Philobiblon

A belated collection of notes of the excellent Women in Prison panel on Friday night of Green Party conference.

The first speaker was the hugely impressive and powerful Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust.

She explained the rising numbers of women in prison from the fact that sentences have become longer, and more women are going in on remand even though they won’t subsequently be jailed. The rising sentences “seem to be particularly acute with women”.

“What is particularly frustrating everyone knows (it was New Labour policy) that the way solve women’s offending is through education, employment, safer housing, better housing. Yet having said that they cheerily went on and built more capacity for women to go into the prison.”

She identified a “handwringing element” to discussion of prison reform: “we don’t want to keep going over the problems – let’s move on to solutions.”

It doesn’t excuse fact they have hurt or harmed someone else, but helps to understand why they do offend – half of women prisoners have been victims of domestic violence, a third of sexual abuse. “I do feel that at the worst we are punishing women for the experience they are having for being victims.”

Then she came to one of the extremely painful facts of the evening – only 5% of 18,000 children whose mothers are jailed every year end up staying in their own homes.

But she did have a rare piece of good news – government cutbacks will almost certainly reduce the number of prisoners – because keeping people in prison is very expensive.

But the problem is, and this isn’t something you’d want to use to argue for prison, it is also the only place where for many women services they need are available. Women prisoners say: this is the first time I’ve had help with my drug problem, my mental health problems.

Joy Doal, from the Anawin Project, which assists women in and just out of prison, provided accounts of how the system, however, still failed many.

“I met lady in Brockhill [prison] I asked what she’d done. ‘ I drove a car into a wall.’ I asked ‘Why did you do that?’ Her response was: ‘You know what you are the first person to ask me that.. well I was trying to kill myself. I’m in here for dangerous driving.’

“We go into Eastwood Park Prison and Drake Hall: one of the thing that really hits me are the short sentences that are so damaging for women. In Eastwood Park the average stay (and some women are doing 12/15 years) – is 23 days. In the month of April were 43 women doing 8 days or less… where is the sense in that? What can that possible solve?”

She explained how her project had started administering community sentences, now called community payback. It used to be the case that women are sent out with men – and because of the balance of offenders you might have 6/7 male offenders with one woman in any particular group. “Many of the women have suffered rape and sexual assault – you wouldn’t want them spending a day a week on a minibus with seven male offenders. Then they wondered why women weren’t going back.”

Her project aims to have as many agencies as possible in one centre, to meet the often complex needs of female ex-prisoners. “When women come out of prison, they sometimes have six appointments a day across the city. These are women who’ve had chaotic lives, then have been living in prison where everything is sorted out for them. “They can’t cope, and haven’t got the bus fares.

“And usually even after a very short sentence it takes six weeks for benefits for kick in; if you have no money you are probably going to nick things.”

Also, the women’s lives have usually totally fallen apart while they are in prison. “If you go to a man’s prison on visiting day see a line of buggies, women who are keeping the house and children going, paying the bills. You go to a women’s prison there is almost no one there – her life isn’t sustained.”

Rebecca, a user of Anawin Project, spoke very powerfully about her experience.

“A couple of years ago in a really controlling relationship, found myself really lost. Unfortunately I got an eight-month prison sentence, and I was absolutely petrified. I’ve been out now for eight months – trying to get job since I come out, now at college studying to be a counsellor. While I was serving time was listener for Samaraitans, no support,, no friends, no family.

“They stopped housing benefit when I came out of prison, even though they’d paid when I was in.”

Denise Marshall from the charity Birth Companions explained how it came into existence after publicity about woman giving birth while being shackled – highlighted the situation of women pregnant and giving birth in prison. Its volunteers are experienced in birth, pregnancy and parenting.

It worked with 87 women last year, including those separated from their children. “The women who most need support are foreign nationals and young women who often have difficult relationships with family. We aim to reduce the stress and isolation.

“They won’t find out until a month before birth if they will get a place in mother and baby unit, and the uncertainty is very difficult. And they worry: Will they be unlocked in time for birth? Will their family be told about the birth?”

Denise spoke of the case of Delores: her partner was in prison, she was having her first baby, and her family was abroad. She had a cousin from a distant town who said she’d come to birth, but she wanted a birth companion until her cousin arrived. She had a long labour, the cousin wasn’t able to attend, and since women are not allowed a camera in prison, not allowed to take money in hospital as it is an escape risk, we brought her a phone card and took photos, sending them to her family abroad and the baby’s father in prison. Her cousin visited post-natally.

She spoke of another case, of Han a woman with no English and a very complicated pregnancy. The hospital did arrange interpreters, but their role was very much to relay medical information rather than broader support. “She was very pleased to have birth companions. We couldn’t communicate much verbally, but she was reassured by our presence, and we helped her phone her mum in Vietnam – you could see emotional support she got from that.”

The charity also provides post-release support. “There was the case of a woman who was very suddenly released. She had an hour to pack, and she hadn’t been in that part of Britain before. She had long train journey to stay with aunt, and was due to give birth. We saw her on to train – had six bags – able to talk to her what happened if she went into labour before she registered at hospital. She gave birth two days later, and she’s doing very well.

In the later discussion, Juliet spoke about the risk from market forces in prison. “Prison transport is all run by private companies – they call it the ‘security market’. If you are interested in restricting use of force and justice is very difficult if you have a big vested interest. Not necessarily that they are running bad places, it is that vested interest and what it does to policy.”

I asked how you could stop very short sentences, in light of the obvious risk that it might mean locking up more people for longer.

Juliet responded that it would be possibly to increase the custody threshold and you could say to magistrates couldn’t pass short sentence – they’d have to demonstrate only possible option much more rigorously than now.

“Also, I’d like to see lot of energy go into public confidence about other option. We all know what prison looks like. What you do in community is much fuzzier – there are some schemes that don’t work now, but results now are far better than a short prison sentence. We should put effort into making sure that they are substantive.”

She quoted the case of Donna’s Dream House – started by a father whose terminally ill daughter said “make a home for families like us”. People sentenced to community service are staying on to work as volunteers on the project. The street saw crime drop. “Some people have never had a chance to experience doing good.”

I should add that I’m pleased to stay that the conference strongly backed policy on women in prisons in line with the Corston Report, which says women should only be locked up when absolutely necessary, and that their special needs and vulnerabilities should be considered in community service.