Joint memorandum submitted by Women in
Prison (WIP), the Creative and Supportive Trust (CAST), and Clean
Break
SUMMARY
— There is much that needs to be done
to improve education services provided to women both in prison
and following release.
— Women have different needs from men
in terms of the type of education and skills training required.
— An over-emphasis on offenders starting
work quickly after leaving prison is unrealistic given the starting
point and complex needs of offenders generally and women prisoners
in particular.
— There is a need for greater funding
of voluntary and community sector groups who can provide services
after release and whilst women are in prison, thus ensuring continuity
of service provision; long-term funding is crucial if these services
are to be viable.
— The design of the National Offender
Management Service is disadvantageous to women in relation to
increasing regionalisation and according greater service provision
to those who pose greatest risk to the public.
— Women generally serve shorter sentences
than men, and are therefore less eligible for education and skills
training though their needs are at least as great: women need
to start education and skills training whilst in prison, and continue
this training after release within the community.
— The geographical spread of women's
prisons means women are more likely than men to be in prison a
long distance from their resettlement area.
— Under the approaching active legal
duty on public bodies to promote gender equality, government will
need to ensure its services, and those of the agencies it contracts
with, meet the specific needs of women offenders.
INTRODUCTION
1. Women in Prison (WIP), Creative And Supportive
Trust (CAST), and Clean Break welcome the Education and Skills
Select Committee's decision to follow up their report into education
in prison, and we have taken this opportunity to make a combined
submission from our organisations focusing on the educational
needs of women within the criminal justice system.
COMPLEX NEEDS
OF WOMEN
OFFENDERS
2. Women offenders, as the Government has
recognised, have specific needs and characteristics which pose
challenges to the provision of education services. Women prisoners
are more likely to have considerably lower education levels and
less stable housing than men in prison. Their employment histories
are characterised by limited experience of stable employment,
less even than male prisoners. They are much more likely to be
solely responsible for the care of children and maintenance of
a home than male prisoners.
3. Women prisoners' underlying needs in
terms of histories of victimisation and abuse, mental health issues
and substance misuse are further complications.
EMPLOYMENT SKILLS
ACQUISITION
4. As the Government has recognised in the
Green Paper skills acquisition and preparation for employment
is central to the purpose of prison. Too often learning and skills
has been seen by some prison staff as a soft option and as peripheral
to the core business of a prison.
5. The expectation that offenders can
be employable is important for employers and for offenders themselves.
Most of the women prisoners we work with want a "normal"
life—a stable home and a job. They may feel this is a distant
prospect, far removed from their experience, but tapping into
whatever their aspirations are and taking them seriously is vital.
The Green Paper conveys a message that nobody should be written
off.
6. However, it is vital that long-term support
and real job opportunities for offenders are out there. We are
not convinced that this is the case.
THE PATH
TO EMPLOYMENT
7. We have reservations about the emphasis
in the Green Paper on employment apparently soon after release.
It is unlikely that many women will be able to benefit from job
search in the last few weeks of a sentence or to move into a job
placement in the week they are released.
8. We believe that agencies working with
offenders on employability must not be tightly bound to unrealistic
targets and all involved must recognise that the road to employment
may be a long one.
9. Professor Mike Maguire's work on desistance
from crime talks about the importance of "support in the
face of setbacks" and calls desistance a "difficult
and lengthy process". His research found that lapses are
common and should be expected, and that the factors most important
in provision of services are continuity, offering a holistic response,
a personal relationship, empathy and pro-social modelling.[11]
10. We endorse this view, and consider that
it is especially relevant to women offenders given their characteristics
and histories.
11. We would urge the Committee to call
on the Government to detail their plans for intensive support
for women offenders.
EDUCATIONAL NEEDS
12. Women's education needs are different
from men's. Where men have traditionally been taught a trade,
this is less applicable to women. Women need skills training that
goes beyond that linked to low-paid employment traditionally regarded
as feminine. We have been disheartened to see NVQ1 in cleaning
in one establishment for example. This is unlikely to give women
the means to secure stable jobs that provide an income to support
a family.
ARTS AND
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
13. Education not directly related to employment
such as arts and personal development activities have a contribution
to make to employability. They increase confidence and self esteem
and may help offenders take the first psychological steps towards
considering education and employment as being relevant to them.
14. Allison Liebling's recent work on safer
local prisons correlates personal development activity with reduced
distress and reduced levels of suicide.[12]
15. According to the Government's own research,
"The arts play an important role in work with offenders,
providing valuable opportunities to complement and enhance the
education curriculum, increase employability and enable self-development.
