14 Comments

As the trans "community" force male sex offending statistics into the category of women's offending they are making statistically true their cry of "women do it too". The crime that these silent criminologists are committing is to aid the collapse of safeguarding for women against violent men. They should go and become checkout assistants or bin emptiers or street cleaners or something else where they are not responsible for the lives of others.

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Clear, up to point, and intellectually honest. It was a pleasure to read, even for one like me who is no expert in your research field.

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Indeed, where are the criminologists? Also, where are the forensic psychiatrists and forensic psychologists in this? Or do you not have the latter in the UK?

Forgot to say (sorry): excellent article, thanks for writing it and, hopefully, for alerting people.

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Thank you for sharing your knowledge and speaking out!

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Thank you. This absolutely needs to be shouted out loud. Having supported women serving long prison sentences for more than 25 years I know how vulnerable many of them are. More academic criminologists need to join you in speaking out.

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I retired from my SL post in Criminology from a large West Yorkshire university after 25 years teaching undergraduate students about 2 and half years ago. Prior to this I was a probation officer. I so agree with you. I remember new young members of staff presenting modules entitled "sex work" being applauded by most members of the team including colleagues who were researching and teaching on domestic violence. I was called out as "whorephobic". I became highly disillusioned within criminology and felt queer theory was becoming a central focus and mantra for many academics from within both sociology and criminology. Friends for instance (senior lecturers) in psychology were deeply worried and concerned about the way MAPs is seeping into the psychology programme without any full on critical evaluation or assessment. Since leaving I have met with some criminology colleagues from other uk universities who like me felt very much alone. All of them have said they are in fact highly fearful about speaking out in case they are branded as troublemakers and lose the goodwill and support from other staff members. Its a very sorry and sordid state of affairs. I find it incredible that solidarity and collegiality amongst friends, colleagues, comrades is almost non-existent. Its really painful to observe. However UCU must and should take responsibility and ownership for some of this. They have behaved monstrously encouraging the bullying and othering of highly respected academics, as you yourself know only too well. I really felt the only option available to me was in retiring, although I could easily have carried on teaching, I found it was becoming unbearable being the lone voice within criminology. You are wonderful and brave and am sure like me and many others wish you well for the future.

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and if anyone needs any help with specific statistics here is my website: https://www.sexsegregatedprisons.info/home where the original MOJ FOI requests are published with accumulations of years and percentages. [Dimyon 2021]

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Great that you obtained these stats. Anecdotal evidence suggests that there is concentration of trans identifying prisoners in certain prisons. That may be more difficult to ascertain, given releases, movements, etc.

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And weirdly….. it’s the private prisons…….. saying nothing

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and of course do find me on twitter and ask.

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Thank you for speaking up about this. I’m a third year criminology student and my dissertation is on this very subject. I’m experiencing a fair amount of pushback but I’m determined to push ahead. I hope to speak with former female prisoners about their experiences/feelings of male-bodied individuals in the female estate. As you say, so few criminologists are speaking up about this so your input has proven invaluable. Thank you!

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Thank YOU for pushing back!

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Good luck Natalie, hope all goes well.

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This is a brilliant piece. Thank you so much for writing it!

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