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<p>The Ministry of Justice has not made a detailed assessment of possible savings
of moving from prison to community support illustrated by the case study on page 87
of the Justice Select Committee’s report. However, the Female Offender Strategy, published
in June 2018, noted that Government had estimated that female offenders cost the public
purse approximately £1.7bn in 2015/16, including estimated police costs of c.£1bn.
This excluded wider social costs, such as the cost of intergenerational offending.
The Government recognises that community sentences offer the opportunity to support
women to effectively address the underlying causes of offending behaviour and to secure
and maintain stable accommodation. We have several initiatives underway that are looking
to encourage use of robust community sentences as an alternative to custody for women,
including Problem Solving Courts, Community Sentence Treatment Requirements, Electronic
Monitoring and a Pre-Sentence Report pilot, as well as our plans to open a first Residential
Women’s Centre in Wales.</p>
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