NewsArchivewom

News Archive: Women & Criminal Justice (2004/5)

March 23, 2005: Addressing Women’s Offending

February 3, 2005: Supporting Survivors of Sexual Violence

September 6, 2004: Thousands of Women Needlessly Imprisoned

July 2, 2004: Choosing Judges: An Opaque, Biased and Outdated System?

April 1, 2004:Women Receive Rough Justice From ‘Man-Made’ System

March 23, 2005: Addressing Women’s Offending

Home Secretary Charles Clarke has announced funding totalling £9.15 million on new approaches to address women's offending. The funding will be spread over the next four years. The new initiatives will be set up in two areas and will include women's community supervision and support centres, where female offenders can access a whole range of services and support designed to meet their needs... more

Return to Top

February 3, 2005: Supporting Survivors of Sexual Violence

A new legal handbook for victims of sexual violence has just been launched. ‘From Report to Court – A Handbook for Adult Survivors of Sexual Violence’ offers a comprehensive source of help and advice to victims from the perspective of the victim... more

Return to Top

September 6, 2004: Thousands of Women Needlessly Imprisoned

Six out of ten women imprisoned while awaiting trial are subsequently acquitted or given a non-custodial sentence according to a Prison Reform Trust report by Dr Kimmett Edgar. The report states that the number of women being remanded into custody has more than trebled in a decade, despite the fact that more than three quarters are charged with non-violent or minor offences.
'Lacking Conviction: The rise of the women's remand population' says that very few women are charged with sufficiently serious crimes to require custody and too little is known of the problems they face to prove that the deprivation of liberty is necessary. Whilst in prison their lives are damaged by loss of homes, job prospects and contact with their families.
The report says that women on remand constitute one of the fastest growing groups among the prison population. It notes:

There was a 196% increase in the number of women remanded into custody between 1992 and 2002 compared to a 52% increase for men.
Of the 12,000 women sent to prison in 2002 two-thirds were on remand.
More women are remanded into custody for theft and handling stolen goods than any other crime.
Following trial 59 per cent do not receive a custodial sentence and one in five is acquitted.
Four out of ten remanded women have received help or treatment for mental health in the year before being sent to prison and a quarter say they have injected drugs in the month before custody.

The report highlights the fact that once in prison women receive inadequate support. They do not get the drug treatment or mental health care they require, are confined to their cells for long hours and have limited opportunities to stay in touch with family. The provision of bail information has broken down in many prisons. It concludes that custodial remand is used too frequently by the courts due to unacceptable failures to gather, present and transfer information about the needs and experiences of vulnerable women. There are also breakdowns in bail support in the community, a scarcity of court liaison and diversion schemes and gaps in healthcare and housing provision geared to the needs of women.

The report recommends:

Custodial remand must be reserved for those charged with serious or violent offences.
The Government must conduct a wide-ranging review of the use of remand and bail in England and Wales.
A national network of small, local women-only supervisions centres must be established to work with women who come into contact with the criminal justice system. These centres should provide women with multi-agency support and should replace prison custody for all women except those whose offences demonstrate a serious danger to society.
An increase in the provision and an improvement in the quality of court based diversion schemes for women with serious mental health problems.
An improvement in the provision of information to the courts, particularly adequate social, psychiatric and probation reports, prior to taking a decision to deny bail.

Prison Reform Trust Director Juliet Lyon, stated:
"There is clear evidence that, instead of getting the support they need, vulnerable women are being jailed due to breakdowns at every point in the criminal justice system. Sorting out the needless use of remand would reduce the women's prison population at a stroke".

Return to Top

July 2, 2004: Choosing Judges: An Opaque, Biased and Outdated System?

An independent report which is highly critical of the appointments process for the senior judiciary has just been published. The Commission for Judicial Appointments has examined every stage of the judicial appointments process in 2003. While the report argues that the “senior judiciary in England and Wales has an unrivalled reputation for integrity and intellectual ability”, it nevertheless acknowledges that “members of the High Court bench are predominantly white, male and drawn from a narrow social and educational background”. Given that a Black or Asian high court judge has yet to be appointed in either England or Wales, it is hardly surprising that the report argues that the mechanism by which judges are selected is considered to be "opaque, outdated and not demonstrably based upon merit".

