Prisons Judicial Review: Judgement

Would that information be available from a FOI request?

It couldn’t be that this information has been recorded but the MoJ doesn’t want to tell us who the offenders are?

That shows a prevalence of sexual offending by the known transgender prison population of over 50% compared to a prevalence of around 18% in male prisons generally and around 4% in female prisons generally.

Wow. So to explain this either transgender people are more likely to be sex offenders or sex offenders are falsely claiming to be transgender.

Either way it's worrying and need to be investigated

The judgement says that there's nothing in law that can actually strike out these policies if they are in principle capable of being operated in a way that is fair to women. (we know that in practice they are not but that is a different issue)

I see now that it was a very hard argument to win because it looks like you have to prove that the policy inevitably results in unreasonable erosion of women's human rights, not merely that it has the potential to.

It's very concerning, because if you can't make a knock-down argument for women prisoners' right to single-sex prisons, it suggests that there's potentially no female space that you can successfully make that argument for.

Becoming increasingly convinced that Parliament needs to revisit and clean up the mess it has made, I think. I don't take the view that this was what Parliament intended when it passed the GRA and the EA.

This is grim and depressing.

One thing that I do think is important is that we now have accurate numbers on trans prisoners:
the most recent data published by the Defendant show that of 163 transgender prisoners, 81 have convictions for sexual offences, and 76 of those prisoners were held in the male estate at the time when the data were collected (shortly before the Care and Management Policy came into effect). That shows a prevalence of sexual offending by the known transgender prison population of over 50% compared to a prevalence of around 18% in male prisons generally and around 4% in female prisons generally.

It's really important that those numbers are now in the public domain in an official document, written by a judge. That can't be waved away as fear-mongering anymore.

Sadly, it looks like we're back to the same story we've heard before:

• the MoJ os not obligated to use the single sex exemptions
• women are likely to be harmed and suffer discrimination if they do not
• a text case evidencing actual harm is needed to force a policy change

Happy to donate to any relevant future crowdfunders!

On a side note, I'm also interested in this part:
Between 2016 and 2019, a total of 97 sexual assaults were recorded in women's prisons. Of these, it seems that 7 were committed by transgender prisoners without a GRC. It is not known whether any were committed by transgender women with a GRC.

90 sexual assaults were committed in women's prisons, but not by a transgender prisoner without a GRC. So who were they committed by?

• transgender prisoners with GRCs?
• natal female prisoners?
• male prison officers?

What is happening here? It doesn't make much sense ....

If your main aim is to evade responsibility, then yes, nauticant.

I wonder if there are various decisions being made with one eye on possible future lawsuits.

The outcome of the judicial review is yet another victory for the policy of not gathering information to learn what's actually going on. If you, as for example a government department, keep yourself in the dark, then you can write all kinds of guidance and if it gets challenged you can defend it on the basis of "but nobody really knows" meaning that a judge will not be able to say with certainty that what's been going on is unlawful. It is a highly effective approach.

They are saying the policies are capable of being operated lawfully, therefore the claim fails. But this makes no comment about the desirability of the policies.

I thought there was provision in the single sex exemptions to lawfully exclude males - irrespective of GRC - from female services.

So surely, policies are capable of being operated lawfully if they exclude all males - but the decision is not to because as usual women don’t count?

Well, I know fuckall about law, but we do operate largely on a case history basis, don't we?

Is that what the subtext is? This needs to be challenged in court, then, people need to sue?

[quote ThomasPenman]www.repealthegra.org/[/quote]

Thank you!

www.repealthegra.org/

@OvaHere

Here's hoping. We continue to chip away. The damage that's being done in the meantime... this is often how it is I know.

Let's hope we look back in our lifetime and think "what the fuck happened there?"

It makes more sense to repeal the GRA than undermine or abolish the Equality Act, like Stonewall want to do.

Marriage is legal. Pensions have been equalised.

Abolish it before it causes more harm.

