Prison Reform Trust submission
Consultation for the second Mayoral strategy on violence against
women and girls (2013-17)
The Prison Reform Trust is an independent UK charity working to create a just,
humane and effective prison system. We have a longstanding interest in improving
criminal justice outcomes for women and are currently pursuing a three year
strategy, supported by the Pilgrim Trust, to reduce the unnecessary imprisonment of
women.
We welcome the opportunity to respond to this consultation and are very pleased to
see the links between women’s imprisonment and their experience of sexual abuse
and/or domestic violence acknowledged in the consultation paper. Reducing the
incidence of violence against women and girls is key to reducing the risk of their
involvement in offending. We have chosen to respond only to those questions that
fall within our criminal justice remit and on which we have expertise. We also enclose
with this response our response to the MOPAC Police and Crime Plan.
Violence against women and girls and women’s offending
Research as well as experience among a wide range of service providers, indicate
that women’s exposure to coercive and abusive relationships is a major driver of
their offending.
•
More than half of the women in prison (53%) report having experienced emotional,
physical or sexual abuse as a child, compared to 27% of men.1 A similar proportion
report having been victims of domestic violence, though this is likely to be an underestimate. Women can become trapped in a vicious cycle of victimisation and criminal
activity. Their situation can be worsened by poverty, substance dependency or poor
mental health.2 The charity Women in Prison report that 79% of the women who use
their services have experienced domestic violence and/or sexual abuse.3
•
Women’s offending is more likely than men’s to be prompted by their relationships or
by financial concerns. Nearly half of women prisoners (48%) questioned for the
Surveying Prisoner Crime Reduction (SPCR) longitudinal survey reported having
committed offences to support someone else’s drug use, compared to 22% of male
prisoners.4 A Cabinet Office study found that 28% of women offenders’ crimes were
financially motivated, compared to 20% of men’s.5 Earlier research on mothers in
custody found that 38% attributed their offending to ‘a need to support their children’,
single mothers being more likely to cite a lack of money as the cause of their
offending than those who were married.6
•
Many foreign national women in prison have been trafficked or coerced into
offending. This is particularly true for Holloway Prison where 29% of the women are
1
foreign nationals, nearly double the national average of 16% of women in prison.7 A
significant proportion of foreign national women in prison are known to have been
coerced or trafficked into offending.8
•
Care-leavers are hugely over-represented in custody – while less than 1% of all
children in England are looked after, nearly a third of women prisoners spent time in
care as children (and nearly a quarter of men).9 Domestic violence and sexual abuse
are contributory factors to the family breakdown behind this, and much can be done
to prevent care being a stepping stone to custody.10
•
HMP Holloway is the largest women’s prison in Western Europe and ‘holds some of
the most vulnerable female prisoners in the prison system.’11
Importance of an integrated, multiagency approach
We welcome the commitment in the second VAWG strategy to ensuring an integrated
joined-up approach. This was a key recommendation of the Women’s Justice Taskforce
report, which highlighted the importance of early intervention and the need for close
cooperation between criminal justice and health and social care services.12 Local strategic
leadership is also recognised as vital by the President of the Directors of Adult Social
Services (ADASS) in a briefing on the role of adult social care services in supporting
vulnerable offenders.13 That briefing emphasises the opportunity that Joint Strategic Needs
Assessments provide for local authorities to draw together a range of local organisations and
agencies to improve outcomes for vulnerable individuals.
The Prison Reform Trust therefore strongly supports the call for all London local authorities
to play their part in this through their local Community Safety Partnerships, Safeguarding
Children Boards and Health and Wellbeing Boards. Achieving the proposed pan-London
approach requires clear direction and leadership which the Mayor and his deputy in charge
of policing is well-placed to both provide and then showcase the benefits to the rest of the
UK.
Q7: What more can MOPAC do to raise awareness of VAWG and encourage
reporting?
