The case for reform of responses to women's offending - an Intern's Perspective

20th June 2011

We are all aware of the many issues that face those who come into contact with the criminal justice system. While the majority of prisoners in Ireland and the UK are men, women’s issues receive considerably less attention than those of the mainstream prison population. The number of women in prison in the UK has risen by 114% in the last 15 years according to a new report from the Prison Reform Trust, Reforming Women’s Justice. The report emphasizes the importance of reform in women’s justice. Often women’s issues can be better addressed through service provision rather than a prison sentence.

Personally, women offenders’ issues were not an area that I had read about or was familiar with until recently. However, this report is an innovative proposal to reforming the way we look at criminal behaviour and also includes a proposed multi-dimensional process of interlinking services concerned primarily with women’s justice.

The report details that the reasons behind women’s’ offending behaviour are ingrained in social and personal problems which have a profound affect on their wider social and family circumstances. For women, offending is not a one-dimensional phenomenon. It is an issue which can largely be explained through their socio-economic background and personal history. For instance, this research reports that many women in the criminal justice system have been victims of sexual assault, subjected to abuse, have experienced domestic violence, and that a high proportion of foreign national female prisoners have been victims of trafficking. This all tallies with initial findings of a similar, Ireland-based research study being carried out by researchers in Trinity College, Dublin entitled Homeless women and Incarceration. Those preliminary finding, reported in The Irish Examiner, found that a significant percentage of women in prison had suffered from mental health problems and had experienced intimate partner violence.

Of further concern is that children become victims through parents’ incarceration. The rise in female imprisonment means that more children than ever are living separated from their mothers. Often they will be placed in care or with a member of their extended family. Only 5% of children remain in the family home while their mother is in custody.

When you consider that children who are separated from their mothers are more likely to offend, or experience mental health problems, the impact of women’s incarceration is multiplied further.

As an extension to this problem, women continue to struggle when they are released from prison. This lack of stability is detrimental to regaining custody of their children, and the report states that they are more unlikely to secure accommodation if their children are not living with them.

Reforming Women’s Justice recommends that women’s prisons be made redundant, and for funds to instead be directed towards women’s centres based in community settings. It emphasises that while crime should be punished, it should be proportionate and rehabilitative. It should allow women to access essential services for their successful rehabilitation and address their behavioural problems.

The report further recommends for a designated woman’s justice agency to be appointed to oversee the co-ordination of women’s services and to ensure that all justice agencies, including the police, probation and prisons, are appropriately resourced to deal with women’s offending.

Currently, women make up 3.9% of the prison population in Ireland. While this number is relatively small, women’s facilities are seriously overcrowded which is undermining the ability of prison staff to deliver rehabilitative regimes for women. The Inspector of Prisons recently criticised the lack of pre-release programmes for female prisoners especially in regard to health, and welfare information. Women are detained in medium security prisons when open type facilities would be much more appropriate for their needs, especially since a large number are serving short sentences.

Overall, this new report demonstrates how the approach to women’s offending can be more successfully balanced according to their care needs. While imprisonment is sometimes necessary, it does not mean that the underlying reasons for women’s behaviour should continue to go on ignored.

Maggie Coughlan - IPRT Intern

Read the full report Reforming Women's Justice