Thread by @NoXYinXXprisons

In this penultimate thread we will be setting out our work & achievements for prisons in England & Wales. Our final thread will be on Scotland.

We will also use this thread to set out some of the gatekeeping. exclusion, interference in our work, abuse, gaslighting & bullying Kate/KPSS has been subjected to. This has come from groups & individuals across the GC “movement”. We won’t name names so please don’t ask us to. This may help some of you to understand why we have decided to close KPSS.

KPSS was set up in July 2020 by Kate with what was a small Twitter account. By 2021 our work was having an impact: this included well-attended briefings for Parliamentarians and professionals working in the CJS, regular written and oral parliamentary questions that enabled us to find out information that we could not access otherwise, successful media engagement.

One of the most important pieces of work we did was the two lots of “prisons amendments” to the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill brought in the House of Lords. You can read about that here:

kpssinfo.org/house-of-lords…

These amendments came at a time when the MoJ was revising the policy that permitted male prisoners to be allocated to women’s prisons: that policy had lead to many bad decisions as it was based on a flawed “risk assessment” which also gave preferential treatment to those with GRCs, no matter their conviction.

One might have thought that Kate would have been supported in the prisons amendments within the GC “movement”. However she was met with contemptuous sneering for choosing the “wrong” peers and was told no one would want to know. There were attempts to take them over that included issuing inaccurate briefings. Finally, she was instructed to abandon them, told that they were just “blundering” and that “prisons must take its turn”. Kate was upset, anxious & confused.

Kate consulted her own advisors, external to the GC “movement” who urged her to continue, explaining that this was a one off opportunity that would not come again, particularly in consideration of the timing around the MoJ policy review. We continued with the amendments. Through these amendments we got almost 3 hours debate in Parliament & extensive media coverage. It was a major tipping point in getting the MoJ policy changed.

After the amendments Kate was given a complete rollocking for having disobeyed and not done as she was told. This was an extremely difficult & isolating time.

It was clear that by 2021 there was consolidated activity between the Main GC Groups, with the aim of maximising overall reach. It was also clear that KPSS was not included. One of the factors Kate discussed with her advisors was whether pushing ahead with the prisons amendments could result in further exclusion. We decided that it was a risk worth taking. We are unconvinced that if Kate had done as she was told that the gatekeeping and exclusion would have turned out any differently, but we do believe that Kate’s “bad behaviour” gave the gatekeepers “justification” for their decision to keep Kate/KPSS on the other side of what has been a firmly closed door.

The work to get the allocation policy changed continued throughout 2022. Hardworking women & grassroots feminists groups (you forever have our respect & admiration - thank you) facilitated a series of prisons protests throughout the UK. You can read about these here:



However, there were moves to interfere with our work here too. One group spread damaging lies nationally intended to undermine Kate’s integrity - these still come back to her 2 years later. Simultaneously the same group also sought to poach members of the KPSS team to set up their alternative prisons group making out that KPSS had somehow agreed to this.kpssinfo.org/protests/

We also did work in the media with whistleblowers, keeping the pressure on the MoJ. Much of that work was behind the scenes and you won’t see our name mentioned in any of these key articles. The crunch moment came in August 2022, when Dominic Raab announced that the policy would change:



The new policy that came into force in early 2023 placed restrictions on the allocation criteria that permit men to be held in the female estate. Whilst by no means perfect, fewer men than ever before are now in women’s prisons and crucially having a GRC no longer makes a difference. We have always argued for GRC-blind policies and were delighted that this new one conformed to that standard. The importance of this policy internationally cannot be understated: it set a global precedent for minimum standards for women’s safety with a starting position that considered the risk to women in prison, not the wishes of male prisoners. Again, thanks to the MoJ for engaging in good faith: the contrast with SPS could not be more stark.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…

Another key success came earlier this year. Since 2023, we have been supporting 3 prisoners who have been sanctioned in different ways for “transphobic speech”. That support has taken different forms & for 1 prisoner involved obtaining senior KC’s opinion. May 2024 saw the release of the new Adjudications Policy Framework which specifies that no prisoner can be compelled to use “preferred” pronouns and which sets a high bar for language or behaviour to be a matter for disciplinary action. We are confident that none of the 3 prisoners we have supported would face sanction under this new policy.

Since the prisons amendments in late 2021/early 2022, we have seen the expansion of “GC activity” throughout parliament and policy think tanks. In overall terms, access to ministers, parliamentarians, civil servants & policy “wonks” has increased. By contrast, our reach has diminished: any success we have had for women in prison depended upon the work we did in 2021 and those very few individuals who have chosen to continue to engage with us. Our observation is that our diminished reach is the result of highly effective gatekeeping: those few individuals who will still engage & the work that results are, in our view, the exception that prove the rule.

Kate has tried for years to rectify the situation, offering our help & assistance, expressing genuine willingness to find a solution. She has always been unsuccessful. On one occasion where she was asked to present at a meeting she was told that this was a one-off non-repeatable event and she should not think this signified any change in the status quo.

As well as the detrimental effect on our work, the psychological & emotional impact on KPSS team members has been immense. We have been lied to, gaslit, told to stop complaining and advised to simply work harder. In tandem KPSS and in particular Kate have been insulted and rubbished, people including those in Parliament have been instructed not to work with her, she has been described as untrustworthy and “difficult”, she has been insulted and laughed at. We are acutely aware of what we could have achieved under different circumstances. And that includes for female offenders.

The situation, which we consider to be bullying, we have faced is entrenched and systemic. Individually, & as an organisation, we are broken.

Our final thread will be on Scotland.

@threadreaderapp please unroll