More Lib Dem lunacy

This from Wikipedia on sentencing disparity in US. Just like racism mean non whites get longer sentences, sexism mean men get longer sentences.
“A 2001 University of Georgia study found substantial disparity in criminal sentencing men and women received "after controlling for extensive criminological, demographic, and socioeconomic variables". The study found that in US federal courts, "blacks and males are... less likely to get no prison term when that option is available; less likely to receive downward departures [from the guidelines]; and more likely to receive upward adjustments and, conditioned on having a downward departure, receive smaller reductions than whites and females".[8]

In 2012 Sonja B. Starr from University of Michigan Law School found that "men receive 63% longer sentences on average than women do," and "[w]omen are…twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted", also based on data from US federal court cases.[9][10]

In 2006, Ann Martin Stacey and Cassia Spohn found that women receive more lenient sentences than men after controlling for presumptive sentence, family responsibilities, offender characteristics, and other legally relevant variables, based on examination of three US district courts.[11]”

There have been many studies. This one says
“Men are 3.4 times more likely than women to be sent to prison for the same crime, men receive sentences which are 1.64 times longer than women’s for the same crime, and men actually serve 10% more of their sentence on average than women, for no obvious reason.”

Data at empathygap.uk/?p=215

You don’t tend to go to prison for mere theft. I do think mitigating factors should be taken into account like many mentioned but it shouldn’t just be purely based on sex even if in practice it does end up that way

including ending the use of prison for women, except for the most serious and violent crimes. The suggestion is that women should only be remanded in custody ‘if a prison sentence is ljkely

Sounds like a splendid idea.

Working class women are incarcerated for the crime of poverty on an industrial scale on this island, and they often unfairly have their children taken from them as a result.

Well done Jo Swinson.

What data are you basing that on Azeema ?

Justice is not equal between men and women. Men always get harsher punishment for same crime.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/08/is-the-bbc-scared-of-the-transgender-debate/amp/

I suspect if they are in a woman’s prison the govt counts them as women given what I know about the history of stats. Not 100% sure though.

FPFW have done some great in-depth research on this. And there was the BBC ‘factcheck’ furore which got written up too.

It'd probs only include the TW in women's prison already though don't you think, not those who have IDed since going inside? So I think that's only a few atm. I mean, even one is too many, but from a stats POV I doubt it's high enough to skew them significantly.

There just under 4000 women in prison atm (I assume that stat doesn't include TW, but who knows)

It will include TW. The MoJ’s data on trans prisoners is rather sketchy and not fit for the purpose of safeguarding female prisoners. They aren’t even sure how many TW they have as some may be ‘undocumented’ ...

There just under 4000 women in prison atm (I assume that stat doesn't include TW, but who knows) and an estimated 1500 prisoners with trans identities. The vast majority of those prisoners are MtF in the male estate. So if they were all housed in the female estate (as the lib dems have pledged to do in their 2017 manifesto) then TW would make up 23% of prisoners in the female estates. I've rounded the numbers up but it's in that ballpark.

In fairness to the lib dems when they wrote their manifesto the number of TW in prison was estimated to be tens not hundreds or thousands, but even a small number of TW in women's prison is catastrophic for female prisoners. Just shows how naive the lib dems are and how little they actually care about women.

Can I check I've understood this correctly?

Women make up 5% of the prison population (1 in 20).

1 in 50 male prisoners identify as women - just under 2% of the total prison population.

So if self id went ahead, around 28% of the people in women's prisons could be natal males?
1.9 ÷ (1.9 + 5) = 0.28

I think there is an argument for saying that sex and gender should come into it. Eg crime X may be committed by both men and women, and the impact on the victim/society may be the same, but the motivation might be very different.

We know women are more likely to be single mothers and living in poverty. Theft for them may be because they can't afford to feed and clothe their children and can't afford childcare to work, whereas that's not likely to be the case for men. If the driver for committing a crime is a purely selfish one, I think that should attract a harsher punishment. Of course, in the unlikely event that a man was in the exact same position as many women in prison are (single parent, poverty, etc) then the same mitigation should apply, but there's no getting away from this being a gendered issue.

