Agenda Alliance responds to the Sentencing Bill

The Ministry of Justice’s Sentencing Bill has been published, following the guidelines from the Sentencing Council, and the final recommendations from the Independent Sentencing Review. 

The Bill offers a vital opportunity to reform sentencing, and work to reduce the reasons women and girls offend. Whilst we are still analysing the Bill in more detail, we are disappointed that the Bill makes no reference to the needs of young women in touch with the criminal justice system, or racial disproportionality.

Our Young Women’s Justice Project has shown that when young women aren’t referenced in policy, their age and gender-related needs are completely neglected. Sentencing provides an opportunity for early intervention and diversion, that can interrupt life-long cycles of harm, particularly for young women facing multiple unmet needs. 

We do welcome a focus on the reduction of short sentences of under 12 months, which we know disproportionately affect women. Whilst suspended sentence orders (SSOs) are welcome, these alone do not address the disparities we see. Our analysis on sentence length for young women has shown harsher punishment for minoritised women:  young women of Asian heritage served the longest average custodial sentences at 21.3 months, followed closely by young Black women at 21.2 months and Mixed-heritage young women at 18.2 months, compared with 15.4 months overall average sentencing length. (1) These patterns persist despite the lower number of global majority women in the system, underscoring entrenched racial inequalities in sentencing outcomes that demand urgent reform.

We are also deeply concerned about the impact of disproportionate sentencing for migratised women. Recent changes which facilitate deportation straight after sentencing can have the potential to put more survivors of exploitation and trafficking at risk. We must see sentencing legislation that supports early identification of survivors of trafficking and exploitation, alongside clear guidance on preventing migratised survivors of VAWG from being punished and deported.

SSOs and community sentencing must be accompanied by creating increased pathways for women to access specialist women’s centres, and by-and-for organisations. This should include long-term, ringfenced core funding for these organisations providing this vital support. With their focus on young women, we would like to see the Women’s Justice Board consider how these recommendations can be applied specifically for the young women who have not been represented through the proposed legislation.  

Indy Cross, CEO of Agenda Alliance, said: