1. Manchester & Salford Magistrates Court Kathryn Moynihan
Problem Solving Court
Manchester & Salford Magistrates Court
Kathryn Moynihan
Welcome and Introductions – show Fiona’s video

2. The England & Wales Criminal Justice System
Introduction to English and Welsh Criminal Justice system.
Arrest, CPS, PSR, Sentence, offender management

3. Why Women?
The Corston Report 2007 was a review of women with vulnerabilities in the CJS. Following the tragic death of six women at HMP Styal Baroness Corston conducted a review of vulnerable women in the CJS. The Corston Report was published in 2007 – remains the definitive publication for those working with women in the CJS
She said there was a need for a distinct, radically different visibly led strategic proportionate holistic women centred intergrated approach
Why women? this is a question that we’re asked time and time again! Why should women be treated differently, don’t men in the CJS have needs as well, isn’t it unfair on men etc.
The simple answer is that men and women in the CJS have DIFFERENT patterns of offending, DIFFERENT needs, and therefore need a DIFFERENT approach to meet those needs and to prevent reoffending.
Secondly, as you will already know, women are a minority group within the offending population. Make up approx 5% of the prison population, and approx 10% of probation caseloads. With any minority group, therefore is a risk of their needs being overlooked/sidelined/assimilated into the majority group. Quick example – because such a small group, much fewer women’s prisons, thus often end up being held much further from home, more isolated than male prisoners

4. Women have.... Different offending patterns Different needs
Minority group
Equality isn’t about treating people the same!
“Equality does not mean treating everyone the same. The new gender equality duty means that men and women should be treated with equivalent respect, according to need. Equality must embrace not just fairness but also inclusivity. This will result in some different services and policies for men and women”
Baroness Corston, 2007
So, what is it that makes women offenders, and their needs, different?
Firstly, women’s offending, as you will know, tends to follow different patterns to mens.
Next – women are far more likely to be the primary carer of a child (or an older relative). Many effects – prison therefore often results in child being taken into care. In community, makes attending appointments harder. Related to social isolation generally – single mother less likely to be in employment etc. automatically considering another person’s needs, general pressure of caregiving, added financial pressure.
Next – we know anyway that women are FAR more likely to experience sexual and/or domestic violence than men, but such experiences are even more common for women in the CJS – over half. Also true of childhood abuse. E.g. 31% women in custody = time in care as a child. Will have had an impact on ALL aspects of life – increased chance of mental health problems, substance misuse problems. Often affects engagement with services – e.g. if DV, fear of removal of children prevents engagement. Increases social exclusion. May make unsafe/too stressful attending places where lots of men – e.g. probation offices!
MH problems – really common for female offenders, often linked to abuse, as mentioned above – few stats to illustrate this – women offenders 5x more likely to have mh problem compared to women generally, 30% women in prison have had a previous psychiatric admission vs 10% male prisoners. Self harm/suicide attempts = high. E.g. women account for 30% of ALL SH incidents in prison, despite only being 5% of prison population.
Corston highlighted many of the issues WIP had been campaigning for for years – i.e. differences between male and female offenders.
Specifically:
Most women do not commit crime;
Women with histories of violence and abuse are over represented in the CJS and can be described as victims as well as offenders;
The biological difference between men and women has different social and personal consequences;
Proportionately, more women than men are remanded in custody;
Women commit a range of different offences from men. They commit more acquisitive crime and have a lower involvement in serious violence, criminal damage and professional crime;
Relationship problems feature strongly in women’s pathway into crime;
Coercion by men can form a route into criminal activity for some women;
Drug addiction plays a huge part in all offending and is disproportionately the case with women;
Mental health problems are far more prevalent among women in prison than in the male prison population or in the general population
Outside prison men are more likely to commit suicide than women but the position is reversed inside prison;
Self harm in prison is a huge problem and more prevalent in the women’s estate;
Women prisoners are far more likely than men to be primary carers of young children and this factor makes the prison experience significantly different for women than men;
Because of the small number of women’s prisons and their geographical location, women tend to be located further from their homes than male prisoners, to the detriment of maintaining family ties, receiving visits and resettlement back into the community;
Prison is disproportionably harsher for women because prisons and the practices within them have for the most part been designed for men;
Levels of security in prison were put in place to stop men escaping;
The women’s prison population suffers disproportionately because of the rapidly increasing male population and the pressure to find places for men, leading to re-roling of female prisons;
30% of women in prison lose their accommodation while in prison

