Perspective
The End of the Beginning?
15 Apr 2026
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Naomi Delap, Birth Companions CEO, reflects on the Women’s Justice Board’s recommendations for reducing women’s imprisonment
Naomi Delap, Birth Companions CEO, reflects on the Women’s Justice Board’s recommendations for reducing women’s imprisonment
The publication of the Women’s Justice Board’s Recommendations for Reducing Women’s Imprisonment (March 2026) is a significant milestone in the long journey to end the dangerous imprisonment of pregnant women and mothers of infants, and to improve the safety and outcomes of all women and their babies in contact with the criminal justice system during pregnancy and early motherhood. At BCHQ, we’ve been taking some time to reflect on what is (to borrow from Churchill) not the end, or the beginning of the end, but perhaps the end of the beginning…
Birth Companions was founded in 1996 amidst a national outcry at the fact that women held at Holloway Prison were being shackled to their hospital beds during labour. Our staff and volunteers witnessed first-hand the harms inflicted by a system that was quite simply unable to keep mothers and babies safe. We were nervous about the potential impact of speaking out, but after twenty years of supporting mothers in the prison system the organisation made the important decision to raise our heads above the parapet and start to invest in influencing systemic change.
We kicked off our programme of policy, influencing and campaigning work in 2016 with the publication of the influential Birth Charter for Women in Prison. Since then, we’ve driven the creation of the first mandatory standards of care for pregnant women and mothers in the prison system; secured £5m NHS investment in perinatal mental health in prisons; and seen the introduction of specialist midwives and officers in every part of the women’s estate. But despite these successes, we have also seen the deaths of at least three babies born to mothers in custody; an increase in the numbers of women relying on our prison services; and the shocking revelation that, against policy, women were still being handcuffed during labour.
All this showed us that reforming the prison system wasn’t enough – it could never be a safe or appropriate place to navigate pregnancy, birth and early motherhood. We needed to double down on our commitment to ending the imprisonment of pregnant women and mothers of infants in all but the most exceptional of cases, while also making sure the probation system is better able to support these women and their children in the community.
The incoming Labour Government’s commitment to reducing the numbers of women in prison, with a particular focus on pregnant women and mothers, was a promising political moment. We were amongst those calling for a Women’s Justice Board to drive this change, and in January 2025 the Board was indeed formed – a group of experts tasked with formulating a plan to reduce women’s imprisonment and increase the number supported in the community. I was glad to advise the Board, as a member of its Partnership Delivery Group, on the specific needs associated with pregnancy and early motherhood.
When the Women’s Justice Board published its report in March this year, it proposed a suite of measures with a strong focus on early intervention, whole systems approaches and recognising the essential contribution of the women’s voluntary sector in supporting women in the community.
Their comprehensive recommendations relating to pregnant women and mothers of children up to the age of two are worth quoting in full:
We give credit to the WJB’s members for their recognition of the importance of the first 1001 days – the critical period from conception to a child’s second birthday that lays the foundations for the rest of their life. We’re extremely proud of the part we at Birth Companions have played in supporting the WJB during this process. And we celebrate the contribution of the women in our Lived Experience Team, who have brought such insight in their roles as mothers, campaigners and experts.
But what happens next?
The WJB proposals have real urgency behind them amidst the seismic changes sweeping the criminal justice system. Work to deliver the new Sentencing Act is moving ahead without a gender-specific lens. Apart from changes to the Bail Act, which place a legal duty on courts to consider pregnancy and care-giving when making decisions on bail, there is little consideration in this work of the needs of pregnant women and mothers of young children, or young women and girls, or of the anti-racist approach, which are all so prominent in the WJB report.
The Sentencing Act is intended to drive an increase in community sentences, and a lot of hope is being pinned on reducing the numbers of women on remand through the Bail Act provision described above. However, some measures could be of particular risk to women. The shift to a standardised, fixed 56-day recall period for example, is a reduction in recall length for lots of men. But it could well mean many women are recalled to prison for far longer than they would have been previously, when they often served 14 or 28 day recalls. Evidence to the Independent Sentencing Review showed many of these recalls happen as a result of compliance issues arising from unavoidable circumstances, or administrative issues, with huge consequences for women’s children, housing and employment. Without a gender-specific approach and work to address the drivers of recall, this change poses real harm for women and their families.
Similarly, the increased use of electronic monitoring, and the immediate deportation of foreign nationals, could both disproportionately and unfairly impact women.
Without a gender-informed strategy, women in the criminal justice system face the same risk they always have: that a system designed for men does not recognise or address their needs and ends up disproportionately criminalising and punishing women and their families, perpetuating cycles of disadvantage and harm. The relatively small but very important group we work with – pregnant women, mothers of infants and their children – are often at the sharpest end of this threat. This is why the government must both accept and implement the WJB report recommendations as quickly as possible.
And if it does? We know from our experience over the last thirty years that policy and legislative changes do not always translate into systemic, practical improvements, and that hard-won reforms are easily dislodged. That’s where Birth Companions’ First 1001 Days in the CJS campaign comes in. If the government were to incorporate the full suite of First 1001 Days measures into its implementation of the WJB's recommendations, the combined effect could be substantial.
The Sentencing Act already provides the architecture for a presumption against custody for pregnant women and primary carers and specifies pregnancy and caregiving status as mandatory bail considerations. If, as our campaign recommends, the First 1001 Days Impact Tool we’re developing with the Prison Reform Trust was introduced as mandatory, then sentencers’ decision-making for this group of women would be much better supported, and a rich source of data on sentencing outcomes created. Updated probation and policing policy, and appropriate funding for specialist community services for women in the first 1001 days would also provide a catalyst for considerable progress.
This programme of work sits at the intersection of several government departments – it cannot be delivered by the MoJ alone. The conduit for this is the Women's Justice Reform Programme, proposed in the WJB report, but the resourcing of this, and the power it is afforded, will determine how much is realised in practice.
Last year, the former Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood said in parliament “I am particularly keen to ensure that pregnant women and mothers of young children are not anywhere near our female prison estate in future.” The WJB report has backed this up, with its proposal to introduce primary legislation to end the imprisonment of pregnant women in all but the most exceptional cases. It’s been thirty years since Birth Companions started making the case for just such a change. How close we are to seeing it happen remains to be seen as we await the government’s response to the WJB report.
So you can see why we aren’t claiming we’re at the end, or even the beginning of the end of our campaign. But were the government to move forward on the WJB’s measures, in concert with Birth Companions’ First 1001 days recommendations, it could result in the most comprehensive reform of the treatment of pregnant women and mothers the CJS has ever seen.
And that would be victory indeed.
