There are not many women in prison, but those who are inside show worryingly high rates of mental illness, suicide and self-harm; their families suffer badly while they are inside, and when they are released, few of them come out rehabilitated in any real sense. Given this, you can see why the new Lord Chancellor, Shabana Mahmood, told the Labour conference that she wanted to reduce the number of female prisoners and announced the setting up of a Women’s Justice Board under prisons minister, Lord Timpson, to see how this could be done.
Sounds good? Possibly. I’d suggest a degree of caution. One point is that, looked at closely, what is being proposed is not so much action as rather more bureaucracy. What will the new board do? It will ‘bring together senior leaders in the criminal justice system, charities and government departments’ and – you’ve guessed it – publish a strategy and then meet regularly to discuss it.
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