Can I ask what’s with the current backlash about female criminals being in prison in the UK?

MazerTag · 2022-07-27T05:14:49+00:00

"Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat."

-Hillary Clinton

You want an answer? It's because feminists always have to make everything about themselves because they lack empathy. If you tell them men are suffering, they do not try to help. Instead, they argue that women are suffering more. They demean, belittle, and shame because they understand that government and private funding for causes is often a zero-sum game. "If we allow the first men's shelter to be built, we'll have less money for the fifth women's shelter in this city!"

If they claim feminism is for equality, ask them what they've done to make men's lives better. The best you'll get is "rising tide" tripe, where they say helping women helps men.

Better_Repeat · 2022-07-27T09:14:40+00:00

As someone from the UK, I have seen this crop up regularly over the years. Women are explicitly given greater leniency in sentencing; it is an overt policy not an unconscious phenomena. Abolishment of womens' prisons, and only womens' prisons, is advocated for by numerous womens' groups and parlimentary committees in the UK.

The most common arguments are:

It is somehow crueller to keep women away from their children (and all women have children, right?), reinforcing the notion of the mother being the 'primary' parent
Because there are fewer womens' prisons, incarcerated women tend to have to be moved further away from home
Women tend to recieve lower sentences and commit less 'serious' crimes, so alternative forms of justice would be appropriate
Prison was 'made by men, for men' and is unsuitable for women

Point 1 is something a feminist might argue against in other contexts, but I have never seen pushback against it in this context. Even generally, there is a tacit belief that mothers simply matter more. While I do think that breastfeeding is extremely important for a very young infant, it is not the singular function of a parent and it is only important very early on. Alternatives are, however, available (not formula, fuck Nestlé et al.), such as wet nursing and donations.

Point 2 could perhaps be argued to be the most reasonable, but this may be a function of women having received greater leniency in sentencing already.

Point 3 is specious because women already receive greater leniency in sentencing for equivalent crimes. Furthermore, there is absolutely no reason that men who commit less serious crimes should not similarly be spared prison, except that people just do not give a shit and the entire function of prison is to throw 'bad' men away and forget about them, perhaps get a bit of slave labour out of them. Often it is not considered 'cost effective' to rehabilitate men through alternative measures.

Point 4 throws 'gender equality' out of the window altogether, but again there is radio silence on this point from feminists. Prison is an archaic and deeply draconian measure that is in dire need of reform. It is essentially the same as medieval dungeons have always been, but people never really bothered to think of better or more effective ways to handle justice and rehabilitation. The idea that it was made 'by men, for men' is utterly asinine - it is not a luxury resort, locking someone up in a dungeon was simply how feudal lords dealt with 'troublesome subjects'.

It appears, however, that prison reform is simply more generally palatable when it is solely focused on womens' prison. Of course men should rot in a prison for their crimes and who cares? But women are fundamentally good, so we should treat them much better than men.

Agreeable-Raspberry5 · 2022-07-27T06:35:54+00:00

There are genuinely a lot of people in prison who shouldn't be. Especially for minor offences especially involving drugs, and the main effect of imprisonment is that it turns small-time offenders into people whose only choice is crime. This is IMHO what efforts should be towards - reducing the use of imprisonment so that only violent crimes get prison time. But current opinion makes it all about not imprisoning women. They point to issues like, A large proportion of female offenders have been abused. But then when you look into it, it appears a large proportion of male offenders have also been abused.
It's also stated that 'prison is a male invention aimed towards dealing with men, not women.' What this ignores is that it's a ruling class invention aimed towards dealing with working-class and marginalised people.
Women are something like 4% of the prison population in the UK. I suspect they are outnumbered by the number of men who really, really shouldn't be doing time.

DouglasMilnes · 2022-07-27T09:51:51+00:00

It is a movement gaining ground globally, with central funding within UN circles.

The UK's Baroness Corston summed up the kind of thinking behind it when she announced that equality doesn't mean treating everyone the same.