Public awareness-raising of the prevalence of violence against women and girls is an
important means of tackling the stigma associated with domestic and sexual violence
which continues to act as a barrier to disclosure for many victims. We welcome the
work done by MOPAC to increase awareness and responsiveness among family
members, friends and neighbours and to encourage victims to disclose their
experiences and seek help.
However, it is equally important to ensure that when victims do report their
experience to police and seek help from them and other services that they receive
the protection they need. This will encourage other victims to come forward. There
is much that MOPAC and the MPS can do in this area including:
‐
targeting police training, to ensure frontline staff have the skills needed to
identify and support victims and potential victims;
2
‐
provide strategic leadership to address the culture of disbelief many
women experience when reporting crimes of sexual or domestic violence;
‐
deploy specialist female officers to incidents of domestic violence;
‐
coordinate a database of specialist London-wide service provision to which
women can be signposted;
‐
trialling the domestic violence disclosure pilot scheme;
‐
pilot a police ‘diversion scheme’ that provides alternatives to prosecution
for vulnerable women, including women who have experienced sexual or
domestic violence.
The Prison Reform Trust is concerned that an increasing number of female victims of
domestic violence are being prosecuted, and sentenced, for retaliatory offences
committed against abusive partners. At present the evidence of this is largely
anecdotal and we recommend that the prevalence of such cases be investigated.
We also recommend that the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and Crown
Prosecution Service (CPS) work together to introduce safeguards to ensure that if a
decision is taken to arrest, charge and prosecute a woman for such offences, the
possibility that she may have been a victim of domestic violence herself be given full
consideration. Given the particular dynamics of abusive relationships, and the
complex factors which prevent victims from disclosing, we are concerned that
women who have been serially abused over a period of time but have not (for a
variety of complex reasons) disclosed this to the police, or whose complaints have
not been taken seriously, are being criminalised whilst their abusers go unpunished.
We also recommend that measures be implemented to ensure that women with
learning disabilities and learning difficulties are given the information and support
they need. They remain a neglected group whose needs are often not identified and
whose problems can be exacerbated as a result. The Prison Reform Trust has
considerable expertise in this area and would be happy to provide further resources
and advice.14
Q9: What should a pan-London exit service for women wishing to exit
prostitution look like?
A good model for the development of a pan-London strategy that would provide
routes out of prostitution can be found in the Ipswich/Suffolk Prostitution Strategy
2007-2012, sparked by the murders in Ipswich of women working as prostitutes in
2006. Developed in partnership between the police, probation, health, borough and
county council, it combines action to reduce demand with the creation of a multiagency ‘Make a Change’ team “with the specific remit of providing interventions to
develop routes out of prostitution for women”.15 Interventions, which draw on needs
assessments carried out by social care practitioners are targeted at those involved in
both on-street and off-street prostitution, and aim to provide support across all
aspects of an individual’s life to facilitate long-term change. Supporting women into
safe and secure accommodation is a key element.
3
An evaluation of the strategy found that it had been successful in removing
prostitution from the streets; deterring kerb crawlers; supporting women to move on
from street working; making effective inroads into prevention; and keeping the local
community informed and on board.16
Recent research, published by Drugscope and AVA, on the needs of women
involved in prostitution and substance use, has called for “a range of support, from
harm reduction and treatment services to services to help them exit prostitution and
support their ongoing recovery”. Services specifically aimed at facilitating exit will
need to take account of women’s needs, understand that “the process of change and
recovery is likely to take a long time” and offer flexible, non-judgmental support.
Services should be prepared to provide aftercare for those women who may require
ongoing support to sustain their exit.
