Opinion: Why we need to stop women going to prison

by Elisa Vasquez-Walters (above)

Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood’s recent announcement that the government will reduce the number of women in prison is a much welcomed and long awaited statement signalling the change in political direction that is needed to successfully deal with women going through the criminal justice system.

As a probation worker of 24 years – and as a lifelong feminist – I feel very strongly that prison is never the correct place for a woman to be.

Women end up in prison as a result of failures in our social support system – this is most clearly indicated by the fact that the most common offence women end up in prison for is shoplifting.

Prison is a traumatic environment. Women are more often than not placed in institutions far away from their support networks, have children removed from their care as a result of incarceration and sometimes have children born in prison and then subsequently removed from them.

In short, prison retraumatises an already vulnerable group of people and also sets the foundations for further intergenerational trauma. The cost of unnecessarily removing children from their mothers cannot just be put into pounds and pence.

What we already know about women going through the prison system should have been enough for previous governments to take action.

It has taken a crisis in the whole of the prison estate for us to reach the point where we are at now. As the figures clearly show prison is not working, not for women, not for a lot of men and certainly not for children who have a parent in custody.

Data shows we need credible alternatives to custody. For women this means timely access to mental health support, including access to counselling, safe and local housing options which allow them to be with their children and maintain family and friend support networks.

We also need other gender specific services where women can feel safe in accessing whatever support they need to address the root causes of their offending.

At the heart of what must be on offer for women is a probation service that is able to deliver its work in a trauma responsive and gender specific way. This is going to require investment; in training and resources for our staff, in premises and in recruitment and retention.

Whilst I welcome the announcement from the Lord Chancellor, and am looking forward to the creation of her women’s justice board to inform this work, I also challenge her with the fact that the probation service, like many others, has suffered years of underinvestment.

If she truly believes that women deserve better – and truly wants to see women properly supported and rehabilitated within their communities – this will come at a cost.

Read: Proud to work in Probation

The article Opinion: Why we need to stop women going to prison first appeared on the UNISON National site.