@Plasmodesmata
Link doesn't work for me.
OK, here's the text (with the permission of Dr Kate Coleman of KPSS)
In 2019, Wing E at HMP Downview, a women’s prison, was re-opened as a ‘transgender unit’ to house male prisoners with a GRC who presented a risk to female prisoners too great to be managed in the normal female estate.
Some saw this as a knee-jerk response to provide a rushed ‘solution’ to the growing evidence that women in prison were at risk from male prisoners and to calm the outrage that had resulted when the male prisoner Karen White, who had been remanded to the female estate to await trial for multiple charges of rape, sexually assaulted women prisoners.
Wing E, also known as the Josephine Butler Wing, is a 16 cell unit which had previously been used to house young female offenders. Before it was repurposed to house male prisoners, there had been plans to turn it into a unit to house women who are preparing for release.
There are clear implications for women in prison when resources in the female estate are repurposed to accommodate the needs of male prisoners. Questions of resource allocation aside, is this an acceptable solution? The short answer is: no.
Paragraph 1.1 of HM Prison and Probation Service document HMP Downview Wing E Policy states that the Unit is intended for:
'Transgender women holding Gender Recognition Certificates who have been assessed as presenting a high risk of harm to other women in custody… where the risk cannot safely be managed on normal location within the Women’s Estate.'
This policy is predicated on the ability to assess risk as being ‘too high’. However risk assessment of male prisoners with GRCs is inadequate. This is because the risk assessment tool that is used for adult men who have been convicted of sexual or sexually motivated offences is not used for males with GRCs because these prisoners are recorded as female and this tool is not to be used for female sexual offenders. Our suspicion is that ‘unmanageable risk’ needs to be demonstrated through cumulative incidents of assault against women in prison.
Paragraph 4.1 states that placement at the Unit is not intended to be permanent, rather prisoners should be assisted in progressing back into the wider female estate. Section 10.0 indicates that prisoners held at the Unit remain able to access activities within the main prison at Downview and to mix with the female prisoners for the purposes of those activities.
For these reasons we consider that the unit at Downview does not provide an acceptable solution that keeps women in prison safe.
In May 2021, the campaign group Fair Play for Women published the Equality Analysis for E Wing, which they had obtained via a Freedom of Information Access request.
The following is of particular note:
'In consideration of the options available to house male prisoners with a GRC, the perceived necessity for these prisoners to continue to associate with female prisoners, to have ‘equality of opportunity’ compared to female prisoners and the wish to ‘foster good relations’ between the two groups took priority over any concern for the safety of female prisoners. For this reason a bespoke unit in the male estate was rejected.
Initially, it was proposed that E Wing should house both ‘non-trans and trans’ high risk women. This would have eliminated discrimination between the two groups as ‘trans women’ would have been treated the same as ‘non-trans women’. Again, this proposal was seen to offer the advantage of fostering good relations. This was rejected as unworkable due to ‘the specific risks to other women which do in part derive from their transgender status’. We believe it is more accurate to state that the ‘specific risks’ arise because these prisoners are male.
There is scant consideration given to the safety and wellbeing of female prisoners at Downview. No account is taken to the budgetary, infrastructure or staffing costs to HMP Downview of repurposing E Wing and the consequent impact on the women held there.'
WING E IS NOW MIXED SEX?
Although it was decided that the Unit would be for the sole use of male prisoners with a GRC, evidence referred to in the judgement handed down in R (FDJ) v Secretary of State for Justice indicates that women have been housed in E Wing at the same time as males prisoners with a GRC.
At paragraph 37, the judgement states:
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, E Wing has in recent months also accommodated a number of women prisoners who elected to be placed there in order to shield; but they were on a separate landing from the transgender women.
We consider this to be a very worrying development as it sets a precedent for opening the Unit up to female offenders.