Yesterday, England’s House of Commons Justice Committee delivered its report, “The role of adult custodial remand in the criminal justice system”. The Committee’s summary opens, “At present, the number of defendants being held in custodial remand while awaiting trial is at the highest level it has been for 50 years. They are also being held for longer periods of time, often beyond the statutory six-month limit. Recent figures show that 770 prisoners have been held on custodial remand for over two years, awaiting trial.” The highest level in 50 years. Longer periods of detention. Since 1976, the Bail Act was supposed to avoid precisely this situation, securing the “general right to bail of accused persons”. The idea was to reduce and then keep at a minimum the size of the population of people incarcerated while awaiting trial or any process: “Section 4 (1) raises the presumption that all unconvicted defendants in criminal proceedings will be granted bail.” With a fifty-year high in size and historical record lengths detained as remand incarcerated people, it’s clear the State has refused to recognize its own law, and with that, the dignity and rights of people, especially of women. Where are the women in England and Wales? According to the House of Commons Justice Committee, they’re incarcerated and awaiting trial: “The use of custodial remand for non-violent offences is a particularly acute practice for women. 85% of women on remand in prison have been charged for a non-violent crime.” 85% of women on remand in prison have been charged for an offense that, if found guilty, would not result in incarceration, and yet there they sit, incarcerated.
Two-thirds of the women remanded to prison are found not guilty or given a community outcome. There are little to no services in the remand sections of prisons, and yet “acutely mentally unwell women” are remanded to prison, often. When pressed to at least collect data on the situation, the government “rejected” the proposal, on the grounds that it was moving to implement reforms. The highest level in 50 years must be the result of those reforms. According to various support organizations, most women remanded to prison have no fixed abode, at the moment of reception.
The report goes on to describe “The female estate”: “The number of women received into prison on remand increased by 9% between April to June 2020 and July to September 2021. Women entering prison on remand account for over half of the women received into prison in a given year. The size and geography of the women’s estate means women tend to be held further from home, creating difficulties in maintaining contact with their families and within the remit of local services. 40% of women remanded into custody do not go on to receive a custodial sentence …. Almost nine in 10 women held on remand are low or medium risk of serious harm to the public …. Women can be held in prison on remand due to a lack of available appropriate accommodation in the community rather than because they are a threat to the public.”
Finally, “an acting prison governor at Bronzefield Prison, which has the highest number of remanded women in the country, noted that the large number of women on remand had restricted the capacity for prison staff to work constructively with the sentenced women in their care.”
It took decades for this deplorable and utterly predictable situation to occur. In 2012, the Chief Inspector of Prisons noted that remand incarcerated people were treated worse than convicted incarcerated people, and that women were “over-represented” in that population. Eleven years later, women are more over-represented and for longer periods of time. And then there’s Covid. Decades of defunding public services, throwing women into prison `protection’ for `their own good’ as well as the `public safety’, and ignoring, and violating. laws, because, really, what does the law mean for women, have resulted in a thoroughly outrageous and, again, altogether predictable situation. Where are the women in England and Wales today? In prison, under attack.
(By Dan Moshenberg)
(Photo Credit: Gabriel Saints / UK House of Commons Justice Committee)