalities Select Committee couldhave a role in over-seeing progress.

Recommendation 2: The DCLG should havedepartmental ownership of the prevention agendaand the lead role, alongside the Department ofHealth, on the cross-departmental governancegroup.

Local governance arrangements will be crucial inthe development and delivery of the appropriateand accessible mainstream services needed. LocalAuthorities should have the lead role and Healthand Well-being Boards, clinical commissioninggroups, Public Health Teams and CommunitySafety Partnerships all need to be involved, as doPolice and Crime Commissioners (PCCs). Themetro Mayors and combined authorities comingon-stream represent a real opportunity toexpedite delivery on the ground, especially where

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at all costs, adopting instead a more cost-effectivecollaborative model. We need to look to creativeways to make sure money is where it needs to beto work better, achieve the best results andpotentially realise sizeable overall savings.

Despite the cuts to the MoJ departmental budgetthere continues to be year on year waste of£millions spent on women’s prisons, covering thecosts incurred by unnecessary custodial remandsand inappropriate prison sentences for womenwho should not be in prison at all. Re-directingresources into the community to fund thewoman-centred services needed to preventwomen getting sucked into the CJS at all or tostem the flow at the first point of contact will helpto achieve this key element of the Corston vision.Realising that vision in full by restricting thewomen’s prison population to those who, in thecontext of the current sentencing framework, aredefined as really needing to be there: high riskwomen committing serious offences who pose arisk of harm to others, would save many more£millions in the longer term. Giving immediatepriority to the prevention agenda avoids any riskof slipping back into an over-focus on womenmore entrenched in the ‘justice loop’; but there isa good argument for a devolved approach to thewhole of the CJS in the slightly longer term. Such‘justice reinvestment’ on a grand scale couldsecure the radical and comprehensive systemchange sought by the Corston Review.21

Recommendation 6: The £50 million earmarkedfor building five new ‘community prisons’ forwomen, supplemented if necessary by some ofthe proceeds from the sale of HMP Holloway,should be re-directed by the Treasury from theMoJ to the DCLG led cross-departmentalgovernance group for local devolvement toinitially resource the work on prevention ahead ofmore wholesale local ownership of justice issues.

The changing environment and closer communityengagement created by the whole systemsapproach and devolvement brings with it the needto look more broadly at penal policy. Realising thesystems change proposed by the Corston Reviewand its contention ‘prison is not the right placefor women offenders who pose no risk to thepublic’ has implications in particular for womenat the far end of the justice spectrum. There arerelatively few serious high risk women offenders:it is imperative that they are considered and not

and engage with. As a recent assessment hasargued: ‘Woman centred thinking means buildingwomen’s capabilities to find their own solutions,which can reduce demands upon statutoryservices, enrich communities and ultimately savelives’.20 It is important that women’s projects areseen as equal partners at the local level and notjust viewed as providers or commissionedservices. They need a place at the table withpublic services, alongside the women with whomthey work, to ensure their voice is heard and thatthere is co-production in the design, developmentand delivery of the gender sensitive servicesneeded.

Recommendation 5: The network of woman-centred projects should be rebuilt, expanded andnurtured so that they are embedded in localcommunities. Their engagement as equalpartners, along with others in the women’s sector,in shaping the local strategy for women withmultiple, complex needs and in the design,development and delivery of gender-sensitivehealth and social care provision is essential.

The prevention component of the Corston visioncan only be fully realised if key health and socialcare services are properly funded alongside thoseof the women’s sector. A range of provision isneeded, such as safe supported housing, mentalhealth and drug and alcohol services, includingresidential options offering more intensivesupport; all designed to meet the specific needsof women affected by extensive experience ofabuse and trauma. Full coverage of gendersensitive liaison and diversion schemes for thosegetting caught up in the CJS must be expeditedtoo.

