What women? Which prisoners?

[JellySlice]

I cannot make head or tail of this article. All I get from it is that the BBC is so badly captured that its style book can longer be held up as the standard for clear and accurate language.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-51928421

I can see your point. It starts of talking about transgender women, so male bodied people. Then it just talks about women.

Not clear whether it's still talking about male prisoners, female ones or both.

I feel sorry and concerned for anyone in isolation in prison, but presumably the male bodied people experiencing this are considered too dangerous to put in with women.

Again, I am guessing that is what it means, it's not clear.

I suspect that for the majority of readers a "transgender woman" would be 'a woman who is transgender' ie a woman who identifies as a man. It is complete garble.

I just read that article and came on to post about this. What a terrible article. It’s impossible to know whether the important professional concern for the well-being of ‘women prisoners’ being reported on is for women or transwomen given the way that the BBC wilfully conflate these two categories.
This is why genderist politics hurts women and obscures our issues. Please complain to the BBC. This nonsense mangling of language neglects women AND transwomen by pretending that their prison issues are the same.
www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints

I’m going to complain too. That headline about a women’s prison and then the jumbled content. It was prominent on the bbc website too.

Articles as poor as this on LGBT issues are commonplace now on the BBC.

I thought the prison was a men's one at first, no detail is given about why the prisoners are segregated and how many, and the comment about homelessness at the end is about female prisoners - it's got nothing to do with this

This is the Independent Monitoring Board report that that “news” story was based on Iwww.imb.org.uk/eastwood-park-annual-report-published-imb-express-serious-concern-about-the-lack-of-training-and-rehabilitation-facilities-at-the-prison/

Transwomen don’t seem to be in the one page summary. So why the headline?

So why the headline?

I know the answer to this one.

Because they are "the most oppressed". Obvs.

One Thank you for linking to the actual report. What is the point of ‘journalism’ that exists to obscure facts and erase important policy issues, that’s just irresponsible one sided politicking and is not the job of the BBC. Propaganda shouldn’t be part of their remit.

There's a link to the full report on this page.

www.imb.org.uk/eastwood-park-annual-report-published-imb-express-serious-concern-about-the-lack-of-training-and-rehabilitation-facilities-at-the-prison/

This is the bit about transgender prisoners.

There were usually three to four transgender prisoners at any one time at Eastwood Park, with most being well integrated into the prison community. The new transgender policy was implemented at Eastwood Park. Local transgender case boards were held within 14 days of arrival, giving time to gain information about the prisoner in an advanced disclosure form. The deputy governor chaired the local boards.

The IMB remained very concerned that transgender prisoners who had been segregated, as they were considered a risk to others, were left for periods in excess of 42 days while decisions were made about their future. It was considered that this represented inhumane treatment. There seemed to be a lack of urgency to find a resolution for these centrally managed cases.

So a three sentence reference on page 12 of 35 of the full report, which also mentions wheelchair users difficulties &etc. And it’s that transwomen reference that is pulled out and used for the headline?

And it’s that transwomen reference that is pulled out and used for the headline?

It's the BBC. What did you expect?

I read this this morning. It's awful - I couldn't work out who on earth the women were in the article. If actual women why was the headline about transgender women? If they want to bias their articles towards transwomen then at least make it bloody clear who the article is discussing. Hey, why not leave women out altogether?

I've complained.

I read the whole report (interesting, including that trans material was in the prison library) then complained. The complaint was easy to do.

Presumably those left isolated for longer are some of the numerous sex offenders who the Ministry of Justice is so keen on placing in women's prisons? Presumably the prison management have legitimate concerns about the safety of male born sex offenders self identifying as women being given access to vulnerable women?
Just a thought.

In relation to the actual report it's surprising no it's not that the BBC didn't chose to report on the numbers of women being released without suitable accommodation. The result is that homelessness undermined progress made by many of the women on addressing any other offending-related issues

Or even that the reality at Eastwood Park is failing buildings, loss of training facilities and a troubled new build project which promised to provide desperately-needed facilities. Since preparing our report we have recently been advised that there is now no funding available for the new build project... and without adequate facilities the cycle of reoffending will continue

Two massive issues affecting hundred / thousands of vulnerable women. Yet the BBC chose to focus on transwomen. At a time when it is so important that their output is credible and honest.

So,I read it, and because of the way it's structured, my over riding sense was that the negatives talked about were affecting the TW referenced. But actually, the report barely touches on TW and is actually questioning the conditions and problems women are facing?

Yeah, TWAW doesn't disadvantage or erase women at all.

It reads as if someone wrote it with the details about male-born prisoners in female prisons but words and phrases were edited out through the trans-filter.

Ridiculous.

I thought I’d give this thread a bump as women in prison are even more vulnerable now with CV cases in the estate. (And the far larger number of men in prison are also vulnerable)

The link in the op takes you to an article called “HMP Eastwood Park: Concern over segregated transgender women prisoners”
I complained on the day of the article. Doesn’t seem to have changed since.
I’m sure others on here complained more articulately.
The article was written because there has been an annual review of this women’s prison near Bristol. Some of the other issues were mentioned in the article, but only the transwomen’s issue made the headline.
And it’s unclear from the BBC if the other issues in the article only impact that small group. Spoiler, if you read the full report the other issues do impact all the prisoners. A much larger group,
I complained that it was hateful to ignore the majority and only mention the tiny number of transwomen.
I will paste the BBC’s reply next.

Dear (real name)

Thank you for contacting us about the BBC News Website.

We note your concerns about the article entitled 'HMP Eastwood Park: Concern over segregated transgender women prisoners'.

We are conscious of the need for headlines to be worded carefully so as not to mislead readers or give the wrong impression about a story. This is frequently a very difficult decision for our editors and we appreciate that not all readers will feel we get it right on every occasion.

Headlines are short summaries of stories and despite our best endeavours it is simply not always possible to sum up all the various aspects of a story within the space of a single headline.

The article does go into detail about the report from the The Independent Monitoring Board noting issues facing transgender women as well as issues relating to homelessness for women leaving prison and the concerns they have raised about the prison in general as well as comments from the Prison Service.

We are careful to check and report the facts surrounding any debate, examine relevant arguments, and offer detailed analysis. We believe that by doing this our audience can then make up their own minds.

Nevertheless, I would like to assure you that we value your feedback. Please know all complaints are sent to senior management and news teams every morning and we have included your points in our overnight report. These reports are among the most widely read sources of feedback in the BBC and ensure that your complaint has been seen quickly, by the right people. This helps inform their decisions about current and future reporting.

Thank you once again for getting in touch.

Kind Regards

Craig Osborne

BBC Complaints Team
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

as far as I can see that doesn’t say anything,

Not clear whether it's still talking about male prisoners, female ones or both.

Male & females have significant & differt offending patterns. This has long being recognised.

MoJ published female offender strategy in 2018
www.gov.uk/government/publications/female-offender-strategy

Update:
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2019-0204/

We believe that by doing this our audience can then make up their own minds

How kind of them. I've made up my own mind that that article makes no sense.