More Lib Dem lunacy

[Artesia]

Apparently Jo Swinson is going to put forward new penal reform proposals, including ending the use of prison for women, except for the most serious and violent crimes. The suggestion is that women should only be remanded in custody ‘if a prison sentence is ljkely’.

Given that the Lib Dem party line is that a woman is anyone who says they are a woman, male criminals could just identify themselves out of custodial sentences. Genius.....

Do you have a link? Just had a google but can't see anything.

Tbh the kind of men who take on trans identities after committing a crime, tend to fall into the "most serious and violent crime" category, and there are an awful lot of women who really shouldn't be in prison...

On the other hand, the idea that women get less jail time for the same crimes as men is a line straight from the MRA play book, so this will definitely play into the hands of misogynists.

Is this maybe to do with the number of women jailed for things like debt which does nobody any good? I have not read the details yest but surely that would be a good thing?

Seems like this would link up well with this thread of carceral/ anti carcerel feminism. The lib dem manifesto is very much in favour of "restorative justice" and has also pledged to house every trans prisoner in the estate matching their identified gender, so from that POV alone getting women out of prison would be a good thing!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3662172-Carceral-Feminism-is-this-a-thing-now

Women serving prison sentences are also more likely to leave behind dependant children who then need to enter the care system, so I do actually think that prison should be a last and worst case resort. For non violent crimes where the offender isn't a danger to the public, I don't think a prison sentence is helpful. I think that's probably true for male offenders as well though tbh. Prison in it's current form clearly doesn't act as a very good deterrent to crime, or as a rehabilitative space, so it's really just a punishment and to get violent offenders off the streets. Plus the over crowding and living conditions are a human rights violation in both estates, so I think quite a big conversation about prison reform needs to happen.

I strongly agree.

I think quite a big conversation about prison reform needs to happen.

I agree with this but would add that it needs to go hand in hand with a conversation about mental health services.

Right now prisons, courts, police spend a lot of their time picking up the pieces of systemic failures elsewhere.

I shouldn't say 'right now' really as this has been an issue for as long as I can remember but the bottom line is that there are an awful lot of people, women and men, in the prison system who wouldn't be there if other services were properly funded and prioritised.

Apologies for DM link - www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7367795/Critics-slam-radical-plans-Lib-Dem-leader-Jo-Swinson-stop-jailing-female-criminals.html

Totally agree that there needs to be a wholesale review of sentencing guidelines and the prison system, but really don’t think there should be a distinction in sentencing based on sex, which seems to be the proposal. The types of crime for which women are typically sent to prison may well be the sort which should not attract custodial sentence, but that’s a different issue.

Fundamentally, it seems a total nonsense to make any policy proposals centred around sex based distinctions, at the same time as rendering the whole concept of sex irrelevant by allowing people to identify into the sex of their choice. It renders the whole discussion meaningless.

it needs to go hand in hand with a conversation about mental health services.

100%

It really can't be that hard to make it about the crime, rather than gender-specific, can it ? All this does is set the genders against each other, yet again, with an eternal argument of "well, men get this", "oh, but women get that". Something like....

"Lib Dem leader says prison should be reserved only for the most serious, or violent, crimes".

There, job done. Nobody can possibly get their pants in a bunch about any perceived sexism, because everyone gets equal treatment.

I think what makes it different for female prisoners is that, as I said, they're more likely to leave behind dependants who need to go into care, and also (I'll need to look this up to get actual details) but I think when you drill down into the causes of crime a lot of female incarceration is the result of male abuse, such as women being unable to pay debts that were racked up by abusive exes who then disappeared. So I imagine there are sex differences. Whether they're significant enough to merit a policy that so radically differentiates between sexes is another matter. And yes, if sex doesn't exist then the whole thing is a bit pointless anyway, but that;s true of literally every policy nowadays.

I actually agree with the policy, which the Scottish government is, I think, moving towards anyway.

I don't agree with men going to women's prisons though.

I can't support more relaxed laws around carrying knives and acid though. That actually is crazy.

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."

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

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

"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."

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.

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).

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

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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!