To mark International Women’s Day, we reflect on the appetite for change to how the justice system responds to women.
Women and girls in contact with the justice system have often experienced deep and enduring disadvantages. The majority have suffered from mental illness, experienced trauma and have been a victim of crime themselves, many being survivors of sexual assault, abuse and harassment. The deep and enduring disadvantages felt by this group are then often further compounded by contact with a system designed with men in mind, doing little to offer them a way out or guide them towards an alternative path.
This International Women’s Day, however, comes at the cusp of promised and much anticipated changes for women in the criminal justice system of England and Wales. The Government has been explicit in its commitment to reduce the number of women sent to prison, to halve violence against women and girls in the next decade and has created a new Women’s Justice Board. We are delighted that, as part of that effort, we have been funded to work with others to transform community justice for women and girls. This funding will allow us to work with areas to build effective ways of minimising the contact between women and girls and the formal justice system. This new work builds on some of our previous work, including our best practice guidance on problem-solving courts for women, and most recently in providing pre-court diversion schemes for women.
We hope this work will be part of much wider changes. Just this week, we have seen the Government permanently end the detention of girls in Young Offender Institutions, recognising that they cannot offer the therapeutic, trauma-informed support these girls need. The new Sentencing Council guidelines on the 'Imposition of Community and Custodial Sentences' now specifically mentions pregnant women and recognises that the circumstances of women coming into contact with the justice system should be given consideration.
As part of their mission to halve violence against women and girls, the Government are also embedding domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms, piloting new Domestic Abuse Protection Notices and Orders (read our briefing on implementing these here), and are set to fast track rape cases in our courts (something we called for in our policy paper, Systems Shift). At the Centre, we are keen that the Government, as part of the Safer Streets mission to halve violence against women and girls, takes the opportunity to improve the court response to domestic abuse, implementing Specialist Sexual Violence Courts and- re-invigorating the use of Specialist Domestic Abuse courts, as recently called for by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner.
In a political and social environment which does not always feel positive, we hope this International Women’s Day will be the start of real transformation for women in the justice system.