''Lawful if adequately risk assessed'' and yet the judge also lamented the poor quality of info on legal status, and also ignores the low rate of conviction for sexual crimes.

How can a prison claim they complete a risk assessment when they lack basic information about the prisoner?

If they haven't seen any ID that says the person is who they say they are, how did they get through the legal system in the first place? Has everyone assumed someone else checked?

Surely there's no going back on the GRA now...? Am I just being pessimistic?

I hope they get sued to infinity and beyond.

Interesting judgement. Lawful if adequately risk assessed. We know that's not currently happening. I also wonder what the point is of single-sex exceptions if organisations can lawfully opt out of applying them in situations where women are demonstrably vulnerable. I doubt that parliament intended this to happen when they wrote the Equality Act 2010.

Thank you for your work though, KeepPrisonsSingleSex. Once again there's sunlight on these anti-women practices.

The EHRC all but spelled the next steps out in the Ann Sinnot case - individuals who are unlawfully discriminated against should sue the organisations in question.

I would have thought it's not something a government would want to invite given how overloaded our courts are, but it seems the way to go.

We've been debating and talking about doing so in various women's rights meetings and always came down in favour of challenging these policies in judicial review - for various reasons, not least because it then wouldn't be about financial gain and it would (if successful) help all people in the same situation.

But it looks like judicial reviews are not the best way to do this after all. Maybe international human rights laws and the European Convention on Human Rights should instead inform individual cases. (Which is an important, established path in fighting unlawful discrimination after all.)

Just to finish, according to the The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules) women must be housed separately (Rule 11) and searches must be carried out by a member of the same sex (Rule 52).

Unfortunately, prison conditions in the UK do violate international standards in various ways, so compliance is not something the government seems to value, but in part that's because it's so much harder for a prisoner to sue.

FYI, here are the Nelson Mandela rules in full: www.un.org/ga/search/viewm_doc.asp?symbol=A/C.3/70/L.3

And I've quoted the two rules below that mention sex specifically.

Rule 11
The different categories of prisoners shall be kept in separate institutions or parts of institutions, taking account of their sex, age, criminal record, the legal reason for their detention and the necessities of their treatment; thus:

(a) Men and women shall so far as possible be detained in separate institutions; in an institution which receives both men and women, the whole of the premises allocated to women shall be entirely separate;

Rule 52
1. Intrusive searches, including strip and body cavity searches, should be undertaken only if absolutely necessary. Prison administrations shall be encouraged to develop and use appropriate alternatives to intrusive searches. Intrusive searches shall be conducted in private and by trained staff of the same sex as the prisoner.

Good point. Seems like grounds to sue the fucking pants off them. It'll happen.

Does anyone else think they put this out now as if they left it any longer public opinion would have moved on even further against TWAW?

@GromblesofGrimbledon

"I fully understand the concerns advanced on behalf of the Claimant. Many people may think it incongruous and inappropriate that a prisoner of masculine physique and with male genitalia should be accommodated in a female prison in any circumstances. More importantly for the Claimant's case, I readily accept that a substantial proportion of women prisoners have been the victims of sexual assaults and/or domestic violence. I also readily accept the proposition (for which Ms Hogarth provides evidence) that some, and perhaps many, women prisoners may suffer fear and acute anxiety if required to share prison accommodation and facilities with a transgender women who has male genitalia, and that their fear and anxiety may be increased if that transgender woman has been convicted of sexual or violent offences against women....

However, the subjective concerns of women prisoners are not the only concerns which the Defendant had to consider in developing the policies: he also had to take into account the rights of transgender women in the prison system."

But what's important is to consider the feelings of males.

Utterly dismayed and disappointed. Is there any crowd funding, planned protests or anything we can do to help? What points should we raise with our MPs?

It reminds me of the saying about Health & Safety laws - that they are all written in blood because nobody will address dangers until it becomes too costly, in terms of lives and money, not to.