Issued by: Ministry of Justice

The Government plans to reduce the number of women in custody by using early intervention and tackling the root causes of offending, the Lord Chancellor announced today.

A Women’s Justice Board will be established to bring together senior leaders in the criminal justice system, charities and government departments and publish a new strategy in the spring, Shabana Mahmood has confirmed.

Female offenders are often vulnerable, with over 60 per cent of women in prison reporting having experienced domestic violence and more than half having experienced abuse as a child.

The creation of the Women’s Justice Board recognises these distinct needs and advocates for a tailored approach to divert women away from custodial sentences. It will meet regularly to discuss and implement ways to intervene earlier before women’s offending becomes serious and better tackle the root causes of their offending.

The strategy will also focus on enhancing alternatives to prison, such as community sentences and residential women’s centres. Only around one third of female offenders sentenced to custody have committed a violent offence and prisons are not working to rehabilitate this group, with women serving short custodial sentences significantly more likely to reoffend than those serving community sentences.

The Board will be chaired by Lord Timpson, Minister of State for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending.

It will be held to account by experts from the voluntary and community sector, recruited by open competition to the new Women in Justice Partnership Delivery Group. This Group will regularly review and publish reports on the on the Board’s progress towards its goal of reducing the number of women in custody.

The Lord Chancellor also announced that free independent legal advocates will be in place from next year to support adult victims of rape across England and Wales.

Almost two-thirds of rape victims drop out of their case before it reaches trial so this service will help victims understand their rights and ensure access to mobile phones and medical data is proportionate to the investigation. When trialled in Northumberland, two-thirds of challenges to a request for victims’ data were successful and, in turn, reduced the volume of indiscriminate police requests in the first place.

More information on the scheme will be published in the coming months.

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