An international prisons watchdog has called for a policy of “self-ID” to allow transgender prisoners to be held in jails of their adopted gender.
The call flies in the face of practice in England and Wales, where the large majority of trans women prisoners are held in male jails – and all trans men in custody are held in female jails.
In its latest annual report, published in April, the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) said it had seen “widely divergent” approaches to the placement of transgender prisoners across the territory it monitors.
It said: “The Committee considers that if a person self-identifies as transgender during the prison admission procedure, then this should be sufficient per se for the prison to treat the person as such in all decisions taken concerning that person, including placement decisions.”
Reflecting concerns that biologically-male prisoners cannot safely be housed in female jails, it added: “If, after an individualised risk assessment, there are exceptional security or other reasons to accommodate them elsewhere, those reasons should be clearly documented, and subject to regular review.”
From a longer article in InsideTime at https://insidetime.org/newsround/watchdog-urges-self-id-for-trans-prisoners/