The Times Scotland: Four of five trans inmates in women’s prisons are murderers

[ResisterRex]

Lead story in the Scotland section:

Four of five trans inmates in women’s prisons are murderers

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2d7e9ec8-acba-11ed-bfe8-f09d3c021ab0?shareToken=4096439c0e5f5aa84ef6a6e18fefc664

"Michelle Thomson, SNP MSP for Falkirk East, said that the decision to house the violent inmates in a women’s prison was “impossible to believe”. She said the prison authorities had failed to give “any consideration to women with trauma” and added: “If they had, they would simply not have considered placing self-identifying trans women murderers and rapists within the female estate.”

The four convicted murderers are:

• Alex Stewart, formerly Alan Baker, was jailed for life for murder in 2013 after stabbing the victim, John Weir, 16 times in Bonhill, Dunbartonshire.

• Sophie Eastwood, formerly Daniel Eastwood, then 19, was convicted of murder after strangling Paul Algie at a young offenders’ institution in Dumfries in 2004. That sentence was increased for an attack on a prison guard, before Eastwood reportedly self-identified as a woman in 2018. Eastwood is now said to identify as an infant and wants all meals “blended like baby food”.

• Paris Green, formerly Peter Laing, was jailed for a minimum of 18 years in 2013 for the murder of Robert Shankland, 45, in Glenrothes, Fife.

• Melissa Young, once Richard McCabe, was convicted of the murder of a neighbour in Edinburgh, Alan Williamson, on Christmas Day 2013. The victim sustained 29 stabbing injuries."

I suppose Stonewall would have them categorised as "individuals".

'Over the past five years (2016-17 to 2020-21) females have made up 9% (35 of 382) of those accused of homicide, where the case was solved (i.e. where accused person(s) were identified).'

www.gov.scot/publications/women-justice-system/pages/5/

35 over five years.

Same link:

'The prison population in Scotland[30] is largely comprised of men aged 21 and over. Women have consistently constituted a very small proportion of the prison population, at around 5-6% since 2001-02. In 2019-20, this figure stood at 4.9%, equating to around 400 women in prison on an average day.

Looking at the average daily prison population, women in prison in Scotland have been consistently more likely than men to be on remand since at least the year 2000, although it is hard to make direct comparisons due to the different nature of the population of men and women.

The most common charges associated with women held on remand in 2019-20 were attempted murder and serious assault, common assault or drugs offences. Among women in the sentenced population, murder, attempted murder or serious assault are the most common index offences.

This offence pattern changes when we look at in-flows of women to prison. Largely arriving to remand, common assault, crimes against public justice, drugs offences and breach of the peace together accounted for around half of women's arrivals in 2019-20.

Very few women are imprisoned for sexual index offences, which made up 15% of the men's average daily prison population over 2019-20. When sexual offences are excluded, women are more often imprisoned for crimes of dishonesty, and less often for crimes of violence, than men.'

Ah, this is recorded 'gender', though. Not 'sex'. So I presume some of those women are born male.

Ah, that's very interesting. So although women make up only 5% of the prison population, they make up 10% of people convicted of murder?

Ie twice the proportion of women in prison (13%, which is about 34 of the 260 women in prison in Scotland) are in for murder?

Have to admit that surprises me! I'd be very interested to see more statistics and analysis on that.

Thanks for the source @ArabellaScott

I'd read 10% murders convicted were women - but without the actual number I wrongly interpreted that as 10 times fewer proportional to number of inmates.

It does make me curious. Why are a higher proportion of women in prison convicted of murder than men? Ie 35 murder convictions out of 260 female prisoners (13%) versus 470 murder convictions out of 7000 male prisoners (6.5%) (approximate numbers)

It seems strange to me that women inmates have more violent convictions than men - even as a proportion of inmates rather than absolute numbers.

Is it because some other types of crime are much less common in women? (sexual crimes obviously, but at 15% for men that's not enough to skew it so much) Is it because women are in some cases an accomplice to murders by men (And because only 5% of the prison population are women, that's enough to skew the numbers). Or women fighting back against domestic violence? Or is the bar for conviction different between men and women, reflecting social bias which judges violence more harshly in women than men? I find it hard to believe that women are intrinsically more violent.

I think we need to know the numbers in much more detail to understand it!

Or perhaps this is all a red herring. Men shouldn't be in women's prisons full stop. Looking at the nature of the crime can highlight the wrong-mindedness of the current policy. But really, it's the fact that they are male which is the problem - and the intrinsic threat that any male may pose to females who can't escape them.

Or, they might have finally snapped and killed the bastard who'd been battering her and her children for years. 🤷‍♀️ It'd be interesting to know the full context.

It would be good to hear more context and insight.

@RealFeminist makes me laugh so much

Alas, seems she's away.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/flouncers_corner/4743298-well-that-is-it?page=3&reply=123922304

Worth remembering that women convicted of murder aren’t necessarily prone to violence themselves because the law doesn’t differentiate in murder-for-hire-cases.
Which is absolutely right (imo) in terms of culpability/sentence length but does mean they are likely easier to manage within the prison system.
I couldn’t find a single news story of a female prisoner killing a fellow female inmate when I went searching last week, not in the UK or beyond.

And what are the pronouns of the one who "identifies" as a baby? Diddums? Mummies-girl? And this murderer gets special baby food?

So are these men not considered to be a risk to women because they were convicted for murdering other males? I still can't fathom how their risk assessments work.

Keith Brown (justice secretary) saying that no transgender people with a history of violence against women were currently housed in the female estate was really quite sly wasn't it?

The risk assessments focus largely on the risk TO the prisoner. While the other prisoners' safety is considered, it's not the priority. Is my understanding, from Rhona Hotchkiss' explanation.

Me too.

AYE MEBBE VIOLENT MURDERERS BUT THEYRE NO RAPISTGENDER

Shouldn't laugh but can't help it

That's an absolute belter of a thread 😄

Genuis

Feminist to her finger tips Sturgeon turned a blind eye to this. The cheek of her to say in her fuck off speech that she wants to focus on women's rights.

I really enjoyed this

Appalling. We need to get a separate prison facility for these TW ASAP . They don't belong in women's prisons.

Presumably these are all male prisoners who don't have gender id certificates? No-one knows about the ones who do, or at least, that's what I understood from the BBC Radio 4 AntiSocial programme about prisons - but it was a bit hard to keep track.

‘It does make me curious. Why are a higher proportion of women in prison convicted of murder than men? Ie 35 murder convictions out of 260 female prisoners (13%) versus 470 murder convictions out of 7000 male prisoners (6.5%) (approximate numbers) ‘

it could be that women may not always be sent to prison for lesser crimes which would skew the percentages. Years ago, in another system, men were far more likely than women to be imprisoned for identical crimes (not including murder).
I don’t know if this still occurs but looking at the proportions of men v women in prison, it’s possible.