Rising prison populations have dominated much of 2024, with politicians north and south of the border turning to emergency release to keep prisoner numbers down.
The holy grail of criminal justice has long been to find a successful way to avoid the reliance on custody, while ensuring community safety.
As the emergency early-release debate intensifies, Justice Secretary Angela Constance has spoken of the need for support to help reduce reoffending and integration back into the community.
Scotland’s reconviction rates suggest difficulties persist in fully rehabilitating people in prisons.
One potential solution implemented more than a decade ago was a series of community justice centres designed to divert women from offending and get their lives back on track.
They were set up in the wake of Dame Elish Angiolini’s landmark review into the women’s prison population in 2012, aimed at tackling the huge rise in females being incarcerated in Scotland.
The creation of these centres, modelled on the success of the Willow Centre in Edinburgh, were one of the primary recommendations made by Angiolini’s report, and aimed to tackle repeat offending and prevent women from being sent to prison.
Sixteen centres were set up between 2013 and 2015 as ‘one-stop shops’ for women in the justice system to address the root causes of their offending: poor mental health, homelessness, drug or alcohol addiction, or abuse.
Tomorrow’s Women Glasgow, housed in a former school building on the banks of the Clyde in the Gorbals area of the city, is one such centre.
It opened its doors in 2014 and now supports around 90 women involved at various stages in the criminal justice system and who have experienced complex trauma.
The centre brings together different services with a team made up of social workers, social care workers, and mental health nurses, all under the aegis of Glasgow’s Health and Social Care Partnership.
They work with women from the Glasgow area who are on a justice order, such as a drug testing and treatment order, community payback order, or structure deferred sentence.
Referrals can be made from the police and prison service. Referrals without an order are also taken for women with mental health difficulties related to complex trauma, who are at risk of further offending and whose needs are multiple and complex.
Tomorrow’s Women Glasgow’s approach is centred on an acknowledgement that women’s offending is driven by different causes and factors to men’s – and results in different crimes.
Team leader Claire Saunders tells 1919: “The women we support have layer upon layer of trauma, occurring in childhood, adulthood and adolescence.
“That trauma is usually directed by the people who were supposed to keep them safe. The abuse most often occurs in the context of relationships – and those relationships are a huge risk factor for women.”
Social worker Hayley Farrell agrees.
“The women who come here are in trauma, have experienced significant loss, bereavement, homelessness, substance abuse,” she explains.
“They are rarely a danger but tend to be imprisoned for their own welfare.
“Offences tend to be assaults on police which happened as part of arrest, or shoplifting. It’s not house breaking, or road traffic offences.
“Women’s route to offending is so, so different and because of that, the response needs to be different. It’s not soft-touch. But relationships are key – if you don’t have that relationship, you don’t have anything.”