In the current system, candidates for the judiciary may either formally apply for appointment or be nominated (without their knowledge). Out of a total of 175 judicial candidates in 2003, 92 applied, while 83 were nominated. There were only 25 female candidates. Five out of the total of nine candidates offered high court posts were nominees, while no less than three were nominated by the lord chancellor.

The report argues that in future all vacancies should be advertised and all candidates should apply. It recommends that an independent human resources expert should advise on drawing up a new selection process, which should require applications and consideration of candidates' abilities against specific criteria/competencies. There should be self-assessment, references, appraisals, interviews and possibly testing to establish their suitability. The report looks forward to a new process “with a job and person specification”. Short-listed candidates should be invited for interview by an appointments panel, comprising a combination of judicial and high level human resources expertise, and lay members.

The impact of these recommendations remains to be seen.

Return to Top

April 1, 2004:Women Receive Rough Justice From ‘Man-Made’ System

The Fawcett Society’s Commission on Women and the Criminal Justice System has launched its report, which finds that women victims, offenders and workers receive rough justice from a ‘man-made’ system. Women are failed by a criminal justice system designed principally by men, and remains principally for men.

The report is the result of the year-long Commission into women’s experience of the criminal justice system, the first of its kind internationally to look at women’s experience right across the system. The Commission is an independent inquiry chaired by Vera Baird QC MP. The Commissioners are senior experts from across the criminal justice system and other areas of public life. The Commissioners’ findings and recommendations based on 400 submissions. The following information is taken from the report, available from Fawcett:

Women victims face a postcode lottery

Conviction rates of rape and domestic violence – crimes experienced in the vast majority by women – are extremely low. The Commission heard:

One woman in four experiences domestic violence at some point in her life, and 30% of domestic violence cases start or escalate during pregnancy.
Domestic violence accounts for a quarter of all crime, and yet only 5% of recorded cases of domestic violence end in conviction.
Less than 20% of rapes and sexual assaults are reported to the police, and less than 6% of rapes result in conviction.

The Commission highlighted the continuing lottery of services facing rape victims. It calls for a Sexual Assault Referral Centre to be established in every police area and for specialist police officers to be made available to all victims of rape.

Women offenders are shoe-horned into a man-made system

Sentences are getting harsher and the number of women in prison has risen dramatically – at a much faster rate than imprisonment of men – even though there has been no equivalent rise in female offending.

Overwhelming evidence presented to the Commission highlighted that prison is rarely the solution for the complex issues faced by women offenders. As a minority population, women are being shoe-horned into a system that is not designed for their needs. Recent government figures show:

There are now over 4,500 women in prison, up by 194% in the last ten years.
Suicides in women’s prisons have increased from one in 1993 to 14 in 2003.
Most women are convicted of non-violent offences, such as shoplifting; and 70% of women in prison are on sentences of less than 12 months.

Many Commissioners questioned whether women posing no serious threat to others should be imprisoned at all. The Commission calls for an urgent review of the alternatives to prison that could be used for women offenders.

Women workers face a glass ceiling in the criminal justice system

Women are poorly represented in top jobs across the system. This means decisions and policies are ‘man-made’. Exclusion of women from the most powerful positions undermines the credibility of the system. Statistics show that there are:

One woman out of 12 judges in the House of Lords
Five women out of 43 police Chief Constables
18 women out of 42 Chief Officers of Probation
Seven women out of 42 Chief Crown Prosecutors
31 women out of 138 Prison Governors

Commissioners also heard evidence of sexual harassment and discrimination experienced by women working in the system.Commissioners find that the single most effective way of redressing the poor experiences of women in the system would be to introduce a law which obliges public bodies to promote sex equality.

Commission Chair Vera Baird QC MP said:

“When we look across the criminal justice system, the figures really begin to stack up. As the Commission’s report today shows, only 6% of reported rapes end in conviction, there has been a 194% increase in the female prison population over the past 10 years and there are just 11 women among 156 of the most senior judges. This suggests that women experience systematic disadvantage right across the criminal justice system.”

The importance of the report was underlined by Solicitor General Harriet Harman QC MP, who commented that:

“The Commission’s work has made an invaluable contribution to the question of women’s involvement in the criminal justice system. It reminds us of longstanding concerns, makes new arguments and makes proposals which are worthy of serious consideration.”

Return to Top