Merseyside Women's Services Alliance
10:00 - 12:00 | 17.09.24 - Merseyside Closed meeting
Merseyside’s Police Commissioner, Emily Spurrell, relaunched the region’s Women’s Services Alliance last year with the aim of cutting crime and preventing women’s lives being derailed by short prison sentences.
The majority of women sent to prison in England and Wales last year were handed sentences of six months or less, according to the Prison Reform Trust. Non-violent crimes like shoplifting were the most frequent offence.
Yet these short sentences are known to have huge consequences, leading to women losing their jobs, custody of their children and their homes, leaving families devastated.
The Commissioner has relaunched Merseyside’s Women’s Services Alliance to focus on how partners can work together to try and prevent women offending, while also identifying where community sentences may be an appropriate alternative, avoiding the harm a prison sentence causes to them and their families.
The Alliance brings together strategic partners from across criminal justice agencies, statutory and third-sector organisations. Chaired by Deputy Police Commissioner, Cllr Jeanie Bell, it will focus its efforts on further improving the way all agencies across Merseyside respond and support women already in the criminal justice system and those on the edge of offending, to improve outcomes for women and families across the region.
By seeking to identify and put effective interventions in place to prevent and reduce the causes and triggers of women offending and reoffending, the Alliance will be focused on trying to break the cycle of crime.
The work of the Alliance will support the PCC’s policing and crime priority to Drive Change and Prevent Offending within her Police and Crime Plan. As national Joint Lead for Criminal Justice and Custody on behalf of all Police and Crime Commissioners, Emily is also focused on bringing learning and best practice to Merseyside, while driving improvements nationally.