Debate on support for women leaving - speech by Carolyn Harris MP

Carolyn Harris, Labour MP for Swansea East: When you look at the female prison population you are faced with the stark reality that, in the most part, it is nurture not nature that has led these women down the path they are following. A path of destruction; a path that embodies a lack of self-worth and path that has been created for them by their life experiences and subsequent complex needs.

Nearly 60% of women who come into contact with the criminal justice system are survivors of domestic violence and more than half report having experienced emotional, physical, or sexual abuse during childhood. Both of these figures are likely to be underestimates and if you add to that issues such as poverty and addiction then you start to see the full picture of how past trauma leads to crime, conviction, and imprisonment.

I could - and I have - talk in great detail about the need for alternatives to prison for many women in the first place. The Female Offender Strategy gave me a sense of real hope that more would be done to advocate women’s centres with the emphasis on supporting and rehabilitating women in a more constructive setting. In it, the government set out a commitment to “a new programme of work for female offenders, driven by three priorities: earlier intervention, an emphasis on community-based solutions, and an aim to make custody as effective and decent as possible for those women who do have to be there”. I was therefore both shocked and disappointed by the Ministry of Justice announcement earlier this year of 500 new prison places for women at a cost of £150million, particularly when core funding for women’s centres, which are proven to reduce reoffending, is being cut.

But today I want to look at what happens to women when they finish their sentence. What support is available to them to help them rebuild their lives and what more needs to be done to reduce the number of women whose initial conviction becomes a catalyst for a lifetime in the criminal justice system.

I recently met with representatives from the Safe Homes for Women Leaving Prison initiative. Shockingly, they told me, that over half of all women leaving prison have nowhere safe to go. They walk through the gate with three things – their paltry £46 Prison Discharge Grant, a plastic bag full of any belongings and the threat of recall if they miss their probation appointment.

For some, the simple fact they have been in prison a long way from home means they have no local connections when they are released. For others, who are victims of abuse, returning to their homes and consequently their perpetrators comes at a huge personal risk. But what other options are there?

A lack of secure housing is a significant barrier to successful rehabilitation. According to an HMI Probation Report, between 2019 and 2020, 65% of men and women released from prison without settled accommodation reoffended. Without somewhere to live, the chances of finding employment are minimal and the impact on mental health is devastating. A return to familiar surroundings, harmful behaviour, substance abuse and crime is almost inevitable.

The ‘duty to refer’ in the Homelessness Reduction Act is failing when it comes to vulnerable women leaving prison and the Government must take urgent action to change this and improve its effectiveness. Whilst the announcement of dedicated staff to act as brokers for prisoners to give them faster access to accommodation upon release is welcome, only having this resource in eleven prisons around the country won’t even come close to solving the problem. These staff need to be placed in every women’s prison in the country and be fully trained to address the challenges faced by women when they leave.

Likewise, the new pilot, announced by the Government, of temporary basic accommodation for prison leavers at risk of homelessness doesn’t go far enough. It is only being launched in five out of the twelve probation regions in England and Wales, is limited to a maximum of twelve weeks accommodation and does not address the particular needs of women at all. This needs to be a national scheme, that takes into account the specific issues faced by vulnerable women with complex needs and offer safe and secure permanent accommodation to enable them to achieve resettlement and rehabilitation.

Leaving prison should be a chance for a new beginning but the way things stand it is just the start of another battle for many women. A battle to find somewhere safe to live, to get a job, to stay clean and not reoffend. A battle to avoid being recalled because that £46 wasn’t enough for a fresh start.

So today I would ask the Minister to look again at the government’s commitments in the Female Offenders Strategy – commitments to “take an approach that addresses vulnerability, follows the evidence about what works in supporting them to turn their lives around and treats them as individuals of value”. And I ask (her) to consider what can be done to improve women’s life chances upon release.
Be it an uplift to the Prison Discharge grant
A pledge to look again at additional prison places when it is clear that women’s centres provide better outcomes
Extending dedicated support across the whole female justice estate to help with accommodation before release
Guaranteed accommodation being made available for all those leaving at risk of homelessness
Or perhaps all of these things

We know that the majority of women with convictions have experienced trauma. We will have all heard the harrowing stories of abuse, addiction, coercion, and social deprivation that have led these women to commit crime in the first place. What they need is a system that supports their rehabilitation and offers them freedom from their past to help them to avoid recall and allow them to choose a different path. Not a system, that sets them up for failure from the very start.

If we are to see an end to this cycle of injustice, then so much more needs to be done to offer women support and the tools they need to build themselves a better future.