Thread by @Womans_Place_UK

We are setting up here for A Woman’s Place is NOT in prison. We are looking forward to a brilliant discussion tonight. If you can’t be here in person. you can follow #WPUKPrisons for live tweets. Speakers will be filmed and recordings uploaded to our YouTube channel.

Welcome from Charlie Weinberg from Centre for Crime and Justice Studies #wpukprisons

I believe women in prison are each different and distinct, says Charlie Weinberg #WPUKprisons

Must also remember women in immigration detention centres, who are often overlooked #WPUKprisons

Women in prison tend to receive shorter sentences than their male counterparts, 62% serve less than six months in custody #WPUKprisons

86% of women have a serious head injury as a direct result of domestic violence (reference to Scottish prisons) #WPUKprisons

Big cheer from the audience for Allison Bailey, who is chairing the evening's proceedings #WPUKprisons

The state is locking up some of its most vulnerable women, many of whom have been the victims of male violence #WPUKprisons

There are signs that lawmakers are coming to their senses. #WPUKprisons

Allison introduces Frances Crook who has been CEO of the Howard League since 1986 #WPUKprisons

Frances tells the audience she retires as CEO on Friday. #WPUKprisons

The whole criminal justice system is no place for women. I don't want to make prisons a better place - I want to close them down. #WPUKprisons

Howard League reviewed data on 600 women who had been arrested. One force arrested 17 women in one day, 13 of whom led to no further action and a teenage girl arrested for smashing crockery in her home. #WPUKprisons

Each year about 5k women are sent to prison either on remand or sentenced. A lot will go for quite a short time. Majority of remanded women will not get a prison sentence. #WPUKprisons

Women's prisons today still under severe restrictions (that were put in place during Covid lockdown). #WPUKprisons

Howard League has been overseeing APPG on Women in the Penal System. Yesterday Chief Inspector said he found one prison where 20 women had to share two toilets. Prison conditions are really grim for women. #WPUKprisons

Prison is not a safe place for women if they are in extreme mental distress. #WPUKprisons

My call is to abolish prisons for women says Frances. #WPUKprisons

Women's sex-based services in the community provide support to women who would otherwise be in prison. They work, they grew out of my second wave feminism. #WPUKprisons

The government plans to build 500 more prison places for women. A number of organisations are campaigning to stop that happening. #WPUKprisons

Frances ends with a reading by Maya Angelou. poetryfoundation.org/poems/48985/ph… #WPUKprisons

Next speaker is Lucy Baldwin, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at De Montfort University @LucyBaldwin08 #WPUKprisons

18k children annually affected by maternal imprisonment #WPUKprisons

Only 5% of children whose mothers are in prison stay at home #WPUKprisons

Women in prison are located on average 60 miles away from home #WPUKprisons

We are criminalising poverty and trauma says @LucyBaldwin08 #WPUKprisons

Some women find visits so painful. What do we think women think when they go back to their cells? Many women opt not to have visits. #WPUKprisons

We continue to send pregnant women to prison. #WPUKprisons

One in ten women in prison are giving birth in cells. We've had two dead babies born in prison in the last two years. #WPUKprisons

We can't have good criminal justice without good social justice. We have to divert women away from custody. #WPUKprisons

Next speaker is actress @francesbarber13 who will read the thoughts and feelings of a selection of female prisons. #WPUKprisons

@francesbarber13 Frances referring to recent judicial review of Ministry of Justice transgender prison accommodation policy. #WPUKprisons

Judges said they were being asked to rule on lawfulness not the desirability of the policy. #WPUKprisons

Copy of the MoJ judicial review judgment can be read here: bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/…

"You cannot change your bone structure or genetics. I also do not appreciate being called a cis woman. I'm a woman. I don't appreciate being given a gender identity that the trans community have conjured up." #WPUKprisons

"Women fought the right to be heard but now transwomen are trying to push it to the sidelines. Well, this will never happen." #WPUKprisons

"I think if you're born a man you should be in a man's jail." #WPUKprisons

"We're not cis. We're just women defending ourselves. Transwomen should not be in women's prisons. They're a danger to us." #WPUKprisons

Allison Bailey introduces @JoPhoenix1 Professor of Criminology at the Open University. #WPUKprisons

Hope this evening kickstarts a campaign to get the Ministry of Justice to apply the single sex exemptions in women's prisons. #WPUKprisons

Jo quotes Angela Davis: "Our quest for justice remains a constant struggle" #WPUKprisons

Prisons are in general a colossal failure in relation to dealing with crime. There is no relationship between rates of incarceration and crime rates. #WPUKprisons

Prisons are unique places. Prisons are designed around one simple process: to deprive people of their liberty. Those in there have no control over who they associate with. #WPUKprisons