We would welcome London-wide action to prevent women from getting caught up in
the criminal justice system as a result of their involvement in prostitution. As we note
in answer to question 25, we would support a pilot scheme introducing a
presumption against prosecution for prostitution-related offences. Where women
involved in prostitution do end up in the criminal justice system, we would welcome
an extension of the court diversion scheme offered at Camberwell Magistrates’ Court
to cover all London boroughs and magistrates’ courts. The scheme, delivered in a
unique partnership between the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the Trust
Women’s Project, offers women who have been arrested for street prostitution an
opportunity to be diverted from court. Those who agree to attend two sessions with
the Trust’s specialist court worker will have the case against them dropped. Sessions
“focus on improving the women’s immediate situations, as well as providing them
with the opportunity and the support to make lasting changes to their lives”.17
Whilst we believe that every woman wishing to exit prostitution should have access
to individualised support services, it is also essential that those women who do not
wish to engage with exit services should have their support needs met. Outreach
services that link women with statutory agencies where applicable (e.g. health,
housing and benefits) must be available and accessible. This means providing nonjudgemental, women-only services delivered by female professionals at a time and
place that suits service users.18 The street outreach service provided by Anawim
women’s centre in Birmingham, for instance, provides a safe place for women
involved in street-based prostitution, where they can speak to support workers, have
a shower, food or simply a cup of tea.
Q10: What role can MOPAC play in reforming the way the criminal justice
system responds to women offenders in London?
The Prison Reform Trust believes that MOPAC can play a critical strategic role in
improving criminal justice responses to women, including the development of
alternatives to prosecution for women with complex needs and/or with primary care
of children, an expansion in court-based liaison and diversion projects, and an
increase in the use of community sentences for women offenders who pose no risk
to the public.
Our analysis of sentencing data for London shows a worrying increase in the use of
custodial sentences. In 2011, 1,766 custodial sentences were given to women in the
4
Metropolitan police force area, accounting for one in five of all custodial sentences
given to women in England and Wales that year. This was an increase of 11% since
2009, despite a fall in the number of custodial sentences given to women nationally
over the same period. The overwhelming majority (88%) of these prison sentences
were for non-violent offences, with theft and handling alone accounting for more than
four in ten (728). Indeed, between 2009-2011 there was a 29% increase in the
number of custodial sentences given to women in London for theft and handling
offences, going from 563 (2009) to 728 (2011). The increase nationally over the
same period was just 6%.19
In this context, we welcome the intention in the MOPAC’s strategy of “improving and
expanding community-based support” for women who offend. It is clear from the
continued use of custody for women who have committed non-violent offences that
there is significant scope for improving community services available as alternatives
to prosecution and imprisonment.
Most of the solutions to women’s offending lie outside prison walls in treatment for
addictions and mental health problems, protection from domestic violence and
coercive relationships, secure housing, debt management, education, skills
development and employment. Community sentences enable women to take control
of their lives, care for their children, and address the cause of their offending. Whilst
we accept that many of these solutions, when taken in isolation, are not directly
within MOPAC’s remit, the Mayor and Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime are
uniquely placed to drive the improvement and expansion of community-based
provision for women offenders.
Women’s centres provide an evidenced20 model for delivering such provision, though
there are only three such centres in London - Women at the Well (Kings Cross),
Jagonari (Whitechapel) and Advance Minerva (Hammersmith) - and funding is
uncertain due to changes to the delivery, and commissioning, of probation services
outlined in the Government’s Transforming Rehabilitation programme.
In keeping with the recommendations of the Corston Report and recent House of
Commons Justice Committee report21, the time is now right to develop a pan-London
strategy on women offenders which places gender-specific community service
provision at its heart. This is a period of significant change in the criminal justice
system: reductions in central government funding to local authorities are impacting
on the configuration and delivery of those local services which are best placed to
meet the needs of women offenders. There are nevertheless opportunities for
MOPAC to influence and lead at a regional level.
We envisage MOPAC taking a strategic lead to bring together all partners (statutory,
private sector and voluntary) with an interest in preventing offending and reoffending
by women; straddling the divide between centrally and locally commissioned
services and agencies to make the case for funding and services that meet local
need; and commissioning services and providing grants with a view to closing gaps
in provision for this vulnerable group. With expertise in tendering, procurement,
contracts, and evaluation, and in working across statutory and voluntary agencies,
and with strategic authorities like the GLA, London Councils and LGA, the London
Mayor and MOPAC could support statutory agencies, London Borough’s and others
5
to commission services for women in the criminal justice system. Facilitating a
consortia-approach to Borough-level provision would ensure that the costs involved
in the tendering process and in and drawing up contracts, for example, and the risks
associated with commissioning services, were shared.