I encourage them to get a much better PR person to explain it more fully, and also make it look less like they're only focusing on women and leaving men to rot in prison.

Definitely, though whatever the details of the policy I doubt that the Daily Clickbait has given a fair and nuanced representation of it! I can't find any mention of her saying this anywhere else, including her own social media.

@ByGrabtharsHammarWhatASaving

Thank you for taking the time to write your post, it is a much more complete way of seeing things than I was expressing. If that is indeed the full vision of the Lib Dems, to ensure the lowest rates of reoffending and rehabilitation, regardless of gender, then I am behind that. In which case I encourage them to get a much better PR person to explain it more fully, and also make it look less like they're only focusing on women and leaving men to rot in prison.

On a different note, given that 1 in 50 male prisoners identify as trans - making men who have been sentenced for crimes 4 X more likely to identify as women than men who haven't - if women stop going to jail at all I predict that number will rise to 1 in 1. Seriously, every bugger in the male estate will discover his inner woman over night. Therefore, on the grounds that I think it'd be hilarious watching people flail around explaining it, I think it's a great idea.

There is a move to reduce custodial sentences of less than a year since there is good evidence that shorter sentences do nothing to reduce reoffending rates. A shorter sentence means that there is a huge disruption to the lives of prisoners and their families and it has no real effect on the crime rate. While in prison they cannot access drug rehab schemes or restorative justice because they aren't inside long enough. If they are outside, on a community service order, they can,

Given that, in the main, women's crime tends not to be violent in nature, this move will effectively take large numbers of women out of the custodial side of the criminal justice system

"Women A committed the same crime as Man B. Woman A got a fine / community service. Man B got a prison sentence. Not because of any difference in the gravity of the crime, but purely because of their gender".

I agree that this is a bad idea - both unfair and impossible to implement - which is why it'd be interesting to see if this is actually Swinson's plan and whether she has some data to support it, or whether she's just pulling stuff out of her arse.

The data you found on male vs female sentencing patterns is very interesting BrainFart and I'll read it in more detail later when I have time, but the information I was actually looking for was the male equivalent of this site:

www.womeninprison.org.uk/research/key-facts.php

Which says things like:

"the more previous custodial sentences a woman has had, the higher the reoffending rate"

If this is true - and your goal is social rehabilitation rather than just punishment - then it clearly makes sense to reduce the number of sentences a woman has had. Is it also true for men? Common sense says probably yes, but if for example there's evidence that men who serve custodial sentences are less likely to reoffend then it doesn't make sense to extend the "no prison" policy to men and women - in fact the opposite would be more effective.

You're looking at a prison sentence from a purely punitive point of view, using a crime + gravity of crime = length of prison sentence equation. In which case no, sex shouldn't make a difference - input same crime + seriousness, output same punishment. But if Swinson is using an equation that centres rehabilitation rather than punishment, then sex might very well matter. If your equation looks like crime + most effective method of rehabilitation = lowest rate of reoffending, then you have to allow for different demographics to respond better to different methods. For women it might be that drug possession + community service = unlikely to reoffend whilst for men drug possession + community service = very likely to reoffend - in this case it's not a good idea to apply the same methods to both sexes.

It's very well and good to say "I don't see sex/ race etc etc" but we live in a world built on structural inequality and we need to see those things because policy is most effective when it treats different groups according to their different needs. If you treat every one the same you may get an equal society, but you won't get a fair one.

In conclusion, we need more detail on what Swinson is aiming to achieve and why she thinks this is the best way to achieve it.

The policy suggested makes a huge amount of sense if you look at female pattern crime and the profiles of female prisoners.

If you destroy the meaning of the word female this obviously no longer stands. So for example a good way of doing this would be allowing any male to say he is female at any point he wishes, and be treated as such.

I suspect there is much more common ground than difference in our opinions.

