Green party and women’s prison reform

Came across this earlier, which I was completely unaware was a part of the green party policy. Note there are no equivalent policies for mens facilities. I was pretty surprised, lived in Brighton under a green mp for many years and had no idea this was a part of their thinking. I’m not suggesting the prison service doesn’t need some changes for everyone involved (I have very little knowledge on that), but sentencing people based on their gender seems bonkers

https://policy.greenparty.org.uk/policy/crime-and-justice/

CJ381 Recognising the nature of the female prison population, with high levels of mental illness, experience of being a victim of crimes such as sexual assault and domestic violence, and caring responsibilities for children, the only women who should be in custody are those very few that commit serious and violent crimes and who present a threat to the public.

CJ382 For the vast majority of women in the criminal justice system, solutions in the community are more appropriate. Community sentences must be designed to take account of women’s particular vulnerabilities and domestic and childcare commitments. The restrictions placed on sentencers around breaches of community orders must be made more flexible.

CJ383 Existing women’s prisons should be replaced with suitable geographically dispersed, small, multi-functional custodial centres. More supported accommodation should be provided for women on release to break the cycle of repeat offending and custody.

Sounds great, I can get my wife to commit any crimes.

But being serious it’s an interesting viewpoint, proposing that for a given crime women are less of a risk factor to the public than men.

Wonder what the stance would be on a repeated drink driver?

Seems perfectly sensible to me.  Can’t argue with anything they say.  Prisons do very little good, a lot of harm and most women in there are as they say.

There was a time when it was reasonably common for women to be sent to prison for non-payment of TV licence. Thankfully I don’t think that is the case anymore.

https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/10832/imprisonment-for-women-tv-licence-defaulters#:~:text=That%20this%20House%20notes%20that,statistics%2C%20293%20women%20were%20jailed

I did some related work on this ages ago, to do with a piece of legislation on prostitution. I also had a friend go to prison (at a time when the suicide rate in Cornton Vale was alarmingly and unusually high) and saw the devastation it caused. I think there’s a body of evidence that suggests that the societal cost of imprisoning women is usually quite high, so non-custodial approaches are better in the round (there’s a school of thought that prison generally should be for people who are a danger to the public and that other forms of punishment and restitution are more effective where public protection isn’t an issue). Things like sending a woman to prison for non payment of a fine associated with a prosecution for sex work (which may well have been as a result of an underlying drug dependency, domestic abuse, or a combination of those) just result in their child being taken into care and a cycle of of trauma continues – and on leaving prison the woman will probably return to sex work because now they have a prison record and have even less chance of getting a job.

A quick google:

‘More than 80% of the women in prison are there for low level, non-violent offences and about half of the women in prison are there for theft. Most women are sentenced to very short lengths of time. In 2020 70% of sentences were for less than 12 months.’ https://appeal.org.uk/womens-justice#:~:text=More%20than%2080%25%20of%20the,for%20less%20than%2012%20months.

More stats: https://prisonreformtrust.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/prison_the_facts_2023.pdf

Prison reform is needed, starting with women because their imprisonment has wider/heavier social impacts seems like a sensible start.

Wonder what the stance would be on a repeated drink driver?

I think their view would be it should be for the sentencing judge to take into account ALL the circumstances of the offending and the offender, with the desire that there should be well resourced/funded alternatives to custody that can prevent repeat offending before it becomes an inevitable pattern but with the ultimate sanction of custody when that fails.   Once you get to that point the system should still be looking to get the best outcomes and that’s where smaller, local units are perceived as better.

Those comments should also apply to men, but it’s a a reality that the make up of our male and female prison populations is not the same.  There are some proper nasty women, and there are plenty of men on the inside who are victims of fate/circumstance/society in the same way as many of the women – the reality is the demographics of male/female prisons is different, pretending the average female prisoner is equivalent to the average male prisoner is how we’ve got ourselves in the current situation.

