Statistics from the Bromley Briefings produced by the Prison Reform Trust
More than half of women in UK prisons say that they have suffered domestic violence and one in three has experienced sexual abuse.
The educational achievement of women prisoners is lower than for male prisoners. [74% left school at 16 or before. Only 39% have any qualifications at all, compared to 82% of the general population. 41% of women prisoners have not worked in the past five years.]
70 percent of women prisoners have 2 or more diagnosed mental health issues.
66% of women prisoners are mothers, and each year it is estimated that more than 17,700 children are separated form their mothers by imprisonment
Of all women who are sent to prison, 37% say that they have attempted suicide at some time during their life.
Rates of self-harm or injury in women’s prisons rose 48% in recorded incidents between 2003 and 2007. [In 2006, women accounted of 11, 503 or 49% of total recorded incidents of self-harm, even though they form only around 6% of the prison population]
66% of sentenced women in prison say they were either drug dependent or drinking to hazardous levels before custody. [A University of Oxford report on the health of 500 women prisoners found that 58% of women had used drugs daily in the six months before prison and 75% of women prisoners had used illegal drugs during that six month period.]
In 2007 foreign national women made up 22% of the female prison population.
One in four women in prison has spent time in local authority care as child.
The majority of sentenced female prisoner are held for non-violent offences. [At the end of March 2008, the largest group (28%) were held for drug offences].
[More women were sent to prison in 2006 for theft and handling stolen goods than any other crime]. They account for almost a third (31%) of all women sentenced to immediate custody.
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