Funding for Women's centres announced

Yesterday, Crispin Blunt, Minister for Prisons and Probation, announced a £3.5m funding package for women’s centres in 2012/13. Allocated from the National Offender Management Service, the fund will be shared across 30 centres working with women offenders and women at risk of offending.

The centres work with around 5,000 women a year, taking the holistic, woman-centred and integrated approach recommended by Baroness Corston in her 2007 report. The centres work with women to stabilise their lives and tackle issues that may be contributing to their offending such as addressing housing issues, dealing with drug and alcohol addictions, and getting help for mental health issues and trauma caused by past abuse or neglect. They provide an alternative to prison for many women by working with the probation service to provide supervision and community sentences. Largely run by small or medium sized charities, the centres also work in partnership with prisons, the police, local health and social services, and other charities.

Last year, Revolving Doors undertook research with three of these centres in Gloucestershire, Birmingham and Newcastle to analyse the financial impact of supporting women with multiple needs in the criminal justice system. The work was based on our Financial Analysis Model which assesses the potential savings of partnership projects providing holistic support to people with multiple needs at different points of the criminal justice system. The resulting report, Counting the Cost shows that an investment of £18 million per year in women’s centres could save the public purse almost £1 billion over five years. You can download the report Counting the Cost here.

In his announcement yesterday, Mr Blunt said “We are committed to tackling offending among women. I have seen first-hand a number of these centres in action and the challenging and impressive work they do in turning lives around and stopping offending.”