Rebuilding shattered lives

Women typically take very different paths to men through the criminal justice system, and as a minority section of the prison population their needs have tended to be neglected in prison and resettlement discourse. In the UK, women are held on average 55 miles from home, increasing the difficulty in maintaining contact with their families. A supportive family unit is a an important factor in successful resettlement – with reoffending rates 39% higher amongst those who have not received visits whilst in prison compared with those who have – therefore initiatives to keep families together make sense.

There is a strong case for planning womens resettlement in the context of womens specific needs. Trauma is a significant issue for most people who go through the prison system, but is more frequently reported for women. Highly likely to enter jail with a history of domestic and/or sexual abuse, with an addiction, and/or with mental health diagnoses, 46% of women in prison report having attempted suicide at some point in their lives. Trauma informed approaches are embedded into the practice of most organisations in New York I visited, in particular two use utilize gender-specific tools designed to address the individual circumstances that lead women into the criminal justice system.

Womens Prison Association (WPA) was the first organization in the US dedicated solely to working with criminal justice-involved women and their families. They provide tailored services to women and their families before, during, after, and as an alternative to incarceration. Building trust is an essential component of the success of these programmes and when I visited the WPA offices in Brooklyn, staff highlighted the importance of working within the jail to build relationships over time. A further major benefit of starting engagement pre- release is to accurately assess the clients readiness to change, which experience has shown them is vital for success on the programme.

For the significant numbers of women leaving prison who have children, access to safe, affordable housing is particularly vital to help them stay together. Sister Tesa Fitzgerald established Hour Children to offer a home and support services to mothers coming out of prison. New York state has a nursery programme where new-born children can stay with their mothers for up to a year. There is a significant need for this support to continue after release to give women the best possible chance of turning their life around: “when the women come out,  if they don’t have viable housing they have virtually no chance of making it”.

The model is practical, with 8 houses offering a structured wrap around support service to women leaving prison. The trauma informed approach highlights the benefits of a peer supportive environment with the women and children living communally. As Sister Tesa explained, many of the women have never had a single friend in their lives. Their successful re-entry into the community depends on them building support networks, and learning basic living skills. The need for positive role models to work with clients prompted the creation of a highly successful mentoring programme for both the women and their children, the relationships formed are meaningful and often last a lifetime.

One of Hour Children’s supported housing centres in Queens,  NYC – the mural was done by residents and represents their journey to a safe place

Every woman staying at Hour Children has a highly structured day, planned with her case worker. Usually, this means working towards a sustainable career, however those who can’t work are encouraged into meaningful activities. I met Carol, a pleasant and softly spoken resident at one of the supported housing units who spent 35 years of her life in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. She is in poor health after many years of incarceration and is not able to work but volunteers in the onsite nursery, as part of a team looking after the children of women in the house.

Access to childcare is important, enabling the women to work, get mental health support, go to college and rebuild their lives. Freed from the necessity to take any job to pay the bills and get by, the women here often take this opportunity to study towards a career. On a tour of the neighbourhood Sister Tesa points out a beauty salon run by a former service user, there is a call centre staffed by women from the project, and many of the paid staff are former service users.

The success of these trauma informed models, tailored to the needs of the women they work with is remarkable: recidivism rates at Hour Children are tiny, at only 3%. There is no time limit on the time that the women spend here, they simply take as long as they need to rebuild their lives and create a better future. Replicating the model in the UK would be possible, however the model works to an extent because despite its huge success it works on a small scale; its effectiveness depends on the strength of the relationships formed over time, the trust built and the huge investment in the potential of each individual that comes through the door.