The Prison Reform Trust was encouraged by the Mayor’s statement of intent on
youth violence, outlined in the Time for Action programme, and would welcome a
similar focus on the drivers to women’s offending. Project Daedalus and its
resettlement-focused successor, for example, could provide an innovative model for
funding and delivering women’s community provision. Proposed changes to the
supervision of offenders, and to the commissioning framework, risk fragmenting
existing provision so the priority must be to ensure that pan-London alternatives to
custody for women are available to sentencers sitting in all Boroughs.
The Prison Reform Trust would also like to see the MOPAC take the lead in
developing gender-specific police liaison and diversion schemes that provide more
effective responses to minor offending by women with multiple and complex needs.
We are a member of the Women Offenders Forum convened by the Home Office
that is fostering the development of such initiatives. There are already a number of
pilot schemes operated by for example Manchester Police, Hull Police and
Darlington/Durham Police that provide for women apprehended for minor non-violent
offences to be assessed for alternatives to prosecution. These schemes, sometimes
called police triage, operate in partnership with local women’s services. Prosecution
is suspended on the basis of a woman’s engagement with support services that
enable her to address the factors leading to her alleged offence. We will be
publishing a briefing on these initiatives, and on the essential elements of effective
diversion schemes for women in the Autumn, and would be pleased to provide
further information in the meanwhile if that would be helpful.
We would welcome an innovative approach to policing those offences which act as
primary drivers to women’s imprisonment. As referenced above, theft and handling
offences account for four in ten of all custodial sentences given to women. Many of
these will be shoplifting-related. A survey of prisoners found that nearly half of all
women (48%) reported having committed crimes to support someone else’s drug
use22 whilst other research found that women’s offending was more likely to be
financially motivated than men’s.23 There is scope, therefore, to tackle such
offending by offering female suspects access to services with expertise in
addressing substance abuse, supporting women out of coercive relationships and
providing debt management advice as an alternative to arrest.
We would also like to see an expansion in the operation of court-based schemes
such as those supported by the London Probation Trust who commission the
services of Together for Mental Wellbeing to provide specialist mental health court
liaison schemes for women in a few London magistrates courts.24 Many of the
women they work with have experienced sexual abuse and/or domestic violence,
and their interventions help to ensure that women are not further victimised by the
criminal justice system. They work closely with HMCTS and have good relationships
with the judiciary.
6
Q19: What role can MOPAC play to ensure that gang-associated young women
and girls have access to specialist provision to enable them to exit/escape
gang violence?
We support the findings of the Centre for Mental Health’s recent report A need to
belong - what leads girls to join gangs which recommended that Police and Crime
Commissioners, alongside clinical commissioning groups, children’s services and
schools, “invest jointly in holistic, evidence based and gender-specific interventions
for children and young people of all ages to prevent violence and gang membership.”
The research findings, based on evidence drawn from point-of-arrest health
screenings, demonstrate the value of such schemes as “young women involved in
gangs had a threefold greater risk of health and social difficulties compared with
average youth justice entrants and over double the number of vulnerabilities of other
females being screened”.25 Given this accumulation of factors amongst girls in
gangs, it is essential that prevention services are geared towards known risks such
as parental imprisonment, experience of victimisation (particularly sexual and
physical abuse) and engagement in sexually harmful behaviour, poor school
attainment (including periods of exclusion), and early-onset behavioural and mental
health problems. Importantly, researchers found that girls identified as being in
gangs were receptive to offers of support, and with “nine out of ten of those…offered
further support staying in touch with…services”26, it is clear that such services have
the potential to provide permanent routes out of gangs for vulnerable girls and young
women.
