THE Chief Crown Prosecutor for the Merseyside and Cheshire region has called for a “rethink” on the way women offenders are viewed and dealt with by the criminal justice system.
Speaking at his inaugural lecture Paul Whittaker, Chief Crown Prosecutor of CPS Mersey-Cheshire, told guests that women offenders had been disadvantaged by being given sanctions devised to deal with men.
Mr Whittaker spoke about the devastating effect that a custodial sentence for low-level women offenders can have on wider society.
He said: “Estimates show that women offenders cost the criminal justice system and society around £1.8bn per year.
“ These include costs of health and mental health care, drug and alcohol provision and costs to local authorities for housing or taking children into care.
“It is estimated around 66% of women in prison have dependent children under 18 and of those women 34% had children under five. Children whose parents offend are three-times more likely to have mental health problems or engage in antisocial behaviour than their peers.”
During 2009 Liverpool was one of three national pilot sites testing out a scheme which sought to divert women convicted of minor crimes away from traditional custodial sentences.
Instead eligible defendants were given women specific conditional cautions (WSC) which included a requirement to attend a Women’s Turnaround Project.
Following the success of the project CPS Mersey-Cheshire made a commitment to continue to divert women from prison through conditional cautions to attend the women centres in Liverpool and Birkenhead.
Mr Whittaker added: “The women specific conditional caution is a caution with a rehabilitative condition. It requires the woman offender to attend a Women’s Centre for a needs assessment. “The assessment deals with the cases of offending and also signposts further support to deal with issues such as debt, housing and employment.
“What I would like to stress is that this scheme does not mean that women offenders are getting away with anything. They are engaging with support centres but are doing so in a way which benefits wider society and results in less offending in the long term.”
