by Catalina Ortuzar*.
The recent announcement of UK Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood of plans to create a Women’s Justice Board aimed at reducing the number of women in prison would mark a significant improvement in efficiency and fairness of the Justice system in England & Wales, but also an excellent example for the rest of the world to follow.
In contrast to the overall global incarceration rate, which is increasing slowly (Penal Reform International & Thailand Institute of Justice, 2024), the imprisonment of women is growing at an accelerated pace (World Prison Brief, 2022). This is despite most women’s imprisonment being for non-violent, low-level offences: property, fraud and drug offences are the main crimes committed by women in prison (Penal Reform International & Thailand Institute of Justice, 2024).
Most female offending is economically motivated (Prison Reform Trust, 2022; Salisbury & Van Voorhis, 2009). In England and Wales, a third of women are in prison for shoplifting and fraud (Prison Reform Trust, 2022). In 2021, sixty three per cent of all female prison sentences were for less than 12 months (Prison Reform Trust, 2022). Research has consistently demonstrated how even short periods of incarceration can have major impacts on their lives and opportunities for reintegration into society (Petach & Pena, 2021; Sheely, 2020). These effects are typically more profound for women because of the gendered roles they fulfil and the stigmatisation of women as criminals (Larroulet et al., 2020; Looney & Turner, 2018). Further, intersectionality plays a crucial role in the severity of the consequences of incarceration on women. Aspects of a person’s identity, such as race, gender, class, age, and religion, come together to compound lived experiences of discrimination and disadvantage (Crenshaw, 1989). For women the intersectional effects of prison not only affect opportunities for work, but also opportunities to perform gendered roles, such as motherhood (Gueta & Chen, 2016).
This is particularly significant when we consider how many women in prison are mothers. In England and Wales more than half of women inmates are mothers (Prison Reform Trust, 2022). In many poorer countries, the proportion is higher still. In Latin America, more than 80% are mothers. Most are single mothers (Interamerican Development Bank, 2018). As sole carers this has long-lasting negative effects on their children, extending the impact of women’s incarceration onto innocent and typically poor families, who are thrown into a cycle of poverty and exclusion (Bush-Baskette, 2000; Giacomello & Youngers, 2020).
Reducing the number of women in prison is not just a question of criminological profiles or intersecting vulnerabilities, it also, importantly, extends to applying more proportionate, better suited sentences. Prisons – designed by men for men – are not designed for women. One proximate consequence is unfair punishment: prison not only deprives women of their liberty but also their dignity when their needs and rights are overlooked, exacerbating their vulnerabilities even further (Courts and Tribunals Judiciary UK, 2024).
Because women are a minority of the prison population (roughly 4% in England and Wales), institutions that cater for women are geographically dispersed. Women who serve sentences far away from their families suffer from the privation of regular visits and ability to exercise their roles as mothers or carers, intensifying their sense of isolation and exclusion.
Other evidence revealing the unsuitability of prison for women include outsized impacts on physical and mental health. Incarceration overlooks the fact that most women in prison are victims of violence, abuse and neglect (Bloom & Covington, 2001; Dehart, 2008) and have complex needs. This is reflected in higher rates of self-harm and mental health issues in women’s prisons both in England and Wales (Ministry of Justice & HM Prison & Probation Service, 2023) and elsewhere (Van Voorhis, 2012)
Reducing the number of women in prison does not mean that women offenders will not be sentenced, simply that justice should be proportionate to their crimes.
Creating a women’s justice board might improve the capacity of the Justice System to address women offenders within their specificities, consider their gendered roles and complex needs as victims of violence, and punish their crimes without breaking their connections to community and family, where they will eventually return.
Because women in prison worldwide share similar characteristics – in relation to offence type, mental health problems and being mothers – this effort may become an example for other countries to follow. Simply building more prisons to address the growing number of women in prison will merely deepen the problem of exclusion and marginalisation of women who have committed minor offences, creating negative, long-lasting effects on their lives and their communities.
Addressing the specificity of women in prison potentially constitutes an important step towards reducing the use of prison for minor offences in general and looking for more effective and fair responses to crime and crime prevention.
*Catalina Ortuzar is a Chilean PhD researcher in the School of Social Policy, University of Bristol, UK. Her research lies at the intersection of exclusion, illegal markets, prison studies, social harm and feminist criminology. Her current research is about the labour trajectories of women in prison for drug offences in Chile.