We’ve joined Women in Prison and many other representatives from housing, domestic abuse, criminal justice, midwifery, and children’s organisations in writing to Justice Secretary, Robert Buckland QC MP and Prisons Minister, Alex Chalk MP. This combined letter makes a clear case for community solutions instead of the proposed 500 new prison places.
It was published in the Sunday Times and warns about the rise of self-harm in prison as well as clearly refuting the Government’s claim that additional places are needed to prepare for a projected rise in the prison population due to the future hiring of more police officers.
We encourage you to write to the Justice Minister yourself and ask him to #Stopthe500 now. Read the letter in full here.
Background on why we need to #Stopthe500
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is creating 500 extra prison places for women to “accommodate a growing prisoner population”, some of which will be built at Foston Hall in Derbyshire. The MoJ has predicted that the number of women prisoners is expected to rise by 40% over the next five years due to the recruitment of extra police officers and longer sentences.
This plan goes against the Government’s own Female Offender Strategy from 2018 which set out to reduce the women’s prison population, committing to shifting emphasis from custody to the community and envisaging more women being given non-custodial sentences as an alternative to prison. It also goes against the Government’s own evidence which has previously shown that prison is more likely to increase reoffending rather than reduce it and actually called for a reduction in the women’s prison population.
What we want to see instead
We would like to see a new model of funding for community-based women’s centres that provides support to women affected by the criminal justice system. We fully support The Case for Sustainable Funding for Women’s Centres report published by Women in Prison together with the Women’s Budget Group, The Nelson Trust, Together Women, Anawim and Brighton Women’s Centre.
The report asks that: “Central Government use the upcoming Spending Review to introduce a New Deal for Women’s Centres which should:
● Provide core funding from central Government with a system of matched funding granted from a local consortium of commissioners.
● Provide mandatory commissioning guidance to local commissioners to ensure a network of appropriate services is available nationwide.