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United Kingdom: sexual assaults in women's prison reignite debate over transgender inmates
Prison reformer criticises ‘decisions that have harmed women’ in Karen White case.
A leading prison reformer has said prisoners who have committed violent offences against women should not be able to transfer to women’s prisons if they have not legally changed their gender, after it emerged that a transgender inmate had sexually assaulted fellow prisoners after transferring to a women’s prison.
Karen White was on remand for multiple rapes and other sexual offences against women when she transferred to New Hall prison, near Wakefield.
Last week it emerged that after transferring to the female prison, she was accused of four sexual assaults against other inmates between September and November last year, before being moved to a men’s prison.
White admitted to the sexual assault of two inmates when she appeared at Leeds crown court on Thursday to admit to a rape she had committed before she was sent to prison.
Frances Crook, the chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said vulnerable women were being put at risk by a small number of violent men whose primary interest was harming women.
“It is a very toxic debate, but I think prisons have probably been influenced by some of the extreme conversations and have been bullied into making some decisions that have harmed women and put staff in an extremely difficult position,” she said.
The government is currently carrying out a consultation about reforming the Gender Recognition Act to make the process of changing gender in England and Wales – which can take up to five years – “less intrusive and bureaucratic for transgender people”.
It has stated that “we are not necessarily proposing self-declaration of gender”, but some groups opposed to the changes fear a process of self-identification could give dangerous men posing as trans women access to vulnerable women, such as those in prisons.
Trans rights groups say prisons are already required to scrutinise each request and analyse risks, and argue that transgender prisoners are among the most vulnerable inmates and are let down by the current system.
The Ministry of Justice has apologised in White’s case and said previous offending history was not taken into account. Requests for transfer from prisoners whose legal gender does not accord with their self-identified gender are normally assessed by a transgender case board, “which should consider all previous offending history”, but this was not carried out in this case.