Introduction

This chapter provides an overview and discussion of the central theme of the book – women and criminal justice. In particular, it focuses on the publication of the 2007 Report A Review of Women with Particular Vulnerabilities in the Criminal Justice System, undertaken by Baroness Jean Corston; it places this review within its wider context and considers key developments that followed. Of crucial importance was the central message underpinning the recommendations of the Report:

In the Foreword to the Report, Baroness Corston highlighted the inappropriateness and disproportionality of remands in custody and prison sentences for women who had committed minor or non-violent crimes. The thrust of the report was that women's vulnerabilities should be identified and worked with to reduce their offending behaviour, and that ‘community solutions for non-violent women offenders should be the norm’ (Corston, 2007: 9). Most of all, the Corston Report endeavoured to kick-start ‘a new approach to women in the criminal justice system, with central drive and direction at the highest level’ (Corston, 2007: 13). This stance acknowledged the wider social problems and personal issues that many women offenders faced, endeavouring to situate interventions at a much earlier, more accessible and less stigmatising level within local communities.

The importance of the overall rationale underpinning the recommendations of the Corston Report cannot be overstated. The ethos of this review endeavoured to generate a seismic change in the way that women were dealt with by the criminal justice system, with fundamental implications for social justice and for society's response to women offenders in England and Wales.

This chapter commences with a discussion of the main findings of the Corston Report (2007) and then moves on to explore the situation since the Report was published. In summary, while there have been some reformist accomplishments since Corston, it can be described, at best, as a mixed picture of developments since 2007, with increasing concerns in the face of the ‘Transforming Rehabilitation’ agenda (Gelsthorpe and Hedderman, 2012 and Chapter Two in this book).