Women are better off as Prisoners of War!

Scottish Prison Service

After Clare Fox, in the House of Lords, referenced some research on Female responses to males in the female prison estate I decided to locate the paper.

Two things to note. Matthew was employed by the Scottish Prison Service at the time of the research. The SPS service had already introduced mixed sex prison facilities. The women were only been asked how they felt about it after they had been subjected to the experiment. It was quite clear by the framing that the women were expected to go along with it. Yet 50% expressed varying levels of misgivings.

You can read this piece, in full here: Mixed Sex Prisons. How do the women feel?

Following on from that piece I had a look at the Scottish Prison Guidance for Transgender Prisoners. The guidance was drafted in collaboration with Scottish Trans Alliance. Writing in Christine Burns book (Trans Britain) this is how James Morton describes this work.

It was no accident that they decided to unleash this policy in the most vulnerable women. It was strategy. If they could get this into the prison system and persuade Prison authorities, to take Criminals at their word, how much easier to introduce mixed sex facilities across the board?

It is worth noting that these women would be better off as prisoners of war because the Geneva Convention explicitly protects single sex accommodation.

They repeat the stipulation in respect of any disciplinary measures taken against the women. It is made clear mixed sex spaces are not acceptable and cannot be used as part of any disciplinary measures. 70 years later we are doing this to women and the authors are boasting about how these is progressive!

You can read this piece, in full, here. Scottish Prisons Policy on Transgender Prisoners