• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Prison Reform Trust submission Joint Committee on Human Rights Inquiry into violence against women and girls

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.

Overview

We welcome the opportunity to respond to this consultation and wish to take the opportunity to highlight the links between women’s experience of sexual abuse and/or domestic violence, and their experience as offenders in the criminal justice system. Reducing the incidence of violence against women and girls, and improved identification of victims of trafficking, could significantly reduce the risk of their involvement in offending and imprisonment, as the data below illustrates. This is the focus of our brief submission.

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 under- estimate. 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 significant proportion of foreign national women in prison have been trafficked or coerced into offending. 5

 Care-leavers are hugely over-represented in custody – nearly a third of women prisoners spent time in care as children (and nearly a quarter of men).6 Domestic 1 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.7

 Of young women offenders in custody, 40% have suffered violence at home and 30% have experienced sexual abuse at home.8

 HMP Holloway is the largest women’s prison in Western Europe and “holds some of the most vulnerable female prisoners in the prison system.”9

Improving police responses to domestic violence

Improvements in police responses to violence against women and girls should contribute to reducing the risks of women’s (re)offending. We therefore welcome the review by Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary of police responses to domestic violence, instigated at the request of the Home Secretary. 10 We have engaged with the review to draw attention to the links between women’s exposure to domestic violence and their involvement in offending, and believe this will be reflected in the report which is due for publication shortly and will be of interest to the JCHR.

It is important 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 in turn will encourage other victims to come forward. As we noted in a recent submission to the London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime there is much that can be done in this area including:

o targeting police training, to ensure frontline staff have the skills needed to identify and support victims and potential victims;

o providing strategic leadership to address the culture of disbelief many women experience when reporting crimes of sexual or domestic violence;

o deploying specialist female officers to incidents of domestic violence;

o coordinating a database of specialist service provision to which women can be signposted; and

o encouraging the adoption by police of ‘triage schemes’ that provide alternatives to prosecution for vulnerable women, including women who have experienced sexual or domestic violence.

A review of the 42 police and crime plans in England and Wales found that, while few acknowledge the distinct needs of women suspects and offenders, most are committed to improving responses to domestic violence.11 The recently published Mayoral Strategy on Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) 2013-2017, however, set out the London Mayor’s aspiration for “London to demonstrate leadership in reforming the way the criminal justice system responds to female offenders, particularly in recognition of the fact that a

2 disproportionate number of women in the criminal justice system have been victims of VAWG”.12 We would like to see this approach mirrored around the country.

Adequacy of support services for victims of violence including impact of competitive tendering/ contracting-out services

The Prison Reform Trust is concerned about the sustainability of women’s community centres, the holistic service model for vulnerable women endorsed by the Corston review. Community-based women’s centres provide services that enable women to get the support and supervision they need to tackle the multiple and complex factors contributing to their offending, while maintaining care of their children. These centres can ensure more effective local co-ordination of probation, health and other services and interventions and their value was endorsed in a Criminal Justice Joint Inspection Thematic Report.13 There is evidence that these services are cost-effective14 and much less expensive than the cost of prisons. However, funding is uncertain due to major changes in the delivery, and commissioning, of probation services outlined in the Government’s Transforming Rehabilitation programme. It sees the competitive contracting out of the provision of offender supervision and support services for low risk offenders, disproportionately affecting women. We drew our concerns to the UN CEDAW Committee during its examination of the UK last year and in its Concluding Observations the Committee said it was “concerned that the State Party resorts to commissioning women’s services instead of direct funding, which allegedly risks undermining the provision of these services.” The Committee recommended that the Government “should further review the policy of commissioning services wherever this may undermine the provision of specialised women’s services.”15

International human rights instruments such as CEDAW and the UN Bangkok Rules, as well as domestic legislation such as the Equality Act 2010, are clear that gender-specific services should be provided for women. Yet a recent report commissioned by CLINKS found that “the sustainability of gender specific services for female offenders is often not embedded in local strategies” and “89% of projects felt that their service was less secure than or as insecure as it was 12 months ago”.16

The homelessness that affects many women offenders17 is exacerbated by their ineligibility for women’s refuges. Women at risk of offending can encounter barriers to accessing the support that could help them stay out of trouble. A recent report by Solace Women’s Aid and the AVA Stella project confirms that women with multiple needs and in need of emergency safe accommodation have limited access to women’s refuges.18 This is especially true for women with drug and alcohol problems, and women using methadone can be specifically excluded. For women with mental health problems, there may be a requirement that they are already in receipt of a diagnosis and support before they can access a refuge place. Lack of resources and funding cuts have affected the capacity of women’s refuges to accommodate women who need higher levels of support. The report notes that Joint Strategic Needs Assessments for domestic violence service provision should always include 3 consideration of needs related to problematic substance use and mental health. There are some notable examples of good practice in the report, but it also highlights the lack of monitoring and information about what happens to women who are refused access to a refuge, and the unmet needs of many BAMER women. Women with learning disabilities and learning difficulties remain a neglected group whose needs are often not identified and whose problems can be exacerbated as a result.19

Women who have been trafficked

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.

Despite the existence of the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), research by the Cambridge University Institute of Criminology 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 police need to address:

o the culture of disbelief many women encountered when disclosing their experiences;

o 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;

o the failure as First Responders to accurately identify potential victims;

o failure to respond to victims’ disclosures with a full police investigation into the actions of traffickers; and

o 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

4 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.”20

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?”21

Researchers found three dominant offence categories for which the women they interviewed had been charged and sentenced:

o offences relating to the production of cannabis;

o importation of Class A drugs; and

o 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”.22 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 Court of Appeal decision affirming that where there is evidence that an offender is a victim of trafficking, they should not be prosecuted but 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.23 We understand that police guidance and training is now being reviewed and steps taken to improve the identification of and responses to victims of trafficking.

Next steps

In keeping with the recommendations of the Corston Report, the Women’s Justice Taskforce report24 and recent House of Commons Justice Committee report,25 an explicit commitment

5 to providing gender-specific services in every community is long overdue. Delivering this would involve bringing together all partners (statutory, private sector and voluntary), straddling the divide between centrally and locally commissioned services to meet local need, and providing adequate funding with a view to closing gaps in provision for disadvantaged women.

Prison Reform Trust

March 2014

6 1 Ministry of Justice (2012) Prisoners’ childhood and family backgrounds, London: MoJ 2 Janet Loveless (2010) Domestic Violence, Coercion and Duress, Criminal Law Review, pp. 1-3 3House 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 Hales, L. & Gelsthorpe, L. (2012) The criminalization of migrant women Cambridge: Institute of Criminology 6 Ministry of Justice (2012) Prisoners’ Childhoods and Family backgrounds, London 7 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 8 Old enough to know better? A briefing on young adults in the criminal justice system in England and Wales, January 2012

9 Independent Monitoring Board, Annual Report on HMP/YOI Holloway, 2012 10 http://www.hmic.gov.uk/inspections/police-response-to-domestic-violence-and-abuse/ 11 Britton, S. (2013) First generation: one year on - How police and crime commissioners are shaping local responses to young adults, people with complex needs and other groups London: Revolving Doors

12 https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/VAWG%20Strategy%20Refresh%20online.pdf 13 Criminal Justice Joint Inspection (2011) Equal but different? An inspection of the use of alternatives to custody for women offenders London: CJJI available from: http://www.hmcpsi.gov.uk/documents/reports/CJJI_THM/OFFM/womens- thematic-alternatives-to-custody-2011.pdf 14 Radcliffe, P. & Hunter, G. (2013) The development and impact of community services for women offenders: an evalu ation London: ICPR 15 http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CEDAW/Pages/CEDAWIndex.aspx 16 Run Ragged, the current experience of projects providing community based female offender support services, Louise Clark, Clinks, 2014 17 Rebuilding Shattered Lives report, St Mungos, 2014 http://www.mungos.org/press_office/1821_new-report- highlights-sad-chronicle-of-missed-opportunities-for-homeless-women 18 Harvey S, Mandair S, Holly J, Case by Case, Refuge provision in London for survivors of domestic violence who use alcohol and other drugs or have mental health problems, Solace Women’s Aid and AVA Stella Project, January 2014. 19 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. 20 Hales, L. & Gelsthorpe, L. (2012) The criminalisation of migrant women Cambridge: Institute of Criminology, pp 58 21 Ibid. pp 59 22 www.crim.cam.ac.uk/people/academic_research/loraine_gelsthorpe/criminalreport29july12.pdf 23 http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2013/991.html 24 Reforming Women’s Justice, Final Report of the Women’s Justice Taskforce, Prison Reform Trust, 2011 25 House of Commons Justice Committee, Women Offenders: after the Corston Report, HC 92, 15 July 2013

Load more

  7

Copy Link