Evaluation of Sixteen Women's Community Justice Services in Scotland - Research Findings

The role of women's community justice services in the Scottish Criminal Justice System

While WCJSs worked with women across multiple stages of the criminal justice system, services mostly supported and/or supervised women serving community sentences.

Overall, 68% of women attended WCJSs on a statutory basis, of whom 87% were serving a Community Payback Order (CPO). For these women, most WCJSs supervised the requirements of the order such as unpaid work and/or offending-focused group work. Other women engaged voluntarily (32%), although they may have had an order supervised out-with the WCJS.^[2]

A small proportion of women in WCJSs were receiving support either pre or post-release from prison, or on diversion. Few WCJSs undertook preventative work.