The interim report of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner Inquiry into Child
Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups has also made a number of important
recommendations to improve practice in this area, especially in relation to
cooperation and intelligence-sharing between police and other agencies, which we
support.27 We note that the MOPAC consultation paper draws on the research of
Carlene Firmin, who has been centrally involved in the OCC Inquiry. She is also on
the Board of the Prison Reform Trust and involved in developing our strategy to
reduce women’s imprisonment.
The Mayor of London and the Deputy Mayor for Policing have the funding and
strategic capacity to collaborate in the commissioning of services aimed at
prevention, can determine policing practice, and ensure that policing priorities on the
ground reflect those set at a strategic level. We would welcome a greater focus on,
and investment in, gender-sensitive policing, including training for female police
officers in identifying and supporting girls and young women who may have been
sexually exploited. Given the high-level of health-need identified by the Centre for
Mental Health’s research, health-funded liaison and diversion schemes, currently
being rolled out nationally, provide another route out of the criminal justice system
and into appropriate health services for gang-affected girls and young women, and
should be supported by wider-triage schemes aimed at diverting low-level offenders
from prosecution.
7
Q25: How can MOPAC ensure that the MPS improves its performance on
prostitution-related offences with a focus on those who exploit women and
girls involved in or exploited through prostitution?
We welcome the Mayor’s commitment to targeting the demand side of prostitution
and confirmation that criminalising those involved in prostitution is not the aim of his
policy. Sentencing statistics show that, nationally, more people (387 women and 2
men) were proceeded against at the magistrates’ court for the offence of prostitution
than for the offences of kerb crawling, aiding and abetting an offence of prostitution,
exploitation of prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation combined.28 Whilst
data specific to the MPS is unclear,29 we are concerned that London accounts for a
significant proportion of the women directly involved in prostitution who end up in
court each year.
To ensure that the Mayor’s strategic objective of targeting those who exploit, rather
than those who are exploited, translates into policing practice on the ground, we
recommend the introduction of a presumption against prosecution for those directly
involved in prostitution, and/ or a pilot scheme offering sex workers access to
services aimed at supporting them out of prostitution, instead of prosecution. We do
not support the use of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders as a tool to sanction women
involved in street-based prostitution, given that ASBOs are prohibitive, rather than
supportive, orders. Women involved in prostitution need targeted interventions to
support them to exit (see answer to Question 9 above). We would also caution
against use of the new anti-social behaviour toolkit for such offences once
introduced. Between June 2000 and December 2011, 364 ASBOs were issued to
women in the Greater London criminal justice system area. Of these, 159 were
proven to have been breached, although court statistics show that the number of
occasions on which breaches over the same period were proven was significantly
higher, at 721.30
Research has highlighted the complex, multiple drivers to involvement in
prostitution31 and it is essential that support services are designed to meet the
specific needs of this vulnerable group (see answer to Question 9 above). Viewing
involvement in prostitution as a public health, rather than criminal justice, issue and
taking a harm-reduction approach to drug use where it is a clear driver to
engagement in sex work, would ensure that such individuals are not criminalised for
their health and welfare-related needs.
The Ipswich/Suffolk Street Prostitution Strategy (discussed above) provides a model
that could be adopted in London. The aims of the strategy include:
●
To develop routes out and assist children and adults out of prostitution and
sexual exploitation; and
●
To tackle the demand for sexual services and identify those who are controlling
and profiting from sexual exploitation and those who are coercing individuals and
prosecute where appropriate.32
A recently published evaluation of the strategy, and its multi-agency delivery, found
“it had had clear and sustained success” in eliminating kerb crawling, providing
routes out of prostitution and embedding prevention services, including for children
8
and young people at risk from sexual exploitation. This has been achieved without
an apparent displacement of prostitution activity to neighbouring areas. The study
estimated significant savings to the criminal justice system through reductions in
crime, arrests and time spent in custody.
