Women Released from Prison

Carolyn Harris Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) on securing this important debate.

With nearly 50% of the women serving time in prison having experienced some form of abuse, be it physical, emotional or sexual, surely we should be putting more resources into supporting and counselling them than punishing them with prison sentences. Ten years ago, Baroness Corston published her “Review of Women with Particular Vulnerabilities in the Criminal Justice System”. In it, she talked about the very things that we are talking about here today: the chaos and disruption experienced by families; the disproportionate and inappropriate sentences that women face for minor non-violent offences; and the victims of violence, sexual abuse and childhood neglect who end up in prison because of lack of support.

At the time of writing her report, Baroness Corston called for a fundamental rethink. She addressed the need to consider the issues connected with women offenders before considering imprisonment as a serious option. When we read through the recommendations, we realise that the review could easily have been written 10 weeks rather than 10 years ago, because very little has changed. Women are still being imprisoned without consideration of whether that is the best solution and are still coming out of prison without the necessary support and facilitation to help them to reintegrate into the community.

In recent months, I have visited prisons and met too many women who have been appallingly let down by the welfare and judicial systems in this country—women who have been punished when they should have been supported. In my own city of Swansea, I spent two weeks during the summer recess talking to women who for whatever reason had served time in prison, and too many of those had suffered as a result of their time in prison. I heard harrowing stories that rendered me speechless; I desperately want to help these women. Yes, they committed crimes—they have never disputed that—but their punishment far outweighs the level of criminality. Prison sentences are harsh, but the subsequent loss of their home and, very often, their children is bitterly unfair.

Almost 4,000 women are in UK prisons, but only two are serving whole-life sentences: Rosemary West and Joanna Dennehy. For the vast majority of women in prison, there is life after prison, but there is a lack of support for them. The struggle they face on release is a grave concern. Housing is a huge problem: almost two thirds of women leaving prison will not have anywhere to live. Women released on the condition that they live in approved properties have the added difficulty of integrating into an unfamiliar community that is often hundreds of miles away from their family and loved ones.

Women who have served prison sentences often struggle to find work, and 90% are still unemployed a year after being released—a much higher figure than for men in the same position. All too often, money is tight and they find themselves reoffending because they cannot afford not to. I met a woman who had to sell her body to pay for a hotel room for the night. That should not be happening in modern society.

Too many women’s and children’s lives are being destroyed because of the judicial and rehabilitation system in this country. Women are sent to prison because there are no more suitable alternatives. When they are released—often after a very short time—they are homeless, unemployable and desperate ex-offenders with no support and little option but to reoffend to survive. These women need the Government to radically overhaul the support and the facilities available to aid their transition back into the community. They need help with housing, employment and social wellbeing to ensure that their lives do not become a vicious circle of reoffending, old mistakes and ruined futures.