Funding of the women’s sector projects andservices must be ring-fenced, together with thewoman-centred health and social care provisionneeded to realise the prevention vision.Accountability for the spend and deliverablesachieved must be captured within the overallstrategic framework, reflected in the local strategyand will need monitoring locally with central over-sight. The systems change needed and thefunding required may seem a big ask amidst thecurrent climate of swingeing cuts and pressureson health and social care services. On thecontrary, this is exactly the right time to confrontthe silo mentality of government departments’concern to fight for and defend their own budgets

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20Women Centred Working(2016), Taking forward WomenCentred Solutions (with a focuson public services); p 3.

21 Bashford, J., Professor LordPatel of Bradford.,The RightHon Hazel Blears, Howell, H.,Hasan, S. (2017), ‘Doing itJustice: Breaking Barriers toCriminal Justice Transform-ation’, Dragongate MarketIntelligence, 2017.

needs to be addressed; but now new technologymakes security in the form of locks, bolts andbars largely redundant, any secure confinementwould bear little resemblance to a prison in itsinternal and exterior design. Thinking outside ofthe ‘justice loop’, there is the potential to see asmall contained unit as having a place in and ofthe community. It could, for instance, be sitedalongside community woman-centred projects, betrauma-informed in its ethos, be external facingrather than insular, drawing in the support andservices needed. As an integral part of thecommunity, access to any courses or accreditedprogrammes needed could be sourced externally.The opportunity for such an innovative approachis one that must be grasped.

Recommendation 7: Urgent attention must begiven to the need to curtail the inappropriate useof imprisonment for low risk women offendersand to improve the response to the relatively fewserious high risk women judged as requiringsecure confinement. A rethink on penal policy isrequired to ensure containment for such womenis proportionate, makes best use of newtechnology and provides an environment thatmeets their specific needs.

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lost in the system. The Justice Select Committeein 2013 highlighted the fact that only 3.2 per centof the women’s prison population – 3,893 on 1 May 2013 – were assessed as posing ‘a high orvery high risk of harm to other people’.22 Thatequates to around 125 women at most.

Current penal policy, unchanged for many years,has prison – a type of total institution cut off fromthe wider community – as its most severesanction: punishment by loss of liberty andremoval from society. The intent is that protectionof the public is assured while a serious offender is imprisoned and that risk of harm and of re-offending hopefully reduced during‘rehabilitation’, where activities, attendance atprogrammes and behaviours are monitored andassessed. Economies of scale have tended todictate a preference for large rather than smallprison sites. The current system has never workedwell for the relatively few serious, high riskwomen: small numbers are not easily managed inthe prison system. Generally they are held furtherfrom home than men; can find it difficult toaccess relevant activities and gender-specificprogrammes like CARE23 and can get caught up inthe tensions created when prison as punishmentis aligned with treatment needs.24

It is time for a radical re-think. Removing the useof short sentences as a sentencing option is theway to curtail the continuing inappropriate use ofprison for low risk women who re-offend.Thinking needs to shift away from the traditional,out-dated concept of prison and focus onexploring what a twenty-first century environmentdesigned for women in need of some form ofcontainment might look like. Public protection

22Justice Committee (2013),‘Women Offenders after theCorston Report’, London: TheStationery Office, p. 39.

23 The Correctional ServicesAccreditation Panel Report,2009-2010 (March 2010),accreditation of CARE: Choices,Actions, Relationships,Emotions, p15, London:Ministry of Justice.

24NHS England & NOMS (2015),‘The Offender PersonalityDisorder Pathway, OffenderPersonality DisorderProgramme from 2011,Gateway reference 04272’,Department of Health &NOMS.

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Baroness Corston during her review and on theimplementation of the Corston Reportrecommendations. She was awarded an OBE in2008 for services to women offenders. Now retiredshe continues to advocate for the reforms calledfor by Baroness Corston, working in a voluntarycapacity alongside others in the voluntary sector.

About the authorAfter a career in the voluntary sector and probationservice, including working in HMP Hollowayduring the 1990s, Liz Hogarth became the Ministryof Justice policy lead on women in the criminaljustice system from 2002. She worked closely with

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1 note

The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies is an independent educational charity that advances public understanding of crime, criminal justice and social harm. Through partnership and coalition-building, advocacy and research, we work to inspire social justice solutions to the problemssociety faces, so that many responses that criminalise and punish are no longer required.