WHAT WORKS TO REDUCE RE-OFFENDING?
A DISTINCT APPROACH TO THE MANAGEMENT OF FEMALE
OFFENDERS IN THE COMMUNITY IN ENGLAND AND WALES
Sara Robinson *I.

WORKING WITH WOMEN IN THE COMMUNITY

A. Summary of Policy Drivers
1. Political Focus and Priority
The principles for working with women offenders in the community in England andWales is derived from the Corston Report 1 2007. The report was commissioned by the Home
Secretary as a response to a high number of female suicides in custody at that time. Thereport reviewed the experiences of women across the UK criminal justice system and made aseries of fundamental recommendations, most notably, that a ‘distinct approach’ to themanagement of women was required in order to redress the inherent inequalities in a criminal
justice system designed primarily for men. A more detailed description of the ‘Corston
model’ is provided in section B below.
2.

Legislation
There continues to be a strong political impetus for driving this policy area, with current
Ministerial direction and leverage from a Cross Government Forum, led until recently by theCoalition Government Minister, Simon Hughes 2. This political driver was recently enshrinedin new UK legislation, which came into force on 1st February 2015 as part of theGovernment’s Transforming Rehabilitation Programme (TR) 3. The Offender Rehabilitation
Act 2015 places a new requirement on criminal justice delivery organisations to ‘identify any
specific rehabilitation and supervision activities that are intended to meet the particularneeds of female offenders’ 4.
3.

Accountability within the new structure of UK probation services
The TR programme has restructured the delivery of rehabilitative services across theprobation and prison services, creating a mixed economy of public, private and third sector
providers. Probation services are provided by the public sector National Probation Service(NPS), across 7 geographical divisions, and 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies(CRCs) 5.

In order to ensure that the supervision of women as a distinct group maintains a highprofile within the TR change programme, specific performance criteria have been included inthe new contracts for Probation Providers and Private Sector Prisons. Similarly, service level*Deputy Director, National Probation Service Probation Service, United Kingdom.
A review of women with particular vulnerabilities in the Criminal Justice System, Baroness Corston, 2007.
2Simon Hughes is currently Minister of State for Justice and Civil Liberties, April 2015.
3
Transforming Rehabilitation: A Strategy for Reform, 2013.
4
The Offender Rehabilitation Act 2015.
5The providers who now own the 21 CRCs are a mixture of private, voluntary and a public consortia. These
consortia include charities and specialist services that meet the needs of female offenders.
1- 82 -agreement performance targets have also been set for all probation services and public sector
prisons.
B. The Corston Report 2007
As outlined, Baroness Corston’s review of women in the criminal justice system was aresponse to a disproportionately high number of suicides by women in custody. The report
investigated the experiences of women throughout all stages of the criminal justice system
and identified that the reasons women enter the criminal justice system are often different totheir male counterparts: for example high proportion of experiences of sexual and domestic
abuse; a history of being in care; substance misuse and mental health issues. The impact ofwomen going into custody was also identified as disproportionate for women, as women tend
to be the primary carers for children rather than men.
The overall conclusion of this review was that the UK criminal justice system is a systemdesigned for men, meaning that a different or ‘distinct’ approach is required to redress theimbalance and achieve equal outcomes for women. Specific recommendations were aimed at
implementing the distinct approach for supervision in the community, and theserecommendations have shaped development of the UK model for community based probation
services.
C. UK Model – Towards a Distinct Approach
1. The ‘One Stop Shop’ Delivery ModelThe model for the supervision of women offenders should be an holistic approach – awhole system multi-agency response to meeting the distinct needs of women, withinterventions being delivered in ‘one stop shop’ style women’s centres. The one stop shopmodel is part of a more co-ordinated approach to addressing women’s offending related
needs in the community. These are centres where women can access a range of different
multi-agency services in one [safe], women only environment. These centres should beaccessible to both women offenders and women at risk of offending in order to promote
diversion from custody and community integration. A best practice example of a ‘one stop
shop’ is the Asha Centre in Worcester, West Mercia 6, where women can access the centre aspart of a community based sentencing option.
2.

