Preventing the deaths of women in prison

Date01 September 2017
Published date01 September 2017
DOI10.1177/0264550517726459
Subject MatterResearch & reports
£50 million earmarked to build five new women’s prisons should be re-directed
away from the Ministry of Justice to the DCLG and cross-departmental body to better
resource the prevention work with women.
The aim within a robust, integrated approach is to support women in such a way
as to avoid them being criminalized further, and to enable women to access
diversionary interventions, with the police being the gatekeepers to alter the way
they respond to troubled women who present with multiple, complex needs.
Hogarth recognizes that the networks of women-centred community projects need
rebuilding, expanding and nurturing for these interventions to be embedded within
local communities. Thus, gender-specific provisions to meet women’s social, emo-
tional and health needs must be available and accessible in the mainstream,
meaning women can access services regardless of their criminal justice status.
Ultimately, Hogarth demands urgent rethinking of the penal policy which fuels the
inappropriate use of imprisonment for low-risk women, because this is not providing
the necessary environment to meet their specific needs. Moreover, the solutions rest
outside of the justice system, and Hogarth reminds us: ‘There is an urgent need to
break out of the “justice loop” now and broaden the focus, shifting the attention up-
stream on how best to stem the flow of women into the CJS’ (p. 7).
Trapped in the Justice Loop? Past, Present and Future of the Woman-Centred Ser-
vices at the Heart of the Systems-Change Called for in the Corston Report, by Liz
Hogarth, published May 2017 by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. Avail-
able to download at: https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publications/trapped-
justice-loop
Shelly-Ann McDermott
Community Rehabilitation Company (London)
Preventing the deaths of women in prison
Following 12 self-inflicted deaths in 2016 in women’s prisons in England, which
was the highest number recorded since 2004, the Independent Advisory Panel (IAP)
began an information-gathering exercise with numerous professionals and women
in prison which has informed this paper. This is a working paper that will be
updated and developed as the findings are discussed with Ministers, operational
leads and experts. The focus of the exercise was to draw up a comprehensive set of
facts and recommendations to enable policy-makers to act on what works to keep
women safe before, during and after custody.
It is worth referring to statisticsthat have been collated by differentbodies that have
recognized the complexity of women’s needs. Once in custody, statistics show that
women are more than twice as likely as men to harm themselves. Despite women
comprisingonly 5 per cent of the prison population, theyaccount for over 20 per cent
of self-harm incidents. In 2013, it was identified that 66 per cent of women and 38
per cent of men in custody reported that their offences were to support drug misuse,
and 48 per cent of women prisoners said their offenceswere committed to support the
296 Probation Journal 64(3)

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