Criminal Justice: Women

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, for introducing her report entitled, Review of Women with Particular Vulnerabilities in the Criminal Justice System, which, with its detail, must have taken a great deal of work, energy and time to put together. The noble Baroness met and interviewed many people. It was most interesting to hear about that today. I shall concentrate on chapter 7 of the review, which deals with the health of those vulnerable women. In the report, there are many challenges to address and I can think of no better Minister to do that than the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. He has years of experience in health. Now, as a Minister of Justice, he could not be better placed to tackle and improve these most difficult matters. We are discussing a topic that should be considered a priority for many reasons. There is a crisis in the prison system. The prison population is rising at about 400 a week. No one wants that, but it just seems to go on happening. Some of those prisoners will be women. On Tuesday, a meeting of the All-Party Group on Penal Affairs was told that, because of the crisis, prisoners will be locked up from Friday lunchtime for the weekend, which means that activities will be cut as well. If that happens, it will be a disaster for vulnerable female prisoners who often suffer depression and are at risk of suicide. I hope that the Minister will look at women in prison as being different from those in the male establishment. They are different and have different pressures. In 1997, I was asked to chair a committee which produced a report on young people, alcohol and crime for the Home Office. We had 50 recommendations. The same problems that we found then seem to be worse today. Chapter 7 of the Corston report mentions the problems of substance abuse. The number of young female binge drinkers has become widespread and alcohol abuse should be high on the agenda of public health. The alcohol strategy for prisons was long awaited, but when it came it was disappointing. Drug treatment in women’s prisons has improved and there are some very committed people working in this field. Again, in Chapter 7, the problem of mental health in women prisons seems to be a serious problem. But even more difficult are the problems of dual diagnosis. I do not think that enough has been said about this in the report. Unless those people who have a mental illness and an addiction to alcohol and drugs are treated in a holistic way, they may fall through the net of treatment. There needs to be trained staff who can treat this dual condition. During a visit to Holloway prison, some time ago, I met two nurses who said that they did not have the correct training in mental health, and they pointed out some young women who, they said, should not have been there as they were mentally ill. I ask the Minister what is to be done about this. These vulnerable women will have to be re-integrated into the community at some stage. With different PCTs involved, what systems are in place to do this? When I was on the Yorkshire Regional Health Authority and many of the hospitals for mentally ill patients were closing, I remember saying, ““Unless there are adequate facilities to deal with them in the community some will land up in prison””, and that is what has happened. It is not a satisfactory situation. The report says that many women coming into prison have poor general health and many are not registered with a GP, and that: "““Registration with a GP should be an integral part of the resettlement process””." I agree with that. There are some interesting characteristics of the female prison population. Women tend to commit less crime and their offences are generally less serious. In 2004, 36 per cent of sentenced women had committed drugs offences and 17 per cent were convicted of violence against the person, as well as theft, handling and robbery. Just over 19 per cent of the women in prison are foreign nationals compared to about 12 per cent in the male estate. Of the female estate, 30 per cent is from ethnic minorities in comparison to around 24 per cent of the male estate. Women tend to have a different type of drug use from men, with higher levels of hard drug use. Women are normally the primary carers of elderly relatives and children. Around 55 per cent of women in prison have a child under 16, 33 per cent a child under five and 20 per cent are lone parents. Because of the relatively small number of women’s prisons and their geographical location, women tend to serve their sentences further from their homes than do male prisoners. That can place additional pressures on important links with the family. Up to 80 per cent of women in prison have diagnosable mental health problems, with 66 per cent having symptoms of neurotic disorders; in the community, it is less than 20 per cent. Up to 50 per cent of women in prison report having experienced physical, emotional or sexual abuse. Self-inflicted deaths are not easy to predict. The incidence of self-injury among women in prison is significantly high, given that they make up roughly 6 per cent of the prison population. Approximately 30 per cent of female prisoners self-injure, compared to 6 per cent of males. The proportion of young offenders who self-injure is higher. Those are some of the reasons that female prisoners should not be locked up from Friday lunchtimes. They also present a much lower security risk than men. I agree with all the recommendations at the end of Chapter 7. The report stresses what makes these women particularly vulnerable; many will have experienced childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, emotional and violent abuse, substance addiction and self-harm. The noble Baroness, Lady Corston, has also stressed several times that the NHS should provide health care services to police custodial suites in busy areas. That will require a 24-hour presence and, ideally, a registered healthcare worker. I hope that the report will not only be discussed but that action to improve matters around those women with particular vulnerabilities will happen soon.