Context:

Over recent years, the women’s justice space has been filled with positive aspirations and many government interventions. Yet there have also been too many missed opportunities to radically transform how we support women in contact with the criminal justice system.

The framing of the issues has remained relatively coherent – though a tiny proportion of the overall prison estate, most women in prison should not be there in the first instance. This framing has been reiterated repeatedly, from Baroness Corston’s review to the Female Offender Strategy through to the Concordat on women in or at risk of contact with the Criminal Justice System. Despite these reports, their accompanying body of evidence, and the political capital spent on this issue, too many women remain in prison.

The current government has leant into the issue, implicitly linking the rise in violence against women and girls (VAWG) and the criminalisation of women. It has committed to halving VAWG by 2030 and established the Women’s Justice Board to look specifically at reforms to the criminal justice system.

This is the context within which the WJB has published its report to the Deputy Prime Minister, which contains a suite of recommendations designed to reduce women’s imprisonment. We have read the report in detail and offer our reflections on its content, in this blog.

Women’s Justice Reform Programme:

A time-limited (two-to-three years) clearly defined programme is hugely welcome as it will give the work much needed clarity and urgency. Ministerial buy-in and adequate resourcing is essential so that the reform agenda can be driven forwards, and, given the cross-cutting nature of justice-related issues, this also requires buy-in from across government departments and devolved bodies.

The programme would drive the whole systems approach work, another core component of the report, and on which we comment further below. It would also ‘drive and track gender-informed implementation of the ISR (Independent Sentencing Review) and CCR (Criminal Courts Review) for all women.’

Following the passage of the Sentencing Act, there is an opportunity to ensure that its implementation is shaped by the needs and expertise of the voluntary sector. Within the context of women in contact with the criminal justice system, it is vital that there is a dedicated body or mechanism tracking implementation to ensure that policies developed as a result of the Act are both gender-responsive and trauma-informed. We anticipate the Reform Programme playing this role and that the weight given to the programme by ministerial buy-in will support its effectiveness.

Importance of women’s specialist services and drawing on lived experience 

The report rightly recognises the central role of women’s specialist services in delivering a whole-system approach. These organisations provide trusted, relational support for women who have often been failed by statutory systems, helping them access housing, healthcare and recovery pathways. However, the sector continues to operate within an uncertain and fragmented funding landscape. If the ambitions set out in the report are to be realised, women’s services will need long-term stability rather than short-term project funding.

There is also an opportunity to strengthen the role of lived experience in shaping reform. Women who have experienced prison, probation or diversion programmes bring vital insight into how systems operate in practice and where they can unintentionally cause harm. Embedding lived experience in governance and policy development will help ensure that reforms remain grounded in the realities women face.

Implementing the whole system approach:

This has been an area of focus for the sector for some time, and we convened experts in this space, earlier this year, through the establishment of the RR3 Special Interest Group on a whole systems approach for women in contact with the criminal justice system. Our final report (published here) aligns with what the WJB sets out in this report, which includes a clear pathway of support required from before contact with the CJS to post-release (for women who end up in custody).

However, we are concerned that the current government funded pilots delivered through Police and Crime Commissioners will finish at the end of March with no identified resources for continuation. The learning from these pilots must inform future developments and where women’s specialist voluntary sector partners have coordinated delivery of gender-responsive support, ways to fund their essential contribution must be identified.

The overarching WSA principles in the report are the right ones. The WJB writes that ‘the whole system approach, with women’s specialist services at its heart, offers holistic, trauma-informed, gender-specific support through 1:1 keyworkers support and a one stop shop of co-located services, enabling cross-cutting areas of need to be addressed’ at each stage of the CJS.

To make a success of these overarching principles, it is vital that specialist women’s organisations are sustainably funded to deliver the work, building on an evaluation of what has worked in the current WSA pilots. We therefore welcome the proposal that the Women’s Justice Reform Programme will focus on transforming the funding of specialist women’s services, including through work to provide ‘short-term bridging funding support referral pathways.’ we note the proposal to work with bodies such as the Reducing Reoffending Third Sector Advisory Group (RR3) to support this work and, as the group’s secretariat, are ready to offer our support.

Women from Wales

The WJB report encompasses women from England and Wales. As there is considerable devolution in Wales, and a long history of implementing the WSA model, the Welsh landscape must be taken into account when looking at how such an approach can continue to be delivered for Welsh women. It is vital that reforms account for the interrelated policy issues that will be devolved matters, in contrast to responsibility for justice policy which still sits in Westminster. Ensuring clarity regarding accountability is therefore essential.

We are pleased that the report acknowledges that impact will be strongest where Welsh and locality-based progress is recognised and built upon. It specifically mentions the Women’s Justice Blueprint in Wales and states the need for delivery to align with devolved responsibilities, alongside Wales-specific governance and financial frameworks.  The Welsh Blueprint offers learning that can be used to inform and develop best practice nationally, and cross-governmental collaboration between England and Wales must also ensure that women in Wales receive the full benefits of the Women’s Justice Reform programme.

Whilst the Women in Justice Blueprint is rightly seen as good practice, we need to acknowledge the fact that Wales is still sending too many women into custody and that more work needs to be done to understand this issue.

