Male prisoners who claim to be women will be initially placed in a men’s jail pending a long-term assessment, the Scottish Prison Service has announced.
In an unreleased report, the prison service said the new policy would remain in place until it has the findings from its 2019 Gender Identity and Gender Reassignment review.
Until then, no man currently in jail with a record of violence against women will be transferred to a female prison, and only in “exceptional circumstances” could a new convict with such history be placed in a women’s jail with ministerial approval.
‘Abandoning self-ID’
Under 2014 guidance, the prison service stated that “accommodation provided must be the one that best suits the person in custody’s needs and should reflect the gender in which the person in custody is currently living”.
But following an outcry when convicted rapist Adam Graham was initially placed in a segregated unit in a women’s prison, Police Scotland recently announced that men who claim to be women would no longer automatically be moved to women’s prisons.
Russell Findlay MSP, the Scottish Conservatives’ Deputy Party Spokesperson on Community Safety, welcomed the new policy for “effectively abandoning the principle of self-ID”, but criticised the Scottish Government for not releasing the full report to the public.
‘Utterly irresponsible’
Speaking to Scotland’s justice and social affairs magazine ‘1919’, the Chairman of the Scottish Police Federation also slammed Holyrood for not consulting the police force over the ramifications of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill.
The Bill, now blocked by Westminster, would have allowed 16-year-olds to change their legal sex by self-declaration without a medical diagnosis.
Instead of simply preventing sex offenders from applying to change legal sex, the Bill required police to carry out a risk assessment.
David Hamilton said: “It was utterly irresponsible of the Scottish Parliament to foist this additional workload on Police Scotland at such a late stage in proceedings.”
utterly irresponsible of the Scottish Parliament
Pushback
Earlier this week, Police Scotland defied the Scottish Government’s push to refer to people by their self-declared gender by acknowledging a gender-confused suspect to be a man.
Andrew George Miller, who has been using the name Amy for six years, was arrested in connection with the disappearance of an eleven-year-old girl in the Scottish Borders.
A Police Scotland spokesman confirmed the suspect to be a “53-year-old man”, instead of echoing his claim to be a woman.
In line with the prison service’s new policy, Miller has now been placed in a men’s prison.
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