Punishment for Women:
Key Question: Should punishment for men and women be the same? Is prison appropriate for
women?
What is a typical background of a female offender?
Abuse and domestic violence are usually present in their past. Women have various
vulnerabilities in regards to their different circumstances.
Domestic circumstances: experience of domestic abuse and/or childcare
responsibilities
Personal circumstances: mental ill health, self-harm, substance misuse. These
circumstances are arguably connected to trauma and abuse.
Socio economic circumstances: poverty, debt, unemployment, homelessness.
Women prisoners often also have disproportionate rates of being in care.
What contributes to differences between male and female offending?
There are gender differences in socialisation and upbringing, the organisation of
social life, and the availability of criminal opportunities.
All of the above contribute to differences in men’s and women’s routes/pathways
into crime and in the nature and context of their criminal acts.
Women’s welfare needs are arguably inseparable from their ‘criminogenic’ needs,
which indicates need for a holistic and flexible rehabilitation approach that can
address health, housing, relationships, victimisation, finances, children/child custody,
etc., as well as offending behaviour.
Women-only spaces important due to frequent experiences of victimisation by men.
How does prison look from a gender perspective?
The women’s prison population in England and Wales more than doubled between
1995 and 2010.
Women are a small minority of those in the criminal justice system, representing less
than 5% of the prison population, and are easily overlooked in policy, planning, and
services - they have been described as 'correctional afterthoughts'
84% of sentenced women entering prison had committed a non-violent offence.
Prison is not appropriate for women discuss:
The negative impact of prison on women:
Strain on relationships:
Women are imprisoned further from home and receive fewer visits. This adversely
affects their capacity to maintain relationships and family contact.
, While women are held on average 64 miles from home (compared to 50 miles for
men), 47 for many women the distances are much greater, adding to the difficulty
and expense of prison visits.
In HMP Eastwood Park, where women from South Wales are commonly sent, 20% of
women are over 150 miles from home.
Since the closure of HMP Holloway in June 2016 there is no women’s prison in
London.
The final Independent Monitoring Board on HMP Holloway reported that women
were anxious about moving further from home and worried “that their families and
children might not be able to visit them as often or at all.”
Research suggests half of all women on remand receive no visits compared to a
quarter of men.
Prisoners who receive no visits are significantly more likely to reoffend than others.
Mental Health and Self-Harm:
Women are much more likely than men to harm themselves whilst in prison,
accounting for 19% of self-harm incidents despite comprising just 5% of the prison
population.
The reasons for this include women’s histories of sexual abuse and trauma, their
guilt and distress at separation from their children, and mental illness.
Between January 2015 and December 2016, 30 women died in custody; 2/3 of these
deaths were self-inflicted.
Re-offending and Housing Loss:
Many women lose their homes and possessions as a result of imprisonment and 60%
of women do not have homes to go to on release.
Without accommodation, it is much harder to get a job or training placement,
arrange benefits or care for children.
Imprisonment usually compounds a woman’s problems, and short custodial
sentences have the worst reoffending outcomes.
Overall, 48% of women leaving prison are reconvicted within one year but for those
serving sentences of less than 12 months, the reconviction rate rises to 61%.
Women released from custody are also more likely to reoffend (and reoffend
sooner) than those serving community sentences.
The case for introducing women’s centres:
In an evaluation of sixteen women’s community justice services (WCJS) in Scotland,
most of the women (83%) had made progress, and WCJSs were found highly
effective in helping to stabilise women’s lives and promote readiness to change.
The holistic approach taken by Women’s Centres enables women to achieve positive
outcomes in multiple areas, for example health, education, relationships, resilience,
and social integration.
Key Question: Should punishment for men and women be the same? Is prison appropriate for
women?
What is a typical background of a female offender?
Abuse and domestic violence are usually present in their past. Women have various
vulnerabilities in regards to their different circumstances.
Domestic circumstances: experience of domestic abuse and/or childcare
responsibilities
Personal circumstances: mental ill health, self-harm, substance misuse. These
circumstances are arguably connected to trauma and abuse.
Socio economic circumstances: poverty, debt, unemployment, homelessness.
Women prisoners often also have disproportionate rates of being in care.
What contributes to differences between male and female offending?
There are gender differences in socialisation and upbringing, the organisation of
social life, and the availability of criminal opportunities.
All of the above contribute to differences in men’s and women’s routes/pathways
into crime and in the nature and context of their criminal acts.
Women’s welfare needs are arguably inseparable from their ‘criminogenic’ needs,
which indicates need for a holistic and flexible rehabilitation approach that can
address health, housing, relationships, victimisation, finances, children/child custody,
etc., as well as offending behaviour.
Women-only spaces important due to frequent experiences of victimisation by men.
How does prison look from a gender perspective?
The women’s prison population in England and Wales more than doubled between
1995 and 2010.
Women are a small minority of those in the criminal justice system, representing less
than 5% of the prison population, and are easily overlooked in policy, planning, and
services - they have been described as 'correctional afterthoughts'
84% of sentenced women entering prison had committed a non-violent offence.
Prison is not appropriate for women discuss:
The negative impact of prison on women:
Strain on relationships:
Women are imprisoned further from home and receive fewer visits. This adversely
affects their capacity to maintain relationships and family contact.
, While women are held on average 64 miles from home (compared to 50 miles for
men), 47 for many women the distances are much greater, adding to the difficulty
and expense of prison visits.
In HMP Eastwood Park, where women from South Wales are commonly sent, 20% of
women are over 150 miles from home.
Since the closure of HMP Holloway in June 2016 there is no women’s prison in
London.
The final Independent Monitoring Board on HMP Holloway reported that women
were anxious about moving further from home and worried “that their families and
children might not be able to visit them as often or at all.”
Research suggests half of all women on remand receive no visits compared to a
quarter of men.
Prisoners who receive no visits are significantly more likely to reoffend than others.
Mental Health and Self-Harm:
Women are much more likely than men to harm themselves whilst in prison,
accounting for 19% of self-harm incidents despite comprising just 5% of the prison
population.
The reasons for this include women’s histories of sexual abuse and trauma, their
guilt and distress at separation from their children, and mental illness.
Between January 2015 and December 2016, 30 women died in custody; 2/3 of these
deaths were self-inflicted.
Re-offending and Housing Loss:
Many women lose their homes and possessions as a result of imprisonment and 60%
of women do not have homes to go to on release.
Without accommodation, it is much harder to get a job or training placement,
arrange benefits or care for children.
Imprisonment usually compounds a woman’s problems, and short custodial
sentences have the worst reoffending outcomes.
Overall, 48% of women leaving prison are reconvicted within one year but for those
serving sentences of less than 12 months, the reconviction rate rises to 61%.
Women released from custody are also more likely to reoffend (and reoffend
sooner) than those serving community sentences.
The case for introducing women’s centres:
In an evaluation of sixteen women’s community justice services (WCJS) in Scotland,
most of the women (83%) had made progress, and WCJSs were found highly
effective in helping to stabilise women’s lives and promote readiness to change.
The holistic approach taken by Women’s Centres enables women to achieve positive
outcomes in multiple areas, for example health, education, relationships, resilience,
and social integration.
