Corston Coalition » prison

Penal reform must not be gender neutral

Antonia Bance — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 11:16:16 +0000

Great article on Comment is Free by Yvonne Roberts, one of the trustees of Women in Prison:

In 2009, the Ministry of Justice allocated over £15m to develop a range of services to divert women from custody – that is welcome (if funding is sustained) but it is loose change compared with the cost of keeping a growing number incarcerated at a price of £41,00 per year, per prisoner. If community-based punishment and a reduction in recidivism is to be achieved, that requires a proper investment with a view to the long-term savings not a cheap-rate move driven by cuts. Reducing the prison-building programme while offering inadequate community punishments and insufficient support to step through a door to a different life may put the public at risk, while exacerbating reoffending and setting penal reform back even further.

How would women prisoners vote, if they could?

Antonia Bance — Tue, 11 May 2010 10:09:14 +0000

Here is a fascinating short piece from Nacro about a discussion between women prisoners about the election.

Photo: secretlondon123 2009

Invest in “not prison”

Antonia Bance — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:28:24 +0000

Launching her annual report, the Chief Inspector of Prisons says in the Guardian:
“Investing in prisons is not enough; we need to invest in ‘not prison’. I said it eight years ago when I became chief inspector, and it remains true. We need, as the all-party Justice Committee said recently, to “shift resources away from incarceration towards rehabilitation and prevention”.

Diverting women away from crime

Antonia Bance — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:00:30 +0000

Today the government have announced their new strategy for diverting women away from crime, which sets out their progress two years on from accepting the recommendations of the Corston Report.

The Ministry of Justice press release says:

Today Justice Minister Maria Eagle announced a commitment to reduce women’s prison places by 400 before March 2012 so funding can be diverted for specialist services in the community. [...] The women’s community projects will offer courts a tough and credible alternative to short prison sentences. They will all tackle women’s needs in order to reduce their risk of further offending. Many of the projects will offer Community Payback work and supervision requirements as part of a Community Order, enabling women to address their offending behaviour in addition to being punished for their offence. These sentences can be more effective in cutting further offending.

Jack Straw says punish women ‘in the community’

Antonia Bance — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:26:54 +0000

Today the Justice Secretary has spoken about how wrong it is to lock up vulnerable non-violent women offenders: “While there is a consensus that we need to be tougher on male offenders there is also a broad consensus that where possible we should punish and reform females in the community and not in prisons,” said Mr Straw. [...] “We have to be sensible and humane in getting offending down in men and women, and we have to have different, but firm, approaches”.