Jean Corston, Baroness Corston

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Early life

Jean Ann Parkin went to Yeovil Girls' High School (now the Westfield Community School) on Stiby Road in Yeovil and the Somerset College of Arts and Technology. She worked at the Inland Revenue. At the London School of Economics, she gained a Bachelor of Laws in 1989. From 1989 to 1990, she studied at the Inns of Court School of Law. She also studied with the Open University. She became a barrister.

Parliamentary career

Corston was Member of Parliament (MP) for Bristol East from April 1992 to 2005. Until stepping down at the 2005 general election, she was chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party, the first woman ever to hold that position. She was the first Labour MP to ask a question of Tony Blair at his first Prime Minister's Questions on 21 May 1997.

On 13 May 2005 it was announced that she would be created a life peer, and on 29 June 2005 she was created Baroness Corston, of St George, in the County and City of Bristol.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref>

She was commissioned by the Home Office, to conduct a report into vulnerable women in the criminal justice system of the United Kingdom, published in March 2007. It explores the idea that if a lot of women who are in prison are mentally ill, whether they should be there at all.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The report outlines "the need for a distinct radically different, visibly-led, strategic, proportionate, holistic, woman-centred, integrated approach". The report is known as the Corston Report<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and has largely informed government policy on the matter.<ref>Government response to the Corston Review Report:

• The Government’s Response to the Corston Report – Published Dec 2007 This report sets out the commitments that have been made across departments to take forward the 43 recommendations of the Corston Report. Template:Webarchive
• Delivering the Government response to the Corston Report (Corston: One year on) Published Dec 2008 This is the Government's one year progress report on its strategy for addressing the needs of women offenders, in response to Baroness Corston's independent review of women with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system. Template:Webarchive
• Report on the Government’s strategy for diverting women away from crime – Published Dec 2009. This report outlines the continued commitment to bringing about improvements for women offenders in both custody and the community. It marks two years since the publication of the government's response (see above) to Baroness Corston’s report. Template:Webarchive</ref> Progress and improvements by local probation services, the National Probation Service, Her Majesty's Prison service and the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) are regularly compared to the recommendations in this report.

Corston ceased to be a member of the House of Lords on 9 July 2024 under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 because of non-attendance in the preceding session of Parliament.<ref>Template:Cite Hansard</ref>

Personal life

She married first Christopher Corston in 1961 with whom she had a son and daughter. Her partner from 1980 until he died in 2009 was Peter Townsend, the sociologist. The couple married in Bristol in 1985.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

External links

• Template:Hansard-contribs
• BBC: City MP to stand down at election
• [1] see link from peers' section to biography
• The Corston Report: a review of women with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system
• Guardian interview by Alison Benjamin, 3 May 2006: "Reasonable redress: Nine out of 10 women prisoners have been convicted of non-violent offences. Most are mothers and many are vulnerable. Will a government review urge alternatives to incarceration?" (with Curriculum Vitae).
• Guardian article on alternatives to prison for women offenders.
• BBC News article on community sentencing for women instead of prison sentences.