Best Practice in the Delivery of Probation Services
Commissioning arrangements for women’s services should be structured to reflect thisdesign. Women offenders should normally be supervised by female probation officers andgiven the opportunity to report for probation supervision within a women only environment.
Best practice examples include probation officers being seconded in to work in local
women’s centres enabling the offenders to report into a women only environment, which ismore conducive to meeting their rehabilitative requirements. Where this is not feasible
probation offices should operate specific ‘women only reporting times’, in order to ensurethat women can report for their supervision in a safe, female only environment. This isparticularly important for women who have been victims of sexual and/or domestic abuse.
Probation staff should receive specific training in working with women offenders in order tounderstand and respond to their particular needs and underpin good quality sentencing
proposals in pre-sentence reports. Probation providers should work with local sentencers toinform them about the available sentencing options and specific interventions for women, in6

See www.ashawomen.org.uk and also, for further research and evidence into other alternatives to custody forwomen, please see the report “Equal but Different”, October 2011, which highlights the work of Women’sCommunity Projects like the Asha Centre.

- 83 -keeping with Corston’s recommendation that community based solutions should be the normfor non-violent women offenders.
3.

Specific Criminal Justice Interventions for Women
Examples of specific interventions (sentencing options) for women in London include
the Women’s Programme (WP), the Women’s Senior Attendance Centre (SAC) Requirement
and Rehabilitation Activity Requirement (RAR). The WP is a cognitive behavioural group
work programme delivered in a Probation Women’s Centre and aimed at women who
commit serious acquisitive type offences. The SAC is available to young adult women aged
18-24 years, who are sentenced to attend a number of hours of purposeful activity linked totheir rehabilitative needs. A RAR may be similar in content to a SAC and are available insome parts of London where services have been commissioned from third sector providers ofwomen’s centres. Activities may also include mentoring either by peers or members of thecommunity.
D. Informed Commissioning
The provision of national common data sets is essential to inform commissioning decisions
and facilitate ongoing research and evaluation into what works with women in thecommunity. All UK providers of probation services must provide common minimal data setslinked to the national offender management case record system – ‘Delius’. Delius enables us
to reports on the following criteria for all women:Offence details
Sentence type
Personal information
Risk (of serious harm) level
Court reports
Attendance records

The national offender assessment system (OASys) provides another view of each case,identifying the specific offending related needs of each individual across 13 criteria. OASys
was developed jointly by the Probation and Prison Services and is a national system forassessing the risk and needs of an offender. It is designed to:• Facilitate the assessment of the likelihood of reconviction• Identify and prioritise offending relating needs• Facilitate the assessment of risk of serious harm
• Assist with the management of risk of serious harm
• Facilitate sentence planning• Measure change during supervisionThis combined information from these data sets is used nationally to commission
national interventions and regionally to commission local services.
E. Evaluation

We are still learning
Building an evidence base to inform practice-longitudinal research with control
groups.
Independent validation- 84 -Collation of common data sets
Outcomes focus (not process) – 1) reduce re-offending 2) increased compliance 3)
reduced custodial sentences 4) reduced harm 5) reduce cost. Times of austerity –principles of value for money and move towards pooled budgets.
Service User Voice—what assists engagement/compliance?

F. Recommendations
This paper has identified four key recommendations in taking forward a distinct
approach to the supervision of women in the community by probation services.
1.
2.
3.
4.

Ensuring political support is in place to drive strategy, behaviours andcommissioningA clear understanding of the particular experiences of women in the criminal
justice system in order to develop a distinct approach to the management ofwomen which is responsive to their needs
This response should be a whole system approach rooted in partnership with otheragencies/providers who may be specialists in the field of women’s services.
Building common data sets to enable evaluation of existing services/interventions
and inform the commissioning of future provision.

- 85 -Appendix A: The UK Probation Female Cohort 7
Numbers of women supervised by UK probation services:•••••22,000 female offenders currently supervised
16,700 Community Orders (76%)
3,000 pre-release supervision in custody (14%)
2,300 post-release supervision on licence (10%)
Approximately 800 are assessed as high risk of serious harm

Common offences types:
1.
2.
3.
4.

7

Theft and handling – 30%
Fraud and forgery – 17%
Violence against the person – 7%
Other summary (magistrates courts only) offences -30%

Snapshot data provided by the National Probation Service England, March 2015.

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