The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

She said: "I was dismayed to see so many women frequently sentenced for short periods of time for very minor offences, causing chaos and disruption to their lives and families, without any realistic chance of addressing the causes of their criminality." And she reached the conclusion that wide-ranging reform was essential to help break a grim cycle of abuse, addiction, family breakdown and offending affecting vulnerable women.

How many women are locked up?

Last weekend, 4,329 women were behind bars in 16 prisons in England and Wales. Although the total stabilised over the last year, suggesting magistrates are now heeding pleas to opt for community sentences for petty offenders, the trend has been upwards since the 1990s, with the female prison population virtually doubling in the past decade.

The largest and most well-known women's prison is Holloway, in north London, which holds almost 500 prisoners. A damning inspection report two years ago said it was infested with mice, pigeons and insects, although the prison service insists conditions have improved since then. The other 15 are spread between Kent and Durham, but wide areas of the country have no women's prison.

There has been none in the West Midlands since Brockhill prison in Redditch, Worcestershire, was converted into a male jail. Strangely, the nearest prison for a Cornish woman is nearly 200 miles away in Gloucestershire.

Are female offenders treated like men?

Women, representing only 5.4 per cent of the prison population, break the law much less often than men. Those who do are more likely to be guilty of theft and fraud and less likely to be involved in violence, criminal damage and organised crime.

The evidence suggests that when women fall foul of the criminal justice system they will be harshly treated by a system designed for men. More than one-third of those behind bars have no previous convictions, double the proportion of men.

More women than men kill themselves in prison - the reverse of the situation in the outside world - and five times more harm themselves. Women are more likely to be looking after children, and 18,000 youngsters suffer the often "catastrophic" loss of a jailed mother each year, Lady Corston warns. But because of the small number of women's prisons, they are often locked up far from their families.

What particular problems do women prisoners suffer?

The female prison population represents a grim snapshot of almost every social form of deprivation and disadvantage. More than half say they have suffered domestic violence, one in three has experienced sexual abuse, 80 per cent have no school qualifications and 40 per cent have spent time in local authority care.

Three-quarters display symptoms of severe neurotic disorders, such as depression or extreme anxiety. Three-quarters have to undergo detoxification programmes upon arriving in jail - sometimes for a cocktail of as many as nine drugs - with high levels of abuse of crack cocaine, heroin, cannabis and benziodiazepines.

In just six months in one prison, one woman killed herself and staff resuscitated another five. There were 13 attempted hangings and 28 self-strangulations, as well as 112 incidents of cutting. In five episodes, large amounts of medication were swallowed and, in a further two, glass and razor blades. One woman threatened to jump to her death and one attempted to suffocate herself. Staff found, and destroyed, 23 ligatures.

Juliet Lyon, the director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: "Every time I visit a women's prison I am struck by how distressed and ill so many of the women prisoners look. On arrival, addicts huddle together pale and stick thin, some women are queuing for the telephone, desperately trying to sort out care for their children, other women are in shock, just staring into space."

What is the Home Office doing?

Mr Clarke and the Home Secretary, John Reid, have acknowledged that too many women are in custody. A "women's offending reduction programme" launched in 2004 set out plans to persuade courts to keep women out of jail, to improve programmes for women with mental health and drug problems and to help them find homes after being freed.

Ministers are studying projects in Halifax and Worcestershire, where women who have criminal records or are in danger of offending are given advice on turning around their lives. But the Government's good intentions are matched by only modest results. Some reformers argue the situation could be made worse by the constant air of crisis in the prison system in general.

What is the alternative?

Lady Corston wants fewer women sent to prison, with courts opting instead for community sentences. Those who have to be deprived of their liberty should no longer be locked up, but held in secure specialist units holding up to 30 women, where their behaviour and problems with drugs can be tackled.

She calls on the Government to phase out women's prisons over the next 10 years, and suggests that responsibility for women offenders should be transferred from the Home Office to the Department for Communities and Local Government. She argues that ministers should appoint a "champion" in government to oversee policy on women offenders, end the routine strip-searching of women in prison and improve jail sanitation.

How has the Home Office responded?

Although the department commissioned and published Lady Corston's report, and describes it as high-calibre, it stopped short of backing proposals that would amount to a revolution in the treatment of female prisoners. The Home Office Minister, Baroness Scotland of Asthal, gave "an undertaking that the Government will look at the issues it raises and the recommendations it makes". Ever sensitive to newspaper headlines, would they want to be vilified for allowing Rosemary West to serve the rest of her sentence in "a secure unit" in the centre of Gloucester?

Should women be sent to prison?

Yes...

* The public would not support notorious inmates such as Rosemary West being transferred to 'secure units'

* Putting them behind bars could provide a salutary shock that would deter them from reoffending

* Locking up offenders, whether male or female, sends a powerful deterrent message to society

No...

* Many are not habitual criminals, but vulnerable women who turn to petty crime to feed a drug habit

* Imprisoning mothers often leads to them losing contact with their children and being evicted from their homes

* Prison is not the best place to treat the chronic mental health and drug problems that many female inmates suffer Also in this section

© 2007 Independent News and Media Limited http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2355925.ece