Discrimination- Gender- equality or disparity?:
The question covers Question 3 in the 'in-class' test.
Intersectionality has put forward the argument that the interconnected identities of individuals, and the way these identities are perceived and responded to by others, must be a necessary part of any analysis.
Main points:
- identities continually operate together and affect each other.
- for some, these continually operating identities can change overtime.
Gender-
New theories are required that address these phenomena and that are devoid of stereotypical or debasing underpinnings.
Intersectionality and Criminology provides a comprehensive review of the need for, and use of, intersectionality in the study of crime, criminality, and the criminal legal system.
The question requires you to:
- Examine the discourse and debates surrounding gender and crime and draw on a human rights perspective and challenge the growing mantra that ‘all things are equal now’.
- Identify differentiated and complex patterns of equality and inequality in a gendered way.
- Identify whether prioritising the criminal justice system in our response to violence against women undermines the development of more effective ways to address the harms women face?
- Explore current responses to criminalised women and whether such responses are harmful.
CONCLUSION
What was found from the evaluation?
What was found from the analysis?
Recap objectives
Recap Aims
EVALUATION
Reform Needed
More interventions put into place to prevent offending and better treatment options for women who do offender.
Prison Service considers the needs and interests of a few male prisoners to be more important than the needs and interests of women currently in prison.
Possible for the Prison Service to revise its policy and create separate provision for transgender prisoners: one that respects their beliefs about their gender without expecting women prisoners to deal with the consequences.
Rights and Needs of Female Prisoners
Kathleen Daly (1998) states that “Pathways perception provides a framework to understand women’s unique routes to criminal behaviour.
Offered perhaps the most influential statement on the diversity of women’s pathways to crime (Daly 1992):
Economic Offenders
Battered Women
Crimes quite unlikely except for violent Significant Other, Similar to “1”, escapes and then commits minor crimes for survival
Harmed and Harming Women
Extreme child abuse/neglect - lifelong abuse.
Drug-connected Women
Street Women
Escape abuse, sexual victimization, runaways.
Most women in prison have experienced grotesque and traumatic male sexual and other violence- is it fair on women in prison to expect them to share their spaces with male-bodied prisoners?
SUPPORT
Legal Challenge
Judicial Review- R (on the application of AB) v Secretary of State for Justice [2009] EWHC 2220 (Admin)):
More awareness of the transition periods females pass through and the vulnerabilities at these point could allow for more effective, targeted early identification.
The court held that the decision to keep her in the male estate interfered with article 8 (as she could not live in role and so could not progress to full gender reassignment), and that the interference was not proportionate.
The judge held that a male to female transsexual prisoner with a GRC had to be transferred to the female estate even though one of her index offences was attempted rape of a woman.
Prison Rules and Instructions
refusal to transfer is only possible 'if the risk concerns surrounding the prisoner are sufficiently high that other women with an equivalent security profile would also be held in the male estate.‘
that 'Women offenders who present a high risk of harm to other women are managed safely in the female estate. Transgender women who pose similar risks should be managed in a similar way in the female estate.'
“Women prisoners shall normally be kept separate from male prisoners”, Unless there are exceptional circumstances... prisoners must be located according to their legal gender.‘ (Prison Rule 12(1))
-The risk posed to women is not 'exceptional' enough.
Prison Rule 12(1) :
- prisoners must be located according to their legal gender.
Challenges of locating a transgender prisoner in a prison 'appropriate to their acquired/affirmed gender'?
Karen White
Currently held at HM Prison Leeds, a category B men’s prison, and is undergoing gender reassignment surgery.
The decision to move White to a women’s prison was made public after she admitted in court to the sexual assault and to multiple rapes committed before she was sent to prison.
White entered the UK prison system as transgender. However, despite dressing as a woman, the 52-year-old had not undergone any surgery and was still legally a male. In September last year she was transferred to New Hall prison in West Yorkshire. During a three-month period at the female prison she sexually assaulted two other inmates.
Women and Equalities Committee report
“clear risk of harm” where trans prisoners are not located in a prison “appropriate to their acquired/affirmed gender”
The Gender Recognition Act, 2004 is “outdated” and “in need of significant revision.
the use of the terms ‘gender reassignment’ and ‘transsexual’ in the Equality Act 2010 are outdated and misleading.
Main topic
ANALYSE
However, some groups were of the opinion that the Equality Act, 2010 does not go far enough!
Gender Recognition Act, 2004
to allow people to apply to change their legal gender.
After a 2002 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in Goodwin and ‘I’ v UK against the UK government, Parliament passed the Gender Recognition Act of 2004
Progressive Steps in 'Equality':
Equality Act, 2010
One being- 'Gender Reassignment'
You can be at any stage in the transition process – from proposing to reassign your gender, to undergoing a process to reassign your gender, or having completed it.
To be protected from gender reassignment discrimination, you do not need to have undergone any specific treatment or surgery to change from your birth sex to your preferred gender.
Nine 'Protected Characteristics'
promotes a fair and more equal society.
Provides a legal framework to protect the rights of individuals and advance equality by protecting individuals from unfair treatment.
“progressive steps have been made in the celebration of diversity, difference and the plurality of femininities and masculinities” (Silvestri and Crowther-Dowey, 2016:35).
Evident in the range and diversity of 'gender' and 'sexuality'.
DESCRIBE
'Feminist Theory'
Sociology and criminology have both tended to be dominated by males. In the main they have been studied by men and the studies have been about men.
Comack (1999) suggests that a large part of the reason for feminists’ marginalisation from the mainstream discipline rests on the dualistic construction:
Men as Offenders
Women as Victims
When they were considered, the analysis tended to see female crime as a special case which resulted from characteristics linked to biology.
Before the emergence of the feminist perspective, women were largely invisible in sociological research.
Carol Smart (1990) put forward a number of reasons why research on women and crime has been limited:
Most crimes committed by women seem to be of a comparatively trivial nature.
Women tend to commit fewer crimes than men, so female offenders are seen as less of a problem for society.
DEFINE
Understanding responses to Gender through a 'Rights-Based' Perspective.
Promote
the visibility of such vulnerable groups
Expose
the unequal relations that exist between men and women and emphasise the gendered nature of the CJS
Provoke
greater discussion about the location and enactment of power
Unify
the experiences of vulnerable groups
Intersectionality- The theory of how different types of oppressions interact and impact people’s lives.
INTRODUCTION
Reasoning
Content
Context
Objective-
Aim-
