Different crimes, short sentences

The pattern of women’s offending differs from that of men. Women have a lower involvement in serious violence, criminal damage, and professional crime5 but commit proportionally more acquisitive crimes such as theft.7 Women’s crimes are likely to be related to their domestic situation,5 8 with crimes being committed to provide for families or to fund a woman’s or her partner’s addiction.8

Half of women prisoners serve sentences of six months or less (fig 2⇓).2 This gives rise to a rapid turnover in the female prison population. The number of women committed to prison each year far exceeds the level of the female prison population at any one time. During the year ending July 2011 there were about 4 200 9 women prisoners in England and Wales at any one time, but 10  173 women were received into prison.10 Nearly half of women entering prison are on remand,2 and after an average prison stay of four to six weeks, over …