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UK prisons failing vulnerable women

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Laura Bridgestock
WVoN co-editor

Earlier this week, retired prison governor Clive Chatterton joined the growing ranks of those speaking out against conditions in women’s prisons in the UK.

Recalling his time as the head of Styal Prison, in Cheshire, England, Chatterton estimated that more than half of the prisoners there (all women) were mentally ill.

One 20-year-old, he said, tried to kill herself by hanging, poisoning, cutting open her arms, setting herself on fire, even swallowing a tampon.

He described another inmate as like “a frightened wild animal, totally uncommunicative and unresponsive”.

Among many such disturbing tales, one commonly recurring theme is self-harm, which, from  the available statistics, seem to be increasing.

In 2009, government figures reported 10,446 cases of self-harm in women’s prisons, which increased to 12,663 in 2010. Support and campaign group Women in Prison says this number is still rising.

So while women account for only 5% of inmates in the UK’s prisons, they are far more likely than male prisoners to harm themselves.

Director of the charity Women in Prison, Rachel Halford, says for many women, this may seem like the only way they can take control in their own lives, often having experienced “abuse and neglect” before imprisonment, only to find themselves in another situation in which they are deprived of power.

This is not a new problem, or even a newly recognised one. An investigation into the situation of vulnerable women in prisons was commissioned by the government in 2006, after six women died in Styal Prison within 12 months.

Published in 2007, the resulting Corston Report recommended “a radical new approach, treating women both holistically and individually – a woman-centred approach”.

The report also said the current system was “disproportionately harsher for women because prisons and the practices within them have for the most part been designed for men”.

Campaigners are concerned that little (if any) progress has been made in improving the treatment of vulnerable women in prison – but also that many women are being unnecessarily sentenced to imprisonment.

In his call for an urgent reform of the system, Chatterton pointed out the large numbers of women sentenced to short periods in prison for relatively minor sentences – giving the example of a woman found guilty of stealing a single sandwich.

There have also been concerns about the imprisonment of women from outside the UK, who may have been convicted of crimes over which they had little control, often having been coerced and/or trafficked into offending (see WVoN coverage).

As the Prison Reform Trust points out, while increasing numbers vulnerable women are being sent to prison, organisations such as local women’s centres and community-based schemes – which have a much better track record of helping women break the cycle of crime and abuse – are losing funding.

A few statistics:

• A quarter of women in UK prisons were in local authority care as children.
• More than half of women in UK prisons have experienced domestic violence, and a third have been sexually abused.
• More than half of women leaving prison are re-convicted within a year.
• Two thirds of women in UK prisons have children younger than 18.
• Twenty-five women have died in custody since the Corston Report was published.

For more, see Women in Prison and the Prison Reform Trust.

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