CORSTON REPORT ON WOMEN IN PRISON

That this House welcomes the publication of the Corston Report, which calls for a radical change in the way women are treated throughout the criminal justice system (CJS) and for a fundamental redesign of women's custody; supports the Report's recommendation that custodial sentences for women offenders must be reserved for serious and violent offenders and that community solutions for non-violent women offenders should be the norm and notes the recent ICM poll on behalf of Smart Justice, which found that 73 per cent. think that mothers of young children who commit non-violent crime should not be locked up; backs the Report's call for the replacement of existing women's prisons with suitable, geographically dispersed, small, multi-functional custodial centres within 10 years, which, working in conjunction with a network of women's community centres, would take a holistic, woman-centred and integrated approach to the problems of women who offend or are at risk of offending; agrees that such an approach should extend from the top of government and supports the call for the immediate establishment of a Commission for Women, responsible for a national co-ordinated strategy for reducing women's re-offending and delivery of more appropriate and effective provision for women in the CJS, overseen by an Interdepartmental Ministerial Group for women who offend or are at risk of offending, and accountable to Parliament; and calls upon the Government to implement as a matter of urgency the recommendations of the Report, many of which have been made to government in the past.