It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on securing this important debate. With our prisons stretched to breaking point, it is important to have a mature and considered debate about penal reform in the country. From statements made by the Prisons Minister, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), and most recently the Secretary of State for Justice about the futility of short prison sentences, it seems that on this occasion the Department wants to engage in a fruitful discussion.
Two weeks ago, I had a debate on short sentences where I called for a ban on prison sentences under six months. I believe that short prison sentences should also be at the front and centre of today’s debate on the recall of women to prisons and that is where I will focus my remarks.
Short prison sentences are an ineffective way to address the root causes of criminality, as they cause disruption to people’s lives, as my hon. Friend so eloquently described. They are too short to help inmates to rehabilitate and serve only as a punishment, which leads to increased reoffending rates. It is important to have this debate because, more often than not, women in particular are caught in a cycle of short prison sentences; and reoffending or recall despite their being convicted of non-violent offences adds to the chaos and uncertainty in their lives.
The 2017 “Guide to Proven Reoffending Statistics” found that both men and women who receive short-term prison sentences were considerably more likely to reoffend in the future. Most women receive prison sentences of less than 12 months and are more likely to reoffend than a male who has a comparable sentence. Short sentences place greater strain on an already overcrowded prison system and do not provide inmates with adequate time to become involved with rehabilitative programmes. Not only are our prisons facing staff shortages, but cuts to prison services mean that inmates cannot access important services that prevent reoffending.
The Government can and must do a better job of bolstering social programmes that aim to reduce the rate of offending among individuals who commit petty crimes. Many who do so feel they have no other option, especially if they are affected by addiction or mental health issues.
It seems to me as well that we cannot talk about this issue without talking about the Prison Service and the real problems that people within it are facing. Over the weekend, a constituent of mine appeared in The Daily Mirror and talked about leaving the Prison Service after
only five days, simply because the training was not good enough; he felt intimidated and scared. How can Prison Service staff deliver rehabilitative programmes if they are leaving the service because of lack of training and because of intimidation and threats of violence? The Government need to address that.
It seems that the justice system is blind to the impacts of short prison sentences on mothers and their families. Women are more likely to be a child’s primary carer, so these sentences have greater impact on their lives than on the lives of their male counterparts, who do not often have that experience of being primary carers. Children of women in prison find themselves struggling when it comes to basic necessities, including housing, health and education. In many respects, many of them have failed in the system before they have begun.
The Government can do something about that. According to a Prison Reform Trust report in 2018, every year over 17,000 children in England and Wales experience their mothers going to prison. Just imagine that: suddenly the primary carer in their life is gone; suddenly there is discord and disharmony in their life. Their education will be disrupted, whether they like it or not. The children of prisoners are more likely to be ill. Often, they are displaced from their home and their lives are uprooted. They have to enter new schools, often with the stigma of knowing that their classmates know that they are the children of prisoners. They may be separated from their siblings. All of this sounds almost like a Charles Dickens story, but it is happening in this country in the 21st century, and it is something that all of us, as Members of Parliament, should be concerned about and should do something about.
According to the 2018 female offender strategy document, roughly 60% of female inmates are victims of domestic violence. As a result of horrific abuse, these women find themselves in dire situations, with a limited pool of supportive resources. They may be coerced into a life of crime by an abusive partner, or they may turn to petty crime to provide for themselves and their children. If somebody is particularly shoplifting for food, it seems common sense to me to ask why. Are they hungry? Rather than make them criminals, is it not far better to offer them hope?
Women with abusive partners often find themselves cut off financially and unable to keep up with a variety of payments, ranging from bills to council tax payments. Women sent to prison due to non-payment become entrenched in a cycle of instability. How are they supposed to create a better life for themselves and become proactive citizens if they are imprisoned and thrown back into the exact same situation that led them into trouble? If someone is falling behind on their bills, such as council tax, the wrong place to send them is to prison, because that just criminalises them.
I firmly believe that women do not belong in prison, especially if they have not been convicted of a violent crime. They need support and should be placed in a facility that is at least designed to rehabilitate and educate them. These women require a safe space where they can learn valuable skills that allow them to live independently, thus removing their need to return to crime; instead they can become useful citizens to society.
The probation service does not facilitate support for recently released inmates. Indeed, as the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) said, since reforms such as
the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 were made, recall numbers for women have risen by 131%—a shocking statistic when compared with the 22% recall rate among men. Something is wrong when for so many women the system is not working. Between 2017 and 2018 more than 1,700 women were recalled to prisons, which is roughly half the female prison population.
In addition to attempting to restabilise and normalise their lives, these women have the added stress of maintaining contact with their probation officers. The constant threat of being recalled creates a lack of trust between offenders and probation officers, and trust is key to ensuring that those women do not return to a life of crime. Offenders have no one to turn to if they face having to slip back into petty crime in order to survive. If a probation officer is on the lookout only for a perceived risk of offending, it seems unlikely that they will be someone to whom an at-risk offender can turn for help.
Two weeks ago, I called on the Government to abolish the practice of administering short sentences to non-violent offenders, and instead to focus their efforts on establishing rehabilitation services, residential centres, and the use of community service orders. For women who are also themselves victims, short stints in prison only cause more problems in often chaotic lives. I am impressed that the Secretary of State acknowledged that short prison sentences do not work. I urge him and other Justice Ministers to put their words into action, to abolish short prison sentences for women, and to create a system that benefits and builds trust in the whole of society.
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