Before changes in policy on temporary release following the Woodcock report, a number of arrangements for family visiting, including town visits and home visits, had been working successfully for many women prisoners without serious mishaps or danger to the public. 8.22 For individual women prisoners serving long sentences the changes in policy have had dramatic effects. 8.23 Town visits are a good example of a successful method of keeping up family ties without jeopardising the public. Most women prisoners trusted to take part in a town visit and to return to prison at the end of the day, do so. Staff at those prisons using this approach spoke of its high success rate and said that the few women who did not adhere strictly to the terms of the town visit almost invariably returned later, usually having been at home sorting out a domestic crisis.
Men fail big style - they do more robberies.
Women just come back late. We surrendered a good method of dealing with women prisoners and staff took a lot of flak. Similarly, the positive record of women prisoners' response to opportunities for home leave as reported by staff at all levels leads us to recommend that there should be a special review of the criteria for eligibility for temporary release as applied to women prisoners. The arrangements for town visits require that the prisoner is fetched from the prison. If the prison is far from the woman's home and family, this is very costly and time-consuming.