More Lib Dem lunacy

Fine, UK data from 2011

www.parity-uk.org/Briefing/MenandWomenandtheCJSfComplete.pdf

They do suggest, however, that in terms of the more severe sentencing, female offenders given immediate custody, and both average sentence length and average actual time served,are each substantially less in time for female than for male offenders.

Overall in magistrates’ courts in 2011, it seems that parity of treatment of female and male offenders applied generally, although a higher proportion of female offenders were fined (62.7% of all female offenders compared to 47.7% of all males) but a lower proportion given immediate custody (1.2% compared to 3.4% for males). (Table 4.3.8).

In general in the Crown courts, it appears that larger proportions of female offenders (out of all female defendants) were acquitted, or, if convicted, were more likely to be given a discharge, community sentence, or suspended sentence, compared to male offenders, but a
much lesser proportion given immediate imprisonment than males.

Females accounted in 2011 for 11.3% of all persons in Crown court proceedings (Table 4.3.7). Yet only 6.5% females were sentenced to immediate custody, and only 4.7% females were in the prison system in 2011 (Table 4.4.1).

There are only 4,000 women in prison, and the vast majority of them shouldn't be there. They have mental health problems, they have been abused (two thirds of women in prison have brain injuries as the result of domestic abuse), they are often in for trivial things like shoplifting or because they've been coerced into drug offences by pimps or other brutal males. Many are immigrants who have poor command of English. Many have had their children taken into care as a result of having to be in prison.

The whole thing's a mess, frankly. It's worth reading the Corston report, which suggests some very good alternatives to prison for women:

<a class="break-all" href="https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20180207155341/www.justice.gov.uk/publications/docs/corston-report-march-2007.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20180207155341/www.justice.gov.uk/publications/docs/corston-report-march-2007.pdf

However, the OP is absolutely right that if Swinson is idiotic enough to believe that anyone who claims to be a woman is a woman, then her proposal would open the way for men to avoid prison by claiming to be women. It really does represent a remarkable degree of cognitive dissonance on Swinson's part.

A woman who is convicted of drug use when actually she's just pretending the drugs are hers to protect her partner, is less of a future offending risk than a man who has actually used the drugs himself.

Which is great, but all conjecture and whatbouttery, with some imaginary scenario. I even put in my posts that mitigation for the circumstances of the crime (are they a poor family stealing food to survive or just thieving bastards in ASDA?) should be taken into account, but the same for all sexes. Are you telling me there are no controlling female partners out there? What about lesbian couples ?

I get annoyed about these things because the central tenet of what I understand as equality is to treat people equally, regardless of sex, skin colour, sexual orientation. That these things don't matter. Instead I see these things being invoked as defining characteristics when it comes to how government is composed, or how an offender should be punished, and it strikes me as absurdly wrong. It seems to be "X should be treated equally, except for those situations where they need special treatment simply because they are X".

It is the principle. Everyone is equal before the law. Not "certain groups get more/less jail time", not "some things are crimes for one group but not for another".

Ha I was wondering when you'd appear BrainFart, you were so offended by the "all woman cab" idea the other day I imagine this has blown your hat off.

So basically women are more likely to be prosecuted than men for some crimes (i.e. avoided TV license payment) and men are more likely than women to be prosecuted for some crimes (i.e. drug offending)

I agree with you that if a crime isn't worthy of prison time then that should be true for both men and women, but I disagree that the motivation for a crime doesn't matter as it will have a bearing on reoffending rates. A woman who is convicted of drug use when actually she's just pretending the drugs are hers to protect her partner, is less of a future offending risk than a man who has actually used the drugs himself. The link between drug use and violent crime is also much stronger with male offenders.

The paper you linked to was interesting but it was based on data from Texas in the early 2000s. I was looking for current UK data.

GrabtharsHammar

It's not just "believing", they do (in terms of sentencing. Obviously the whole idea of "easier idea" depends of circumstance). Just the fourth result in my search...

digitalcommons.utep.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1001&context=gang_lee

"Results. Specifically, we find that the effect of gender
on sentencing does vary by crime type, but not in a consistent or predicted fashion. For both property and drug offending, females are less likely to be sentenced to prison and also receive shorter sentences if they are sentenced to prison. For violent offending, however, females are no less likely than males to receive prison time, but for those who do, females receive substantially shorter sentences than males."

Ignoring the whatabouttery of why the women might be in prison in the first place or what defence they might have used, is it beyond the wit of a party which would probably style itself as being dedicated to equality to...

