From Mexico to the United States to the United Kingdom and beyond, there is no justice in women’s prisons

August 3, 2024 by Leave a Comment

 

For over a year now, the news media have covered a class action lawsuit concerning the Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin, which argued that the women incarcerated at FCI-Dublin were routinely subjected to sexual violence, harassment, intimidation and other forms of brutality. This lawsuit is only one of over 60 that have been filed against FCI-Dublin since 2021, all claiming a pattern of sexual violence in the institution. In April, FCI-Dublin was shut down, and the women were moved to other institutions all over the country. What if it’s the same everywhere?

Thanks to a recent, and some would say consequential, election, the government of the United Kingdom changed hands from Tory to Labour. The Labour government has “discovered” that the prisons are a toxic mess. This week, UK Ministry of Justice published its latest Safety in Custody report, looking at deaths up to June 2024, self-harm up to March 2024: “In the most recent quarter, self-harm incidents were up 8% to 19,418, and the rate was up 9% (a 2% increase in male establishments and a 29% increase in female establishments) …. The rate is more than eight times higher in female establishments than male establishments …. The rate of assault was 71% higher in female establishments than male establishments.” Why are the rates so high in women’s prisons, and particularly so much higher than in men’s prisons? Nadia spent five months in a women’s prison, which she described as “walking onto the set of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest … Many of the girls there should not be in prison, they need proper help.” The majority of incidents of self-harm and of assault in women’s prisons are not as violent or severe as those in men’s prisons, but the numbers and rates are higher. What does that tell you? As in FCI-Dublin, the response has been to describe the situation as “a failure”. There was no failure, there was, and is, refusal.

In May, it was reported that the number of deaths by suicide in the Cefereso 16 CPS Femenil de Morelos, the women’s prison in Morelos, had increased by so much that all cases from then on would be investigated by the Fiscalía General de la República, the Attorney General of Mexico. In July, it was reported that almost half the women held in prisons are remand prisoners … innocent until proven guilty … or dead. The United Nations finds this situation “particularly preoccupying.”  Again, as in the United States and the United Kingdom, the systematic violence against women is seen as a “failure”. There was no failure. There was simply refusal.

In the global scheme, the women’s prisons of the United States, United Kingdom, and Mexico are not outliers. If anything, they’re viewed as more or less preferable to prisons in many other parts of the world. None of that matters. What matters is justice. Again and again, the State, or the Fourth Estate, “discovers” systemic and systematic violence against women in prisons, jails, detention centers. Each time, shock and dismay are expressed, then “failure” is somberly and solemnly declared, and then … nothing. At best, the individual house of horror is shut down and the women are moved … to another. There is no justice in women’s prisons. There is cruelty in the decision that every act of violence was a sign of failure rather than the system working as it was meant to work, to the detriment and ultimate destruction of women. Otherwise, how else explain the infinite and cyclical  redundancy of discovery? Instead of “repairing” the prisons,  give the women, and the world, “proper help”.

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Gothic Arch / The Royal Academy of Arts)

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In prisons in England and Wales, “evidence of the levels of distress of the women being held”

February 29, 2024 by Leave a Comment

At the beginning of February, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor issued a report, “The long wait: A thematic review of delays in the transfer of mentally unwell prisoners”. It is predictably dismal and dismaying reading, dismaying not only because of its gruesome details and insights but also because of its lack of surprise. There is no surprise that the prisons of England and Wales are the furthest possible distance from any sense of justice. There is likewise no surprise that the most vulnerable, the ones most in need of assistance and more, are the least served, or, perhaps, the most served with a kind of violence and misery. Here’s the core of the most current report: “Only 15% of patients in our sample were transferred within 28 days and waiting times for a bed were too long. The average wait was 85 days from the point it was identified that their mental health needs could not be treated in prison, with a range of three to 462 days.” By law, anyone deemed in need of mental health care must be, not should be must be, transferred to mental health hospitals within 28 days. In this scenario of lack of, or refusal of, care, where are the women? Again predictably, everywhere and under the greatest threat.

Much of the report involves “men and women”, as in “Our prisons continue to hold a number of very seriously mentally unwell men and women”. But there are moments in which women are at the center of the findings: “I will always remember the deep shock of walking into a unit in Eastwood Park, where acutely mentally unwell women were being held in appalling conditions with bloodstains on the floor and scratch marks on the walls; evidence of the levels of distress of the women being held there …. At Low Newton women’s prison in Durham the screams from the inpatient unit where the most mentally unwell women were held were so distressing that other prisoners told us they were put off going for their medical appointments.”

“I will always remember”. The irony is that, while Charlie Taylor may always remember, the “care” for women who are incarcerated is marked by amnesia and silence. Consider the twelve months prior to the report’s release, and this will be at best a grossly minimal account.

In March, the Independent Monitoring Board issued its Annual Report of the Independent Monitoring Board at HMP/YOI Eastwood Park: “Whilst efforts have been made to reduce levels of self-harm the high number of women being imprisoned with severe mental health issues has been compounded by the impact of lockdown. Eastwood Park is currently considered nationally as a prison of concern.” Repeatedly, the report emphasizes that the prison is now housing an “unprecedented number of mentally unwell and vulnerable women, as well as women with complex needs.” The result is, predictably, “exceptionally high levels of self-harm.” Eastwood Park is currently considered nationally as a prison of concern. Is it? By whom? By the way, this report was widely reported.

