Breaking Barriers: supporting more women to challenge wrongful convictions
(Posted on 29/09/25)
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By Andrew Duffin (fundraising manager and project lead)
As we reach the end of one aspect of our funded work to support Vulnerable Women Prisoners we are pleased to report that following our campaign to raise awareness of our support services in all women’s prisons, we have seen a 283% increase in applications from women since the launch of the project.
During the project our research into women’s needs, (which differ greatly from their male counterparts in the prison system), combined with the feedback from applicants, families and stakeholder groups, has identified numerous reasons why women do not apply to us in the same pro rata numbers as men.
Some of this information accords with data that already exists from reports undertaken by key organisations and the MOJ’s own government figures, such as women face a higher degree of trauma, mental health issues or substance abuse issues when entering prison and are therefore less likely to be focused on an appeal; that they have child care concerns which take priority; that they lack confidence in the legal support system and a feeling that they will not be believed by ‘the system’.
Other key factors are that a high percentage of convictions relating to women fall into the lower offending bracket, such as TV licence evasion or shop theft, and therefore result in lower sentences of around 12 months, when compared to the higher sentences for more serious crimes. More women are dealt with at Magistrates Court level and they appear more likely to be accepting of their situation and to focus more on their release date than appealing any potential wrongful conviction.
Our work is still ongoing to raise the awareness of women prisoners and their families of our support services. To meet the demand from all prisoners, which is increasingly falling outside our main core service of investigating and overturning a miscarriage of justice, we are developing an enhanced support team and our bespoke secure database now provides tailored signposting to all prisoners to include General support; Ethnic Minority support, Neurodivergent support and specific areas for Vulnerable Women organisations.
Despite our success at achieving a marked increase in our applications from women, it is clear that much more can still be achieved and is much needed, as demonstrated in a very recent Inside Time article of 11th September 2025 which reported that an annual report by the Independent Monitoring Board found unacceptable delays for supporting mentally unwell prisoners, specifically a male prison at HMP Oakwood and a female prison at HMP Downview.
It is alarming that IMB Board Chair Emma Wilson commented in relation to HMP Downview that “The general public would be shocked to learn that there are many mentally unwell women who should not be detained in a prison environment. It is a shameful indictment of our mental health system to see the punitive and unsuitable conditions in which these women are held.”
Source: Inside Time
