debtOr for a long time, I thought one of my most radical, really radical beliefs was that we should abolish women’s prisons. Over the years, that has become less radical, and today it is increasingly clear that this is not only necessary, but urgent.
Prisons are in a serious crisis. The prison population in England and Wales is It has doubled in the past 30 yearsDespite a significant fall in crime rates, the Prison Governors Association warned two weeks ago that prisons were days away from running out of cells. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced plans for the early release of 5,500 prisoners and said Rishi Sunak’s failure to address the issue was a “most shameful dereliction of duty”. mirrorOne idea proposed to ease the pressure on the government was to release enough female prisoners to empty entire prisons. And activists, in their usual tired and angry rhetoric, are saying, why stop there?
At this point it might be useful to ask, what are prisons for? The answer is clear: if you break the law, you must be punished. And there is deterrence: if you worry that you might be punished, you are less likely to break the law. Moreover, prison theoretically prevents you from committing any further crimes. And there is rehabilitation: while in prison, the modern thinking is that you should receive help and ultimately emerge as a better person. But even a cursory look at the statistics shows that all prisons are failing, often in obscene and shocking ways.
Women’s prisons have long been hit by their own crisis, not because of low numbers of transgender inmates (as some critics claim), but because of self-harm (which rose 63% last year to a record high). 11 several times higher than men), mental health problems ( 76% Stillbirth rates among women in prison and the impact on their children. Pregnant women are seven times more likely to have a stillbirth than women outside of prison, and as I write this article, In time Another baby has reportedly died in a British prison – the third in five years.
Prison is not a safe place for women. Around 48% commit crimes to support the drug addiction of others. This makes sense, considering that 70% of female offenders experience domestic violence and more than half were abused as children. Many female offenders are incarcerated for minor offenses, making women much more likely to become criminals than men if, for example, their children refuse to go to school. Most serve sentences of less than six months, often for shoplifting (women are disproportionately affected by the rising cost of living). But no matter how long the sentence, the lives of the women and their children are inevitably forever derailed.
It hurts just to write this, to stack up these stark facts, because it forces us to confront the women behind the statistics, their individual lives, and the compromises that shaped them. And that’s before we look at the reality of the prison itself. In 2022, an independent investigation into Eastwood Park Prison found that three women had died there that year and that prisoners lived in “appalling” conditions. Photographs of one cell were published alongside the report, showing a room like something you’d see in a dystopian Ikea after a severe flood. Another cell said:BloodstainedThere are several large scratches on the walls, reflecting the extent of the trauma. [of] It looked at the conditions former detainees would have experienced, and concluded that “no prisoner, let alone a woman who is seriously ill or in great distress, should be held in such conditions.”
Jasmine York, who has been jailed for 10 weeks for taking part in protests against the bill, told the BBC: “In prison, people harm themselves in ways you never imagined”.People are leaving They’re either readmitted or left in a body bag.’ New figures published last month suggest Eastwood Park is not an isolated case: incidents of assault and self-harm in women’s prisons in England and Wales are at an all-time high. Perhaps to no one’s surprise, this is what happens when traumatised and mentally ill people are locked up in squalid, bloody conditions, with no real support or any justifiable hope.
It is possible and highly cost-effective to invent new solutions for the few women who pose a real threat to their communities, and free the vast majority who have been repeatedly failed by a system obsessed with punishment rather than prevention. This spring, charities Women in prison release report On the value of women’s centres. There are around 40 of these “one-stop shops” across England and Wales, offering specialist help, housing, debt, addictions, mental health, employment and education, domestic violence and parenting support – all the services that can prevent women getting caught up in the criminal justice system and struggling to emerge. The report is strangely beautiful to read, both for opening with a poem and for its humanising content, revealing how dehumanising the existing options are and offering an alternative. It reminds us that the prison system remains a blunt instrument that damages not only those within its walls but all of us who look away.
Email Eva at e.wiseman@observer.co.uk or follow her on X. Eva Weissman
