Mary Wrenn points out that women given custodial sentences in Wales are sent to prisons in England, which has a negative impact on families

Simon Hattenstone, quoting Ministry of Justice figures, says “the self-harm rate in women’s prisons in England and Wales was at a record high” (Report, 3 December). It is worth remembering that Wales does not have a women’s prison. Women given custodial sentences in Wales are sent to prisons in England (Cheshire or Gloucestershire, for example). This clearly has a negative impact on families, especially children.

The Welsh government’s preventive and trauma-informed approach favours the creation of residential women’s centres as a community-based alternative to short prison sentences. A pioneering project in Swansea, in development with the Ministry of Justice, is shockingly delayed. It can’t come soon enough for the hundreds of Welsh women (the majority of whom are themselves victims of domestic abuse or trauma) currently serving sentences several hours away from their families.
Mary Wrenn
Llandenny, Monmouthshire

Retired judge Michael Harris says we should not reject reform, we should refine it. Christian Mole says the system is blighted by inefficiency

I understand the main argument for reducing the number of cases tried by jury: they take longer and are significantly more expensive (‘A move towards an authoritarian state’: what those with trial experience think of removing juries, 7 December). But two further points deserve emphasis.

First, most countries do not use juries. We are one of very few European nations that still do. During the imperial period we exported our system widely, yet even some former colonies have since abandoned it. The main countries retaining juries are the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. To insist that juries are essential to justice is, implicitly, to claim that the many modern democracies that do without them operate inadequate systems.