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Date: November 25, 2024 Mon

Time: 8:03 pm

Results for inmates, foreign born (u.k.)

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Author: Prison Reform Trust

Title: No Way Out: A briefing paper on foreign national women in prison in England and Wales

Summary: Foreign national women, many of whom are known to have been trafficked or coerced into offending, represent around one in seven of all the women held in custody in England and Wales. Yet comparatively little information has been produced about these women, their particular circumstances and needs, the offences for which they have been imprisoned and about ways to respond to them justly and effectively. This Prison Reform Trust briefing, drawing on the experience and work of the charity FPWP Hibiscus, the Female Prisoners Welfare Project, and kindly supported by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, sets out to redress the balance and to offer findings and recommendations which could be used to inform a much-needed national strategy for the management of foreign national women in the justice system. An overarching recommendation of Baroness Corston’s report published in 2007 was the need to reduce the number of women in custody, stating that “custodial sentences for women must be reserved for serious and violent offenders who pose a threat to the public”. She included foreign national women in her report, seeing them as: A significant minority group who have distinct needs and for whom a distinct strategy is necessary. However, when the government response and then the National Service Framework for Improving Services to Women Offenders were published the following year, there were no references to this group. Four years further on little progress has been made. "In spite of their evident needs”, The HM Chief Inspector of Prison’s Annual Report for 2008-9 pointed out that: Support for foreign national women, a significant proportion of women prisoners, is still not well developed in many prisons. If anything, due to the government’s focus on ensuring that “foreign criminals” do not have rights to remain in the country, the expansion of the Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) estate and a focus on fast track removals, the plight of this group has worsened. One of the key elements of the UK Borders Act 2007, which came into force in January 2009, was automatic deportation of non-British citizens who have been sentenced to a period of imprisonment for 12 months and over. The intolerance of any non-UK national who breaks the law remaining in the country is further emphasised in the most recently published UKBA five year strategy which talks of: Considering with partners, including the Crown Prosecution Service, the most effective use of out of court disposals such as cautions together with immigration powers, to remove low level foreign national offenders as an alternative to prosecution. This comes at a time when an increasing percentage of foreign women, who come to the attention of the criminal justice and immigration systems and who end up in custody, have been living in the UK long enough for their children to consider this country as home. Drawing on Hibiscus’ records of its work with foreign national women, this report attempts to gain a better understanding of the current situation for these women, see this in the context of changes over the last few years and outline what needs to be done.

Details: London: Prison Reform Trust, 2012. 16p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 28, 2012 at http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/NoWayOut.pdf

Year: 2012

Country: United Kingdom

URL: http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/NoWayOut.pdf

Shelf Number: 124309

Keywords:
Correctional Administration
Female Inmates
Inmates, Foreign Born (U.K.)
Prison Reform