Our response to the Women’s Justice Board report (March 2026)

The National Women’s Justice Coalition (NWJC) welcomes the publication of the Women’s Justice Board (WJB) Recommendations for Reducing Women’s Imprisonment, published on 16 March 2026.

The report sets out a clear and compelling blueprint for transformative change in the criminal justice system, echoing what specialist women’s organisations, and experts by experience have consistently evidenced for decades: that women’s justice must be gender‑responsive, trauma‑informed, community‑based, and supported through sustainable, long‑term investment.

The WJB’s call to return to the vision set out in the Corston Review – to end women’s imprisonment except in the most serious cases – directly aligns with NWJC’s founding mission and our ongoing strategic objectives to reduce the number of women in prison by strengthening community alternatives. The report rightly recognises that women in contact with the criminal justice system experience disproportionately high levels of trauma, abuse, poor mental health, poverty, and structural inequality. These realities are reflected daily across the work of our 26 Partner organisations.

Funding for women’s organisations
We strongly welcome the WJB’s recognition that specialist women’s services form the backbone of any effective whole‑system response, and that chronic underfunding continues to destabilise this essential infrastructure. Addressing the funding crisis facing women’s organisations, including small, specialist, by/for services, has been and remains a core priority of the NWJC.

The WJB’s recommendation to transform funding arrangements and secure long‑term investment is both necessary and overdue. Historic patterns of precarious, short-term commissioning and grant-making have repeatedly eroded capacity, undermined continuity, and placed women at risk of being unable to access the specialist support they need. Sustainable funding is not simply desirable but essential for delivering safe, credible community alternatives to custody.

An anti-racist intersectional approach
The NWJC welcomes the WJB’s explicit commitment to an anti‑racist, intersectional approach to reducing women’s imprisonment. Addressing racial disproportionality, and the specific harms experienced by Black, Asian, minoritised and migrant women, is critical to any credible justice reform.

This approach mirrors our own strategic commitments to embed anti‑oppressive practice across our coalition, strengthen representation of by/for specialist organisations, and ensure that national justice policy is shaped by those who experience these inequities most acutely.

Centring lived experience
We particularly welcome the WJB’s recognition that lived experience leadership is central to effective reform. The NWJC’s National Voice & Advisory Panel (NVAP) was established to ensure that women with lived experience are not used solely as case studies or testimony, but recognised as strategic experts informing policy design, delivery and accountability. To achieve real change, lived experience expertise must be embedded not just in shaping solutions but in the implementation, oversight and monitoring of reforms. This requires appropriate resourcing, safe engagement routes, remuneration, and trauma‑informed infrastructures of support.

Ending the imprisonment of pregnant women
We strongly endorse the recommendation that pregnant women should only be imprisoned in the most exceptional circumstances, and that the imprisonment of mothers of babies and toddlers should be severely restricted. This represents critical progress in safeguarding the rights and wellbeing of women and their children. NWJC Partner Birth Companions has led calls for this reform for over 30 years, and we join them in welcoming the WJB’s clear recognition of the profound harms caused by the criminalisation and imprisonment of pregnant women.

Prioritising prevention, diversion and young women
The WJB’s emphasis on early intervention, prevention and diversion at every stage of the criminal justice system reflects the evidence NWJC Partners have repeatedly contributed to national reviews, inquiries and consultations. Ensuring all police forces develop gender‑specific, trauma‑informed diversion pathways, and strengthening defences for victims of Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) who are criminalised, are essential steps towards a more just and trauma‑aware system.

We also welcome the call for a Young Women’s Strategy, recognising the distinct needs of young adult women, especially those who are care‑experienced or survivors of abuse and exploitation. A developmentally informed, culturally responsive approach is essential if we are to prevent unnecessary criminalisation and support young women to thrive.

National programme for reform
The proposed Women’s Justice Reform Programme offers the coordinated national leadership that has been missing from previous policy attempts. Without structured oversight, transparent accountability, and genuine collaboration with specialist services, past strategies have struggled to deliver meaningful change. A national, multi‑year programme, grounded in evidence and lived experience, is essential to realising the ambitions of this report.

What must happen next
The WJB report provides an ambitious and credible framework for reducing women’s imprisonment. However, recommendations alone cannot drive systems‑level change.
To ensure these proposals lead to lasting transformation, the government must now:

• Implement all WJB recommendations in full, with clear timelines, accountability structures and public reporting.
• Provide multi‑year, ring‑fenced investment in specialist women’s services, including small, by/for organisations.
• Embed lived experience leadership at every stage of policymaking, implementation and evaluation.
• Adopt and operationalise anti‑racist, intersectional approaches across all reforms.
• Strengthen cross‑government coordination, recognising that women’s justice is interconnected with housing, health, social care, immigration, and VAWG responses.

The NWJC stands ready to work closely with the government, commissioners, senior stakeholders and our wider partners, allies and friends across the women’s and justice sectors to ensure these recommendations lead to real, sustained and meaningful change. Women’s organisations have been calling for decades for a justice system that recognises and responds to women’s distinct needs and rights. This seminal report marks an essential step forward, but political will, sustained investment and collaborative action must now follow.