Women’s prisons in the UK are in crisis. Overcrowded, underfunded, and filled with women whose offences are often rooted in trauma, addiction, and poverty, they are failing those they claim to rehabilitate. Andrea Coomber, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, lays bare the grim reality of women’s imprisonment, asking the crucial question: who are we protecting, and what are we gaining by keeping so many women locked up?
As anyone who has visited one knows, women’s prisons are miserable places. You meet lots of broken, sad women who are supporting each other through the worst period of their lives, full of regret and fear for the future. In the past few months, I have visited a number of women’s prisons and always come away wondering the same thing – who are we protecting and what are we gaining by keeping these women locked up?
The bogey-man that exists in the public imagination at the mention of prisons is exaggerated as it is, but particularly so when thinking about the women I’ve seen and spoken to in our prisons. It is rare to find toughened criminals; to the extent that there is violence it is very often self-inflicted or related to very poor mental health. And I have generally found those women who have committed very serious offences to be remorseful and committed to giving back to the community, often becoming trusted advisers to prison management, themselves holding positions of leadership and supporting women entering the system.
Beyond my own experiences, the figures speak for themselves. Most women are in for low-level and non-violent offences, often related to addiction and poor mental health. Convicted of minor offences, 60% are serving sentences of less than six months. One in four of all women in prisons haven’t yet been sentenced or even tried, and most of these will be acquitted or sentenced to less time than they’ve served – but not before their stay in prison wreaks havoc on their lives and families.
More than 60% of female prisoners in the UK are mothers, and it is estimated that at least 100 babies are born to women in prison in England and Wales each year. The risks of imprisonment to the physical health of pregnant women and their babies are well documented and shocking, with data showing that women in prison are seven times more likely to suffer a stillbirth. Recent weeks have revealed that pregnant women at Bronzefield prison are regularly handcuffed while giving birth; a greater indignity is difficult to imagine.
And many women enter the system with significant trauma. Nearly two-thirds of women in the criminal justice system have experienced domestic abuse; many have experienced childhood trauma, mental health problems or homelessness. Passing through the criminal justice gateway invariably makes things a lot worse, not better.
Despite this, there are a staggering twice as many women in prison as there were 30 years ago. To go back to my question –why does the state continue to lock up increasing numbers of women, and what does society stand to gain?
It seems clear to me, and to all in the sector, that prisons are failing women. The fact that upon release – sometimes to homelessness – many of these women go on to reoffend, shows the system simply doesn’t work. There are some extraordinary NGOs– Women in Prison, the Nelson Trust, Working Chance, Birth Companions and more – working to address the acute challenges faced by women in the penal system. But until government follows the overwhelming evidence base and invests in diversion and support in the community for women, the disaster will continue. The various assaults on the Probation Service over 14 years of the Tories can not be remedied with warm words of support. You do not undo years of under investment with further underinvestment.
With the Sentencing Review, the new Woman’s Justice Board and the government’s recent acknowledgement that ‘we are sending too many women to prison’, I am cautiously optimistic. I only hope that the government will be politically courageous enough to undo the decades of harm endured by women in the criminal justice system. And that they will put their money where their mouth is.
One Response
I completed my Probation Officers qualification using The Corston Report 2007. What was the point of authorising a report like that and then ignoring it completely? I had a case of a female, in her fifties, whereby all her adult life she’d been in and out of prison, mainly shop theft drug related offences until she stabbed a man. She had been procured ‘by her father’ for a pedophile ring from the age of eight. Unbelievable the lack of support that she had.