Women’s prisons may shut as Justice Secretary makes main announcement

Shabana Mahmood has announced that some female prisons could be shut under plans to reduce the number of women in jail.

The Justice Secretary branded women’s prisons “desperate places” that are “hurting mothers and breaking homes” and “forcing women into a life of crime”. In her first speech to the Labour Party conference as justice chief, she said bluntly “for women, prison isn’t working” and that her “ultimate ambition” was to bring down the number of female jails.

The Labour minister said the reform “most urgently needed” in the justice system is “when we consider the plight of women” as she spoke about women in jail as well as female victims of crime. She pointed to evidence showing around two-thirds of women are imprisoned for non-violent offences, that 55% are victims of domestic abuse and that self-harm in women’s prisons is eight-times higher than in the male estate.

Ms Mahmood announced plans for a new “Women’s Justice Board”, tasked with “reducing the number of women going to prison, with the ultimate ambition of having fewer women’s prisons”. She said there will always be women imprisoned for the protection of the public but that “we imprison women on minor charges to a far greater degree than men”.

Ms Mahmood told the conference centre: “Perhaps worst of all, women’s prisons are hurting mothers and breaking homes. With only a few women’s prisons, dotted across the country. Women are often held far from their families. Over half are mothers. The damage passes down generations. With three quarters of children leaving the family home when their mother is sent to jail.

“Some women enter prison pregnant, with around 50 children a year starting their lives in prison. Tragically, that has seen cases of women losing their babies in childbirth. Conference, let me be clear. Nobody wants to live in a world in which children are born in prison. But that is the world we live in.”

She continued: “For women, prison isn’t working. Rather than encouraging rehabilitation, prison forces women into a life of crime. After leaving a short custodial sentence, a woman is significantly more likely to commit a further crime than one given a non-custodial sentence.”

In Spring next year, the new Women’s Justice Board will publish a new strategy, looking at how to intervene earlier in female cases of crime and how we make community support – such as residential women’s centres – a viable alternative to prison. It will also look at how we address the” acute challenge of young women in custody, who are less than a tenth of the population, but who account for over a third of all self-harm”.

The Justice Secretary also spoke about how the justice system fails women victims. She hit out at that fact 60% of victims drop out of rape cases before they get to trail, as she set out plans for victims to have access to specialist and independent legal support.

Ms Mahmood hit out at requests for victims to give up full counselling, phone and messaging records, adding: “ Embarrassing victims like this discourages them from going to trial”. She confirmed the government will begin a national roll out of independent legal advocates from next year to ensure victims of rape know their rights.

Women make up a much smaller proportion of the prison population, with 3,453 in jail compared to 82,953 men, as of September 20. There are 12 women’s prisons out of 117 in total in England and Wales. More than half (58%) of prison sentences given to women in 2022 were for less than six months. Short sentences can derail people’s lives, with jobs and houses lost and mums separated from their kids. They are also seen as largely ineffective with reoffending rates high.

Ms Mahmood inherited a broken prisons system from the Tories – and was forced to release thousands of prisoners early to try to deal with the crisis. More than 5,000 prisoners in total will be released this autumn after serving 40% of their sentences, instead of the current 50%.

Earlier Home Secretary Yvette Cooper also spoke about the government’s commitment to reducing violence against women and girls. In her speech, she said: “A radical, ambitious Labour mission – for the whole of Government, for the whole country – to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. Because we cannot, and we will not, let the next generation of women and girls face the same violence as the last. Our daughters deserve better than this.”