We support the commitment to focus policing efforts on identifying traffickers who
profit from the trade in women and girls, but it is vital that victims of trafficking remain
at the forefront of policing considerations where trafficking is suspected, and are
formally identified as victims at the earliest opportunity to enable them to access
support. As a designated First Responder with the authority to refer to the National
Referral Mechanism (NRM), the MPS is central to ensuring that victims receive the
help and support they are entitled to, and are in turn empowered to help bring their
traffickers to justice.
Despite the existence of this framework, research published last year found that
instead of being identified and referred for processing through the NRM, many
potential victims of trafficking (nearly half of whom were trafficked specifically for sex
work) ended up in custody for offences they had been coerced into committing.
Based on interviews with 103 foreign national women in prison or immigration
removal centres, researchers gathered evidence indicating that whilst more than a
third (43 women) were victims of trafficking, only 11 were processed through the
NRM.
The research highlighted the following problems that the MPS need to address:
‐
the culture of disbelief many women encountered when disclosing their
experiences;
‐
a lack of understanding of the complex factors (coercion; threats of
violence to family members; confiscation of identity documents etc) which
were factors in many of the victims’ offending;
‐
the failure as First Responders to accurately identify potential victims;
‐
failure to respond to victims’ disclosures with a full police investigation into
the actions of traffickers;
‐
women’s fear of police, confusion and lack of awareness of their rights on
arrest often exacerbated by language barriers and lack of access to
interpreters.
One victim of sex trafficking, arrested for false documentation, described her
experience thus:
“At the police station I was confused. They spoke quickly. They never asked if I
needed an interpreter. I did not understand what was going on. I was crying…I just
wanted to tell them everything – I wanted them to listen and understand. The solicitor
just said ‘say no comment, no comment, no comment’. The only thing the police told
me I could do was to make a phone call. Did they not see I was a foreigner and very
frightened? No one would let me talk to them.”33
9
In instances where victims of sex trafficking were open about their experiences,
police interview notes demonstrate the standard response to such disclosures:
“What you’ve told me today does not make a great deal of sense and I’ve pointed to
the fact that you come across quite sensible and you are trying to tell me that for
seven years you‘ve been basically held, held captive for seven years.”
“If this is what happened to you, why did you not come to the police for help when
you got away?”34
Researchers also found three dominant offence categories for which the women they
interviewed had been charged and sentenced: offences relating to the production of
cannabis; importation of Class A drugs; and use of false instrument with intent and
other offences of fraud and possession of false documents. In light of this pattern of
offending, the report authors called for an exploration of “different ways of increasing
awareness of trafficking indicators by the police…when making arrests for
offences…where the incidence of links between the offence and trafficking is
highest”.35 One way of doing this might be to design a checklist for use by arresting
officers in cases involving foreign national women who meet the offence criteria to
probe indicators of victimisation.
We also note the recent decision by the Lord Chief Justice and the Court of Appeal
affirming that where there is evidence that an offender is a victim of trafficking then
the individual should not be prosecuted but should be referred for support and
assistance in accordance with the UK’s international obligations. This case involved
five victims of trafficking, including a Ugandan woman who had endured “prolonged
exposure to involuntary prostitution and enforced control” and whose offence of
using a forged passport was directly linked to this.36 We recommend that MPS
guidance and training should be reviewed and steps taken to improve the
identification of and responses to victims of trafficking.
Prison Reform Trust
9 August 2013
1
Ministry of Justice (2012) Prisoners’ childhood and family backgrounds, London: MoJ
Janet Loveless (2010) Domestic Violence, Coercion and Duress, Criminal Law Review, pp. 1-3
3
House of Commons Justice Committee, Women Offenders: after the Corston Report, HC 92, 15 July
2013 para 207, p.78
4
Light, M. et al (2013) Gender differences in substance misuse and mental health amongst prisoners
London: MoJ
5
Cabinet Office Social Exclusion Task Force (2009) Short study on women offenders London:
Cabinet Office
6
Caddle, D. & Crisp, D. (1997) Imprisoned women and mothers Home Office Research Study 162
London: Home Office
7
Table 1.6, Ministry of Justice (2013) Offender Management Caseload Statistics Quarterly Bulletin,
October – December 2012, London: MoJ.