We believe that from November 2021, the number of GRC holders in prison will be recorded. #WPUKprisons

The judicial review revealed that the MoJ policy was not based on evidence. There is no research that poses simple questions such as: do the panel who make decisions about prison placements take into account women's thoughts or feelings? There's been no research. #WPUKprisons

Women in prison are often sentenced according to the courts' assessments of them as mothers, wives, sisters and daughters. #WPUKprisons

There is a strange paradoxical effect of placing women in prison: they sometimes get respite from male violence they experience outside prison. #WPUKprisons

The minimum standard we should expect of the government is that they ensure that those women are not placed at increased risk of trauma from the presence of male bodies. It doesn't seem a lot to ask. #WPUKprisons

In the real world, the empirical evidence about male violence is clear, robust and compelling. It is not transphobic to say that men who are transgender need to be excluded. This is about prioritising women's needs and rights. #WPUKprisons

Jo referring to experience after speaking at previous WPUK event and her subsequent treatment by Essex University. You can watch Jo's previous speech here:

You can read more about it on Jo's crowdfunder page: crowdjustice.com/case/harassed-…

My harassers brought me to my knees this summer but like my namesake, I rise, says Jo. #WPUKprisons

In the UK in 2021, women's access to justice is for the most part an illusion. #WPUKprisons

Standing ovation from the audience for Jo. #WPUKprisons

Allison introduces the final speaker, Rosie Duffield MP. #WPUKprisons

The single biggest trap is poverty. Women with no agency, no choices, nowhere to turn to. #WPUKprisons

We have to advocate for the voiceless women in prisons. It's our duty as feminists. #WPUKprisons

It shouldn't be radical in 2021 to want to stop women being imprisoned for being poor. #WPUKprisons

As a legislator, I am here to learn from you as experts. #WPUKprisons

Speaking from the audience, Harriet Wistrich notes the need for data/proper analysis so we can understand the situation as well as the fear women have about making complaints within the prison system. #WPUKprisons

Jo Phoenix says we don't even have basic statistics. I'd like to get into these systems to understand what is going on. #WPUKprisons

Rosie Duffield says lawmakers need this analysis to make law. #WPUKprisons

Frances Crook says women turn in on themselves rather than expressing or externalising their anger and distress. It's one reason why the self-injury rate is so high. #WPUKprisons

Allison Bailey says government should issue guidelines that women raising concerns about transgender prisoners should not be treated as being transphobic. #WPUKprisons

Question about where male transgender prisoners should be held. Frances Crook says she does not need why there should not be a special unit. There are lots of special units for other categories of prisoners. #WPUKprisons

Rosie Duffield: we are sending a message that women's safety is unimportant. #WPUKprisons

Audience member says she spoke with a member of the Prisons Officers Association who said that most prison officers are against having male transgender prisoners in women's prisons. How can we use that to benefit our cause? #WPUKprisons

Frances Crook says that female prison officers have to do strip searches on transwomen and are not allowed to complain. #WPUKprisons

Audience member says HMP Holloway was closed but women were then displaced to prisons outside London. #WPUKprisons

Frances Crook: it's always the women who suffer when there is a reorganisation. #WPUKprisons

Rosie Duffield: we need to look at women as whole valid human beings. #WPUKprisons

Question from audience about hate crime and the merits of making misogyny a hate crime. #WPUKprisons

Allison Bailey thinks it has nothing to do with protecting women. Jo Phoenix: instead of creating new laws, let's enforce the laws we have already. #WPUKprisons

Audience member congratulates Rosie Duffield for being a lone voice in the Labour party. Huge cheer from the audience. #WPUKprisons

Allison Bailey thanks all speakers for their contributions. #WPUKprisons

Catia Freitas says we need to ask whether it is ever right or appropriate for women to share such spaces with males however they identify. #WPUKprisons

Catia quotes from blog by Bea Jaspert on WPUK website: womansplaceuk.org/2021/10/12/pri…

At the centre of all this is one simple premise: sex matters, says Catia Freitas. Sex matters for women because it is on the basis of sex that women's bodies and labour is appropriated and on the basis of sex that we are discriminated against. #WPUK prisons

Sex-based separatism is not the same segregation. Segregation is imposed by a dominant population. #WPUKprisons

If we are denied this, that will be simultaneously a denial of structural and institutional misogyny and a manifestation of that same structural and institutional misogyny. #WPUKprisons

Solidarity with our lesbian sisters, says Catia, referring to reaction to yesterday's article on the BBC website. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…

You have the right to name your sexual orientation. Your first no should suffice. Shame on Stonewall for failing to hear you out. #WPUKprisons

Off to the pub we go, says Catia. "As J K Rowling said: we will win." #WPUKprisons