Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many women were recorded as being of no fixed abode on arrival in custody in each custodial institution that holds women in each year since 2010.

The number of women who were recorded as being of no fixed abode on arrival in custody for each year which data is available is shown below. Data prior to 2015 is not available.

Everyone should have a safe and suitable home to live; having somewhere to live gives people a stable platform from which to access health services, hold down a job and reduces the likelihood of them reoffending. In keeping with this the Government published its Rough Sleeping Strategy in August 2018, launching a £100 million initiative to reduce and ultimately eliminate rough sleeping across England.

Our reforms to probation are designed to encourage long-term rehabilitation and ultimately reduce reoffending – and the first step in this is ensuring that everyone leaving prison has access to secure and stable accommodation. We are improving support for offenders leaving prison with a £22 million investment in through-the-gate services which will help to strengthen ties with key partners, including the third sector, local authorities and the police.

In addition, the Female Offender Strategy sets out our vision and plan to improve outcomes for women in the community and custody. We want to see fewer women coming into the criminal justice system, a greater proportion managed successfully in the community, and better conditions for those in custody.

Notes

1. These figures show the number of Basic Custody Screening Tool (BCS) Part 1 that were fully completed in each year 2015 – 2018 which indicated that the prisoner had entered custody from no fixed abode to prisons which hold women prisoners.

2. The Basic Custody Screening Tool (BCS) Part 1 is completed within 72 hours of a prisoner entering custody and the answers to the accommodation questions are entered as provided by the prisoner to the BCS screener. The BCS answers are not assessed.

3. Female establishments not shown in the above list did not complete BCS Part 1s in this time period.

4. HMP Holloway closed in 2016.

5. It is possible for prisons to manually create a BCS Part 1 where one hasn’t been previously fully completed and this may explain why HMP Drake Hall completed 3 in 2015.

6. The BCS Part 1 went live on 01/01/2015 which is why we cannot produce this data for 2010 – 2014 inclusive.

7. Data count includes with each of repeat admissions by an individual during the course of a year.