Localism, Communities, and Women’s Criminal Justice: A Welsh Perspective

This paper explores what community provision for women offenders can tell us about the implementation of the recommendations included in the Corston Report (– a review of women with vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system) and the promise of the Big Society for Welsh communities. The authors do this by reflecting on research carried out to evaluate the Women's Turnaround Service (WTS) delivered in north Wales. Specifically, we explore two key aspects which have emerged from recent political rhetoric in relation to criminal justice practices, namely the role of communities in providing the space and capacity for offering services to women offenders to aid their reintegration into local communities; and the role of the new localism in allowing locally responsive services to develop and be sustained. The paper suggests that the failure to integrate women's services effectively in local communities is a result of inherent contradictions between the proclaimed processes of the new localism and the practices of centralized governance of criminal justice services.