The Corston Coalition have responded to this Green Paper. Our full response is here.

In summary, we believe that the proposals in the Green Paper need to be brought together in a clear action plan for women offenders. This action plan should include:

A recommitment to the principle that community penalties should be the norm for women offenders
Guaranteed visible senior leadership for the programme, supported by dedicated women’s operational team and local champions for women offenders. This senior leadership role or mechanism should be accountable for the transformation of justice for women and should lead cross-governmental efforts to reduce women’s offending and ensure the needs of women with multiple needs and chaotic lives are met
A timetable to reduce the capacity of the women’s prison estate, and to re-direct this funding into provision for women offenders in the community
A commitment to ensuring that all payment by results commissioned contracts for the delivery of community sentences, resettlement of short-sentenced prisoners and drug rehabilitation will specify women-specific outcomes and will require a women-specific work stream. This should build on the knowledge gained from the women’s community projects programme funded by the Ministry of Justice since 2009.
National work plans to improve support for women in the criminal justice system who have experienced domestic or sexual violence or who have been involved in prostitution
A commitment to ensuring that all mental health liaison and diversion services have specialist services for women, building on the best practice in the sector

We also believe that, in pursuit of the public service reform objectives which are part of the Big Society, the Government should develop payment by results commissioning that explicitly facilitates the engagement of the voluntary and community sector, including small and specialist charities. We recommend the creation of specific support programmes to enable charities to compete for commissioned contracts, and for further attention to be paid to financing models for charitable providers.

The Corston Independent Funders’ Coalition is very pleased to note the new government’s commitment to the Corston report’s recommendations. Asked in Parliament on 20th July 2010 about the effectiveness of short prison sentences for women offenders, the new Prisons Minister, Crispin Blunt, replied:

Short sentences for men have proved pretty ineffective, and I think that short sentences for women are even more ineffective and deleterious. We support the conclusions of the Corston report, we are conducting an analysis of the effectiveness of different sentences as part of the current sentencing review, we are committed to reducing the number of women in prison, and a network of women-only community provision is being developed to support robust community sentences.

In February 2010, the Corston Independent Funders’ Coalition and the Ministry of Justice announced the creation of a joint £2m fund to divert women from custody. The Women’s Diversionary Fund focuses on:
- Supporting organisations to develop new one-stop-shop services for women offenders
- Developing existing one-stop-shop services further
- Building the capacity of the women’s offending sector

The projects supported are:
Nottingham Women’s Centre – to develop the centre’s services and diversionary activities for women offenders
Advance – to fund a criminal justice worker for its Minerva women offenders’ project in Brent and Hammersmith & Fulham
The Relationships Centre – to develop their services for women offenders at Halton Women’s Centre
Novas Scarman Group – to provide a court and outreach service for women offenders in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire
One25 – to fund a criminal justice caseworker to work with female street sex workers in Bristol
YWCA England & Wales – to develop their services for women offenders in Cornwall
Hafan Cymru – to expand its work with young women offenders in Powys and Ceredigion
Clean Break – to expand its work with women offenders in London
The Women’s Centre Forum (grant held by WomenCentre Ltd) – to develop and independent national forum for diversionary and community services for women offenders and women at risk of offending.

This first issue will fund social organisations working to reduce the re-offending rates of short sentence male prisoners leaving Peterborough Prison. The Ministry of Justice has agreed to make payments to investors in the event that re-offending is reduced below an agreed threshold. [...] During the Peterborough Prison pilot, experienced social sector organisations, such as St Giles Trust, will provide intensive support to 3,000 short-term prisoners over a six year period, both inside prison and after release, to help them resettle into the community. If this initiative reduces re-offending by 7.5%, or more, investors will receive from Government a share of the long term savings. If the SiB delivers a drop in re-offending beyond the threshold, investors will receive an increasing return the greater the success at achieving the social outcome, up to a maximum of 13%.

This offers a new way of financing early intervention; we hope that this first project, working with male offenders, will lead in future to the availability of new sources of finance for working with women offenders in the community.