First Residential Women's Centre announced

Work with offenders on long overdue progress with the female offender strategy

This week heralded a welcome piece of good news with the opening of Hope Street, a purpose-built family friendly residential community in Hampshire which is piloting a ground-breaking new approach to supporting women in the justice system.  

The facility, operated by the One Small Thing (OST) charity, was opened with significant fanfare and media coverage thanks to the fact that they succeeded in getting the Princess of Wales to do the opening ceremony. 

OST is known for its work on trauma and the facility has been designed specifically to take the trauma that most women  in contact with the criminal justice system have experienced into account. The light and spacious building, constructed in pale brick and light wood, is purpose-built to make women feel safe and comfortable accessing support. 

Hope Street offers a community alternative to prison for women so their children can remain with them and to help them break the cycle of reoffending and serving repeated, often short prison sentences. Women can be placed there when they are subject to a community order, when on remand or after being released from prison.

Each resident will receive individually tailored programmes designed to address the issues that led to their becoming involved with the justice system; skills, education and training; and support on leaving the Hub in preparation for return to their own home.

Context

Women represent less than 5% of the total prison population. They are often sentenced to custody for non-violent, low-level but persistent offences, and are more likely than men to be sentenced for short periods of time. Female offenders are often the most vulnerable in society and have varied and complex needs. Many have experienced mental health problems, substance misuse, homelessness, abuse and trauma in their lives. 

The Ministry of Justice recognised these challenges in its 2018 Female Offender Strategy, published five years ago in June 2018. The strategy said the government wanted to see fewer women coming into the criminal justice system, fewer women in custody (especially on short sentences), and a greater proportion of women managed in the community successfully, as well as better conditions for those in custody. While the number of women fell from almost 4,000 in 2017 to 3,200 in June last year. However, that number has been steadily rising once more. There were 3,375 women in prison last Friday, a rise of 140 (4.3%) on last year with the Ministry of Justice forecasting an increase of one third over the next three years.

Last year the House of Commons Justice Committee criticised the MoJ for its slow progress in implementing the strategy. Despite announcing its commitment to centres like Hope Street five years ago, the MoJ is yet to open a facility. It has announced that there will be a Residential Women’s Centre in Swansea with a similar operating model as Hope Street which  is expected to cater for around 50 offenders a year who would have otherwise been handed a prison sentence of 12 months or less. However, there is no specified opening date. Last year the MoJ said it expected the centre to open in 2024, but there have been no official progress updates and the MoJ has a history of missing deadlines on this sort of initiative. We are still waiting for the opening of the first secure school which was recommended to the Department in December 2016 on the site of a decommissioned Secure Training Centre in Medway. The opening of this facility is promised for the current year but there have been no recent updates.

Thank goodness for the charity sector and the pioneering philanthropic work of Lady Edwina Grosvenor. Hope Street is to be independently monitored by The University of Southampton, The Prison Reform Trust and EP:IC with the aim of developing a blueprint which, if successful, could be rolled out nationally.