28 May 2025
From our work with Black and minoritised migrant women in contact with the Criminal Justice System (CJS), we know that the current sentencing regime is failing. Worse still, it disproportionately criminalises those who experience intersectional discrimination. As outlined in our response to the Independent Sentencing Review, radical change is urgently needed to address this.
We are pleased to see that the Independent Sentencing Review (ISR) panel has made some positive, evidence-based recommendations in its final report, published on 22 May 2025. However, significant work is still required to fully address the systemic discrimination and racism faced by Black and minoritised migrant women, and the harm this causes. We have focused our response on three main areas that are most relevant to our work.
Short sentences and alternatives to custodial sentences
As acknowledged by the panel, the increase in short sentences has directly contributed to the growing number of people in custody. Prisons often exacerbate the challenges faced by Black and minoritised migrant women, including trauma, mental health issues, and family separation, while offering limited opportunities for rehabilitation or preparation for release. Short sentences are counterproductive, increasing recidivism and disrupting lives without providing meaningful support. In this context, we welcome the panel’s call to reduce the use of short custodial sentences and, more broadly, to expand the use of community alternatives.
This is a significant step forward, given that women’s offences are more likely to be linked to socio-economic hardship, mental health difficulties, and extensive experiences of trauma, including abuse and exploitation. Our experience supporting Black and minoritised migrant women, who are disproportionately affected by custodial sentences, demonstrates that community sentences can help address the root causes of offending behaviour while minimising the social, emotional, and economic costs of imprisonment.
In the community, women can access emotional and practical support from specialist services and support networks. This support can be provided in an environment that fosters recovery and rehabilitation, without causing additional harm. However, community sentences must be tailored to meet the specific needs of those subject to them, ensuring that the conditions support, rather than hinder, rehabilitation.
Investment in Women’s Centres
We welcome the recommendation for sustainable, long-term funding for Women’s Centres. We propose that the most appropriate funding solution is multi-year, ring-fenced grant funding. We believe that specialist, non-statutory organisations should play a central role in enabling and empowering women to address the root causes, such as coercive control, that lead them to offend. This approach offers a demonstrably effective alternative to the current over-reliance on custodial sentences.
Through the provision of intersectional, trauma-informed, holistic, and wraparound support, organisations such as Hibiscus help women recover from abuse and trauma, and work with them to address the drivers of offending, including social, political, and economic factors. This support is particularly crucial for migrant women with No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF), who are often barred from accessing suitable housing or financial support, leaving their basic needs unmet and making it significantly harder to break the cycle of offending.
We appreciated the time members of the ISR panel took to visit Hibiscus’ Women Centre as part of their research in March 2025. This visit allowed them to engage directly with our service users and frontline staff to discuss the transformative role that women’s centres can play, especially for those marginalised by statutory systems, such as Black and minoritised migrant women. We are pleased to see this reflected in their recommendations and call on the government to ensure that this is reflected in policy.
The value of Women’s Support Services, particularly through the existence of Women’s Centres, has demonstrated a clear cost-benefit worth investing in. Multi-year ring fenced grant funding is vital to continue this work.
Black and minoritised migrant women
We are concerned by the absence of in-depth consideration of racism, intersectional discrimination, and the disproportionate or differing impact of policies on groups such as Black and minoritised migrant women. While we acknowledge that the impact of racism was outside the terms of reference for the review, it should have been considered carefully as a highly relevant factor influencing all the areas addressed.
For example, whilst we welcome the recommendation to shift away from custodial sentences in favour of community-based alternatives, the benefit to Black and minoritised migrant women would likely be limited as they are statistically subject to harsher sentences than their white counterparts. For migrant women without access to suitable, stable accommodation and subjected to No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) conditions, addressing and tackling the underlying drivers of offending can feel out of reach.
Migrant women who are victims/survivors of trafficking and violence against women and girls (VAWG), but who are not identified as such, as is disproportionately the case for Black and minoritised migrant women, are treated as “Foreign National Offenders” and denied access to the support they need. We are deeply disappointed that, despite the report’s own evidence highlighting the risk of revictimisation upon deportation, it nevertheless recommends the earlier removal of “Foreign National Offenders”.
The review’s advice that an equality impact assessment be carried out during the implementation of recommendations and that monitoring be introduced does not adequately address these inequalities as inequality and discrimination are entrenched within the CJS itself. Systemic reform is needed to address the factors that often push Black and minoritised migrant women to offend, and to support them in their rehabilitation.
The first step towards this must be the development and implementation of intersectional sentencing guidelines tailored to the experiences of Black and minoritised migrant women. This must include a shift away from custodial sentences for all women, particularly those who are subjected to marginalisation such as victim/survivors of VAWG and human trafficking, and Black and minoritised migrant women. At the same time, the government must address the racial and intersectional discrimination that Black and minoritised migrant women face within the CJS. A particular focus of this must be the compounded impact of systemic racism and hostile immigration policies, and the resulting overrepresentation of Black and minoritised migrant women within the CJS.
We, whilst welcoming some of the recommendations of the final report, call for urgent and wide-reaching consideration into the impact of racism and intersectional discrimination towards Black and minoritised migrant women in the CJS. This must include concrete recommendations for the radical changes needed to address this systemic, institutional and entrenched problem, along with a commitment and clear timeline to enacting them.
Responding to the final report from the Independent Sentencing Review panel, Baljit Banga CEO of Hibiscus said:
“The final report of the Independent Sentencing Review panel includes some welcome recommendations. It is promising to see a call for a reduction in custodial sentences, particularly the move away from short sentences. We know that this urgent change will only be effective if it is matched by investment in the third sector, especially through multi-year, ring-fenced grant funding for Women’s Centres.
Our response also highlights the urgent need for deeper systemic change, particularly to address the racism and intersectional discrimination faced by Black and minoritised migrant women within the Criminal Justice System. Failing to address the specific needs and experiences of the women supported by Hibiscus, from a human rights approach rather than an enforcement one, risks deepening the discrimination already faced by Black and minoritised migrant women.”
For more information please contact: elizabeth@hibiscus.org.uk