Criminal Justice: Women

My Lords, it is a joy and a privilege to congratulate the noble Baroness on the debate, on the excellence of her address to this House on the matter and particularly on her report. I believe it to be a report of monumental significance and I congratulate her on the assiduity and thoroughness of its research, the warm and sensitive humanity that permeates it throughout and the boldness and courage of its recommendations. There was a report about a century ago by Herbert Gladstone, the Home Secretary of the day, which changed the whole ethos of society in relation to prisons generally. Future historians may well say that this was a most significant watershed, in so far as the incarceration of women is concerned. I should like to confine my remarks to the question of sentencing. There are so many other matters that I agree with—indeed, I agree with almost every word that has been spoken, and spoken with such authority and conviction, by all who have taken part in this debate. On sentencing, one of the most intriguing and unsatisfactory of phenomena has been this sharp rise in the percentage of women who appear before the courts who have been sentenced to imprisonment. Between 1992 and 2000—and I suspect that the figures are no better post-2000, but perhaps the Minister can confirm that—the percentage of women who appeared before the courts and were sent to prison went up by 500 per cent. During that time, the increase in relation to men was of a very different scale. I think it is extremely significant that during the same years, the percentage of women who were made the subject of remand in custody, pending trial or pending sentence, increased by 196 per cent, as is mentioned in the report. In the case of men, the increase was 52 per cent. Is this due to an increased predilection over the past 15 years on the part of women to criminality, or is it due to other factors? Is it due to some ethos which proclaims that incarcerating women is more proper and popular than it was some years ago? I fear that the psychology of the situation is responsible for that increase more than anything else. The thrust of the report is to appeal for equality. I am sure that everything that has been argued for in the report is an appeal for equality, rather than for precedence or some special privilege for women. I am sorry that I was unable to attend the excellent debate on Thursday initiated by my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham. In reading the Hansard report, there seems to be attributed to the Minister a statement in relation to gender equality considerations, which suggests that he would shy away from considering many of the robust recommendations in case that line is breached. I suspect that that does not do the Minister justice and I look forward to his dealing with the matter rather more fully when he comes to wind up. The justice of the situation demands not a common policy in relation to women, but a different policy. That is the only way in which equality can be brought about. My own experience as a judge and as counsel before that, is that whereas men go to prison for a number of obvious reasons—you can see the causal connection between the attitude of that person to life and the offence committed—the situation is very different for the vast majority of women. I felt, as did so many of my colleagues, that there was a cohort of misery and despair that women fitted into. The reason for the criminality was not the desire to commit criminal offences—it was that they were led in one way or another through strange and miserable paths to that situation. Often the pressures stem from the responsibility of family life, sometimes there is coercion from a partner and very often there is a mental disturbance, drug or solvent abuse, and so forth. Unless one accepts this to be the basis—and this is the reality of the situation—we will never get anywhere near doing justice to women in relation to criminal offences. In seeking to tackle that situation and therefore to remove the massive imbalance that already exists, I appreciate that in so far as reform of the criminal law is concerned, very little can actually be done. The last thing I would advocate would be passing a comprehensive Act of Parliament dealing with hundreds of criminal situations—