Offenders: Females

(asked on 7th July 2020) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to implement the Female Offender Strategy 2018 and support women’s transition back into the community through securing employment.


Answered by
Lucy Frazer Portrait
Lucy Frazer
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
This question was answered on 15th July 2020

The Female Offender Strategy (2018) set out our vision to see fewer women entering the justice system and reoffending; fewer women in custody, particularly on short custodial sentences, with more managed successfully in the community; and a custodial environment that enables rehabilitation. The Strategy contained an ambitious programme of work that will take several years to deliver.

Two years on from publication of the Strategy we are making good progress. Achievements to date include: publication of a new Women’s Policy Framework; roll-out of new training for staff working with women in custody and the community; improvements to the preparation of pre-sentence reports; publication and ongoing implementation of the recommendations in Lord Farmer’s review into family ties for female offenders; undertaken a review of police forces’ responses to our guidance on working with vulnerable women; piloting a new offender management model for women under supervision in the community; commissioning research to inform our policy on BAME female offenders; and a review of the operational policy on Pregnancy, Mother and Baby Units, and Mothers separated from children under the age of 2 in prison, which is due to report shortly.

In the last two years, we have invested £5.1 million of Strategy funding in 30 different women’s services across England and Wales, helping to sustain and enhance existing services, fill gaps in provision, and provide properties for new women’s centres.

The Strategy recognised that work can provide a foundation for a different kind of life for offenders and our funding has supported this approach. For example, the Good Loaf in Northampton received Strategy funding to extend its social enterprise bakery, offering more employment opportunities for female offenders and ex-offenders.

Most recently on 5 May 2020, we announced the investment of a further £2.5m in women’s community services in England and Wales in 2020/21 and that the first site of our residential women’s centre pilot will be in Wales.

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