There is evidence to show how participation in the arts can offer
a wide range of positive results and benefits including: increased
confidence and self-esteem; improved communication skills; improved
mental well-being; new skills and qualifications; and finding
a way into employment. Many of these benefits are fundamental
elements in the delivery of learning and skills." Furthermore,
"The arts can also foster qualities which many other parts
of the curriculum do not by: focusing on people and team work;
developing individual creativity allowing engagement in activities
by choice; enabling feelings to be explored and encouraging self-responsibility;
and raising aspirations and support behavioural change."[13]
16. These activities must not be sidelined
by an uncompromising focus on skills training.
DISTANCE LEARNING
17. Not all prisoners will be interested
in the skills training available in their establishment. Success
will mean taking into account individual aspirations and circumstances.
18. Distance learning is an invaluable tool
in catering for individual aspirations. There is a huge range
of subjects and levels available. Distance learning should not
be thought of as necessarily high-level study. Open University
is at one end of the spectrum, but women prisoners funded by WIP
are studying GCSEs, taster courses and access courses among other
things.
19. With the right support, distance learning
can provide some of the continuity that is lacking in the system
as courses follow the prisoner on transfer. Peer support activities
can be organised around distance learning. WIP has developed a
peer mentoring programme for distance learners in women's prisons.
FUNDING FOR
COMMUNITY GROUPS
20. There is a need for greater funding
of voluntary and community sector groups who can provide services
after release and whilst women are in prison, thus ensuring continuity
of service provision; long-term funding is crucial if these services
are to be viable.
21. The experience of providing services
in return for Government funding has not been a happy one for
many small VCS organisations.
22. Our experience is of late decision making
on the part of funders, and funding being agreed for one year
at a time. This makes planning, staff retention, development and
growth extremely difficult.
23. There is a need for central funding
for small national organisations that provide specialist services
to groups of offenders with specific needs. These needs cannot
be met without input from such organisations. The alternative
is that specialist agencies such as WIP, CAST and Clean Break
expend their limited capacity building relationships with Commissioners
across many regions. This is not an efficient use of our resources
and expertise.
24. It should be possible for the Home Office
and Department for Education and Skills to use the same model
for long term, stable funding for strategically important NGOs
as is used by the Department for International Development through
their Partnership Programme Agreements.[14]
NATIONAL OFFENDER
MANAGEMENT SERVICE
25. The design of the National Offender
Management Service is disadvantageous to women in relation to
increasing regionalisation and according greater service provision
to those who pose greatest risk to the public.
26. The Government's emphasis on the risk
posed by offenders in the allocation of resources, rather than
need, means that women prisoners miss out on access to more intensive
support from their offender manager (if they have one at all—many
vulnerable women including those on remand and serving short sentences
will have no statutory support from an offender manager).
27. The lesser risks posed by women should
be used in their favour through release on temporary licence to
supports opportunities for training and employment. Women's prisons
should be more "porous" with more women attending college
and work outside.
28. Women prisoners should be held in conditions
appropriate to the risk they pose. At the moment (because there
are only two open women's prisons for the whole estate) the security
conditions under which women are held are not necessarily correlated
with risk. This restricts the training and employment options
open to them.
29. Women generally serve shorter sentences
than men, and are therefore less eligible for education and skills
training though their needs are at least as great: women need
to start education and skills training whilst in prison, and continue
this training after release within the community. The Green Paper
commendably emphasised the importance of continuity of support,
and of stability in key relationships. A package of intervention
and support both within prison and after release is likely to
be most effective.
30. This kind of continuity is still extremely
rare, and is difficult to provide to women prisoners who are often
held a long way from their resettlement area, and for whom a transfer
almost inevitably means a move into another region. The system
is not set up to make provision of services easy. Specialist community
sector service providers can help address some of these problems,
but they need the funding appropriate to enable them to do so.
WOMEN AND
PRISON
31. There is a need to question whether
prison is the most appropriate and cost-effective disposal for
non-violent women offenders given the damage and disruption it
causes to them, their children and their prospects for the future.
32. Appropriate local provision for
women offenders should be developed that meets their specific
needs, including needs relating to education, training and employment
and reduces re-offending.
December 2006
11 From a presentation, British Society of Criminology
day conference "Prisoner Resettlement: Repairing the Broken
Links" 7 December 2005. Back
12
www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/resourcecentre/prisonservicejournal/ Back
13
Draft NOMS Strategy for the Arts in the National Offender Management
Service (September 2006). Back
14
PPAs are agreements between DFID and influential civil society
organisations in the UK which set out at a strategic level how
the two partners will work together. Strategic Funding is provided,
and is linked to jointly agreed outcomes. Back
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