Women in Need

A new approach to cutting female crime

• There were 4,347 women (aged 18+) in prison in September 2008.
• A fifth were on remand and a fifth were foreign nationals. The majority of women in prison are young, in custody for non-violent offences, and serving less than 12 months.
• Recent Probation data involving 11,763 women under supervision revealed that 76% had 2 or more social/emotional needs.
• On average, it costs 12 times more to send a woman to prison than to put her on a community supervision order.
• Around one third of women prisoners lose their home, and often their possessions, whilst in prison.

Braunstone’s Turning Point Women’s Centre has just received significant funding from the Ministry of Justice to set up a one-stop shop service for women offenders and women at risk of offending.

The £400,000 grant runs for two years and is part of the Government’s commitment to ensure vulnerable women, who are not a danger to the public, are dealt with appropriately in the community.

Major stakeholders in the project are key criminal justice agencies including the Leicestershire and Rutland Probation Trust (LRPT) and members of the recently formed local Women’s Forum.

• The project will aim to: Support prevention, rehabilitation and resettlement work
• Reduce the number of women returning to custody
• Increase the number of female offenders, and women at risk of offending, accessing and using community services.

 “The Probation Service protects the public by supervising and working with offenders to reducing re-offending,” said LRPT Chief Executive Heather Munro. “National data shows that the majority of women offenders are young, imprisoned for non-violent offences and serve very short sentences. They have a broad range of complex needs such as health disorders and substance misuse. Many are low skilled and have little experience of work.

“We hope that by developing a one-stop shop approach we can offer a wide range of support and services that will target the issues that are leading women into repeat offending.”

The Braunstone-based Turning Point Women's Centre was originally set up to benefit the life-experience of all women who live in the area. Turning Point provides crèche facilities and has links with voluntary organisations and local authorities to advance educational and social welfare opportunities.

The one-stop shop project will be available to women - in the target groups - who are living in the city of Leicester and surrounding counties of Leicestershire and Rutland. The advice and referrals to available services will include:

• health (including mental health)
• alcohol and drugs misuse
• accommodation provision education, employment and training
• childcare, parenting and family relationships
• finance, benefits and debt.

Turning Point’s Chief Executive Sara Davies explained: “This is an exciting opportunity to make a real difference to the lives of women, whose lifestyles are leading them into criminal activities. “We will work with the Probation and Prison Services and we intend to take referrals from the Police at the point of arrest.” “The new project will offer one-to-one work with special advisers and we will deliver some of the sessions in a group setting. We will be recruiting additional staff and intend to launch the service in the spring of 2010,” she added.

PRESS ENQUIRIES Contact LRPT Communications Officer Fiona Buchanan on 0116 251 6008 or 07711 160685

*Data taken from The Women Offenders’ Short Study, a joint project between the Ministry of Justice and the Social Exclusion Task Force, Cabinet Office.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION Baroness Corston’s Report of a Review of Women with Particular Vulnerabilities in the Criminal Justice System (CJS) was published in March 2007, and made a number of recommendations calling for a more co-ordinated approach to tackling women’s needs in the community. The report refers to generic women’s centres such as Asha in Worcester and Calderdale in Halifax as models of good practice. These centres provide access to a range of services on-site as well as referring women to appropriate agencies, the aim being to tackle problems in relation to mental health, accommodation, education and employment, childcare, finance and debt and any other issues which may contribute to the women’s social exclusion and/or offending behaviour. Baroness Corston called for a larger network of women’s centres to be developed, advocating that this type of ‘one-stop shop’ approach is effective in meeting women’s multiple complex needs and diverting them away from the CJS.