Too many women being jailed for no good reason, claims Angiolini

STEPHEN NAYSMITH

Dame Elish Angiolini said many offenders were ‘driven by an addiction that excludes all rational thinking’ which jail does not solve.

She said: “We are still sending too many women to prison for no good reason or effect.

“We can do more both to keep our citizens safer and help these women build useful, valuable lives.”

Prison is an easy answer, but not effective, she said. “We sweep these women away and get a temporary reprieve. It’s easy but very expensive and very ineffective.”

Dame Elish, now principal at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, believes there is a growing understanding that sending so many criminals

to jail is expensive and does nothing to make society safer.

She said: “Look at how attitudes have changed around domestic abuse, drink-driving, the grooming of children. As a nation we cannot afford to wait another 20 years to change the way we think about offenders and what we do with them.

“There are far better ways of helping them lead better lives, stopping their children making their mistakes and protecting our communities.”

The creation of Community Justice Scotland,

a national agency, was an opportunity to emphasise and encourage best practice to curb reoffending, Dame Elish said, but prison could not address the problems of many women offenders.

She said: “Many of them are driven by an addiction that excludes all rational thinking.

“That will not disappear if they are put on bail or in prison for a so-called short, sharp shock.

“It means nothing, achieves nothing and we, as a society, gain nothing.”