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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Ministers urged to cut number of women in jail
Ananova
Tuesday 04 Dec 2001 A penal reform group is urging the Government to bring forward its programme to reduce the number of women in jail. The women's prison population stood at an all-time high of 4,041 at the end of last month, compared with less than 1,000 in 1970. Campaign group the Prison Reform Trust (PRT) is staging a meeting with MPs at Westminster, urging them to press for action. The charity points out that the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, and the Home Secretary have both expressed concern over the spiralling rise in the number of people in prison. PRT director Juliet Lyon, commented: "The Government seem to be saying one thing and doing another. "Rather than building new prisons and re-roling existing ones for women, the Government must bring forward its programme of reforms to reduce the number of women in custody. "We call on the minister for prisons and probation to announce plans for the National Probation Service to increase community provision for women offenders across the country. She added: "By imprisoning so many women, the majority of whom do not present a risk to the public, we are breaking up families, increasing homelessness and unemployment and isolating excluded women still further from society". Last week director general of the Prison Service Martin Narey urged magistrates and judges to think hard before giving women custodial sentences as he was forced to convert another man's jail - Buckley Hall near Rochdale - to women-only status. The Prison Service confirmed last month that contracts to built two privately-funded jails with spaces for women have reached "preferred bidder" status.
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