The Prison Reform Trust (PRT) has criticised the Government’s reply to the Women’s Justice Board (WJB), whose proposals aim to cut the number of women in prison. The PRT said it felt disappointed and that the response lacks ‘ambition’.
The WJB report came out in March. It urged the MoJ and the Welsh Government to create a Women’s Justice Reform Programme to run for two to three years.
That programme would “drive” the implementation of proposals from two earlier reviews. One was the Independent Sentencing Review; the other examined the court system.
The board also wanted both governments to find ways to provide women-only accommodation and healthcare pathways. It called too for a transformation in how specialist services and other support for women receive funding.
According to the PRT, the Government’s response restates its commitment to better outcomes for women and has some helpful elements. These include continued ministerial leadership and action across government. However, the PRT said the response fails to engage with the substance of the WJB’s recommendations. It falls short of the “drive and ambition” a sustained approach requires, the PRT said.
The PRT has also published a report of its own. It cites Greater Manchester, which has long taken a whole-system approach to women, as a positive example.
There, the mayor and local leaders work with specialist women’s services and statutory partners. Together they intervene earlier, divert women from custody and tackle wider drivers of offending.
The report warns, however, that local innovation cannot substitute for national leadership. It says the Government’s next phase of women’s justice reform must launch, resource and replicate models like Greater Manchester’s.
The PRT notes that the new Prime Minister was previously Mayor of Greater Manchester. It suggests a new approach along these lines may therefore be possible.
Pia Sinha, Chief Executive of the PRT, said the response contained some welcome commitments. But she said it lacked the clarity and ambition needed to build and sustain momentum for reform.
She described the Government’s choice not to respond directly to the WJB’s recommendations as particularly disappointing. “Those recommendations provided a clear, practical route forward,” she said. In their place, she said, came a statement that once again felt vague about how change would happen.
Ms Sinha said the PRT had recently urged the Government not to lose momentum on its commitment to reduce women’s imprisonment. The PRT had called for decisive and sustained focus on investment and implementation.
She added: “Their announcement keeps the agenda alive, but without the substance required to move forward with confidence.”
