WE MUST STOP LOCKING UP SO MANY WOMEN

Leading Human Rights Barrister, Cherie Booth, QC, Questions The Way We
Treat Damaged Offenders

Visiting any prison tends to be a pretty bleak experience. But in my
experience, a women's prison almost always has a more depressing
impact on the visitor.

You can't help but notice the greater levels of distress and despair
among women prisoners than those in comparable men's jails. I have
become convinced that the main reason is the greater number of women
prisoners suffering some form of mental illness.

The sad fact is that many women entering prison arrive in a dreadful
state with acute physical and mental health needs. A recent report
from the Prison Reform Trust revealed that two-thirds of women
prisoners suffer from a mental disorder. They have 14 times the rate
of severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia, as the female
population as a whole. And, of all the women in prison, 40 per cent
have attempted suicide at some time in their lives.

I am not suggesting that we treat women offenders with kid gloves or
that criminals, just because of their sex, should escape paying their
debt to society. Women who offend must, just like men, be called to
account and account for what they have done. And that must mean prison
for those who commit serious crimes or are a danger to the community.

But it is also true that our prisons are full of distressed women who,
rather than being career criminals or a danger to anyone but
themselves, are inside because they have made some terrible mistakes
or choices in their lives. Many are serving short sentences for
non-violent crimes. Prison is a very expensive way of protecting the
community from petty offenders. There is no doubt either that it is a
harsh place, no matter what the dedication and compassion of staff,
for those who are mentally ill.

Everyone has a choice not to commit crime. But that choice is harder
when, after years of being the victim of domestic violence or sexual
abuse, you have lost all respect for yourself and others. It is harder
still when you are addicted to drugs or have stopped caring whether
you live or die. Each of these factors not only makes the choice less
clear cut but also places an immense challenge on prisons and staff
once the women are inmates.

Prison is never going to be the best place for women to rebuild their
lives. Prisons are not hospitals or treatment centres. They are not
social services or housing advice offices nor does anyone claim that
their primary purpose is to teach inmates new skills or find them
employment. Prisons are - or at least should be - places of absolute
last resort for women whose offending is so serious that there can be
no alternative to custody. I'm not sure that is always the case.

That is why I welcome the Fawcett Society conference this week which
calls for us all to stop and consider how we treat the most damaged
women - and particular offenders with young children - in our society.

The first step is to tackle the main reasons women commit crimes and
there is a great deal of good work going on in this area already. As
the Home Office's Strategy on Women's Offenders made clear: 'The best
way to reduce women's offending is to improve women's access to work;
to improve women's mental health services; to tackle drug abuse by
women; to improve family ties and to improve the life chances of young
women at school and in the community.'

So the extra investment from this Government being put into mental
health, into drug treatment and into education is money well spent.

But I believe we need to go further, as the Government recognises, so
that our society considers more carefully and imaginatively the ways
the public can be protected and the ways women offenders can meet
their debt without imprisoning so many of them. Judges and
magistrates, for instance, must make more use of the discretion they
have to take account of mitigating factors like mental illness when
passing sentence. We must think through more clearly and in every case
the social outcomes of sending vulnerable women to jail for relatively
minor offences.

Nor can it be right, or help anyone, that prison separates more than
17,000 children from their mothers. This can only reinforce a cycle of
poverty and crime. We need to make greater use of community penalties
so female offenders can make amends for their crimes without
unnecessary damage to themselves and their children.

We must also balance increased investment in new prison building with
investment in developing other effective non-custodial options to
enable a woman offender to repay directly to her victim or do enforced
community work.

It is no soft option to be tagged electronically, to be forced to take
responsibility for your children and to undertake treatment for drink
or drug addiction in order to stay out of prison.

We also need to invest in schemes so offenders with acute mental
problems or at risk of suicide can be given hospital places or the
treatment they need. And there is increased scope to keep women
awaiting trial out of jail. Last year more than half of the women held
on remand were not given custodial sentence when they reached court
while a fifth were acquitted.

In the past 10 years the women's prison population has increased by
173 per cent, with courts sending more women into custody for longer
despite there being no substantial difference in the seriousness of
their offences. The Government recognises the scale of the challenge
and wants to improve provision for women offenders and stem the rise
in the female prison population.

The Home Office action plan sets out detailed and practical steps to
reduce the number of women in prison by using community sentences and
diverting offenders into mental health and drug treatment. But we need
to keep up pressure right through the legal system to ensure this
ambition is met.