| answer text |
<p>We are clear that sentencing must match the severity of a crime and public protection
is our priority. The Sentencing Bill, announced in the Queens Speech, will contain
a range of measures targeted at the most serious violent and sexual offenders to ensure
their punishment reflects the severity of their crimes. It will also contain proposals
for community penalties that offer an appropriate level of punishment, while tackling
the underlying drivers of offending. While custody should be available as a last resort,
if we are to break the cycle of reoffending, solutions will often lie in community
sentences, including those which address offenders’ behaviour, answer their mental
health and alcohol or drug misuse needs, or provide reparation for the benefit of
the wider community.</p><p> </p><p>We remain committed to the vision and aims set
out in our Female Offender Strategy (June 2018); which aims to see fewer women in
custody. There is persuasive evidence that many women, particularly on short custodial
sentences, can be better supported in the community on robust and effective community
sentences. Where a woman needs to be in custody, we want to provide rehabilitative
regimes specifically tailored to women’s needs to break the reoffending cycle. However,
we know that for many vulnerable women, with the right support at the right time,
there are opportunities to prevent them from entering the criminal justice system
at all. Publication of the Strategy was the start of a new and significant programme
of work to deliver better outcomes for female offenders that will take some years
to deliver.</p><p> </p><p>Lord Farmer’s review, The Importance of Strengthening Female
Offenders' Family and other Relationships to Prevent Reoffending and Reduce Intergenerational
Crime, continued his work on the importance of family ties in improving outcomes for
offenders, by looking at the issues for female offenders in the community and custody.
We welcome the findings and recommendations of the review and we are committed to
taking this important area of work forward. The 33 recommendations cover a number
of Government departments, and officials are working at pace to see how we can best
give effect to them in both the short and longer term. We have accepted Lord Farmer’s
recommendation for this work to be embedded into joint policy and operational Family
Strategy Working Group (FWSG), which is already taking forward implementation of the
original Farmer Review. We are reporting to Lord Farmer with progress on a quarterly
basis.</p>
|
|