• make a list of all crimes that would carry a custodial sentence (the most serious and violent crimes noted above)
• make a list of mitigating circumstances to be applied equally regardless of gender (dependent children and presence of other parent, circumstances of crime, whatever else...)
• promise that those guidelines would be applied equally in all sentencing ? That would appear to me to be true equality, where gender truly doesn't matter.

But certainly there are some crimes that no one should be going to jail for, of either sex.

I would assume that this falls under some sort of 'coercion' defence for mitigation and that if the crime wasn't severe enough then it wouldn't result in a custodial sentence, for either sex.

I think that would only be relevant if the women were actually using "coercion" as a defence. I think it's more likely that some women are deliberately serving prison sentences on behalf of men because they've been coerced into believing they'll get a shorter sentence/ easier time in jail.

I did a quick search for similar stats for men but couldn't find any. There's gov demographic data for the prison population as a whole, but not further separated by sex.

*use of prison obviously

Its hugely expensive to send someone to prison, and it will make them virtually unemployable when they get out so you have to consider the strain on the benefit system too, so even from a right-wing perspective it doesn’t make sense for minor ‘crimes’.

Reducing the user of prison is already in the Female Offender Strategy that the Government published last year.

So a massive number of women are prosecuted in the UK for a ‘crime’ that doesn’t even exist elsewhere.

Alternatively, more women commit a crime which is a crime in the UK (and also, incidentally, in France), regardless of whether it exists elsewhere.

All the bbc use the licence fee for is fucking abusing and gaslighting women anyway...

It's insane isn't it AlwaysComingHome! Imagine sending anyone to prison for not paying their bloody tv license! Madness, such a non crime. Community service should be the absolute worst someone gets for that!

I imagine a fair number of women in prison are their because their abusive partners have convinced them to pretend that his crime was their crime (like drug possession). I know loads of women who have points on their licence when it was really their partner speeding, and they for the most part aren't even in abusive relationships.

"In 2017 TV licence evasion accounted for 30% of all prosecutions for women, but only 4% for men. 72% of the 136,550 defendants prosecuted for TV license evasion in that year were women."

So a massive number of women are prosecuted in the UK for a ‘crime’ that doesn’t even exist elsewhere.

Perhaps I'm missing the point of the posts, but whilst those stats are interesting, it doesn't mean that any policy has to be sex-based. Just make TV licence avoidance a non-custodial crime for everyone.

Regarding "committed an offence in order to support the drug use of someone else" :

• what is the equivalent number for men ? not that it really matters because the only thing that matters is...
• what was the crime committed ? I would assume that this falls under some sort of 'coercion' defence for mitigation and that if the crime wasn't severe enough then it wouldn't result in a custodial sentence, for either sex.

I don't deny there are crimes which are more often committed by men than women and vice versa. But it shouldn't be hard to make a list of crimes which are "prison-worthy" and those which aren't, and then apply the penalties based on that (with equal mitigation for dependent children and circumstances). No need to mention sex at all.

Absolutely Spindelina, we need to understand all these things in context. We need to start treating issues like this as part of a community ecosystem, where mental health, prison, community resources, benefits provisions, police support for domestic abuse etc etc are all seen as an interconnected system that need to be balanced, rather than isolated pockets of problems.

(And magistrates need to know what community options for women exist. They see more men, so they are more familiar with the options available).

There's also an issue with alternatives to prison. If you say something like "prison only to be used if local community alternatives aren't available", that hides a big sex-based difference in the community provision.

Women's centres, for example, need to be resourced to deal with the small number of women offenders (whereas provision for the larger number of male offenders is a bigger thing and more easily outsourced).

The 9% figure doesn't surprise me. Very often, particularly where drug use is concerned, the men in women prisoners' lives are deeply dysfunctional themselves. I suspect it is fairly rare for a woman in a stable relationship with a well adjusted man to end up in the prison system even if she does have addiction/mental health issues.

"Only 9% of children whose mothers are in prison are cared for by their fathers in their mothers' absence.
At fifth of women prisoners are lone parents before imprisonment."

That "someone else" would almost certainly be a male partner I'm guessing

And this one:

"48% of women have committed an offence in order to support the drug use of someone else."

I think this is definitely an issue with sex based differences

Here's an interesting website with some relevant stats.

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

This one in particular caught my eye:

"In 2017 TV licence evasion accounted for 30% of all prosecutions for women, but only 4% for men. 72% of the 136,550 defendants prosecuted for TV license evasion in that year were women."