Collaborative community-based approaches to reducing women’s offending

The Prison Reform Trust has published a report that profiles innovative approaches to reducing women’s offending and imprisonment, and calls for the development of coordinated services that bring together police, health, women’s services and local authorities to help women turn their lives around. Brighter Futures: Working Together to Reduce Women’s Offending makes the case for coordinated multi-agency responses, and identifies opportunities to improve early interventions and co-commission services to deliver better outcomes for women, families and communities. It has been researched in the context of the Prison Reform Trust’s programme to reduce women’s imprisonment and presents a wide range of data on women in the criminal justice system, highlighting how their offending patterns, characteristics and needs differ from those of men. This is timely in light of the imminent commencement of the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014, section 10 of which requires the Secretary of State for Justice to ensure that contracts with supervision and rehabilitation services consider and identify provision for women.

The report emphasizes the need to join the dots between violence against women and their offending – a point made in a recent inspectorate report on improving the police response to domestic abuse, and reinforced by the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls who said, following her mission to the UK, which included a visit to HMP Holloway, that ‘it is crucial to recognize women’s histories of victimization when making decisions about incarceration’. ¹

Supporting women at an early stage to help them address the causes of their offending would cut crime, reduce women’s prison numbers, reduce impacts on children and families, and save taxpayers’ money. Pressures on local budgets and the introduction of payment by results in the justice system, plus mounting evidence for the cost effectiveness of specialist women’s services, make it worth reviewing how services for women at risk of offending are designed and delivered. Research by the new economics foundation (nef) found that for every pound invested in support-focused alternatives to prison, £14 worth of social value is generated to women and their children, victims and society generally over 10 years.

The report provides practical examples of effective partnerships between criminal justice agencies, particularly police and probation services, and local women’s services. The Hull women’s triage project, for example, is jointly delivered by local police, youth justice services, drugs treatment services and the Together Women Project. The scheme refers women who are assessed as suitable to receive tailored support, building on the success of the existing youth justice triage scheme. Early signs are that it is having a positive impact, with fewer women being charged and a very low reoffending rate. A number of other ‘pathfinder’ schemes have been developed with support from the Home Office and College of Policing, and the report recommends that every police force should consider developing a ‘triage’ scheme specifically for women and every IOM partnership should develop women-specific approaches. Also featured are NHS-funded Liaison and Diversion Services that assist police custody and court staff in identifying suspects and defendants with mental health needs, learning disabilities and substance misuse problems. Although women in the criminal justice system are disproportionately affected by unmet health and social care needs, this is often overlooked.

Finally, the report reminds us that there is public support for alternative approaches to addressing offending by women. An ICM poll showed that 80 per cent of 1000 adults surveyed strongly agreed that local women’s centres, where women address the root causes of their crime and do compulsory work in the community, should be available as a sentencing option. Another ICM poll found that 73 per cent thought that mothers of young children should not be sent to prison for non-violent crime.

The report makes a number of recommendations about pooled budgets and co-funding of women’s services, the mapping of local needs, development of a common screening tool, and the need to build on models of good practice. It also contains a directory of women’s services as a resource for practitioners and policy makers.