The justice secretary says she needs to scale back the variety of girls’s prisons within the nation as they’re “forcing women into a life of crime”.
Talking at Labour’s celebration convention in Liverpool on Tuesday, Shabana Mahmood mentioned that “prison isn’t working” for girls, and described the establishments as “desperate places” which can be “hurting mothers and breaking homes”.
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To handle the problem, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) will arrange a brand new girls’s justice board, led by a minister and tasked with “reducing the number of women going to prison, with the ultimate ambition of having fewer women’s prisons”.
It is going to publish its technique in spring subsequent yr, with its preliminary deal with diverting girls away from the legal justice system the place acceptable and enhancing group help as a substitute for jail.
Pointing to a evaluate of ladies and the legal justice system from when Labour was in energy in 2007, Ms Mahmood mentioned: “It was clear then and it’s clear now that if we change how we treat women in prison, we cut crime, we keep families together and we end the harm that passes from one generation to the next.”
There are presently round 3,440 girls in jail in England and Wales – up from a median of three,183 in 2021 – with round two-thirds not having dedicated a violent crime.
Greater than half of the prisoners report being victims of home abuse, and self-harm within the inhabitants is eight occasions increased than in males’s prisons.
The MoJ additionally mentioned these serving quick custodial sentences have been considerably extra prone to re-offend in comparison with those that have not been despatched to jail.
In her speech, Ms Mahmood additionally reiterated Labour’s pledge to “rebalance the scales of justice” in direction of girls, together with a transfer to make sure rape victims have an unbiased authorized advocate to help them.
The federal government hopes the roll-out subsequent yr will decrease the variety of survivors dropping out of rape circumstances earlier than they go to trial – which presently sits at 60%.