5. The Problem Solving Court Principles
Community Engagement
Collaboration between legal officials
Individualised Justice
Offenders held accountable for non compliance
Available Training
Outcomes analysed for ongoing cost benefit analysis
In MSMC the stats are: 81% of women sentence to custody do not present a risk of harm to the public and 50% of these women will serve sentences less than 6 months.
The Problem Solving Court (PSC) is based on the theory that if issues such as debts, health, parenting, housing, substance misuse, mental health and emotional wellbeing were addressed and access to these services improved, this would result in reduced crime and reduced levels of social deprivation.
The Problem Solving Court Community Order, consists of a RAR/Supervision and monthly court reviews. However the female can in addition be sentence to a DRR, ATR, Curfew or UPW as appropriate.
The Female Problem Solving Court at Manchester & Salford Magistrates Court launched on 1st June 2014.The decision was made to target female offenders within the problem solving court at Manchester and Salford Magistrates court. The decision to focus on female offenders was informed by national, regional and local knowledge, research and policy development. Baroness Corston’s ‘Review of Women with Particular Vulnerabilities in the Criminal Justice System’ (Corston, 2007) highlighted that the multiple, complex needs of women offenders, require a multi-agency, woman centred and holistic approach, if their offending is to be reduced.
The Problem solving court is intended to be an alternative sentence that can be given by a magistrate or judge instead of the alternative approach of sending the offender for a short prison sentence or a community order. The rationale of the approach is that the problem solving approach requires the woman to engage with support services with a sanction for not doing so. If issues such as debt, health, parenting, housing and substance misuse were addressed and access to these services improved, this would result in reduced crime and reduced levels of social deprivation. As a result they are less likely to present back into the criminal justice system with the same issues in the future.
Statutory and support agencies who form the problem solving court have identified that their services are available to this cohort with or without the problem solving court, however the benefit of this model is that:
they can maintain links with females who would lose services when in custody;
support a cohort who have been hard to previous engage with;
less time is spent duplicating assessments and referring to partner agencies;
they can focus specifically on their area of expertise while being confident that other agencies are involved to address other issues the female presents with.

6. Problem Solving Court Model
The processes at this point in time within the problem solving court were:
Court appearance – the female is identified as meeting the criteria by probation/court staff and presents as motivated to engage in a problem solving sentence. The case is adjourned for three weeks and she is interviewed for her Pre-Sentence report.
Sentence planning meeting - The pre-sentence report author (who would chair the meeting), relevant agencies who would support delivery of a Community Order and the female, meet to discuss the sentence plan. This meeting takes place within local women’s centres, hosted by TWP and WomenMATTA. The Probation Officer will draw up an agreement of who will take which action presented in the Pre-Sentence Report.
Sentencing – this will involve probation and court staff. The female will receive a problem solving court community order for 6, 9 or 12 months. This is managed by a probation officer.
Four weekly reviews - Should the female receive the proposed Community Order, with the agencies support, the cases will be reviewed every four weeks, in order to mark the female’s progress and review the sentence plan (this increased to every two weeks from January 2015). There are clear consequences for non-compliance; the female will be breached for non-attendance.
Completion/early progress de-registration – To reward progress, cases over 6 weeks are reviewed and considered for revocation or de-registration for good progress. This is an opportunity or agencies to record a successful completion, if the female and the agencies have achieved all of the objectives they have set.

7. They must have four or more of these needs:
Females at risk of high community order/custody
They must have four or more of these needs:
Accommodation, Previous offences, Mental Health,
Domestic Violence, Children Services, Emotional Wellbeing,
Finances, Drugs, Alcohol.

8. Michelle’s Problem Solving Journey
Case 5:
Index offence: Shoplifting
Sentence: Suspended Sentence Order with Unpaid Work, WSAR and Supervision
Previous:
Six previous shoplifting offences, previously received community orders however breaches and has received custody.
Motivation/triggers to offend:
Attitude of entitlement, mental health concerns, drug misuse
Offending needs:
94%, drugs, DV, MH, CS, EW
OM info:
Avoids appointments, mother calls on her behalf, compulsive liar (this is based on my experience of supervision with SL) Usually plays agency off and re-arranges appointments.
Daughter is subject to child in need (previously child protection) and is currently residing with grandmother, whilst SL sorts herself out.
Supervision plan:
Compulsory:
OM to address offence & victim awareness through supervision
OM to attend and contribute to child in need meetings
Attend UPW once a week
Comply with WSAR
Voluntary:
Engage with drug services
Engage with WomenMATTA
Manchester Move:
Last presented on 25/03/2009, presented 5 times. No full interview recorded
Not registered on Manchester move, 1 debt, 1xasb,
Troubled families:
Known and last open case Nov 2013
PSC Fits well within Fergus McNeil Desistance theory about empowering people to change their behaviour. It gives women the skills to change through linking in with partnership agencies. This case study is an excellent example of how the PSC journey has positively imacted upon her and encouraged her to desist from offending and problem behaviours

9. As part of the PSC review process, women are asked to track their progress through the use of the outcome star and complete an evaluation form of their experience of PSC once they complete their sentence. This assists us in measuring the “human” outcomes as well as the cost / benefit analysis.

