Women's Imprisonment and the Case for Abolition: Critical reflections on Corston ten years on

In 2007, Baroness Jean Corston's Report recommended a 'far reaching' and 'radical' approach to women's imprisonment in England and Wales. Corston advocated a 'women-centred' approach, proposing a 'fundamental rethink' of how services are delivered in custody and in the community. Corston recommended a strategy of decarceration aimed at ensuring that only a small number of women would be sentenced to prison, those who had committed the most serious, violent offences. Corston's findings and recommendations were influenced by feminist criminological research and her report in turn became influential in many jurisdictions. Ten years after Corston, this book brings together a range of international experts - including from Canada, South Africa and Australia - to critically reflect on the Corston report; map progress towards the reforms proposed, and identify the significant barriers to change. The book questions the institutional failure to significantly reduce the inappropriate use imprisonment or to transform the way that women are dealt with in the criminal justice process. Together the chapters make a case for the significant reduction of the use of imprisonment, or its abolition, and for a challenge to the racialised criminalisation of women experiencing social exclusion.