Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:44 pm on 22 November 2022.
Thank you. It's over 15 years since the Corston report recommended that most women should not be going to prison, and that there need to be community sentences for these people. So, we need to be pursuing this at pace. Obviously, I would prefer it if we had a devolved criminal justice system. As the 'Justice at the Jagged Edge in Wales' report makes clear, this is the only Parliament and Executive that does not have a judiciary alongside it, and, for all sorts of reasons, that’s a really, really bad idea. So, we really do need to rectify that.
I very much welcome the work that’s being done to prevent women going into prison and to give them early support to prevent and make sure that that doesn’t happen. You mentioned the numbers who’ve completed the gender- and trauma-informed training package for those working in the justice system, and I just wondered if you are in a position to tell us how many have completed that training from Styal and Eastwood Park, because one of the issues that arose at Styal was that there was a severe shortage of staff, which meant that even the most basic things were sometimes postponed, such as the video-conferences that women have with their children. So, it’s really—the system is completely broken, and we absolutely need to fix it as fast as possible.
In terms of women on short sentences, a completely pointless thing, the revolving door works fantastically with short sentences; they just come back in. So, I want to know a little bit more about your conversations with the police, if possible, on the differences—and with the magistrates—and on why it is that, for example, Gwent sends 88 per cent of the people it sentences on short sentences, whereas in south Wales it’s only 55 per cent. That’s a significant difference in areas that are adjacent to each other. So, why is that, and how can we bring that down?