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We sponsor research to bring about change in how women and girls are dealt with in the criminal justice system

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Research Papers and Briefings

At the end of their year on the Griffins Society Fellowship Programme, Fellows produce a 10,000 word Research Paper on their findings. Research Papers are available here to view or download as a PDF (the size of each file is given).  

For all papers you will find the REPORT IN FULL, and also a single-page ABSTRACT.  For more recent papers, an EXECUTIVE SUMMARY is also available.

Fellows' research can be freely copied and distributed as long as the author and the Griffins Society are credited.

 

Just no future at the moment: Examining the barriers to community resettlement for foreign national women

Author: Sophia Benedict
Published: 2020

The overarching aim of this study was to examine and explore the barriers to resettlement for foreign national women living in the community in the UK, and to shed light on the complex ways in which non-citizen immigration status shapes the lived reality of resettlement for this group. In recent years, there has been an increased focus by the UK government on the deportation of ‘foreign national criminals’ on completion of their sentence, an emphasis that has geared foreign national women’s pathways through the CJS strongly towards the possibility of deportation, over rehabilitation and resettlement. Yet, many foreign national women are released into the community post sentence – indeed, 260 women in 2017 (Ministry of Justice 2019), in addition to women serving community sentences. By interviewing women in open, semi-structured conversations, my aim was to identify and gain much needed insight into the challenges they face, giving space for women to voice the struggles – often painfully sustained and unyielding – that shape their daily lives in the community and render rehabilitative goals impossible. By interviewing practitioners, I aimed to identify the barriers they come up against in providing support and to ask how these could be addressed. Ultimately, the research makes recommendations for urgently needed improvements to current provision for this group.

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Righting Wrongs: What are the barriers faced by women seeking to overturn unsafe convictions or unfair sentences in the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)?

Author: Naima Sakande
Published: 2020

Appeals to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) have dropped by 36% from 2011-2019. Recent research has highlighted the particular vulnerabilities of women in prison, leading to concerns women may have particular difficulties successfully accessing their right to appeal. There has been no prior research of women's experiences of appealing, so this research project set out to identify the barriers faced by women seeking to overturn unsafe convictions or unfair sentences in the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division).

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