8
Hales, L. & Gelsthorpe, L. (2012) The criminalization of migrant women Cambridge: Institute of
Criminology
2
10
9
Ministry of Justice (2012) Prisoners’ Childhoods and Family backgrounds, London
Blades R et al, Care - a Stepping Stone to custody? Prison Reform Trust, London, 2011: includes
a 7-point plan for policy makers and practitioners to improve outcomes for children in the care system
11
Independent Monitoring Board, Annual Report on HMP/YOI Holloway, 2012
12
Reforming Women’s Justice, Final report of the Women’s Justice Taskforce, Prison Reform Trust
2011
13
Making the Difference: the role of adult social care services in supporting vulnerable offenders, joint
briefing by ADASS, Centre for Mental Health, Prison Reform Trust, and Revolving Doors, Prison
Reform Trust, London, 2013
14
Talbot J, Prisoners’ Voices, Experiences of the criminal justice system by prisoners with learning
disabilities and difficulties, No-one Knows, Report and Final Recommendations, Prison Reform Trust,
2008.
15
Poland, F. et al (2012) EVISSTA 2: Evaluation Research Study of Ipswich/Suffolk Street
Prostitution Study Norwich: UEA
16
http://www.suffolk.police.uk/newsandevents/newsstories/2012/may/prostitutionstrategysuccess/idoc.
ashx?docid=aa28f25f-c38e-4b60-af2f-05b640fd052b&version=-1
17
http://www.trust-london.com/whatwedo.html
18
Singleton, N. (2013) The challenge of change: Improving services for women involved in
prostitution and substance use London: Drugscope
19
All data provided by Ministry of Justice Analytical Services
20
Radcliffe, P. & Hunter, G. (2013) The development and impact of community services for women
offenders: an evaluation London: ICPR
21
House of Commons Justice Committee, Women Offenders: after the Corston Report, HC 92, 15
July 2013
22
Light, M. et al (2013) Gender differences in substance misuse and mental health amongst prisoners
London: MoJ
23
Cabinet Office Social Exclusion Task Force (2009) Short study on women offenders London:
Cabinet Office
24
Breaking the cycle for defendants and offenders with emotional and mental health needs, London
Probation Trust and Together for Mental Wellbeing; See also A common-sense approach to working
with women with health and wellbeing needs in the criminal justice system, Feb 2013 www.togetheruk.org
25
Khan, L. et al (2013) A need to belong: What leads girls to join gangs London: CMH, pp. 2
26
Ibid. pp 3
27
“I thought I was the only one”, Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups, Interim
Report, Office of the Children’s Commissioner, November 2012
http://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/info/csegg1
28
Table S1.1A, Ministry of Justice (2013) Criminal Justice Statistics Quarterly Update to December
2012 MoJ: London
29
Hansard HC, 16 July 2012, c550W
30
Justice Statistics Analytical Service, Ministry of Justice
31
Drugscope (2013) The challenge of change: Improving services for women involved in prostitution
and substance use London: Drugscope
32
http://www.suffolk.gov.uk/assets/suffolk.gov.uk/Emergency%20and%20Safety/Community%20Safet
y/2011-10-11%20Suffolk%20Prostitution%20and%20Sexual%20Exploitation%20Strategy.pdf
33
Hales, L. & Gelsthorpe, L. (2012) The criminalisation of migrant women Cambridge: Institute of
Criminology, pp 58
34
Ibid. pp 59
35
www.crim.cam.ac.uk/people/academic_research/loraine_gelsthorpe/criminalreport29july12.pdf
36
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2013/991.html
10
11