A review of women-centred services: Ten years on from the Corston Report
| Author | Shelly-Ann McDermott |
| Published date | 01 September 2017 |
| Date | 01 September 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0264550517724048a |
| Subject Matter | Research & reports |
A review of women-centred services: Ten years on from
the Corston Report
The author of this report, Liz Hogarth, worked closely with Baroness Corston in the
production of the influential 2007 Corston Report on women in the criminal justice
system. Hogarth was also heavily involved in the implementation of the recom-
mendations following the Corston Report as the Ministry of Justice policy lead on
women. She is therefore well placed to conduct this review, ten years on, into the
woman-centred services called for in Baroness Corston’s recommendations. The
paper takes a policy perspective to reflect on what went wrong, explain the reasons
and offer a ‘reality check’, with recommendations on ways forward.
This review demonstrates that renewed focused is needed to achieve the system’s
change that was widely agreed, following the Corston Report, to better address the
specific needs of women within the criminal justice system, those at risk of being
criminalized, and those repeatedly failed by the wider social justice systems. The
paper is well structured, providing a journey through the hope and elation imme-
diately following the publication of the Corston Report, to the momentum gained in
the three-year implementation of the National Service Framework strategy, to the
lack of progress on the prevention, health and diversionary components.
The cornerstone of Corston’s system change is holistic, women-centred provision,
but this agenda has not flourished within the confines of a criminal justice arena.
Sadly, ten years on, Hogarth concludes that ‘nothing has really changed’ because
imprisonment is still over-used, the ‘justice loop’ ‘fixation with internal tinkering’ has
‘achieved nothing’ to improve the criminal justice system, and community sentences
are being imposed less frequently (p. 6). Critically, one catalyst for Baroness Cor-
ston’s review was the tragic deaths of women in custody, and ten years on,
shockingly, it is a worse situation with increasing numbers of self-inflicted deaths
amongst women who are drawn into the criminal justice system after being
repeatedly failed by health and social care systems.
The review concludes with seven well-argued policy recommendations to direct
the way forward. Crucially, the over-use of imprisonment for women who pose a
low risk of serious harm and are committing ‘nuisance’ crimes rather than serious
offences is problematic within the sentencing framework. There is also a tendency to
consider prison as a pseudo-assessment venue for those women suffering the impact
of trauma, mental health, addiction and lack of housing. Thus, Hogarth argues
clearly in her ensuing recommendations for the shift of focus away from sentencing
and criminal justice to ‘“whole system” thinking’ (p. 8).
The Corston blueprint, whereby networks of integrated, holistic and women-
centred delivery structures boldly take on a prevention agenda, requires that the
Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) take ownership, away
from a criminal justice-led agenda. To ensure these provisions are developed and
delivered within mainstream services, this must include a cross-departmental gov-
ernance approach to include the Department of Health, local authorities, police and
crime commissioners and several other ‘whole system’ governance structures. The
Research & reports 295
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