Women in Prison

Who we are

About Women in Prison

Women in Prison is a national, women-led, feminist organisation.  We deliver front line support to women harmed by the criminal justice system, through our work in prisons, in the community and ‘through the prison gate’ as they resettle back into their communities. We also campaign for systems change that addresses the root causes of offending, reduces the harmful impact of prison, and creates workable, community-based alternatives to imprisonment.  

Our Story

Women in Prison (WIP) was born out of the anger that our founder – Chris Tchaikovsky – felt about what she experienced and saw when imprisoned in HMP Holloway in the 1980s.

During Chris's time in prison, a woman died after setting fire to her own cell. Chris saw that the specific needs of women in prison and the damaging effect prison sentences were having on women scarcely figured in public or political discourse. So, in 1983, alongside international criminologist Pat Carlen, Chris founded Women in Prison. They pushed hard to expose the scandal of women’s imprisonment and campaigned for change.

Our founders wanted to increase awareness of the lives behind the women in our prisons, and the impact of poverty and abuse on women’s lives. In Chris’s own words:

“Taking the most hurt people out of society and punishing them in order to teach them how to live within society is, at best, futile. Whatever else a prisoner knows, she knows everything there is to know about punishment because that is exactly what she has grown up with. Whether it is childhood sexual abuse, indifference, neglect; punishment is most familiar to her.”

In the early 1990s, the organisation was able to expand its remit beyond campaigning to deliver direct support to women affected by the criminal justice system. WIP's initial focus on prison in-reach services was then expanded to support women in the community following their release. Chris, sadly, passed away in 2002. Despite the loss of our visionary founder, Women in Prison works to carry on Chris’s legacy.

Today, WIP is a national charity dedicated to making a difference to the lives of women affected by the criminal justice system. We campaign for a new system of justice; one that addresses the root causes of offending (including homelessness, domestic abuse, harmful substance use, mental ill health and experiences of poverty and trauma).

Our Women’s Centres in Manchester and London and the services we provide in communities and prisons deliver trauma-informed, holistic, women-centred support to enable those whom we work with to address the complex challenges they face.

Our culture and values

Our Vision

Our Vision is of a society which no longer accepts the structural inequalities that lead women and girls into contact with the criminal justice system.

Our Purpose

We work collaboratively in the community, custody and in prisons with women and girls facing structural inequalities through programmes and campaigns that challenge and change oppressive systems.

Our Values

Change can happen

We are resilient and driven because we know that transformational change must and can happen for women who are facing criminalisation.

We actively strive to be feminist and antiracist

We recognise, acknowledge, include, and celebrate the power, strength and diversity of women and challenge oppressive systems of privilege. We are committed to end racism in all its forms and to challenge where we see inequality and injustice.

We represent the world we want to see

We listen and learn with each other and the communities we exist for and continuously challenge ourselves so that our work, and the ways that we work, represent a world where all women are met with care, dignity and compassion.

We build women’s collective power

We work courageously and collaboratively to share power and voice in our programmes and influencing work and build the power as women together, to challenge structural injustice.

Equality, diversity and inclusion policy

Women in Prison (WIP) is committed to building and valuing diverse teams and taking positive action to promote equality and challenge unfair and unlawful discrimination. We recognise that women may experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination based on their sex and additional, real or perceived characteristics, including age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion, sexual orientation, social-economic background, immigration status, caring responsibilities, spent convictions or trade union membership.

WIP works to tackle discrimination and the structural inequalities women experience. We are committed to embedding diversity and inclusion in all areas of our work, including recruitment, and aim to reflect the diversity and excellence of the women that we work with. We actively encourage applications from women from a variety of backgrounds, and with a range of skills and experiences. We are particularly interested to hear from women from Black, Asian and minoritised communities and women with lived experience of the criminal justice system who are underrepresented in leadership positions in our sector.