Don't release violent male offenders, repurpose women's prisons for them instead

[CohensDiamondTeeth]

Article in the Telegraph.

Instead lets release women from prison instead, and repurpose their prisons to house the men.

It sounds like an excellent idea to me!

Repurpose women’s prisons for men, campaigners tell Andy Burnham

What a great idea.

Makes perfect sense to me

vert, very few women belong in prison. Literally the tiny handful who commit murder. Absolutely no others

Why shouldn't women be in prison? We fought for equality so if a woman commits the same crime as a man she should do the same time.

Where will female criminals go?

Brilliant idea. I’d feel much safer with Perpetual Shoplifter Tracy back on the streets than Serial Rapist Derek.

Because the minute number of women inmates are overwhelmingly in prison for non-violent offences like not paying council tax etc. So no, actually they're not doing the same crimes.

Ask anyone and they'd say they prefer that the most dangerous criminals (almost exclusively men) were prioritised for the most secure facilities. I mean, unless you ask the rapists and violent assaulters and their sympathisers themselves of course.

EDIT: Forgot to add link: ukhsa.blog.gov.uk/2018/03/08/improving-the-health-and-wellbeing-for-women-in-prison/

They’re letting the blokes out early though now so why should women have to serve more of their sentence?

Absolutely brilliant idea. Loads of women who are imprisoned for non-violent crimes have dependent children too, so this would be of huge benefit to the children too.

So you'd rather give early release to violent male offenders who have committed murders, rape and other sexual crimes like grooming children?

Rather than a small number of non-violent female offenders who committed petty crimes?

Ok. I know who I'd prefer to be given early release if I had the choice. I'll give you a hint, it's the female prisoners who aren't likely to hurt anyone else.

OPs suggestion is women only in prison for murder. So let's say local bully girl smashes a glass and slashes your face. You are scarred for life but she shouldn't go to prison or a group of teenagers break in to your house, smash everything they don't steal. The males go to prison but not the females. How do you justify that.

Some women are in prison for violent crimes.

Did you read the article?

Sorry wasn't OP who said only for murder.

So let prisoners who have committed non violent crimes out.

I don't think any non-violent offenders should be in prison, it causes more problems than it solves.

Fines, community service, mental health treatment, house arrest etc

Why not repurpose disused barracks, detention centres, you'll end up with shared sex prisons, you can't just empty a womens prison to house men, where will those women prisoners go. We need more prison spaces for men and women, both are overcrowded and some not fit for purpose.

I do agree that if males are being considered for early release, then females should also be-otherwise that is deeply sexist. I imagine the staff who work in a female prison might not want to work with male inmates though...we simply need more prisons and possibly more mental asylums...

Isn’t the issue that there aren’t many women’s prisons so women tend to be imprisoned at distance from their home base? This makes it harder to sustain family visits and contact with their children. Yes, I’d rather keep dangerous male offenders in prison to serve their full term. However, for women who do need to be in prison there are unintended adverse impacts for them and their children.

Exactly.

Excellent idea
And obviously the most sensible thing to do
Let's hope the government read the report and act on it

Do you also think dangerous women should be in prison?

Hang on ... a fair few men are in prison for possessing and trading CSA material. Crime is non-violent at end user point, but violence was committed to create the images.

I can think of other classes of very harmful, non-violent crimes, too. Not council tax and TV licence defaults, obviously.

On another thread about putting men into women's prisons a while back, I learned that the reinforcements required would be prohibitively expensive. Women's prisons aren't really reinforced, because they don't need to be.

But the majority of female prisoners aren't in prison for violent crimes.

The article does say there are plans to repeat a successful rehabilitation program for non-violent prisoners, and it only talks about repurposing one prison to free up spaces so it's not like all female prisoners get a free pass.

It doesn't mention anywhere that the plan is to allow women to commit crime with impunity or release violent female offenders.

And again, you'd rather let male prisoners who are murderers, rapists and child groomers out early than this as an alternative?

Women make up a small minority (about 4%) of the overall prison population. Most are serving comparatively short sentences (less than 12 months) for fraud and petty theft non violent crimes, often related to poverty and/or addiction. Given that the female prison population is so small in comparison with the male one there is probably little space to be gained from releasing such women early and repurposing these spaces for violent males.

Yes my knee jerk reaction was to nod in agreement to that, and then I thought hang on too.

That's interesting, if depressing about it being more cost effective essentially to release these violent male prisoners rather than release non violent female prisoners.

@BettyFilous

BettyFilous · Today 12:31
Isn’t the issue that there aren’t many women’s prisons so women tend to be imprisoned at distance from their home base? This makes it harder to sustain family visits and contact with their children. Yes, I’d rather keep dangerous male offenders in prison to serve their full term. However, for women who do need to be in prison there are unintended adverse impacts for them and their children.

Yes that's a really good point. I was going to suggest that the money saved on imprisoning women for petty crimes like non payment of tv licence or council tax could probably go towards helping with visitation for families who need it, until GarlicEverywhere's post.