These suggestions from the Greens seem sensible to me. I think we as a society have to ask ourselves what is the purpose of prison?

Deterrence, punishment, rehabilitation ?  for the bad, the mad and the sad?

Deterrence yes, for some at least.Punishment certainly but rehabilitation I don’t see it. I have 2 friends who have been to prison, one died a long time ago of a drug addiction he acquired while in prison, the other is in prison now for the fourth time on his longest sentence yet. He has now also acquired an addiction. Neither was offered any rehabilitation or at least not till this point

Edit we surely should have better places for the mad and the sad than prison

In 2020 70% of [female custodial] sentences were for less than 12 months.’

Short sentences are completely **** useless for most offenders [edit: of the type that currently get convicted]. Long enough to make you lose your job and your home (if you have them) and traumatise you and your kids, but too short for any kind of treatment or training (lol!).

Half of female prisoners are substance abusers. You could hand out free flats and free drugs to all of them, and it would still be cheaper and more effective at reducing crime than short sentences.

Prison is very expensive (it costs about £52,000 per adult prisoner per year to detain someone – and that’s not even covering investigation, prosecution and trial costs) but not very effective. Prison is the criminal justice option left when nothing else works… but it doesn’t work either.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/millions-invested-to-support-female-offenders

sentencing people based on their gender seems bonkers

Crime and criminal justice is already totally gendered!

I’m inclined to agree with Hannah, but I’d maybe extend the same argument to sentencing of male prisoners too. There is no resources or funding for rehabilitation in our prisons, they just become a dangerous holding pen where the vulnerable get dragged further down.

Crime is a societal problem and needs wider societal solutions, that need long term, multi generational significant investment, from early years family support to stable housing to vocational and academic education and training to youth work, drug rehab and loafs I haven’t thought of.

In 20 years time the scheme will pay for itself in savings from social services, criminal justice, unemployment and benefit savings. We just need a party committed to investing billions up front to ensure a fairer, kinder and more secure future for all of us.

In 20 years time the scheme will pay for itself in savings from social services, criminal justice, unemployment and benefit savings. We just need a party committed to investing billions up front to ensure a fairer, kinder and more secure future for all of us.

Totally agree, yet one of the first things this government did was to shut down a lot of the Sure Start centres – down by about 30% 😕

Totally agree, yet one of the first things this government did was to shut down a lot of the Sure Start centres – down by about 30% 😕

MrsMC was a front line child protection worker and spent the night of the 2019 election writing a report to get a child put into secure accommodation at a cost of £1k+ a week* for issues that she  reckoned could have been nipped in the bud by Sure Start.

*and don’t get me started on the costs charged by accommodation providers. Our local council has been very vocal about the strain those costs put on the entire budget.

Deterrence, punishment, rehabilitation ?

The one purpose of prison that other sentencing options can’t really achieve – is protection of the public.

In a previous job one of my tasks was getting the daily court results. Then phoning victims of domestic violence and warning them that their violent partner who had breached their bail conditions by turning up at their door and threatening them had been released on bail again.

For low level crimes getting sent to jail takes a fair bit of effort and perseverance. It is absolutely needed for when everything else has failed.

The one purpose of prison that other sentencing options can’t really achieve – is protection of the public.

I’m not seeing anyone saying that prison should not be used to protect the public from the people they need protecting from. Though many of them may be better in a medical facility than a punishment facility.

The one purpose of prison that other sentencing options can’t really achieve – is protection of the public.

Drugs treatment plans / some form of dealing with drug addiction other than incarceration could probably protect the public from a fair degree of risk.

You’ve only found one Green Party policy that is bonkers? It’s not that hard to find many many more.

Nearly all of the arguments I’ve read above apply just as well to men and men’s prisons too. Some of it comes across as sexist, and sexism isn’t good whichever side it comes from. As a stay-at-home dad I reckon men are just as good at bringing up kids and the absence of a father from a family unit is just as bad.

