Women's imprisonment and the case for abolition: Critical reflections on Corston ten years on

In 2007, the Corston Report recommended a far reaching and radical new approach to female imprisonment. The report advocated a ‘women-centred approach’, suggested a ‘fundamental re-thinking’ about how services are delivered in custody and in the community and recommended the development and implementation of a decarceration strategy championing the removal of most women from custody and imprisoning only those who commit serious and violent offences. Ten years on, what progress has been made? Bringing together a range of international experts, this book contributes to the developing discourse on the penal system, human rights, equality and social injustice and facilitates a critical understanding of the impact of imprisonment on the lives of women and their families. It critically reflects on the Corston Report 10 years after its publication, to map progress towards the significant reforms it proposed and to identify the significant barriers to change, and questions the institutional failure to halt the consistent growth in the women’s prison population or to transform responses to women’s offending. Following the global expansion of women’s imprisonment, particularly marked in advanced democratic societies, this book also contains key comparative contributions from jurisdictions in which Corston’s principles resonate. This book is essential for a range of courses on prisons, punishment, and penology; social justice and the criminology of human rights; and gender and crime, and feminist criminology.