Problem Solving Courts for Women: Variations on a Theme

• In Event: Adjudication: pleas, courts and sentencing

Abstract

Women’s Problem-Solving Courts (WPSC) are specialised courts designed to address the unique circumstances of women who are charged or convicted of criminal offences. Women in the criminal legal system often have mental health problems, addiction issues, unstable housing, exploitative or violent domestic relationships, and broken or strained relationships with their children. All of these are factors which are likely to have contributed to the criminal offending. Imprisonment is unable to address these issues, and the WPSC take a different approach by supporting the woman to address many of these issues during her sentence which is served in the community. Dr Shona Minson’s work on the sentencing of women has most recently focused on the use of these courts in two jurisdictions in the UK (England and Wales, and Scotland) and in Argentina. Argentina has been using WPSC since 2018 and is a jurisdiction where legislation passed in 2018 mandates training on gender and violence against women for all in public office including the judiciary. Drawing on empirical research and policy and practice documents from three jurisdictions, this paper considers the different models of WPSC in England/Wales, Scotland and Argentina, the rationale behind them, and their significance as gender-responsive sentencing and punishment measures. The paper will examine the metrics which determine ‘success’ in these courts, and the lessons we can learn more broadly about building systems which support rather than impede women’s ability to desist from crime

Author

• Shona Minson, University of Oxford