Short jail terms for women ‘not long enough’ to allow for rehab

A THIRD of inmates at Europe’s largest female jail spend three weeks at most behind bars, watchdogs have revealed.

The short sentences leave too little time to rehabilitate offenders and could set them on a cycle of re-offending because it often means they lose their homes and jobs, said the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) at HMP Bronzefield in Ashford, Middlesex. The watchdog said that the women are being jailed for petty crime, failing to stop their children truanting, not paying fines or breaching their licence conditions after release.

“Three weeks is sufficient time to have a powerful, negative effect on their families, housing and employment but not for any meaningful rehabilitation,” said the IMB.

The report also revealed that nearly two-thirds of prisoners discharged from the jail are homeless upon their release, increasing the chances of them re-offending and putting the public’s safety at risk. The homelessness rate is at least four times the national average.

“No-one would dispute the correlation between homelessness and increased re-offending rates. It is horribly worrying. That means more victims of crime,” said Alison Keightley, who chairs Bronzefield’s IMB.

The report also revealed soaring rates of self-harm – with the number of incidents rising by more than half from 91 a month to 141 a month – and mental illness, which the prison was not geared up to handle.

Bronzefield is currently at the centre of a major inquiry by the Ministry of Justice after the death of a newborn baby whose mother gave birth alone without medical support present.