Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, I have spoken on this issue on a number of previous occasions. I particularly recall the moving debate on this subject initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. We must accept that factors which affect female offenders are fairly complex. The use of more non-custodial options seems to bypass female offenders. We are told that the reason why we do not have a separate framework in law for women is because we have a different structure for them. When I last spoke in a similar debate, I was told that to go down the route towards a women’s justice board could risk marginalising women further when what is needed is to mainstream the provision that we give women and ensure that under the national offender management structure sufficient priority is given to service provision for and management of female offenders. The fact remains that there are shared issues and special and specific issues which affect women. I wish to spell out in what ways female offenders’ characteristics and needs are different from those of male offenders, and what needs to be done about this. First, a much higher proportion of female prisoners have mental health problems than do male prisoners. Surveys show that more women prisoners have a psychiatric history before entering prison. Many more have histories of self-harm than male prisoners, as explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Stern. More have personality disorders, neurotic disorders, learning disabilities and problems of substance abuse, and much more, as far as having more than one diagnosis is concerned. Many more women prisoners have suffered past physical or sexual abuse at the hands of adults or partners. Secondly, a much higher proportion of women prisoners are sole carers for young children. In most cases where male prisoners are parents of young children, the child’s mother is looking after them on the outside, but in only a quarter of cases of mothers in prison are the children being looked after by their current or former partners. Thirdly, because there are far fewer prisons holding female prisoners, women are much more likely to be imprisoned a long way away from their home areas. This makes visits from their children and other relatives more difficult. Over the last 18 years the courts have responded to the growing mood of toughness in penal policy by adopting a more punitive stance towards women offenders. During that time the number of women prisoners has risen more than twice as fast as the male prison population. Yet most women sent to prison are neither violent nor dangerous and the majority have few previous convictions. Against this background, what is the case for the establishment of a women’s justice board? The analogy the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, made with the Youth Justice Board is very appropriate. The Youth Justice Board has set standards for provision for young offenders; commissioned provision for young offenders; and developed initiatives ranging from intensive supervision and surveillance schemes for persistent young offenders, to youth inclusion programmes for young people at risk of offending. There is an equally strong case for the establishment of a women’s justice board. A women’s justice board with responsibility for commissioning provision for women offenders could set standards to ensure that provision meets women prisoners’ particular needs. This would include standards meeting women offenders’ needs for mental health services, for the maintenance of family contact and for culturally appropriate support for foreign national prisoners. A women’s justice board could commission smaller units for imprisoned women spread around the country, so that women could be held nearer their families and home areas. In short, the establishment of a women’s justice board could be the single most important step we could take towards improving the treatment of women offenders. These amendments will go a long way to deal with the issues I have identified.