This article references self-harm, suicide, and domestic abuse.
Women in Prison is a national charity that provides support to women facing multiple disadvantages, including women affected by the criminal justice system. Here, Sarah Uncles, Policy and Research Coordinator, writes for GLAMOUR about the major threats to women's safety in prison.
Self-harm in women’s prisons is at an all-time high. This is a line we find ourselves repeating every three months when new statistics from the Ministry of Justice on safety in custody are published. Every day, there are more than 52 incidents of self-harm in women’s prisons. The rate of self-harm is eight times higher than in men’s prisons.
We know that women who come in contact with the criminal justice system have often been long failed by the very structures designed to support us when we fall on hard times, such as the care, health, education and welfare systems.
We also know that almost two-thirds of women in prison report experiencing domestic abuse, and one-third were in the care system at some point during their childhood. On entry into prison, almost half (46%) of women report harmful substance use, compared to 27% of men.
There is well-established evidence that community-based support is more successful at addressing the root causes of women’s offending, which so often include experiences of trauma, domestic abuse, mental ill-health, debt, homelessness and harmful substance use. Yet as a society, we have become increasingly reliant on disappearing people to prison.
"Some who die by suicide may be ‘hidden victims’ of domestic abuse, left uncounted and unrecognised.”
5,000 women entered prison last year. As many as three out of five women are sent to prison for sentences under 12 months, and almost a quarter of women entering prison each year are there for theft. Even a short period of imprisonment is enough to lose your home, children and job. Too many women are being set up to fail and are met with punitive and disproportionate responses to the challenges they experience – rather than getting the support they need in the community.
In a damning report, the prison inspectorate recently commented that HMP Eastwood Park was “failing in its most basic duty – to keep the women safe.” Regretfully, this is not an anomaly.
[A Prison Service spokesperson told ITV News: “This is a deeply concerning report, and we are already addressing the serious issues it raises, including appointing more staff and creating a new task force to improve women’s safety at the prison.]
12 months earlier, the inspectorate found that at HMP Foston Hall, “The response to women in crisis was too reactive, uncaring and often punitive” and that the prison had no strategy to reduce self-harm to improve the care for those in crisis. Shockingly, messages left on the prison's 24/7 crisis hotline for families to call if they had concerns about someone in the prison had not been checked for six weeks.
[A Prison Service spokesperson told BBC News: “We have taken a series of actions to address the challenges at HMP Foston Hall - putting in place more senior staff, creating a new safety team and developing specific plans for the most violent prisoners.”]
Coercive control can come in the form of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation.
In one prison, more than eight in ten women said they were experiencing mental ill health. But the prison had no psychologist, which meant cognitive behavioural therapies or interventions for those who required higher intensity treatments, such as for post-traumatic stress, were not available.
We know that Black, Asian, minoritised and migrant women experience “double disadvantage” due to the combined impact of sexism and racism, resulting in negative stereotyping, over-policing and harsher treatment by the criminal justice system. In prison, racially minoritised women are overrepresented in use of force incidents and are more likely to be placed in segregation. This is partly driven by racialised stereotypes which misrepresent signs of mental ill health or emotional responses to trauma as expressions of aggression or violence – rather than calls for support.
Far from resolving the challenges that lead women to come into contact with the criminal justice system, prison creates further harm. 40 years ago, the charity Women in Prison was born out of this very realisation. We were set up by Chris Tchaikovsky, who directly experienced the harm of prison and Pat Carlen, a renowned criminologist.
In 1974, Chris served what would be her final prison sentence, during which a woman died after a fire in her cell in HMP Holloway. She was moved to take action some years later when she heard of the death of another woman, in the same prison, under similar circumstances.
It was therefore chilling when reports emerged after Christmas last year that a woman had died following a fire in a cell. Her death was the eighth death in women’s prisons in 2022, five of which were self-inflicted. Despite the work of resilient families, campaigners and charities seeking change over the past 40 years, it is painful to hear familiar levels of despair and suffering.
Domestic abusers may also be electronically tagged to stop them from going near the victim's home.
It's clear that prisons never have, and never will be, places of safety. A woman WIP spoke to during a visit to a prison in the North of England said that she was told, “Only a squeaky wheel gets oiled,” when she asked a prison officer when she'd be able to get a health appointment. Long waiting lists, a lack of resources and a lack of staff are just some of the obstacles women face in getting the treatment and care they need.
Chris once said, “Whatever else a prisoner knows, she knows everything there is to know about punishment because that is exactly what she has grown up with. Whether it is childhood sexual abuse, indifference, neglect; punishment is most familiar to her.”
The stigma and isolation of being caught up in the criminal justice system can mean people are further pushed away from accessing support to keep afloat. As a society, it’s only right that we ensure those of us struggling to keep our heads above water aren’t left to sink.
We need urgent and meaningful change to ensure the safety and well-being of all women. We need the political will from the government to follow through on their commitments, as laid out in their Female Offender Strategy, to radically reduce the women’s prison population.
We also need a more concerted focus to address the root causes of criminalisation, including mental ill health and domestic abuse, and divert women away from the criminal justice system. This includes ensuring investment in health services, housing and welfare to ensure women can receive the right support in the community when they need it.
At Women in Prison, we will continue to be ambitious for transformative change for and alongside the women we work with. Enough is enough.
One woman reflects on her time in Holloway Prison.
.-Emily-and-anonymous----credit-Joya-Berrow_L.jpg)
