Select Committee on Home Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-105)

RT HON BARONESS SCOTLAND OF ASTHAL QC, MS CHRISTINE KNOTT, MR PHIL WHEATLEY AND MR JOHN BOYINGTON

8 NOVEMBER 2005

  Q100 Mrs Dean: Is it true that women are more likely to be sent to prison for a second offence than men and do you accept that a smaller proportion of women offenders should be sent to prison and, if so, what is the Government doing to achieve that?

  Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I think a similar number of women are being sent. If you look at the number of women we have in our prison estate at the moment, there is a huge disparity between the number of men who get sent to prison and the number of women who get sent to prison. There are just over 4,500 women in prison at the moment and you know that our prison population is over 77,000 overall, so if you look at the percentages, it is actually a relatively small percentage of women who are going to prison. However, the consequences for those who do go are stark and I think that is something that we are looking at very carefully. The increase and change which has come about by virtue of the new community sentences which have become available as a result of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 we think will be very helpful because it will, we hope, enable the court to better target the offending pattern of behaviour for women in a way that need not necessarily involve a custodial sentence. I think one of the things we have to be really frank about though is that many courts almost give up on someone and there are so many offences, and they are minor offences, but there are sometimes hundreds of them, so they think, "Well, what else can we do? We will put this woman in prison". What we have to find is a better way of addressing those women's offending patterns of behaviour and interrupting those patterns of behaviour in a way that will perhaps keep them in the community, lessen the consequences for their children, lessen the consequences for themselves and get them back into circulation, but in a way that actually bites on their offending patterns because the courts will have no choice, but to send some of these women to prison even if the actual offences are themselves not huge, but because of the number of them, and that is a real challenge for us and we are really concentrating on seeing what we can do about it.

  Chairman: We will turn to the last section now.

  Q101 Nick Herbert: Another group where the incidence of suicide is relatively high is those prisoners on remand. As you know, there has been a huge increase in the remand population over the last decade. What steps are you taking to deal with the problem of suicides in remand prisons?

  Baroness Scotland of Asthal: Really it is in relation to the attempts we are making for better assessment when they come in; many prisoners go to first night centres, putting in programmes which will involve the use of insiders who, as you know, are prisoners who give information but also they are put on to the Samaritans who are the listeners, and trying in those first few days to make sure we have better assessment, better support and better opportunities to pick those people up very quickly. Also of course we are hoping that by working with the courts we will be limiting the number of people who will be coming to prison on remand. There are greater opportunities now by tagging, by curfews, by other steps, which will be better able to keep people secure in the community and monitored as opposed to putting them into prison. But it is in those early days, making sure we have better ways of assessing which will make a difference.

  Q102 Nick Herbert: On your point about trying to reduce the remand population and the use of tagging, I notice in the Home Office's written evidence you said you had notified the courts of the availability of tagging, but can you tell us more about what the take-up of that has been specifically in relation to remand as opposed to early release?

  Baroness Scotland of Asthal: Basically this is an issue of confidence. You will recall at one stage the availability of tagging was perceived to be patchy. It was also seen by many to be very expensive. It is no longer expensive and it is universally available right the way across the country. It is making sure that sentencers are aware of that availability, are aware of the effectiveness of it and can therefore have greater confidence in using it. The Sentencing Guidelines Council of course has a real role to play in terms of the advice it gives to judges in the sort of interventions they should look for, and we are hoping that they will assist also. We can write to you on the figures.[8]

  Chairman: That would be very helpful.

  Q103 Nick Herbert: Can I ask quickly about bail hostels which are another potential alternative to remand prisons?

  Baroness Scotland of Asthal: You will know the majority of bail hostels we have now are really identifying the top end of activities, so that we can get the security and confidence for those who are more difficult to manage in the community. However, there is an issue as to what further or other provision we need to make in relation to bail hostels for those who are not perceived to be dangerous but are in need of accommodation and monitoring and that is an issue we intend to continue to look at. For those who have secure accommodation we now believe that the sort of tools that there are to monitor them in the community are sufficiently robust and sound to make prison for many of these offenders no longer a necessity in the way it was before. Before we had tagging, before we had the combination of tools, I think it was a more reasonable resort to have prison, but we think the need for it will and has diminished.

  Q104 Chairman: We were told by our earlier witnesses that one of the recommendations from the Halliday Report which had not been implemented was the one for the review of that part of the estate which deals with remand prisoners and bail hostels and so on. Apparently that has not been implemented. In view of what you have just said, is there any prospect there will be a wide ranging review of remand prisoners and bail hostels and other provision for people pre-sentence or outside of sentencing?

  Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I do not know whether review means setting up a separate body.

  Q105 Chairman: To develop an overall strategy for the type and location of property, the type who can be sent there?

  Baroness Scotland of Asthal: You will know, I hope, that we hope to launch a five year strategy in relation to reducing reoffending, and one of the things we are going to be looking at is the needs across the estate, what sort of estate we will need to build up, what sort of interventions will we have, because we do need that needs-based assessment so we have a real understanding; what is the nature of offenders, what is their offending pattern of behaviour, what is the level of interventions they will need, what sort of interventions are likely to make a difference and then what sort of accommodation will we need in the community in order to deliver some of those things. So that review of our overall provision is going on at the moment.

  Chairman: Thank you. This has been a very helpful session. Thank you very much indeed. I think my own impression from the chair is that the direction of travel you have set out is not so far from the areas urged on us by some of the organisations earlier, but you have also given the Committee a number of aspirations for the Government which we will want to come back to in the months and years ahead to see how much progress is being achieved. Thank you very much indeed.






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