Resource Library
The NWJC champions and promotes best practice for working with women in contact with the criminal justice system.
This library catalogues a wide range of resources that consolidate and demonstrate the collective wisdom and expertise of women’s organisations and criminal justice specialists. It contains briefing papers, reports, policy documents, current research and other useful resources that provide insight, expertise and best practice examples for working with and supporting women and girls.
Resources can be filtered by keywords, themes, organisation and format and search results include links to further information and downloadable content.
Please contact us to recommend any additional resources that should be added to the Resource Library.

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Centre for Crime and Justice Studies
Prison Service Journal (No 277) March 2025
This special edition of Prison Service Journal focusses on the issues of women, criminalisation and the need for differential approaches that recognise the part that gender plays in women’s path…

National Women's Justice Coalition (NWJC)
Breaking Out of the Justice Loop: Creating a criminal justice system that works for women
Breaking out of the Justice Loop argues that the criminal justice system, designed for men, has consistently failed women for years and that women’s centres and a public health approach must be …

University of Birmingham
Exploring Needs Profiles in Criminal Justice-Involved Women
This report examines the WRNA (Women’s Risk and Needs Assessment) validation project, investigating the needs and strengths of women who attend women’s centres across the UK. The study exa…

University of Birmingham
Examining the relationship between severity and complexity of needs among women involved in the Criminal Justice System
The research looked at the needs, adverse life events, vulnerabilities and strengths for women as identified through the Women’s Risk Needs Assessment (WRNA) tool, and the relationships between …

Greater Manchester Women's Support Alliance
Greater Manchester Women’s Support Alliance Annual Report: 2023-2024
Greater Manchester Women’s Support Alliance Annual Report: 2023 – 24…

Tomorrow's Women
Tomorrow’s Women Annual Report: 2023
Tomorrow’s Women published annual report: 2023…

Effective practice guide – Working with women
This effective practice guide is based on information sourced while undertaking the thematic inspection The quality of work undertaken with women: a joint inspection by HM Inspectorate of Probation an…

National Women's Justice Coalition (NWJC)
Understanding how women’s centres work
Women’s centres are demonstrably the most effective way to support women in contact with the criminal justice system to remove themselves from harmful situations and cycles of offending by acces…

National Women's Justice Coalition (NWJC)
Why women’s centres and specialist services need sustainable funding
Despite widespread recognition and evidence demonstrating the value of women’s centres, women’s services are consistently underfunded. This leads to inadequate, inequitable, and precarious…

National Women's Justice Coalition (NWJC)
Understanding the disadvantage & inequality experienced by women in contact with the CJS
Women in contact with the criminal justice system often experience different challenges rooted in structural and systemic inequalities at the same time, and the criminalisation of women is often under…

National Women's Justice Coalition (NWJC)
Understanding a Whole Systems Approach and why partnership working is valuable in the women’s sector
This briefing outlines the value and impact of partnership working across the women’s sector and explains how the Whole Systems Approach (WSA) focuses on building these partnerships to give wome…

Advance
Her Story, Her Justice – Making criminal justice work for women and girl survivors of domestic abuse
It is estimated that 2.1 million people experienced domestic abuse in England and Wales in the year ending March 2023. Despite legislative and policy progress made in recent years, the data tells a di…