Prisons Judicial Review: Judgement

That we 'don't know' "whether any were committed by transgender women with a GRC" is ridiculous and something I hope journalists press hard into.

That this type of data is still not being properly collected and that that lack of data is seems to keep being used to avoid doing anything is beyond oversight, I think. There can't be a problem if we're not recording it... we should at minimum have stats on sex and whether the assailants were guards or other prisoners. I'd add on GRC status when relevant and whether the assailant had priors for a sexual offense because that's really something these conversations could use, but we're left with crumbs of data and told there isn't enough to suggest anything yet. It's ridiculous.

So what happens to the women that are directly harmed by these policies. Can they go after MoJ for damages for not assessing and managing a known risk properly? Or are they just acceptable collateral damage?

@OvaHere Yes, yes we need to get a few judgments so the no win no fee crowd smell money and nature will do the rest.

Pissed off by this ruling. Management? Management fails.

It would be bloody great if the levels of safeguarding that are applied to the welfare of children could be applied to vulnerable women (the old-fashioned sort) in prison.

But they'll get away with it though, as the US is the same.

So for women in prison its actually better to be in Saudi Arabia, a country that legilly mandates that a woman is half (is it half, it could be a quarter?) the worth of a man.

This is disappointing, and obviously unjust, but the judgement may have come at the right time to galvanise public opinion to change the law so male prisoners are proactively excluded from women's prisons.

Can someone explain something to me please? If transwomen without a GRC are legally male, where is their "right" not to be placed in the male estate argued to come from? I thought that for the purposes of the EA2010, the comparator class for judging whether a trans person is being discriminated against is non-trans people of the same legal sex. So if a transwoman without a GRC is placed in a male prison, they are being treated in the same way as others of the same sex, which is presumably lawful?

So is it the case that there isn't a positive right for transwomen without a GRC to be placed in the female estate, but the MoJ have decided to do it anyway? So they are effectively 'gold-plating' what is required of them?

It's all just a veneer really, isn't it? The idea of women having any shred of equality, or protection from harm is just a pretence.

I did wonder about that Ova, and whether no win no fee would open up in this field. I think suing for damages will focus minds more than JR's.

All government departments should have some kind of risk register for current litigation and if there starts to be a pattern I suspect they will take notice.

They cite the statistic that 60% of transwomen are assaulted in male prisons. I do not know the validity of this figure.

Male prisons are very violent places, I suspect many inmates regardless of gender identity have been subject to some form of violence

So effectively, @KeepPrisonsSingleSex, the court is saying it's legal when done properly, but isn't necessarily being done properly and possibly shouldn't be legal?

Are the MoJ consulting any non-tra groups on the updated policy, do you know?

So it's confirmed. Prisoners born male have means and ways in which they have the right to make use of prisoners born female, without female people's consent and against the female prisoners' best interest, because people born male are recognised as being the prioritised and more valued people within the equation.

I will be pointing out to my MP that I cannot understand this in any other way but sheer male supremacism. It has become normal to see female humans as lesser, less human, and they and their resources are seen, regretably perhaps but legally, as male property male people have entitlement to.

In a fucking British court of law.

sorry you didn't get the result you wanted.
Don't give up (something tells me you won't).
I never though this could affect me but now I know different.

but it's important to note that male prisoners who are identifying as women not only have a higher sex offending rate that females but also of other males.

So this is handy to have when people tell us that no one will go through the hassle of saying they're a woman to access victims?

Because these are either predatory men identifying as women to access victims, which ''never happens'', or they're genuine TW with a higher sex offending rate than other men, which also ''never happens''.

The TRAs are on Twitter celebrating a"win".

They cite the statistic that 60% of transwomen are assaulted in male prisons. I do not know the validity of this figure.

It is interesting to know that the Genevan convention specifies that women should be treated with all consideration due to their sex. Women deprived of their liberty should be in separate quarters than men and under immediate supervision of women.

Is the judge saying the UK is not even upholding the Genevan convention in time of peace?

I think challenging through JR is difficult because the law recognises the legal fiction.

I wonder if the best approach is for women and girls who have been harmed in any way to start suing for damages, whether that is public bodies or private service providers.

Expensive though and would need crowdfunding

Nothing really new to add, but why are men's feelings always more important than women's lives?

I think this illustrates a key problem with the approach of challenging policies using judicial review.

If the policy says "do a risk assessment on a case by case basis" then a court is just not going to find that that policy is unlawful.

The issue, then, isn't what the policy says, it's that when it comes to making that risk assessment, women's needs are given insufficient weight, if any weight at all. Unfortunately that's a far harder thing to challenge. As a society we seem to have an awful lot of tolerance for allowing women's rights to depend on the whims of an individual service provider. When that combines with the prevailing attitude that women need to shut their mouths and know their place, the outcome is never going to centre women.

@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."

Yes, yes, it's all accepted that you're traumatized and at risk by being locked up with rapists.

But the men have rights, women. You need to learn to cope.

You evil fucking shitstains.

I think the words “disgusting” and “obscene” as used by other posters are spot on. It just shows where “be kind” got us.

well the risk clearly wasn't managed???? A woman was sexually assaulted. There was a complete FAILURE in the risk to be managed.

This is what institutional misogyny looks like.