It is an honour to speak in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on her excellent opening remarks.
When the Government brought forward their proposals for transforming rehabilitation about five years ago, I was critical of the plan to separate probation into the National Probation Service for the management of high-risk offenders, and community rehabilitation companies for the management of low and medium-risk offenders. I was critical of the contracts given to community rehabilitation companies, because I did not see the justification for breaking up a successful probation service in that way. I feel that my concerns have been proven right, as shown by the failure of the Working Links contract the other day.
At the time of those proposals, I supported the introduction of post-release supervision for those released from short custodial sentences, and I thought that the Government’s proposed model of through-the-gate support would help to resettle offenders in the community, help women in particular to manage complex and chaotic lifestyles, and contribute to a reduction in reoffending. In the light of experience, I now think I was wrong to believe that that model of supervision for those released from short custodial sentences would be beneficial, and that is partly because of the way in which such support has been delivered.
There has been a lack of genuine through-the-gate provision—to the gate, possibly, and possibly provision after someone is released, but it is not the genuinely,
seamless, through-the-gate offer we were promised. As we heard, that was compounded by the chronic lack of support services in the community. That resulted in deeply perverse consequences for women who are massively and disproportionately affected, as shown by Ministry of Justice figures for the proportion of women subject to recall. It is particularly concerning that, in contrast to the experience of men, women released from short custodial sentences are likely to be recalled to prison. The figures flip round the other way for male offenders subject to recall, who have usually received longer custodial sentences.
In addition to the design failures and the problems with the lack of community support, we know that there are real problems with the community rehabilitation companies that provide the specialist support that women subject to post-release supervision should receive. I have heard reports of women receiving phone contact only from their supervising officer, a lack of women-specific support and programmes designed specifically to meet the needs of women, and chopping and changing supervisory staff, which makes it difficult to build that relationship of trust between supervisor and the woman being supervised. It is also clear that most women appear to be recalled not because of further offending, but because of a failure to comply with the terms of their supervision. According to a written answer I obtained from the Minister for prisons on 5 November last year, only a quarter of women are subjected to recall as a result of committing a new offence.
As we have heard, there are particular reasons why women might find it more difficult to comply with the terms of an order. They may have childcare obligations. If it is difficult to get childcare, they might find it hard to get to a supervision meeting. There is the difficulty of managing complex household needs, the lack of access to stable housing, difficulties accessing transport—women who are less likely to have access to a car may have particular problems with that—and women’s greater range of vulnerabilities. That experience of going in and out—of short periods of custodial sentence and then of being recalled, perhaps on more than one or two occasions—represents a cat and mouse situation that does nothing to help stabilise chaotic lives and support those women away from a path of reoffending. Nor does it help the Lord Chancellor in his rightful ambition to reduce the prison population.
It is clearly time to radically rethink the policy. The Minister will be familiar with the whole-system approach we have adopted in Greater Manchester over a number of years. I firmly believe it offers a much better model of support for women. I am pleased that many of the concepts we have used in the whole-system approach have found their way into the female offender strategy, but I urge the Minister to be much more vigorous and determined in effecting those principles. He should take a “what works” approach to policy and abandon one that clearly does not work.
First, the Minister needs to consider what genuine, through-the-gate support will look like. How can that be designed and resourced for the move from prison into the community? Secondly, we need a commitment to proper investment in community provision. In particular, that should be in sustainable and adequate funding for women’s centres. Thirdly, as we have heard, we need better processes for information and decision making
by supervising officers when considering recall, and that means better staff training. We urgently need legislation for a presumption against short custodial sentences coupled with building greater confidence in community alternatives, as we are seeing in Scotland. We know that short custodial sentences are particularly damaging to women and their families. They also fuel the recall problem.
Fundamentally, I ask the Minister to join me in rethinking the policy of active post-release supervision that we signed up to in 2015. It is not clear that it is doing any good, but it is quite clear that it is doing quite a lot of harm. I am persuaded that it was not the right policy to adopt. I hope the Minister will be prepared to reconsider it.
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