Anti-racist, intersectional approach to addressing disparities:

Alongside these priorities, the report also highlights the need to address racial and intersectional disparities within the criminal justice system. Women from Black, Asian, minoritised and migrant backgrounds continue to face structural barriers at multiple stages of the justice process, from policing and arrest through to prosecution and sentencing. Addressing these disparities will require more than policy statements. It will require sustained monitoring, transparency in data, and action developed in partnership with the specialist organisations that support these communities.

An anti-racist and intersectional approach must therefore be embedded in delivery, not simply set out as a principle. This includes ensuring that smaller, community-based organisations led by and for minoritised women are able to access funding and influence local service design. These organisations are best placed to provide culturally competent support and build trust with communities who have historically experienced unequal treatment within the justice system.

Such an approach must also mean improving the availability and use of disaggregated data so that disparities in arrest, diversion, remand and sentencing can be routinely monitored, publicly reported, and clearly understood and addressed. This needs to be matched with clear accountability for delivery to ensure that action is taken where inequalities persist.

Early intervention, prevention and diversion:

The recommendations on early intervention, prevention and diversion reinforce the focus on a whole systems approach. If a whole systems approach is implemented that is sustainably funded, creates support pathways at every stage of the CJS, and is tailored to local need, then this would inevitably establish the necessary resources to support work on early intervention, prevention and diversion.

This emphasis is vital. Many women enter the criminal justice system following long histories of trauma, poverty, abuse and unmet health needs, need that can and should be addressed well before any initial contact with the CJS. These ‘underlying drivers’ are well evidenced and the policy solutions needed to address them sit outside the confines of the justice system, including access to safe housing, mental health support and protection from violence.

Many of the policy levers already exist and are referenced in the report. The NHS female L&D pathway is one, and the report rightly recommends improved scrutiny of, and expanded referrals into, the pathway. This would ensure ‘consistent, effective practice everywhere’, which must be underpinned by minimum levels of support regardless of locality.

In other areas, such as in collaboration with police forces, more work is also required. It is hugely welcome that the report recommends that all police forces are required to implement women’s diversion. The report states that this would be supported by requiring the MoJ and the Home Office to ‘collaborate to create expectations on police forces to have a women’s diversion scheme.’ Ultimately, success will rely on these expectations being driven by ministers and that police forces engage with voluntary sector providers to improve awareness of local service provision and to increase referrals.

Community solutions

The role that housing plays in determining women’s pathways in and out of the criminal justice system has been consistently highlighted over many years. Access to safe, appropriate housing is critical. The recommendations in relation to accommodation are welcome but more specific detail about how to improve access to housing at point of remand and resettlement is needed. Reference is made to ‘incentivising local authorities' but given the already great pressures on local authority housing stock, further detail on what incentives would be offered would be welcome.

Clinks understands that existing residential alternative to custody projects, such as Hope Street, are under-utilised at present and it would be helpful to explore the reasons for this and address any barriers that are identified.

The commitment to “Monitor and evaluate impact of women’s specialist services that use evidence-led, gendered and trauma-informed needs assessment tools and frameworks in new courts, to identify and promote best practice” is helpful. However, it will be important for evaluation frameworks to be co-produced with women’s specialist providers. This will ensure that meaningful outcomes are identified and will be measured, using qualitative tools as well as metrics.

Reducing the use of custody through problem solving approaches

The intention to expand the availability of women’s Intensive Supervision Courts (ISCs) so that more women at risk of a prison sentence can be offered an alternative in the community is welcome. These models must take a problem-solving approach that allows women and sentencers to collaborate on the best ways of addressing the drivers of women’s contact with the criminal justice system. Women’s specialist service providers should be adequately resourced so that they can contribute to needs/risks assessments, based on women’s self-determined areas of need, and offer tailored programmes of holistic, gender-responsive support.  

The ISC model carries a risk of ‘up-tariffing’ – i.e. drawing women convicted of offences that do not warrant custody into an ‘alternative to custody’ by being sentenced through an ISC in order to have needs met and access support. The expansion of this provision must build-in safeguards to reduce this risk.

Pregnant women and mothers:

The commitment to “legislate to remove court powers to imprison women known to be pregnant (on remand, sentence, recall or breach) unless mandated by law or where not doing so would lead to a specific and imminent risk” is highly welcome and long overdue. However, for pregnant women who are sentenced to custody it is critical and urgent that the Prison and Probation Ombudsman’s review of restraint of pregnant women in prison is completed and immediately acted upon to prevent inhuman and degrading treatment.

Conclusion:

The Women’s Justice Board report represents an important opportunity to renew momentum behind reforms that have been discussed for many years. The challenge now is to ensure that this moment leads to sustained action across government, rather than another cycle of well-intentioned recommendations that fail to translate into lasting system change.

For many of the women affected, the issues raised in this report are not abstract policy debates but everyday realities shaped by trauma, poverty, abuse and unmet health needs. The evidence for change has been clear since the Corston Report nearly two decades ago. What is needed now is the political will to move from agreement to action. If government can build on the foundations set out here and invest in the community solutions that women need, there is a real opportunity to break cycles of harm and reduce the unnecessary use of prison.

If the report is to deliver meaningful change, government should focus on three priorities:

• Establishing strong cross-government leadership for the women’s justice agenda.
• Ensuring stable investment in the community women’s services and accommodation.
• Strengthening health-led responses to trauma, mental health and drug use among women at risk of criminal justice involvement.

Without progress in these areas, there is a risk that the recommendations repeat the ambitions of the previous reviews without achieving consistent national implementation.

You can also read the statement from the Women’s Justice Board here