MLAs reject attempt to keep men out of women’s prisons

The Northern Ireland Assembly has rejected calls to ensure that men who claim to be female are not housed in women’s jails.

The Private Members’ motion ‘Protection of Rights and Safety in Custodial Facilities’, which urged Justice Minister Naomi Long to bring forward legislation requiring that prisoners are housed according to biological sex, failed by 33 votes to 48 against.

Currently, such decisions are made on a case-by-case basis. A man known as Michelle James is seeking legal action for being placed in a men’s prison before he was transferred to the women’s section of Hydebank Wood.

‘Serious consequences’

Ulster Unionist Party MLA Doug Beattie, who co-authored the motion, said the current approach is a “mess” and female prisoners are never “consulted before a biological male is placed in their midst”.

He emphasised that over “the past number of years, many women have felt that their rights have been undermined”, but he insisted that they deserve female-only spaces such as prisons, medical facilities and rape crisis centres.

Joanne Bunting, DUP MLA for East Belfast, added: “Safety and safeguarding must come first. Allowing biological males to reside among the female prisoner population risks undermining those protections and could have serious consequences for the safety and dignity of women.”

In response to the debate, Justice Minister Naomi Long criticised the motion for being “fundamentally flawed” and reiterated her support for the prison service’s current policy.

Strip search

In November, the British Transport Police (BTP) came under fire for allowing male officers who identify as female to strip search women.

Women’s rights charity Sex Matters wrote to Chief Constable Lucy D’Orsi threatening legal action if the guidance was not removed, arguing that it breached women’s human rights.

In another policy, BTP allowed staff to wear the uniform and use showers and changing rooms of “whichever gender they choose”.