This seminar aims to discuss issues around the sentencing and incarceration of pregnant women and women with caring responsibilities for children. The papers will examine the experience of pregnant women going through the criminal justice system as well as the court and sentencing processes leading to a decision to impose custody upon pregnant women or women with dependent relatives. The seminar will have two paper presentations, followed by discussion.

Rona Epstein, Coventry University
Why are pregnant women in prison? Looking at Law and Practice in England and Wales

In September 2019 a baby died during an unattended birth in HMP Bronzefield. Many enquiries were instigated after this shocking event. Our response was to ask: Why are pregnant women in our prisons? In July 2020, a woman detained in another English women’s prison, Styal, had an unattended birth in a prison toilet, the baby did not survive. Our online survey asked women who had been pregnant in a prison in England about what led to their incarceration. We analysed 22 cases: 19 responses to our survey and three reported cases. Our study found that the main reason was recall for breaching probation conditions, after sentence, while under supervision. The most common offence was shoplifting. The group were very vulnerable, mental and physical ill-health and both drug and alcohol addictions were common. Several had experienced domestic abuse and coercion as well as having been homeless. We report that it is not necessary to imprison pregnant women. Eleven countries, with a combined population of over 646 million do not permit or severely curtail the imprisonment of pregnant women: they include Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Colombia. We argue for alternatives to imprisonment: community orders, deferred and suspended sentences and the use of non-punitive supportive residential facilities in the community. No court decision should endanger the life of an unborn child.

Erica Kane, University of Leeds
Shona Minson, University of Oxford
The impact of being a sole or primary carer for dependent relatives in the sentencing of women in the Crown Court, England and Wales

Most quantitative sentencing research treats women and men as a homogeneous group leading to gaps in the literature regarding women’s experiences of sentencing procedures. This is problematic given the vast array of known harms that result from incarcerating women, particularly those with caring responsibilities for children. Our presentation will share the findings from a quantitative study which considers the sentencing of women, with a particular focus on the ‘sole or primary carer for dependent relatives’ mitigation when applied to mothers. Using data from the Crown Court Sentencing Survey 2011–2015, a sample of 18,314 women defendants was derived and investigated using descriptive, bivariate and regression analysis to explore the relationship between the ‘caring’ mitigation and non-custodial sentences.

This event can also be accessed virtually using this Microsoft Teams link.