Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ) welcomes the focus of the Lord Chancellor’s conference speech on achieving justice for women involved in the criminal justice system as victims or as offenders. As she suggests, this is long overdue.
We are delighted that independent legal advocates are being rolled out nationally for rape victims in every part of the country. CWJ has developed its own model for providing such advice developed over the past few years and is supporting a pilot project hosted at Women and Girls Network which is currently underway. We hope the new government will look closely at our methodology to inform the proposed model for this much needed independent legal advice moving forward.
It is welcome that the Lord Chancellor has made reducing women’s imprisonment a primary aim of her time in office. This has been an official government aim for some years but there has been minimal progress. We hope the Women’s Justice Board will lead to better results, but this won’t be achieved without increased, sustainable investment in women’s community services and a cultural transformation of the criminal justice system to address misogyny, racism and discrimination against migrant women, and to ensure accountability.
The Lord Chancellor is right to point out that the majority of women in prison are victim/survivors of domestic abuse. Her planned reforms must include legislation to introduce effective defences for victims of domestic abuse who are accused of offending, and a transformation in practice by the police and other criminal justice agencies to ensure victims’ experiences of domestic abuse are properly taken into account in any criminal proceedings against them.
Black, minoritised and migrant women face appalling discrimination at every stage of the criminal justice system. The Lord Chancellor and Home Secretary must show strong, united leadership in ensuring their planned reforms include all women and girls, regardless of their race or country of origin.
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