Theft, violence against the person and ‘miscellaneous crimes against society’ are the most common reasons women are arrested in London. [1]
Since the closure of HMP Holloway those placed in custody are sent to serve their sentence outside of the capital, which can exacerbate challenges around maintaining family contact and ties with the community.
Women make up a small, but significant, number of the overall number of offenders in London, however, they are a distinct group that often have very specific needs in relation to rehabilitation and the prevention of offending. 53 per cent of women in prison have said they experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse as a child and many report having been victims of domestic violence. [2]
The Police and Crime Committee will tomorrow begin its investigation into women in the justice system.
This meeting will focus on: the extent to which the closure of HMP Holloway has affected the rehabilitation of London’s women in prison, the provision of specialist support services for women offenders, and the current and potential effectiveness of MOPAC’s proposals to support the rehabilitation of women offenders through a Female Offender Service.
The guests are:
- Dr Kate Paradine, Chief Executive, Women in Prison
- Helga Swidenbank, Director of Probation, London CRC
- Jenny Earle, Programme Director - Reducing women's imprisonment, Prison Reform Trust
- Niki Scordi, Chief Executive, Advance
The meeting will take place on Wednesday 1 November from 10:00am in the Chamber at City Hall (The Queen’s Walk, London SE1).
Media and members of the public are invited to attend
The meeting can also be viewed LIVE via webcast or 
YouTube
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@LondonAssembly and take part in the meeting discussion using #AssemblyPolice and #WomenOffenders
Notes to editors
- Home Office, Arrests open data 2006-07 to 2015-16, October 2016. In 2015-16 the 'reason for arrest' offence groups were updated to match the groups used in crime statistics. This means that 2015-16 data broken down by offence group are not all directly comparable with previous data.
- See Prison Reform Trust, Why focus on reducing women’s imprisonment?, February 2017.
- Full Agenda papers.
- Steve O’Connell AM, Chairman of the Police and Crime Committee is available for interview. See contact details below.
- As well as investigating issues that matter to Londoners, the London Assembly acts as a check and a balance on the Mayor.
For media enquiries, please contact Mary Dolan on 020 7983 4603. For out of hours media enquiries, call 020 7983 4000 and ask for the London Assembly duty press officer. Non-media enquiries should be directed to the Public Liaison Unit on 020 7983 4100.