A rapist locked in a prison with women: what can go wrong?
On the heels of Jessica Winfield, the rapist born Martin Ponting who was moved to a women’s prison after undergoing a sex change, and who, allegedly, was isolated from female lags after making unwelcome sexual advances, we meet Davina Ayrton, formerly David. Davina Ayrton is starting an eight year prison term for taping a 15-year-old schoolgirl in a Portsmouth garage. Davina is still in possession of her male genitalia.
And so to the moral maze: in court Ayrton expressed a desire to serve her time in a women’s prison. Is it right that rapist is housed in a women’s prison? Can it be right that female prisoners are housed with a convicted rapist? Whose rights are at stake here: the rapist who wants to be a woman; or women?
It can only be right and proper that the government works hard to understand the lot of transgender prisoners. Government figures suggest there are 0.8 transgender prisoners reported per 1,000 prisoners in custody. There are about 88,000 people in UK prisoners. Is it time for a trans-only prison?
In 2015, trans woman Tara Hudson was sentenced to 12 weeks in the all-male Bristol Prison. Her mother Jackie Brooklyn told the Bath Chronicle: “I want Tara to be the last victim of a system which desperately needs bringing into the modern world.” Hudson told the BBC: “I could tell that they weren’t really ready for a prisoner like myself. Because of my gender identity they felt they had to lock me up in segregation and keep me away from the main population of the prison. I felt like I was being persecuted by the state… I felt I had no rights.. I felt like an animal in a zoo.”
Add her ordeal to the fates of Vicky Thompson, 21, and Joanne Latham, 38, from Nottingham, who were both sent to male prisons and the picture for trans prisoners is bleak.
Something needs to be done, for certain. But housing convicted rapists with women is not it.
Posted: 20th, November 2017 | In: News Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
