Agenda Alliance responds to Safety in Custody statistics April 2024

Yesterday’s Safety in Custody statistics reinforce what women and girls have told us for years: that they are not safe in prisons. Rates of self-harm among women in prison are higher than rates among men; young women aged 18-20 are self-harming at the highest levels. Our Call to Action briefing, produced as part of our Young Women’s Justice Project, spoke with young women who echoed these findings. They had experienced a lack of gendered support, dismissive attitudes from criminal justice staff, and poor understanding of how their histories of trauma and abuse underpinned their criminalisation.

Supporting women and girls who are in contact with the criminal justice system through wraparound services in their communities is essential to break cycles of harm. We urge the Ministry of Justice to engage with young women with lived experience and the specialist women and girls sector as they develop the Young Women’s Strategy, to ensure a cross-cutting strategic approach which recognises the interconnected needs of criminalised women and girls. Finally, we continue to reiterate that re-investing funding in community solutions rather than expanding the prison estate is vital. Only by improving community services can we reduce the female prison population and divert women and girls from the criminal justice system once and for all.