Corston Report
A Report by Baroness Jean Corston of a Review of Women with Particular Vulnerabilities in the Criminal Justice System
Justice & Legal
Review of women with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system, recommending a fundamental rethink about the way vulnerable women are treated throughout the criminal justice system.
43recommendations
43Not Yet Responded
Recommendations
Recommendation 1
Every agency within the criminal justice system must prioritise and accelerate preparations to implement the gender equality duty and radically transform the way they deliver services for women.
Recommendation 10
There should be greater visible direction in respect of women in custody and a much higher profile.
Recommendation 11
Systematic safeguards should be put in place so that good practice approaches like Carousel are not lost.
Recommendation 12
I do not recommend a separate sentencing framework for women but this should be re-considered in the light of early experience of the statutory gender discrimination duty.
Recommendation 13
I recommend acceptance of the offer made by The Griffins to act as a central repository for information for and about women who offend or are at risk of offending and to promote its use by others.
Recommendation 14
The seven pathways should be much better coordinated strategically for women and should incorporate pathways eight and nine for women, which I endorse.
Recommendation 15
Work to establish regional and local pathway strategies and action plans is vital and good practice relating to women, for example, London's Resettlement Strategy, should be promoted and disseminated.
Recommendation 16
The accommodation pathway is the most in need of speedy, fundamental, gender-specific reform and should be reviewed urgently, taking account of the comments in my report. In particular, more supported accommodation should be provided for women on release to break the cycle of repeat offending and custody and the intentional homelessness criterion for ex-prisoners should be abolished.
Recommendation 17
Life skills should be given a much higher priority within the education, training and employment pathway and women must be individually assessed to ensure that their needs are met.
Recommendation 18
Custodial sentences for women must be reserved for serious and violent offenders who pose a threat to the public.
Recommendation 19
Women unlikely to receive a custodial sentence should not be remanded in custody.
Recommendation 2
The government should announce within six months a clear strategy to replace existing women's prisons with suitable, geographically dispersed, small, multi-functional custodial centres within 10 years.
Recommendation 20
Women must never be sent to prison for their own good, to teach them a lesson, for their own safety or to access services such as detoxification.
Recommendation 21
More supported bail placements for women suitable to their needs must be provided.
Recommendation 22
Defendants who are primary carers of young children should be remanded in custody only after consideration of a probation report on the probable impact on the children.
Recommendation 23
Community solutions for non-violent women offenders should be the norm.
Recommendation 24
Community sentences must be designed to take account of women's particular vulnerabilities and domestic and childcare commitments.
Recommendation 25
Sentencers must be informed about the existence and nature of those schemes that do exist and should support and visit them.
Recommendation 26
The restrictions placed on sentencers around breaches of community orders must be made more flexible as a matter of urgency.
Recommendation 27
Section 178 Criminal Justice Act 2003 should be implemented more generally.
Recommendation 28
Bail information schemes in women's prisons must be properly monitored resourced and used.
Recommendation 29
The Together Women Programme must be extended as quickly as possible and a larger network of community centres should be developed in accordance with a centrally coordinated strategic national plan drawn up by the new Commissioner for women who offend or are at risk of offending.
Recommendation 3
Meanwhile, where women are imprisoned, the conditions available to them must be clean and hygienic with improvements to sanitation arrangements addressed as a matter of urgency.
Recommendation 30
Services should be provided based on the one-stop-shop approach of centres like Asha and Calderdale and must be appropriate and coordinated to meet the profiled needs of local women, including minorities such as BME women.
Recommendation 31
Regional commissioning must be fully in line with the strategic national plan.
Recommendation 32
Women's centres should be used as referral centres for women who offend or are at risk of offending. Referral should be by schools, general practitioners, probation, prisons, police, courts, CPS, self and other individuals.
Recommendation 33
Women's centres should also be used as court and police diversions; as part of a package of measures for community sentences; and for delivery of probation and other programmes.
