Today (Wednesday 5 March), the Sentencing Council announced new guidelines acknowledging that prison is a high-risk environment for pregnant women and new mothers. This is a crucial element of comprehensive new guidance for judges and magistrates, ensuring that individual circumstances are considered when sentencing. You can read the full announcement on the Sentencing Council website.
Coming into effect from 1 April 2025, courts will be encouraged to avoid sending pregnant women to prison, and pregnancy will be considered a reason to suspend a sentence. The new guidelines also acknowledge that women from racially minoritised backgrounds experience greater risks during pregnancy, childbirth and the postnatal period than white women – factors that must now be considered in sentencing decisions.
Prison puts mothers and infants at risk of physical and emotional harm. Many pregnant women in prison have complex health needs, suffer with severe mental ill-health, are at heightened risk of pre-eclampsia, haemorrhage, and sepsis, and are twice as likely to give birth prematurely than women outside prison.
Working Chance, alongside women’s organisations such as Birth Companions and Level Up, have long been calling on the government to end the imprisonment of pregnant women. We have seen disastrous outcomes for mothers and babies and are pleased to see the Sentencing Council finally recognise the risks of being pregnant in prison.
We believe that these changes coming in April mark a significant step towards a more supportive criminal justice system that protects, rather than punishes, pregnant women and their children.
Alex Clarke
Policy Officer, Working Chance
