Government policy on women offenders: Labour's legacy and the Coalition's challenge

After 13 years of a majority Labour government, a minority Conservative government was elected in the UK in May 2010. Within weeks, the Conservatives had created a Coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. In developing its policies on a range of social issues, the new administration will need to take account of what its immediate predecessor achieved and the lessons that Labour failed to take from its forerunners. In relation to women offenders, such an analysis shows that, while towards the end of its third and last term, Labour began to deal more effectively with the social exclusion needs of women offenders, through a range of community-based initiatives, its approach to diverting women towards such assistance and away from custody was, at best, halfhearted. The result is that more women than ever are being remanded and sentenced to custody. This came as a surprise only to those who had not noticed that this approach had also failed in the 1980s and 1990s. The Coalition might like to take note.