Thread by @Conviction19c

1823 Gaol Act ruled prisoners in England & Wales be kept separate by sex

“The male and female prisoners shall be confined in separate buildings or parts of the prison so as to prevent them from seeing, conversing or holding any intercourse with each other”

#KeepPrisonsSingleSex

By law, a matron had to be employed to supervise the female side of each prison, with women assistants, while any male visitor, including the gaoler, had to be accompanied by a female official.

#KeepPrisonsSingleSex

Followed recommendation by the prison reformer Mrs Elizabeth Fry appeared before the House of Commons Committee “On the Prisons in the Metropolis” 27 February 1818

This was historic first time a woman gave evidence to a select committee in Parliament

#KeepPrisonsSingleSex

Elizabeth Fry's recommendations to Parliament were based on work with women prisoners and children at Newgate Gaol, assisted by Ladies Committee of fellow Quakers.

#KeepPrisonsSingleSex

At first Elizabeth Fry simply intended to open a school for the women's children. The Newgate Gaoler said there was no room for one. The women prisoners showed Mrs Fry a room where the school could take place

#KeepPrisonsSingleSex

Women asked to be taught as well

‘Want of employment, was the subject of their continual lamentation. They complained that they were compelled to be idle, and that having nothing else to do, they were obliged to pass away the time doing wrong’

#KeepPrisonsSingleSex

In a few months learned to read & write.

Ladies supplied them with work

Women made nearly twenty thousand articles of clothing in a few months

"The earnings of work, we think, average about eighteenpence per week, for each person."

#KeepPrisonsSingleSex

Earnings used in prison to clothe women and pay for treats like tea and sugar and also given to them on release.

Women said “they wished to give up their little share of the profit” to give to convict women about to be transported

#KeepPrisonsSingleSex

Fry said of Newgate women

"Their zeal for improvement, and their assurances of good behaviour, were powerful motives and they tempted these ladies to project a school . . . for teaching them to read, and to work’

#KeepPrisonsSingleSex

How Elizabeth Fry convinced MPs to #KeepPrisonsSingleSex

“There is one very important thing which ought to be stated on the subject of women. Women should be taken care of entirely by women, and have no male attendants, unless it be a medical man, or any minister of religion”

Elizabeth Fry 1818

“for I am convinced that much harm arises from the communication [with men], not only to the women [prisoners] themselves, but those that have the care of them.”

#KeepPrisonsSingleSex

Elizabeth Fry to MPs 1818

“I should like to have a prison which had nothing to do with men.”

1823 Gaol Act followed her advice

Women kept separate from males on "female side" of prisons under authority of matron and female warders

#KeepPrisonsSingleSex

International agreements follow Elizabeth Fry's principle of separating male & female prisoners

See United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (1955), reiterated in 2015 version "the Nelson Mandela Rules"

UK is signatory

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Nelson Mandela Rules 2015

Men and women should be ‘detained in separate institutions’ and, if this is impossible, ‘the whole of the premises allocated to women shall be entirely separate’ (Rule 11)

unodc.org/documents/just…

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Nelson Mandela Rules 2015

Female prisoners should be “attended and supervised only by women” and no male staff, including doctors and teachers, should be allowed entry “unless accompanied by a woman staff member”. (Rule 81).

#KeepPrisonsSingleSex

Nelson Mandela Rules 2015

Intrusive searches—including strip and body cavity searches—should be “conducted in private and by trained staff of the same sex as the prisoner” (Rule 52)

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Current prison policy & practice of housing trans-identified males into female prisons contravenes the internationally agreed Nelson Mandela Rules to which the UK is a signatory

#KeepPrisonsSingleSex

During debates over Gender Recognition Bill 2003-4, only 2 Parliamentarians asked about impact of Bill on female prisoners. Neither questions properly addressed.

#KeepPrisonsSingleSex

Baroness Buscombe asked if an individual who acquired a gender recognition certificate without undergoing genital surgery would have the right to “share a prison cell, nurses’ quarters or sports changing facilities with others of their chosen gender?"

#KeepPrisonsSingleSex

Even if they had surgery, “should we not consider the feelings of those with whom that person shares very private areas? Whose human rights take precedence? How does one judge in individual circumstances what is balanced and proportionate? It is very difficult for all concerned.”

Tim Loughton MP asked where an individual who had applied but not yet received a certificate be accommodated - “or is this something else that the Government need to think about but have not...?”

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David Lammy:

“Prisoners can apply and that person will be subject to prison arrangements for their new acquired gender. We are talking about a very small group of people and the hon. Gentleman knows that that situation would arise in limited circumstances”

#KeepPrisonsSingleSex