Evaluation of the 218 Centre

Abstract

The 218 Centre was established in August 2003 with funding from the Scottish Executive and opened its doors to women in December 2003. It was designed to address the needs of female offenders in Glasgow in order to reduce reoffending and consequently to reduce the number of women who end up in custody. As such it was an innovative project, responsible for providing services for women involved with the criminal justice system in a relatively unique way. An evaluation of 218 was conducted through an analysis of material from documents and project records; focus groups and individual interviews with service users; and interviews with project staff and key stakeholders, with interviews repeated after one year where possible. 218 was viewed by professionals as a distinctive service which provides 'holistic' care for women involved with the criminal justice system and service users actively praised the regime and believed it addressed their needs, reporting reductions in drug use and offending and other improvements as a result of attending 218. It was concluded that 218 had developed a model of intervention based on recognition of the needs of women in the criminal justice system, which attempted to respond to those needs and in doing so, aimed to tackle the root causes of offending behaviour. It was concluded that women who engaged with services at 218 were avoiding custody in the short and longer term, though it was too soon for the impact of attendance on women’s offending to be established.