Women’s Jails Should Be Scrapped Within 10 Years, Says Labour Peer

All women’s prisons should be shut over the next 10 years and inmates transferred to small specialist units, a report for the Home Office has concluded.
Its author, Baroness Corston, called for a cut in the numbers of women jailed, with a far greater use of community punishment.

And she argued that the most serious female offenders should be sent to specialist units near to their homes instead of large prisons. There they would be helped to beat drink and drug habits, receive counselling for mental health problems and be encouraged to get educational qualifications. She said: “Many of the women in prison are troubled, rather than troubling. They are damaged rather than damaging.”

The move would also allow them to maintain contact with family members.

There are 4,329 women in jails in England and Wales, double the number since the mid-1990s, many serving short sentences for relatively minor offences.

Lady Corston, a Labour peer, called for some of the £1.5bn allocated by the Government to build 8,000 prison places to be diverted into building the units. Shesaid: “A lot of these women lead chaotic lives and don’t make very good neighbours. It’s in all our interests to give them the opportunity to turn their lives around and develop life skills.” She urged ministers to create a government “champion” to oversee policy on women offenders.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal, the Home Office minister, said the Government would look at the issues raised. “Vulnerable women who are not a danger to society should not be going to prison,” she said.
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