Recommendation 34
I urge the regional offender managers for Wales and Eastern Region to take forward the projects outlined in my report.
Recommendation 35
There must be a strong consistent message right from the top of government, with full reasons given, in support of its stated policy that prison is not the right place for women offenders who pose no risk to the public.
Recommendation 36
All magistrates' courts, police stations, prisons and probation offices should have access to a court diversion/Criminal Justice Liaison and Diversion Scheme in order to access timely psychiatric assessment for women offenders suspected of having a mental disorder. These schemes should be integrated into mainstream services and have access to mental health care provision. Funding for the creation and maintenance of schemes should be ring-fenced.
Recommendation 37
Sentencers must be able to access timely psychiatric reports and fail to remand in custody/sentence if not available.
Recommendation 38
DH at the highest level should reconfirm its commitment to implement not just its own Women's Mental Health Strategy but also to the action it signed up to in respect the Women's Offending Reduction Programme (WORP). This will require senior leadership within DH.
Recommendation 39
A DH minister must sit on the Inter-Departmental Ministerial Group for Women who offend or are at risk of offending and, at official level, DH must play a key part in the Women's Commission for this group. This must go wider than Prison Health and must include policy responsibility for women's mental health in the community.
Recommendation 4
Strip-searching in women's prisons should be reduced to the absolute minimum compatible with security; and the Prison Service should pilot ion scan machines in women's prisons as a replacement for strip-searching women for drugs.
Recommendation 40
In recognition of the need to develop distinct approaches for women stated in the 2000 NHS Plan, the Department of Health should reinstate its commitment for the provision of a women-only day centre within every health authority and do so by 2008.
Recommendation 41
There must also be an investment in more rigorous training and ongoing support and supervision for all those charged with meeting the complex needs of women. This training, which should include gender awareness and how community sentences can meet the needs of female offenders, should be extended to include all staff within the criminal justice system in contact with women, particularly those who make sentencing and bail decisions.
Recommendation 42
The NHS should provide health care services to police custody suites; in busy areas this will require a 24-hour presence and ideally be a registered mental health worker.
Recommendation 43
The management and care of self-harming women should be led by the NHS, either in an NHS resource or shared multi-disciplinary care in prison.
Recommendation 5
The work underway in respect of foreign national offenders should take account of the views expressed in my report. The strategy being developed should include measures designed to prevent prison becoming a serious option.
Recommendation 6
Public funding must be provided for bereaved families for proper legal representation at timely inquests relating to deaths in state custody that engage the state's obligations under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Funding should not be means tested and any financial eligibility test should be removed whenever Article 2 is engaged. Funding should also cover reasonable travel, accommodation and subsistence costs of families' attendance at inquests.
Recommendation 7
I recommend the immediate establishment of an Inter-Departmental Ministerial Group for women who offend or are at risk of offending to govern a new Commission and to drive forward the Commission's agenda within their individual departments. Ministers from the Home Office, DCLG, DH, DfES, DCA, DWP and HM Treasury should sit on the Group. There should be close links between the new Group, the Inter-Ministerial Group for Reducing Re-offending and the Inter-Ministerial Group on Domestic Violence. The Group should be led by the Home Office Minister initially but transferred to the DCLG Minister within three years because the focus of the Group is more closely aligned to the community agenda.
Recommendation 8
I recommend the immediate establishment of a Commission for women who offend or are at risk of offending, led at director level, with a remit of care and support for women who offend or are at risk of offending. This must be a cross-departmental structure, which incorporates the Women's Offending Reduction Programme; sits initially within the Home Office but transfers to DCLG within three years; and is staffed by a multi-agency team from the Home Office, DCLG, DH, DfES, DCA and DWP. Staff should also be seconded from relevant NGOs and voluntary agencies. Within three years the Commission should transfer from the Home Office to DCLG.
Recommendation 9
The Inter-Ministerial Group for Reducing Re-offending should re-examine its aims and ensure that its approaches properly address specific issues relating to women's criminality.