Engendering Justice - from Policy to Practice - The Fawcett Society

[A woman] had admitted to an offence of theft fromshops. [She] had accumulated a high level of debt;much of this was related to her offending as stores wereattempting to recoup their losses. She also had supportneeds in relation to substance misuse. [The woman] hasengaged well with TWP, seeing this as an opportunityto address the issues that were leading her to commitshop lifting. She was, at the time, in a cycle of offendingto pay debts that had been accrued as a result of earlieroffending. Her key worker supported her to write to theretail recovery agency. At first the debt was put on holdand then it was written off. [She] attends ADS to addressher substance misuse issues as well as counsellingwith LCWS. She continues to engage with the servicealthough this is likely to be relatively short term as hersupport needs have been met. For this [woman], referralto TWP as a conditional caution was timely and effective.She has been able to address issues that she neededsupport with and had not felt previously able to solvealone. She has not re-offended since engaging with theservice. 17Requiring women to attend a needs assessment opensthe possibility for each individual to consider the reasonsbehind their offending and, in turn, makes them aware ofthe support and training available in the community. Thisrehabilitative approach has largely been absent from thenational approach to conditional cautioning to date. Sincethe scheme began in April 2006 until February 2008, themajority of conditions (just under 60 percent) were forcompensation to victims, followed by a letter of apology in15 percent of cases and it was only in just over ten percentof cases that participation in a drug intervention programmewas imposed. 18However, the success of the condition aimed at womenoffenders goes hand-in-hand with the provision of supportservices for women on a national scale. The Commissionalso recommends that the impact of the scheme is carefullyevaluated and monitored going forward to ensure thatwomen who might have been simply referred for assistanceby the local police, without any formal record of the offence,are not being formally cautioned as a result of the scheme.Female Defendants– Experiences of theCourt System and theSentencing ProcessWomen are always the ones who face court for nonpaymentof TV licenses…We get women who havenever been in court before and they are criminalized andtraumatized unnecessarily. Why should this debt be anydifferent from any other non-criminal debt [such as] creditcard debt? Also it is women who almost always have topay the fines for their errant children obviously this is fairenough to a certain extent, but what about the fathers?Again we get women in court for not sending their childrento school. I have yet to see a father in this position havingbeen on the bench for 17 years.Female Magistrate, Questionnaire Response, March 2009The Legal Profession and Legal AidThe Legal Services Commission provides publicly fundedlegal aid to individuals facing criminal charges through theCriminal Defence Service. Evidence from female offenderssuggested that in the majority of cases, female suspectswere satisfied with the advice received from their solicitor.Many women commented that they were able to deal withthe same solicitor they had dealt with previously whichmade them feel reassured or were provided with a dutysolicitor who explained the process to them. However, theCommission remains concerned that there are frequentlydelays associated with the provision of legal advice. Asone woman stated “It wasn’t until the following day thatI was asked if I wanted legal advice which really stressedme out.” 19 This evidence of extensive delay experienced bysuspects together with the limited time that duty solicitorsare often able to spend with their clients suggests theduty solicitor scheme remains under-resourced: “The dutysolicitor explained everything to me but he was rushingfrom one station to another. Therefore he told me to givea ‘no comment’ interview.” 20 Of particular concern wasthat many suspects who shared their views with theCommission appeared unsure as to their options in relationPage 23