Women's prisons and the Gender Recognition Act (2015)

It must be different there. Here in Ireland it's a lot slower. Believe Me I know.

As for where the person goes to prision be they a cis man, a trans man,cis Woman or a Trans Woman. Well that's up to the authorities and the law to decide. If you commit a crime you don't get to choose where you go.

For a minute there I thought you might be referring to prostitution. But there’s a very simple reason the issue of the welfare of women in prison doesn’t rate all that highly on anyone’s priority list - because they have committed criminal offences. People are understandably given to caring more about the welfare of the perpetrators victims, than any consideration given to the perpetrators of criminal offences.

I know I've mentioned this before, but for someone so "progressive", it's surprising to see you write the above, which has a real whiff of pre 1820's about it (or modern day California maybe).

One of the most interesting recent anniversaries that was (not) commemorated by liberal Ireland was the 200th anniversary of the UK Gaol Act, which established sex segregated prisons throughout the British Empire, the motiviation for which included …

John Howard FRS, for whom the Howard League for Penal Reform is named, was a key penal reformer of the 18th century. In 1785 he and Jeremiah Fitzpatrick observed the sexual degradation of women and girls in Wicklow Gaol

I only heard about it through an article in the UK edition of the Times which didn't even mention the link with Ireland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaols_Act_1823

The current "case by case" policy might have a chance of identifying potentially predatory males who could be a serious danger to women prisoners, but it does not help in the slightest with preventing non-predatory but still entirely inappropriate relationships arising in prison. People who keep hens don't tend to judge foxes on a case by case basis. They just try to keep them all out.

Google (ex RTE) Paddy O'Gorman's podcast (Paddy's Podcast) and the "Transgender Special" where he interviews women who were in prison and homeless hostels. The first woman he spoke to was an ex prisoner who was "punished" for disrespecting a male prisoner on the same wing of Limerick prison, by calling them "a man".

I know I've mentioned this before, but for someone so "progressive", it's surprising to see you write the above, which has a real whiff of pre 1820's about it (or modern day California maybe).

One of the most interesting recent anniversaries that was (not) commemorated by liberal Ireland was the 200th anniversary of the UK Gaol Act, which established sex segregated prisons throughout the British Empire, the motiviation for which included …

John Howard FRS, for whom the Howard League for Penal Reform is named, was a key penal reformer of the 18th century. In 1785 he and Jeremiah Fitzpatrick observed the sexual degradation of women and girls in Wicklow Gaol

I only heard about it through an article in the UK edition of the Times which didn't even mention the link with Ireland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaols_Act_1823

I think the only reason it's surprising is because you see me as someone so "progressive". I don't, but that aside, there wouldn't be any reason for 'liberal Ireland' to commemorate what never amounted to much anyway in terms of prison reform because the Act was ineffective in its aims given the failure to employ inspectors of prisoners conditions at the time. Far more influential in terms of prison reform for women was the work of Elizabeth Fry, though it's of no surprise whatsoever that she rarely gets a mention in the history books.

The current "case by case" policy might have a chance of identifying potentially predatory males who could be a serious danger to women prisoners, but it does not help in the slightest with preventing non-predatory but still entirely inappropriate relationships arising in prison. People who keep hens don't tend to judge foxes on a case by case basis. They just try to keep them all out.

The current 'case by case' policy doesn't have a hope of identifying potentially predatory males who could be a serious danger to women prisoners, as that's simply not it's purpose, nor is it's purpose to help in preventing non-predatory but still entirely inappropriate relationships arising in prison. If I may use your analogy, it's rather a case of foxes keeping hens who will determine the fate of the hens, and the foxes aren't too bothered about the hen's welfare -

Males are the perpetrators in 98 percent of staff-on-inmate sexual assault (PDF] of female inmates. Forty-one percent of guards in the average state female correctional center are male, a job that entitles them to perform strip searches and have access to prisoners in their most vulnerable states. Therefore, although women comprise only 7 percent of the state prison population, they comprise 46 percent of sexual abuse victims. Male prison officials not only use force and violence to commit sexual assault against female prisoners but also use their positions to coerce, threaten and intimidate inmates into sexual activity. Thousands of documented accounts exist of prison staff demanding sex in exchange for drugs, favors and access to educational programs. Similarly, prison officials often use threats of going to the parole board with false reports of bad behavior, planting drugs on prisoners or withholding basic necessities such as feminine hygiene products or visitation with children if inmates do not perform sexual acts. While these acts are repugnant, prison officials are not the only perpetrators of sexual assault against female inmates.

The rate of inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization [PDF] is at least 3 times higher for females (13.7%) than males (4.2%). This has been attributed to the fact that a majority of prison officials do not view female-on-female sexual assault as “true rape,” making them less likely to reprimand inmates. Furthermore, as the female prison population has grown at a dramatic rate, states have been unable to keep up. Therefore, female prison facilities tend to be overcrowded and poorly designed, making them difficult to police.

In addition to cross-gender supervision and poorly designed facilities, prison sexual assault against females is prevalent because little punishment exists to deter perpetrators. Victims are often blocked from bringing charges against prison staff who were either complacent or the culprits in their attacks by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). The PLRA requires prisoners to exhaust all administrative remedies before they are allowed to file suit in federal court to challenge prison abuses. For victims this means that they must report their abuse to the very people committing or facilitating that abuse. Thus, inmates who complained of staff sexual misconduct were punished 46.3 percent of the time.

The source is from the US, but it's a repeated pattern in many countries, including the UK and Ireland.

Google (ex RTE) Paddy O'Gorman's podcast (Paddy's Podcast) and the "Transgender Special" where he interviews women who were in prison and homeless hostels. The first woman he spoke to was an ex prisoner who was "punished" for disrespecting a male prisoner on the same wing of Limerick prison, by calling them "a man".

I remembered him from that godawful series "Paddy's People" which used be on RTE years ago, he was the poor man's Joe Duffy then, but because I wanted to be fair to you, I did listen to the podcast there about an hour ago, and he hasn't changed a bit - still looking to exploit people to serve his own peculiar interests. I learned nothing from the podcast that I wasn't aware of before, just that I wouldn't choose to attempt to frame it in the same terms as he on several occasions throughout a 20-minute podcast, attempts to do. If I wanted to pretend like I gave a damn about women prisoners, I'd focus on, funnily enough, the welfare of women in prison, which I could do, but that doesn't seem to be what this discussions about; instead yet again it appears to be zoning in on the idea of men in women's prisons, and a very particular kind of man in women's prisons - the transgender sex offender. Given there are only three of them in the whole of the Irish prison system, I'd suggest it was a bit like missing the wood for the trees, in much the same fashion as the recent protester who imagined her campaign would be a PR crisis for Government. I don't have it in me to point out that there are currently thousands of young women in Ireland are starving, homeless and destitute, it hasn't caused a PR crisis for Government yet, nor do I expect the general public to care much for the welfare of women in prison when the claim is that they are at risk from 3 prisoners who very few people are actually all that bothered in where or how they are accomodated, because that's the responsibility of the IPS, not something which is of any concern to the general public.