I agree, that women should not to go prison for trivial crimes, or if they are particularly vulnerable. But then why should men who commit trivial crimes or are vulnerable go to prison ? I am happy to get behind the idea of reserving prison for only the most serious crimes, and pumping the resources saved into rehabilitation / prevention. I just can't get over the fundamental inequality that says :

"Women A committed the same crime as Man B. Woman A got a fine / community service. Man B got a prison sentence. Not because of any difference in the gravity of the crime, but purely because of their gender".

Just fall back to my last suggestion - drastically reduce the prison population by making fewer crimes carry custodial sentences, and you'll free up the facilities for women prisoners to be "nearer their family" or whatever specious argument might be proffered for women's criminal sentencing being so much more lenient than men's.

There is no reason for gender to be a determining factor in sentencing.

BrainFart: I think you've misunderstood my post.

I agree entirely with you that the many vulnerable men in prison who have, for example, mental health problems, or have been coerced into committing a crime, need to be supported in the same way that vulnerable women in prison need to be supported. Fortunately, there are plenty of campaigning organisations doing their best to change the way our criminal justice system treats vulnerable prisoners, both male and female.

My point, simply, is that there is an argument for thinking about women and men as two distinct groups precisely because we house them in different institutions. So it is useful sometimes to think about the problem in a broad brush way. When you build a women's prison, for example, you may well want to include facilities that enable a woman to look after a newborn baby, along with staff who can help her do that. With all respect to the 'equality' argument, I doubt that any of the 80,000 prisoners in the male estate have primary responsibility for looking after a newborn baby.

Similarly, because the number of women in prison is so small, and because the overwhelming majority of female prisoners are there for trivial crimes and/or are particularly vulnerable, then it does make sense to think about getting rid of female prisons altogether, finding alternative ways to put vulnerable women who have committed crimes back on track and building a handful of small, highly secure facilities for the tiny number of female prisoners who have committed terrible crimes.

So, for example, you don't believe there are many men in prison who have been encouraged to take the blame for another man (or woman, but we'll assume it's a man) higher up in whatever food chain it may be ? That the (mainly male) teenagers who get groomed or caught up in gang 'debts' have no pressure on their decisions and its absolute inevitable path to prison or the morgue ? It might not be partners, but I feel sure that there are plenty of men in jail as a result of criminal activity encouraged, coerced or plain executed by somebody else.

Though how many single fathers are there?

Doesn't matter. They should be treated the same.

Seeing as women only make up 5% of the prison population, if we're "managing the prison population", surely it would actually have a much greater effect to see how to make large inroads into the 95% of the prison population that is male ?

And, by all means think about where prisons are located, but it is grossly unequal, and entirely discriminatory, to not punish women the same as men for the same crimes in the same circumstances. If that is the motivation, why not just advocate for building more women's prisons ? There aren't the same provisions for female criminals as male criminals, so we need to even it up.

Or, fairly reduce the prison population by making more crimes non-custodial (based on the crime, not gender). With a smaller prison population, but the same number of prisons, one would assume there'll be freed-up space for the women guilty of those crimes.

The reason why it's worth treating men and women as separate groups - in a way that we wouldn't, for example, treat white and black people as separate groups, or gays and straights as separate groups - is that we have separate estates for men and women.

Yes, of course we should say that, if coercion by a partner is a mitigating factor for a woman, it should be a mitigating factor for a man (though I doubt very much that that many men are coerced by partners or receive brain damage as a result of abuse by partners). Equally, we could say that the need of a single father not to be separated from his children are as important as the need of a single mother not to be separated from her children. (Though how many single fathers are there?)

But when we're thinking about how to manage the prison population, we need to think about how many prisons there are, and where they're located. And that means thinking about male prisons and female prisons independently of each other. So because the female prison population is so small, for example, there are very few women's prisons, and it means that inmates may end up being a very long way from their families.

You therefore need to think about how the female prison population as a whole differs from the male prison population as a whole and how to manage those estates as a consequence.

Oh, and for what little it is worth, I have no problem with an all-female cabinet. I have an enormous problem with a cabinet being explicitly designed to be all-female, presented as some sort of progressive idea.