This analysis looked at the re-offending behaviour of 44 women who were supported by Brighton Women’s Centre’s Inspire programme after receiving a community sentence. The overall results show that those who received support had a lower frequency of re-offending than those who did not.
The Inspire programme supports women with multiple vulnerabilities at all stages of involvement in the criminal justice system. Women who come to Inspire receive trauma-informed, bespoke, integrated case work support from a multi-agency team.
An Inspire Specified Activity Requirement (SAR) involves a specified number of sessions of between 3 and 20, with most clients receiving 10 sessions. All clients received an asset based assessment where their needs were identified and a support plan developed.
Inspire works across the full spectrum of needs. Many women chose to work on areas of accommodation and finance and then once trust has developed would disclose more sensitive areas of domestic and sexual abuse and needs around children and families. Additionally, most Inspire clients have mental health needs.
Inspire was set up in direct response the Corston Report and has been delivering services to women in the Criminal Justice System since 2009. Inspire works with women at all stages of involvement with the criminal justice system from arrest, through to community orders, in-reach and on release from prison. This was a full roll out for women initially in Brighton and later across Sussex. Inspire built capacity through developing a mentoring service and Re-Unite Sussex, a specific project supporting women to be re-united with their children.
Women were referred to Inspire through court orders and were offered a first appointment within five working days from sentence.
“Brighton Women’s Centre is delighted with the outcome of the Justice Data Lab analysis. The overall results show that those women who received support through our Inspire project had a lower frequency of re-offending than those who did not.
We have long believed in and evidenced the benefit of holistic and integrated packages of support for women with multiple complex needs.
We are also convinced of the cost effectiveness of the project having performed Social Return On Investment separately with NEF Consulting.
We are grateful to the Justice Data Lab for further evidencing the efficacy of Inspire through this report and it will greatly support the project to demonstrate its excellent impact with stakeholders including Commissioners and funders.
We would very much like to further work with the Lab to follow up on the analyses of more women in order to determine the way in which the programme affects the one-year re-offending rate.”
You can read the full analysis report here.
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