Incarcerated Pregnant Women and Mothers 2024-11-05
2024-11-05
Response quality
Questions & Answers
Q1
Partial Answer
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Context
Two-thirds of women in prison are non-violent offenders, over half have dependent children, and 75% of the time these children leave home after their mother's incarceration.
What steps her Department is taking to support incarcerated pregnant women and mothers. Two-thirds of women in prison are non-violent offenders, over half of whom have dependent children, with 75% of those children leaving home after incarceration, adding emotional torture for the separation from their mother.
We are sending too many women to prison; we have launched the women's justice board which will set out its strategy in the spring with the goal of reducing the number of women in prison and ultimately women's prisons. The data on how we track the experiences of women across England and Wales will be work that the women's justice board—once it is up and running—will be able to look into and make recommendations on, which we will pick up in the spring.
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Assessment & feedback
The specific ask was not addressed as no concrete actions or timelines were provided for supporting incarcerated pregnant women and mothers.
Response accuracy
Q2
Partial Answer
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Context
Welsh women in prison are held in England, and the emotional impact of separation from children without public access to Wales-specific disaggregated data is significant.
All Welsh women in prison are held in England, and being far from home adds to the emotional torture of separation from children. Without public access to Wales-specific disaggregated data, we cannot assess the extent of this separation properly. Will the Secretary of State commit to making this information public so that we can ensure pregnant women and mothers and their children have proper support?
The data on how we track the experiences of women across England and Wales will be work that the women's justice board—once it is up and running—will be able to look into and make recommendations on, which we will pick up in the spring.
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Assessment & feedback
The specific ask was not addressed as no concrete commitment or timeline was provided for making Wales-specific disaggregated data public.
Response accuracy