Meanwhile, William Collins of empathygap.uk determined that if men in the judicial system were treated like women, only one in six male prison inmates would be in prison.

peanutbutterjams · 2022-07-27T07:21:28+00:00

Because one of the unexamined assumptions in our society is the tradition of assigning hypo-agency for women and hyper-agency to men.

Women are never truly responsible; men are always ultimately responsible.

You can see this in the "theory" of patriarchy. Men are responsible for everything (bad) about society while women constantly struggle against a society for which they have no responsibility but which definitely has a responsibility to them.

If women are disadvantaged, it's because society hasn't helped them enough.

If men are disadvantaged, it's because they haven't helped themselves enough.

Now apply this to prison: female inmates are probably only there because society mistreated them but male inmates are definitely there because they mistreated society.

vegano-aureo · 2022-07-27T05:54:57+00:00

That reminds me of the Cynthoia brown situation. She wouldn't have been freed as a man in the same situation. I found it so strange how the people were so ready to look past murder and actually think her victim deserved it.

schebobo180 · 2022-07-27T08:29:24+00:00

Stuff like this is exactly why I am not a feminist.

Hypocrisy upon Hypocrisy.

Equality only when it benefits women.

Global_County_6601 · 2022-07-27T06:32:28+00:00

Would you mind linking examples of this, if you can find any. As an American I’m not up to speed on situations in the UK

Deadlocked02 · 2022-07-27T12:19:03+00:00

My impression is that one of the core ideas behind gendered prison abolitionism is the notion that many of the women who are locked up were wronged by a biased court after killing their abusive husbands, which takes us back to theories like Battered woman syndrome and the unilateralism of domestic violence defended by proponents of the Duluth Model.

DifferenceThat8887 · 2022-07-27T05:18:14+00:00

I'm against imprisonment where possible but yeah its basically just the same cognitive bias towards viewing women as inherently good and men as deserving to suffer that causes other things. Ironically its extremely patriarchal. Women who commit crimes are assumed to simply be mentally ill, traumatized, or forced into it, as if women are incapable of exercising agency and being bad people.

I imagine at least some of the activists are pretty fucked up people themselves and genuinely empathize with women who are murderers etc

DanteLivra · 2022-07-27T17:30:14+00:00

Because women are victms even when they victimize other people.

neighborhoodpainter · 2022-07-27T20:25:00+00:00

Women are wonderful. We must infantilise women. What's also funny is that women, who commit the same crimes as men, get far lower sentencing. And supposedly, prison is a male punishment.

When a man commits a crime, he's evil, horrible, and should rot in prison.

When a woman commits a crime, she's just a victim. She was influenced by bad men, she was under stress, don't be too angry at her, etc.

griii2 · 2022-07-27T13:27:17+00:00

u/GavRhino What MPs seem to be concerned? Can you link to a source? Thanks!

AmDuck_quack · 2022-07-28T03:09:03+00:00

Many leftists agree the current prison system sucks. I've only read one article and it was linked in these comments but from what I read it seems like a minority of prison haters decided to focus on why it's bad for women specifically. Just like how in America some decide to focus on why it's bad for poor people, black people, trans people, or any other minority.

hangfrog · 2022-07-27T09:25:40+00:00

current backlash about female criminals being in prison in the UK?

There isn't one.. not a peep on the news.

ihateforcedlogin · 2022-07-28T09:08:41+00:00

Just seen something along these lines on the ABC:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-28/hawaii-reduced-incarceration-to-zero-girls-imprisoned-here-s-how/101237740

Title	Can I ask what’s with the current backlash about female criminals being in prison in the UK?
Author	GavRhino
Upvotes	133
Comments	64
Date	July 27, 2022 4:49 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/w95fgg/can_i_ask_whats_with_the_current_backlash_about/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/can-i-ask-whats-with-the-current-backlash-about.1125556 https://theredarchive.com/post/1125556

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