Women in Prison:
1. There are around 4,000 women in prison. This is 5% of the total prison population.
Women & men have different offending patterns. They commit different types of offences & for different reasons. Overall, women commit far less serious, far less violent offences

2. * Women make up only 3% of all arrests for sexual offences
* Women make up 5% of murder convictions receiving a life sentence
* Offences for which multiple men & no women received life sentences include: rape, attempted murder, GBH, robbery & kidnapping

3. Some “lower-level” offences are over-represented amongst women:
* 70% of TV Licence evasion offences are committed by women.
* Women commit 70% of all truancy offences.
* Women commit 55% of all benefit fraud
* 30% of all prosecutions for shoplifting are of women

4. There are strong links between women’s acquisitive crime & their need to provide for their children.
Coercion is also an important factor: almost 50% of women committed the offence to support the drug use of someone else, usually their male partner, compared to 22% of men.

5. As a group, women in prison are very different from men in prison: women are more vulnerable; more likely to have experienced violence & abuse often from childhood; more likely to have mental health problems; more likely to self-harm & commit suicide.

6. Over 30% of women report history of sexual abuse (men = 10%)
Almost 60% of women reported domestic violence
There is a high prevalence of traumatic brain injury amongst female prisoners (65%). Most of these injuries were caused by a male partner.

7. Almost 50% of women have mental health problems (men = under 20%)
Women = 5% of the prison population but 25% of self-harm incidences occur in female estate. The rate of self-harm incidents per individual is also higher for women (6.4 incidents) than for men (3.0 incidents).

8. Female prisoners are far more likely to be primary carers of young children than men
The small number of women's prisons means that women tend to be located further from home than men, with a negative impact on family relationships and relationships with their children.

9. Men’s home lives outside prison usually continue during their absence in prison, with the reverse being the case for women. Women's dependent children are at risk of ending up in care via social services. This is not the case for men in prison.

10. Later we will look at sentencing for women compared to men and the evidence that consistently indicates that a different
WOMAN-CENTERED approach is needed for women, which does not include men.

11. Sources:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/719771/guide-to-whole-system-approach.pdf
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/759770/women-criminal-justice-system-2017..pdf
#KeepPrisonsSingleSex