Prisoners: Females

(asked on 19th June 2019) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what information his Department holds on the number of cases where a female was sent to prison and her children were subsequently taken into local authority care in the last 12 months for which information is available.


Answered by
Edward Argar Portrait
Edward Argar
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 28th June 2019

The information requested is not collected centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

We know female prisoners are more likely than male prisoners to be a primary carer and imprisoned mothers are more likely to be living with their children prior to custody: around 60% of women in prison compared with about 45% of men. However, currently the Ministry of Justice does not routinely capture data about what happens to children when their parents are held in custody.

Lord Farmer’s Review “The Importance of Strengthening Female Offenders' Family and other

Relationships to Prevent Reoffending and Reduce Intergenerational Crime” was published on 18 June. We welcome Lord Farmer’s report and are committed to moving forward with reforms on this important subject. We will look closely at the report’s findings and recommendations to see how we can best give effect to them. This includes recommendation 5 on improving data collected on the dependants of female offenders.

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