A réflection as an ex-teacher, kids from families with dead or absent fathers were a headache as the eldest son ruled the roost. Kids with absent or dead mothers often lived wih grandparents and were better. Anecdotal but worth condideration.

Prisons should be there as a last resort to protect society from the dangerous and not for revenge or spite as much sentencing appears to be. The emphasis should be on education and rehabilitation.

Why is the split being made at gender, why not the level of crime, or the mental health of the individuals, or so on. If the greens get their gender reforms, does that mean a man can rob a bank, identify as a woman and then get a non-custodial sentence 😂

The one purpose of prison that other sentencing options can’t really achieve – is protection of the public.

To a degree but for those short term prisoners its just a temporary measure and may make things worse when the person is released since they have lost their job and spent the last several months in an environment which could normalise criminal behaviour.

There are definitely plenty of people who need to be locked up to protect the public but for others the public would be best served by dealing with the underlying issues whether mental illness, literacy issues etc which can be done cheaper and more humanely outside of a prison environment.

I would say this applies to men as well though.

I think prison for low-level crimes is also used where other punishment isn’t being accepted – lets say you’re caught doing 45 in a 30, then you would likely get

speed awareness course – refuse that you get a court date and
points and fine – refuse to pay the fine and you might get
community service (or whatever the right name for that is) – if you don’t turn up you get
prison sentance

if you don’t have that flow down of punishments itll quickly be realised you can just dodge a consiquence and get away with it. That is not to say nobody falls down that slope due to difficulties navigating the system – I’m sure there’s some of that – but the slope is needed.

If we applied the logic of sentancing based on reoffending likelyhood across the board, we’d end up with poor people having longer sentances than rich people and black people having longer sentances than white. sentancing should absolutely take into account the offenders past and impact on those around them (it already does), but doing it at a statistical level is bonkers

I’m not seeing anyone saying that prison should not be used to protect the public from the people they need protecting from. Though many of them may be better in a medical facility than a punishment facility.

To be clear – I wasn’t suggesting otherwise – I was pointing out that TJ’s list of “purposes of prison” missed the one reason that for the most extreme offenders was actually prisons might do better (at least in the short term) than alternatives.    If you read my earlier post I think it would be quite clear where “politically” I fall…

Why is the split being made at gender

There’s 20+ times as many male prisoners as female prisoners. Building 3000 places in community detention is a big job. Building 85,000 is unreal.

The one purpose of prison that other sentencing options can’t really achieve – is protection of the public.

Public protection is served by reducing offending. Throwing people with mental disorders, substance abuse problems and/or learning difficulties into prison for 7 months after their 200th shoplifting offence again doesn’t protect the public. It just kicks the problem down the road and burns through £50k that could be spent more usefully elsewhere.

We spend too much time locking up people we are annoyed at and not enough time focusing on people we should be scared of.

Why is the split being made at gender

Because most women aren’t doing time for violent crime, that actually warrants prison, and couldn’t be more usefully served in the community and taking mum away from children can have a devastating long term effect. It’s a double whammy that serves almost no purpose and does actual harm.

We spend too much time locking up people we are annoyed at and not enough time focusing on people we should be scared of.

And not enough time rehabilitating them once they’re there, so they don’t reoffend.

Given policing and judicial cuts, the whole justice system is broken in the name of austerity, by a government formed from the Party of Law and Order.

As long as it’s the same for all women and not just because they’ve had children then it seems like a sensible start to the reforms prisons probably need

Because most women aren’t doing time for violent crime, that actually warrants prison

So why not segregate by crime type? Women would still benefit but there wouldnt be the imbalance.

I am also not sure that its quite so simple as violent crime being the one which warrants prison. Since you can do plenty of damage to others without violence.

That graph on Hannah’s post is a bit quirky. On the left it lists the reasons men and women go to prison and it goes as far as listing fraud at a competitively minor 4%/1%  But if you add all the columns up only 83% of female reasons and 72% of male reasons are listed. That’s quite a lot of other reasons missed off.

