Governors fight putting trans inmates in women’s jails The Times 04.06.18

The original article is here.

Prison governors say that there is a risk to women’s safety if transgender sex offenders held in men’s prisons are transferred to female jails.

In four of the largest male-only sex offender prisons, Littlehey, Isle of Wight, Stafford and Whatton, 34 inmates are living as women, according to Ministry of Justice figures.

There were 100 transgender prisoners in men’s jails and 25 in women’s prisons in April last year, with 18 in maximum security prisons, according to a freedom of information request submitted by Fair Play for Women.

A prisoner may move from a men’s to a women’s jail only if they have a gender recognition certificate, which requires a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and to have lived as a woman for two years, but does not require surgery.

Andrea Albutt, president of the Prison Governors Association, told The Mail on Sunday: “I have seen women feeling very threatened by transgender prisoners’ presence . . . To put men who declare they are women into women’s prisons would be very damaging.”

The ministry of justice said that “robust safeguards exist to prevent abuse of this system”.