Women on remand – scoping review and Evidence and Gap Map

The Howard League is part of a collective of women-led and justice organisations, funded by Firebird Collective, who are committed to ending the unjust and unsafe imprisonment of women before they are sentenced or tried in the UK.

In order to inform the group’s work, Firebird Collective commissioned research consultancy Giving Evidence to conduct a scoping review and Evidence and Gap Map (EGM) on women on remand in the UK.

This evidence review aimed to consolidate existing knowledge on women on remand in the UK in order to inform:

• Anyone working on remand in the UK, allowing them to have access to all this knowledge – in one place – in order that campaigning, advocacy and programmatic work are based on the evidence that exists and therefore are effective as possible; and
• Future research in this area: that it should be informed by the existing evidence (what Cochrane’s co-founder Sir Iain Chalmers calls “evidence-based research”), and avoid future research duplicating what already exists.

We worked in coordination with the team to set out the scope of the review, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and the approach to synthesising the material.

What is a scoping review and Evidence Gap Map?

A scoping review is a type of evidence synthesis, akin to a rigorous literature review. It aims to map out the existing literature available on a broad topic or question. It identifies key concepts, gaps in research, and the types of available evidence. The findings are written up as a report which summaries the nature and focus of material on the topic, synthesising key themes that appear across the body of literature. The material included in the review is also organised in an EGM – a visual, interactive tool that systematically organises this existing evidence across different themes. The EGM highlights where evidence is abundant or lacking (the “gaps”).

To produce the scoping review and EGM, Giving Evidence systematically searched for material relating to women on remand, published in the last 10 years. Searches included academic material (e.g., journal articles, books) and non-academic material called grey literature (e.g., reports from charities, government/parliament, HM Inspectorates, think-tanks). Material was then assessed, coded, and analysed thematically.

The findings

The scoping review revealed that the available evidence about women on remand is fragmented and patchy. There are knowledge gaps around: how long women spend on remand; understanding how overlapping forms of disadvantage or discrimination shape women’s pathways through the criminal justice system; targeted, rigorous evidence to inform effective interventions or reforms for women on remand in the UK; and investigation of why women are remanded.

It confirmed that the current use of custodial remand for women is often disproportionate, ineffective, and damaging. Women are being held in prison not because they pose a serious risk to society, but because of systemic failings, such as lack of housing, mental health support, and gender-sensitive alternatives. Remand exacerbates existing inequalities, particularly for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic women, and inflicts profound harm on children, families, and communities. Despite policy commitments to reduce women’s imprisonment, meaningful change has yet to materialise.

The findings call for urgent reform: improved data collection, robust community-based alternatives, trauma-informed legal processes, and an end to the routine remanding of women for reasons rooted in social vulnerability rather than criminal risk.

Report

You can read the final report here. You can find out more about the method and included studies in the appendices.

Evidence and Gap Map

The interactive EGM is available here.

The EGM displays the studies included in this scoping review, arranged by theme in a grid. The columns show thematic focus, and the rows show systemic issues. Each cell contains all the studies on that topic (if a study relates to more than one topic, it will appear in more than one cell). If you are looking for studies on topic X, find the corresponding cell, and all the relevant studies will be there, helping you quickly identify where evidence exists (or is missing). Studies are also colour coded by characteristics such as age or ethnicity. A key is available at the bottom of the EGM.

The circles in the grid are a visual representation of the number of studies on that topic – the larger the circle, the more studies there are. Where smaller or fewer circles appear, there are fewer studies, representing a gap in knowledge.

In the interactive map, you can click on a cell: this pulls up a list of the documents in it, and the abstract for each. You can also apply filters (using the button top left) to refine your search, e.g., by study design, publication date, or geographic focus.

For detailed instructions on using the interactive versions, see Giving Evidence’s step-by-step guide to using EGMs. Users should note that the guide refers to an EGM on a different topic and the software has changed slightly since the screenshots in that guide were made.

About Firebird Collective

This work was initiated and funded by the Firebird Foundation. Firebird’s mission is to pursue gender equity for women and children. It has three core areas of work: women’s justice including the impact of parental imprisonment on children; prevention of violence against women and girls and family court reform; and raising the bar for women and girls in sport. A core strand of its work on women’s justice, is supporting a coalition of leading organisations who are working together to end the imprisonment of women awaiting trial and sentencing.

About Giving Evidence

Giving Evidence works to make charitable giving more effective by encouraging and enabling charitable giving based on sound evidence. Through consultancy, Giving Evidence helps donors and charities in many countries to understand their impact and to raise it. Through campaigning, thought-leadership and research, we show what evidence is available and what remains needed, what it says, and where the quality and infrastructure of evidence need improving.

Giving Evidence has previously published systematic reviews and Evidence and Gap Maps on various subjects, including education, child maltreatment, and the academic study of charities and philanthropy. Giving Evidence has advised many donors and operational non-profits in many sectors and many countries over many years.