Women prisoners not allowed to wash their underwear?

[SnakebitesandSambucas]

Just seen this story pop up in a group of mine. The double standards in the mens prisons also highlighted in the article is shocking. So women aren't allowed to put their underwear in the commercial washing machines. They have to hand wash it, using their rations in their cell. Any ideas why this is the case? It seems so humiliating.

LOL at people saying ‘Well surely you’d pack more than one pair’ as if prison is a week in CentreParcs.

There will be prisoners who have not been bailed prior to their trial and have no family to fetch clothes for them when they’re sentenced. There will be prisoners who were sleeping rough or living in desperate poverty and only owned one or two pairs of knickers. There will be prisoners whose only clothes in prison are secondhand ones donated by prison charities. There will be prisoners with serious mental illnesses, addictions and learning disabilities who are barely capable of making themselves a sandwich, let alone packing a case of belongings thoughtfully.

Regarding the issue in the report, women prisoners aren’t treated worse than men. Prison is miserable whether you’re male or female. I don’t think women should have to wash their knickers in their cell once a week, but frankly there are far worse things in prisons that I’d be inclined want addressed before they prioritise the knicker washing regime.

Do you really not understand that both of these things can be true at the same time?

Prisoners - of both sexes - are statistically highly likely to have suffered neglect, abuse and violence as children and adults. That doesn’t mean they aren’t guilty of their crimes. But an awful lot of prisoners would not have ended up committing crimes if they hadn’t led appalling lives of abuse and poverty first.

Thank you ItGhoul. 👏There is a shocking lack of empathy in this thread. If we treat people like garbage in prison how is that turning their lives around. As a previous poster said prison should be rehabilitative not purely punitive. The cycles will continue if we don't treat people like human beings.

There are only 12 women’s prisons (out of 117 in total) in England and Wales. Most of them are YOI alongside. As a result, women are often many miles from home. Women make up only 5% of the prison population. Women are more likely to serve shorter sentences than men - 60% are on sentences of less than 6 months. More than 50% have suffered domestic violence, and 53% faced emotional, physical or sexual abuse as a child. 82% of women prisoners reported they had some form of mental health problem.

These are all government statistics.

A huge proportion of these women are in for what we'd consider minor offences like failing to pay a TV licence.

Damn right they should be offered the dignity of clean underwear.

I would go further and argue that the worst, most evil woman in the world deserves the dignity of clean underwear. I'd argue it through gritted teeth for some women, but still.

But given, as you say, many of these women are in prison for minor, non-violent crimes, and many have been victims themselves, I agree even more strongly.

Who mentioned anything about having fun. Unless you call washing your knickers in the machine having fun.. We're talking about the unfairness of men getting their underwear properly cleaned and women having to do it by hand which let's face it is not going to get the m cleaned as good as a machine would do.

Do male prisoners have to wash their underwear??

Your assuming that the woman was able to pack clothes. It's not uncommon to be arrested and held in prison until trial without the chance to pack anything having only the clothes on your back

That makes sense as men’s pants are presumably S, M, L etc so easy to share.

Women need their own bras because of the huge variety of sizes. Many bras also specify handwashing in the washing instructions (even if most of us just chuck them in the machine) and the prison could be held liable for replacements if they are washed “incorrectly”.

I suspect it's because how would they know who's was who's. The clothes they wear in british prisons .they just get a clean set every wash day the size you need washed but not specifically yours .the only thing your in prison your shoes and underwear

That’s a ridiculously over simplified way of looking at things. Firstly there’s a big difference between “having fun” and being treated with a basic level of dignity. Things like having adequate clothing that fits, and washing facilities isn’t having fun. It’s a basic need. Secondly there’s vast majority of these women will have trauma/mental health issues etc. And they won’t be in there for life. Putting damaged people into horrible, undignified conditions where their cause needs aren’t being met, doesn’t make for well rounded rehabilitated individuals about to be let back into society. As a society we shouldn’t be aiming for people to be more damaged than when they went in. It’s bad for the individual, but if you don’t care about them, it’s horrendous for society and likely to result in more recidivism and other anti-social behaviour, plus more pressure on services.