Introduction

A defining element of the women's criminal justice system for some decades has been the lack of strategic oversight and planning, particularly in relation to the role of the voluntary sector (HM Inspectorate of Probation, 2016). This lack of strategic oversight has been further compounded under the roll-out of the Transformation Rehabilitation (TR) White Paper in the criminal justice sector, published in May 2013 (see Annison et al, Chapter 11, this volume). The policy agenda set out in TR has resulted in a rapid dismantling of community-based services for economically marginalised women which, in turn, has had significant ramifications for the women's voluntary sector – the key providers of these community-based services – and for criminalised women. Blame for the dismantling of services has been predominantly apportioned to the privatisation of Probation Trusts in England and Wales and the resultant failure to commission women's services that previously provided a crucial stream of support to criminalised women. The consequences of these reforms and market-based operations include small specialist services that make up a significant portion of the women's voluntary sector being pushed out by larger, dominant players in the probation market economy. While we don't disagree with this narrative, the exposure of the women's voluntary sector to these market-based operations is not new, nor is the women's voluntary sector unfamiliar with the organisational insecurity that the private market perpetuates. In this chapter we discuss how the gendered responsive framework, which is predominantly delivered by the women's voluntary sector, previously invited small specialist voluntary organisations to participate in and commit to neo-liberal market requirements. We argue that the gender responsive penal reforms, and the tandem role of the women's voluntary sector employed to deliver and implement these reforms, has enabled the state to develop the neo-liberal market conditions that have resulted in the diminishing profile of small, specialist community services for criminalised women. The chapter begins with a brief overview of the landscape of women's service provision under conditions of austerity and the sharp decline in central and local government funding for service providers that previously catered to economically marginalised women. Second, it will outline the gender responsive framework which previously supported the expansion of the women's voluntary sector and facilitated the neo-liberal market model of funding.