Last year the MoJ published a strategy for female offenders.
It has long being recognised that there are very different offender profiles for males and females.
(extract)
"We know that many offenders are amongst the most vulnerable people in society and that these vulnerabilities can often contribute to their offending behaviours or how they engage and respond to interventions.
Female offenders can be amongst the most vulnerable of all, in both the prevalence and complexity of their needs. Many experience chaotic lifestyles involving substance misuse, mental health problems, homelessness, and offending behaviour – these are often the product of a life of abuse and trauma.
Although the proportion of women in the criminal justice system (CJS) is small –approximately 5% of the prison population and 15% of offenders in the community– the positive impact of addressing their needs is significant.
On average female offenders commit less serious offences than male offenders and often pose a low or medium risk of serious harm to the public.
Yet the reoffending rate among women is 22.9% for the April to June 2016 cohort, often committing nonviolent, low-level but persistent offences, such as shop theft.
Furthermore, chaotic lives and complex needs often mean female offenders have repeated needs for services and a disrupted family life. Female offenders cost the Government approximately £1.7bn in 2015/16, including estimated police costs of c.£1bn.9 This excludes wider social costs, such as the cost of intergenerational offending.
It is clear, therefore, that tackling and reducing the cycle of offending amongst women could have significant benefits to victims, families, and Government, as well as to female offenders themselves.
Outcomes for women in custody can be worse than for men: for example, the rate of self-harm is nearly five times as high in women’s prisons. This disparity is highly troubling and it is right to seek to create equal opportunity for men and women in the CJS to rehabilitate themselves.
Baroness Corston’s seminal report, A review of women with particular vulnerabilities in the Criminal Justice System (2007), highlighted that the factors that can lead men and women to commit crime, and to reoffend, can vary significantly, as can the way men and women respond to interventions.
Our own evidence review suggests that ensuring interventions are tailored appropriately to the particular needs of women can be more effective than applying a generic approach to men and women alike" (continues)
Early Intervention:
A significant proportion of women who come into contact with the criminal justice system (CJS) commit offences that are low-level. In some cases, their offending could have been prevented by addressing their vulnerabilities at an earlier stage.
Many experience chaotic lifestyles involving substance misuse, mental health problems, homelessness and offending behaviour – as the Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy has acknowledged, these are often the product of histories of abuse and trauma.
23 Often these offenders will have repeated demands on services and go on to reoffend. Contact with the CJS can often cause these women to go into crisis or prevent them from coming out of it. Conviction can mean a loss of accommodation and employment, disruption to families and children and the beginning of a cycle of intergenerational offending.
- There are clear benefits to intervening earlier to reduce the number of women coming into contact with the CJS. For victims, prevention and reduced reoffending would lead to a reduction in crime; for wider society, there would be less cost and less pressure on services; for offenders and their families, they might avoid a crisis experience and instead begin a path towards more stable living."
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/719819/female-offender-strategy.pdf