Judicial review for woman prisoner alleging sexual assault by trans rapist in prison

[realitycalling]

The Sunday Times reporting a long overdue judicial review after an (alleged) sexual assault on a woman prisoner by a male born trans rapist who had been placed in a female prison. (trying to be careful with language given the oppressive monitors who try to control this board).

And they've reported on the Centre Parks issue as well as a prominent article about that major brands like Unilever and Heinz advertising on Pornhub that's awash with child sex abuse. Share token:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/female-prisoner-takes-government-to-court-after-alleged-assault-by-transgender-inmate-n5wtg2nf7?shareToken=f2e99b28b2f234eb7e84b0c4484e7254

It would be very interesting to see the breakdown of offence type for these trans prisoners, would it not?

Yes. FPFW did some work a while ago via FOIs and at that time, about half of XY trans prisoners were either sex offenders or Cat A (the highest risk level, usually violent). It would be nice to see this updated although I fear the numbers have been obscured due to recording by gender identity rather than sex.

She says the transgender woman, who is serving a sentence for rape of a female, groped her breasts in the prison toilets. Shortly after the assault, the victim was moved to a different prison only to find her assailant had also moved there and would be sharing accommodation.

Absolutely appalling lack of care.

This was a great article

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/07/are-female-prisoners-at-risk-from-transgender-inmates/

James writes: Perhaps I am a bleeding heart liberal. Perhaps I am too quick to condone and too slow to condemn. But I believe that how we treat the weakest and worst among us is a comment on how we conduct ourselves as a society. I also believe that rules matter. Our rules, our laws passed by the Parliament that expresses our will, demand and dictate that it is not acceptable for women to be put in fear, to be exposed to abuse and violence. Our rules, our laws, demand that each and every single one of us is properly protected – by the coercive power of the state if needs be – from harm. It doesn’t matter if we break those laws ourselves; the whole point of those laws, what gives them meaning and value, is that they apply to everyone

Name changed for obvious reasons -

Every prisoner at HMP Littlehey is a sex offender and it has a small but significant trans population.

But it would be fair to say that there are a number of motivations for being trans:

Getting to wear womens clothing
Getting to wear your own choice of clothing instead of prison wear
Not doing programmes
Saying you can't have committed offences because you are actually a woman
Just being annoying
Attempting to get in to the women's estate
Actually being dysmorphic and wanting to do the whole thing including surgery - this off course doesn't mean that you will stop your offending behaviour

So there are many reasons why being trans might have advantages to you as a prisoner aside from you actually having been trans all along

If they moved all the transwomen to women's prisons that would mean one in three incarcerated women were not women.
There be the evidence that transwomen commit crimes at a higher rate than women.

No man should be in the female estate. Women aren't a service ffs.

Sixty four percent of female prisoners have been subjected to domestic violence. The majority are already victims of men.

It's insane.

It's insane because, as a concept, it is treating women like dogs for the sake of men's self serving feelings. But, more than that, it's disgusting because it is perfectly legal to prevent it.

The law was written to create exceptions for just this kind of situation. No one, absolutely no one, expected men to enter the female state, and certainly not if they were a fucking rapist!

It's unbelievable. That in 2019 letting raping, violent men have access to incarcerated women is considered progressive.

And yes, well bloody done, to all the women who have actually had to write down, email, record, talk about, meet over, and articulate the utterly self evident reasons why this is one of the most immoral things this country is doing.

It's not complicated. It's not something that prison officials can't comment on. It's not hard to understand.

Just stop fucking doing it.

Well said, Datun.

Hoping the outcome is transgender, non binary wings regardless of GRC status. My personal opinion is GRC status should have no bearing on incarceration in cells with women. If you commit an offence and were born male you go to a transgender unit or male prison.

Lang - Where is that 64% domestic violence stat from? I can feel a letter to my MP coming on.

This judicial review is long overdue. Well done to the brave woman taking her case to the courts and the team supporting her.

The piece on Center Parcs is on the same page as this, in the app version and I assume print editions. Join the dots...

boatyard

Datun posted that, not me, but here you go:

Over 60% of women in contact with the criminal justice system have experienced domestic abuse.

53% of women in prison report having experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse during childhood.

31% women in prison have spent time in local authority care as a child.

Women in custody are five times more likely to have a mental health concern than women in the general population.

www.womeninprison.org.uk/research/key-facts.php

Thanks Lang!

Not to mention most women in prison are not sent there for violent crimes whatsoever. Things like being behind on your council tax tho. Also let's not forget pregnant women and small babies. Trapped in a space with violent XY offenders.

Does it really say in that article that the rules were changed, officially, on Halloween?

The plan was to change the rules on the same day that European Human Rights laws would no longer apply, if the Government hadn’t fucked up once more. Not that I was in favour of Brexit, but this Government couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery.

And female politicians go around saying we should vote for the Tories as they help people to lift themselves up.

Does it really say in that article that the rules were changed, officially, on Halloween?

Here's the document. Implementation date 31st October 2019.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/825621/transgender-pf.pdf

if the Downview unit is for unmanageable (Cat A, sex offending, badly behaved) trans prisoners, why aren't they fully segregated from a potential pool of victims?

Once that's accepted then there's no need at all for the unit to be in a women's prison. It can be in a men's prison or elsewhere. At that point when an inquiring mind thinks about this it's clear that the only reason for locating in a women's prison is for validation of identity. In other words, the balance is: transwomen's validation of identity vs women's safety.

Meghan Murphy referenced in her Toronto library talk an account that this is happening in Canada too.

Sorry to be a pain, LangCleg, but I’m on the phone so can’t read that letter from the transsexual person. Do you have any way to link to it?

Downview isn't a Cat A prison though.

It's a Closed prison - women's prisons have a different system but Closed would be more like B/C.

The fact women have different category system just shows the fact that women prisoners are entirely different to men though.

The clarity about GRC in the original article matters to me because there is an explicit policy that trans prisoners with a GRC should be housed in the estate of their GRC sex. In fact, I'm not clear if all the prisoners transferred have got one or not. I don't believe that humans can either change sex or have one that isnt obvious from their bodies in over 99% of cases. So to me the existence of GRC sex vs biological sex is one of the reasons that prisoners without GRC might be considered for transfer.

I dont understand why the risk of making further offending more likely is not considered, obviously for the sake of the captive potential victims more than anything, but actually also for the prisoners themselves.

Sorry to be a pain, LangCleg, but I’m on the phone so can’t read that letter from the transsexual person. Do you have any way to link to it?

Page 4 here.

pdfkul.com/inside-time-october-2016-lockedpdf_5afecdcc8ead0ecd268b458d.html

In fact, I'm not clear if all the prisoners transferred have got one or not.

They haven't.

If it's true that 1 in 50 male prisoners are now identifying as trans, there is a more than sufficient population for a dedicated prison - this is as many as 1,600 inmates. I would suggest this would be the solution. Although, if no transfer to the female estate is available, would the number still be 1,600?!

It would be fascinating if there were a dedicated biological male trans prisoners only prison and suddenly the numbers went down wouldn't it? This could never happen of course.

If I remember correctly, prisoners with a GRC are automatically housed in the prison of their legal sex. They are not included in statistics about transgender prisoners because they do not go before the board which decides if someone may be transferred to the opposite sex’s estate. Therefore, as I understand it, the prisoners we are hearing about are only those without a GRC.

Ah ok paleblue.

I wish the article was clearer on that.

What a crazy, crazy situation.