David Gauke, the justice secretary, has just been on Today. He said it was a failure of assessment in this particular case, not of the policy.
This seemed the likely approach that was going to be taken after the Guardian's late coverage yesterday:
(extract)
"The Ministry of Justice has apologised in White’s case and said previous offending history was not taken into account. Requests for transfer from prisoners whose legal gender does not accord with their self-identified gender are normally assessed by a transgender case board, “which should consider all previous offending history”, but this was not carried out in this case."
[[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/09/sexual-assaults-in-womens-prison-reignite-debate-over-transgender-inmates-karen-white]
The Guardian article also included comment by Francis Crook:
"Frances Crook, the chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said vulnerable women were being put at risk by a small number of violent men whose primary interest was harming women.
“It is a very toxic debate, but I think prisons have probably been influenced by some of the extreme conversations and have been bullied into making some decisions that have harmed women and put staff in an extremely difficult position,” she said.
Crook said that during a recent prison visit a governor told her of five prisoners who were identifying as women and had asked for transfer. All had a history of sexual violence against women and had had their requests turned down. “I would say decision-making is patchy,” said Crook. “While permission is being refused in some instances, clearly mistakes are still being made in others.”
She added: “In my view, any man who has committed a serious sexual or violent offence against women, who then wants to transfer but has not gone through the whole process, still has a penis and still has male hormones, should not be put into a women’s prison. There may be a case for having separate provision; that is a debate to be had.”
& Pilgrim Tucker:
"Pilgrim Tucker, who has led legal action over proposed changes to the Labour party’s policy on the formal inclusion of self-identifying trans women on all-women shortlists, said women campaigning about self-identification had long warned of the risk it posed. “Almost half of trans women prisoners are sex offenders,” she said. “We urgently need to start prioritising the safeguarding of women and girls over the feelings of male-bodied people.” (continues)