Time to care – why women deserve more than this

This month’s annual report from HM Chief Inspector of Prisons doesn’t tell us anything new. But it does confirm in painful detail just how far we are from a justice system that protects, supports, or rehabilitates the people within it.

Across the prison system, regimes are under immense strain. Staff shortages mean education is cancelled, mental health services are patchy, and even basic safety is slipping. But for women, these failings aren’t just frustrating they’re devastating.

At HMP Styal and HMP Drake Hall, the rate of self-harm among women was reported to be more than 8.5 times higher than in men’s prisons. Since the last inspection, four women at HMP Styal have taken their own lives. Let that sink in.

Four women, dead
Not because they posed a danger to others. But because of unaddressed trauma. Because of unmet mental health needs. Because of systems that punish women for being vulnerable, rather than supporting them to recover. We continue to place women in prisons that were never built for them  and that will never be places of healing.

The Chief Inspector’s thematic review Time to Care makes the link painfully clear: where there is no safety, no dignity, and no access to consistent support, women will harm themselves. The prison environment is not just unsuitable for most women it is actively dangerous.

And yet, there is hope
The recent Independent Sentencing Review, led by David Gauke, offers a path forward. One that Together Women and our partners in the National Women’s Justice Coalition have been calling for, for years. The review’s recommendations, including a significant reduction in short custodial sentences and greater investment in community alternatives, are not radical. They’re rational. Evidence-based. Achievable.

But here’s the catch: they will only succeed if the government puts real investment behind them. That means proper, sustainable funding for women’s centres. For the voluntary sector. For the services that already work, the services women trust and turn to before, during, and after contact with the justice system.

Change will not come from inside the prison walls. It will come from the communities already holding women together.

At Together Women, we see this every day. We’re not just offering support – we’re preventing crisis. We’re giving women a place to breathe, to rebuild, to be heard. Whether they’re facing housing insecurity, mental health challenges, trauma, or abuse – we’re there.

So yes, I welcome the Sentencing Review. I’m cautiously optimistic about the promises of reform. But until those promises are matched by funding and implemented with urgency, we will keep seeing the same headlines. The same statistics. The same unnecessary deaths.

Women deserve more than this. And we, as a country, must do better. We already have the solutions. Now it’s time to act.