10. Impact of PSC on female offenders
Six outcome areas have been modelled in the CBA: mental health, alcohol dependency, drug dependency, offending, custodial sentences and well-being. As the benefits are based on results from the first 8 months the PSC was in operation (61 women), robust outcome data is not yet available. Therefore the benefits in this CBA are forecast. The CBA will be updated further when the impacts for the current cohort are available, but this will not be for some time due to lags in the data. Details of the outcome data is shown in Figure 2.
Mental health outcomes. In the initial 8 months of the PSC, 34.4% of the woman had mental health issues. Just over half engaged with services.
Alcohol dependency. In the initial 8 months of the PSC, 42.6% of woman had issues with alcohol and were referred to support services. 60% of these women engaged and retained in the service.
Drug dependency. In the initial 8 months of the PSC, 40.9% of woman had issues with drugs and were referred to support services. 56% of these women engaged and retained in the service.
Offending outcomes. To estimate the potential number of crimes likely to be committed by the women on the PSC programme the convictions data that was available had to be scaled up. As the New Economy CBA uses monetisation based on total actual crime (as measured by the British Crime Survey) rather than convictions, the number of conviction was scaled up by standard multipliers. The first of these is to take account of the difference between recorded crime and convictions (approx. 1 in 5.4 recorded crimes results in a conviction). The second multiplier is specific to crime type and based on Home Office figures. In order to establish a deadweight figure for offending (what would have happened without the programme), we have used successful outcome rate for those that would have got a community order rather than a custodial sentence.
Reduced custodial sentences: Of the women receiving the PSC community order 55.7% were at risk of custody. 71% of these women did not breach the order or re-offend.
Emotional wellbeing. In the initial 8 months of the PSC, 67.2% of women were referred to support services. 85% of these women have engaged and retained in the service.
70% of the women involved in the PSC have previously had children either in the Care of the Local Authority, subject to Child Protection plans or privately fostered. The PSC has halted that cycle for those young people.
In areas such as emotional wellbeing, in the initial eight months of the PSC, 67.2% of women were referred to support services, 85% of these women have engaged and been retained in the service. 34.4% of the women had mental health issues, just over half engaged with services % of women had issues with alcohol and were referred to support services, 60% of these women engaged and are retained in the service. 40.9% of woman had issues with drugs and were referred to support services, 56% of these women engaged and are retained in the service.
out of the 101 reports completed by Fiona for the PSC, 99 of the women received a community order instead of custody.

11. Impact of PSC on Criminal Justice System
Reduced Re-Offending
Reduced Short Term Custody
Cost Savings
Ongoing CBA and Evaluations
Reduced re-offending
Reduced short term custody
Improved emotional wellbeing and life opportunities
Savings for A&E and Children Services
Abstinence and move towards recovery
Greater Support for victims of Domestic Violence
The Net Present Budget impact over the 5 year period is a saving of £398K, The saving is not substantial but is based on a low number of participants (less than 100 per year).
The Cost Benefit Analysis gives a rationale for investing in the Problem Solving court. The reduction in offending produces a large proportion of the savings, and shows a good return on investment for the longer term cashability scenario even based on a small number of participants (less than 100 per year). The analysis indicates for this scenario, £4.13 is saved for every £1 spent.
From the nomination form - The PSC for women has been the subject of a Cost Benefit Analysis by the Public Services Reform team in Manchester and is part of an ongoing study by Sheffield Hallam. The published report has shown that the wider costs and benefits of the project including the economic and social value created as well as the fiscal impact. The report states " The model calculates an additional public value created by the project of £2.28million. A return on investment metric of 17.6 indicates that for every £1 spent on the project £17.60 of value is created. Most of this value is around increased economic and social (mostly health) benefits of reducing crime."

12. The future of The Problem Solving Court...
Expanding into the Crown Courts early 2017
Expanding across greater Manchester spring 2017

13. Thank you for listening!