That graph on Hannah’s post is a bit quirky. On the left it lists the reasons men and women go to prison and it goes as far as listing fraud at a competitively minor 4%/1% But if you add all the columns up only 83% of female reasons and 72% of male reasons are listed. That’s quite a lot of other reasons missed off.

it also seems odd to do the right hand charts as a proportion of prisoners. Yes, more women prisoners are in for shorter sentances as a proportion of prisoners, but as a proportion of the population far far more men are in prison for short sentances than women are – so it’d make massively more difference to hit the male population first, if reducing short stays is what you want to do (when in fact they should be done together if that’s the aim, with no bias towards gender)

If anyone has not bothered to read the link in the OP – probably best to do so IN FULL before frothing at the mouth…

the OP slightly misrepresents what it actually says… e.g.

CJ340 Wholly unacceptable levels of men, women and children are currently imprisoned at great cost to their future rehabilitation, as well as to their families, the taxpayer and society in general. The Green Party is therefore committed to significantly reducing the prison population. To that end, a range of measures will be used, including changes to sentencing policy and practice. Courts will have a duty to reduce use of custodial sentencing in favour of community sentencing. (See also ‘Immediate Prison Reforms’ section, below.)

CJ345 Vulnerable people such as those with mental health problems or learning difficulties will, in a Green society, benefit from sufficient community support to reduce the likelihood of their offending. Their greatest needs are not for penal measures but for stable and caring families, decent accommodation and community medical (including psychiatric) provision.

There are 14 “immediate prison reforms” of which 4 are specifically about women.   There are 7 sentencing points – of which all 7 apply equally to men and women.

I thought the greens were supposed to all about equality and not sex discrimination. I’m sure alll of organised crime would switch to using ladies if this ever happened. What about those men who identify as women.? This policy has all the airs of being utterly bonkers and we should be glad they will never get the chance to implement such a clearly badly thought out policy.

such a clearly badly thought out policy.

Yeah, boo to policies based on studies and evidence an’ stuff, lets have barely thought through knee-jerk reactionary thinking, much more useful.

What about those men who identify as women.?

It’s interesting that the “trans issue” which, statistically, has sod all to do with prison populations is being jammed into this discussion as a wedge. The culture war is working.

What about those men who identify as women.?

It’s interesting that this topic comes up far more than the scale of the rape/sexual assault culture in men’s prisons. Something which is referred to as a joke far too often.

It’s also something the MoJ is woeful at tracking the stats of and by doing so inadvertantly feed the culture-war ghouls.

The ladies prison population could very well be a good place to start with reforms to see the impact, then adapt and roll out across the wider incarcerated population.

But that would require honest conversations and a healthy attitude towards risk focussed on impactful rehabilitation; the reality we have is bad faith conversations, risk aversion and a complete lack of resourcing to even consider rehabilitation to reduce recidivism.

Given the audience here – I’d have thought this:

MOTORING AND ROAD TRAFFIC OFFENCES

CJ365 A separate but not wholly exclusive code dealing with these categories of offence will be implemented using many of the principles and guidelines referred to above but taking account of the particular role of the motor vehicle in society.

would have generated much more interest…

sounds good 🙂

chrismac
I thought the greens were supposed to all about equality and not sex discrimination.

It depends on your definition of ‘equality’.

For example they have a policy obliging all public sector organisations to have minimum of 40% female on their boards. I.e. 100% female boards would be fine, 100% male would not.

Sounds a sensible policy, if the aim is to move towards parity across all boards as a whole.

For example they have a policy obliging all public sector organisations to have minimum of 40% female on their boards. I.e. 100% female boards would be fine, 100% male would not.

I suppose boards made up of the most suitable for the job would be a bit too radical. Yes there are many men on boards who shouldn’t be there based on ability but just filling them up with women who may or may not be any better just to tick some box is stupid and no better.

I feel really sorry for those women who make it through ability only for others to assume they are there to fill a quota rather than because they are talented