Statistics on women and the criminal justice system: A Home Office publication under Section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991—2004/05
| Date | 01 June 2007 |
| DOI | 10.1177/02645505070540020502 |
| Published date | 01 June 2007 |
| Author | Sarah Dubberley |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Statistics on women and the criminal justice system:
A Home Office publication under Section 95 of the
Criminal Justice Act 1991–2004/05
Statistics on Women and the Criminal Justice System is a continuation of previous
publications provided under Section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991. This report
covers the period of 2004 to 2005.
The report highlights statistics on women in the criminal justice system within a
number of key areas: demographic background; offending; arrests and police
disposals; mode of trial and court outcome; sentencing; offender management;
women in custody; reconvictions; victims of crime; confidence in the criminal
justice system and female practitioners in the criminal justice system.
Unlike previous reports in this series the format for all key areas (apart from
female practitioners in the criminal justice system) disappointingly involves a
simple list of titles of relevant reports together with a list of tables which can all
be accessed by means of a web link. The web links provide direct access to already
published online material. However, a positive aspect is that guidance is given
within each key area, to assist the reader to specifically examine and locate the
data on women and girls alone. This is beneficial when researching specifically
for material on women within the criminal justice system. It is also good to see
that the summaries also provide information and access to reports dedicated to
young people and offending, thus providing the necessary links to the youth justice
board web site and the relevant reports. But it is disappointing that key findings
from these various reports and the specific data relating to women has not been
distilled and included within this report.
The specific section on female practitioners in the criminal justice system varies
from the other areas, as detail is given within the report, where this information
is not available online. The data shows that within the prison service 34 per cent
are female officers and 66 per cent are male officers, and for the forensic science
service 57.5 per cent are female practitioners and 42.5 per cent are male prac-
titioners. Some discussion on the data would have been useful rather than present-
ing the figures alone.
In conclusion, this report generally fails to provide statistical data on women in
the criminal justice system and does not highlight any key trends as one would
expect. It contains no detailed analysis on the specific sections mentioned. Instead
it directs the reader to the relevant web links reports and tables. This is useful, but
without a degree of tenacity, and good internet access (which is not available to
all), it will be difficult to begin to explore and examine the numerous web links
(over sixty in all).
The report Statistics on Women and the Criminal Justice System, 2004/05, Home
Office, 23 pp is available free to download from http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/
rds/pdfs06/s95women0405.pdf
Sarah Dubberley
Lecturer in Criminal Justice, University of Wales, NEWI
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