On July 27, 2023, the UK Ministry of Justice released Safety in Custody Statistics, England and Wales: Deaths in Prison Custody to June 2023 Assaults and Self-harm to March 2023: “There were 59,722 self-harm incidents in the 12 months to March 2023, up 11% from the previous 12 months, comprising of a 1% decrease in male establishments and a 52% increase in female establishments. Over the same period, the rate of self-harm incidents per 1,000 prisoners, which takes account of the increase in the prison population between this and the previous year, decreased 5% in male establishments but increased 51% in female establishments …. There were 59,722 self-harm incidents in the 12 months to March 2023, up 11% from the previous 12 months, comprising of a 1% decrease in male establishments and a 52% increase in female establishments … In male establishments, self-harm incidents decreased 1% and assault incidents increased 11%. In female establishments, both self-harm and assault incidents increased, by 52% and 16% respectively … The rate [of self-harm] in female establishments has increased considerably by 51% to a new peak (5,826 per 1,000 prisoners), whereas it has decreased 5% in male establishments (523 per 1,000 prisoners), meaning the rate is now more than eleven times higher in female establishments.” These dismal numbers were widely reported.

In the next Ministry of Justice Safety in Custody Statistics report, the investigators found, “The rate of self-harm incidents per 1,000 prisoners, which takes account of the increase in the prison population between this and the previous year, increased 3% in male establishments and increased 63% in female establishments.” This too was widely reported.

On November 23, 2023, the National Health Service England released its long awaited report, A review of health and social care in women’s prisons. The report, which received widespread attention, stated, “Women in prison have disproportionately higher levels of health and social care needs than their male counterparts in prison and women in the general population. High numbers of women in prison experience poor physical and mental health and many are living with trauma. Findings from this Review further highlight the vulnerability and adverse life experiences of many women in prison. Mothers feel keenly the separation from their children that imprisonment brings, and women who are mentally unwell are still being sent to prison. None of this is new.” None of this is new.

Concerning mental health care, the report noted, “Acutely mentally ill women are still being sent to prison.  Prisons are ill equipped to provide the necessary treatment and care for acutely mentally ill women.  There is a gap in mental health services across the range of needs including primary mental healthcare and specialist interventions for women who have experienced trauma, including sexual and domestic violence.” This too was widely reported.

There were many more reports, both from the government and from various organizations and news agencies, but the point is made. None of this is new. Reports are only fine if they are read and acted upon. Otherwise, they are worse than empty gestures. They are part of the machinery that is pulverizing women –  vulnerable women, women of color, working class women, women living with mental health issues, women living with disabilities, pregnant women, women who are mothers, women – into dust. The women’s prisons are filled with dust. It is a matter of concern. We will never forget … will we?

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: NHS England)

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Julia Quecaño Casimiro, Veronica Baleni and the struggle for farm workers’ and small-scale farmers’ dignity

November 22, 2023 by Leave a Comment

Julia Quecaño Casimiro

It turns out it’s not the meek who shall inherit the earth, but rather those who have been mistakenly deemed as meek by the seemingly powerful. This is especially true of those who work the earth, day in and day out. Consider the tales of Julia Quecaño Casimiro and Veronica Baleni. Julia Quecaño Casimiro is a seasonal or migrant farm worker in England; Veronica Baleni is a small-scale farmer in South Africa. Consider their stories and imagine the conversation their tales weave together.

Julia Quecaño Casimiro is Bolivian. She hopes to study biochemistry. To pay for her studies, she went to England to work as a cherry picker, where, the recruiters told her, she would earn about £500 a week and that she would have to repay no more than $1,000 , or £800, for the flight.  After a month, when Casimiro left the farm, she was broke and homeless. Last week, she sued her employers, Haygrove, claiming unlawful deduction of wages, unfair dismissal, discrimination and harassment. Haygrove is one of the UK’s biggest fruit producers. At first, she was given no shifts, then barely given a shift the following week. Then Haygrove told the workers they had to pay £1,500 in six weekly £250 instalments for their flights to the UK. For many, that demand was the final straw. When government inspectors visited Haygrove, they found and reported numerous violations. The State did nothing. So, last week, Julia Quecaño Casimiro filed a complaint, becoming the first person on a seasonal worker visa to take a farm to an employment tribunal.

Julia Quecaño Casimiro had worked before on farms, in Bolivia and Chile, but she had never experienced the kind of intimidation and exploitation that she saw and was subjected to at Haygrove. Julia Quecaño Casimiro’s parents are small-scale farmers in Bolivia. She grew up on farms and has worked on numerous farms. Julia Quecaño Casimiro knows a thing or two about how farms should be run. She also knows what slavery is: “As soon as I started, I saw that it was exploitation. It was modern slavery.”

Veronica Baleni is a small-scale farmer in Riverlands, near Malmesbury, about 45 minutes by car from Cape Town. Veronica Baleni is one of over 100 small-scale farmers who work on a large piece of land in Riverlands. Many have been working this land for generations, in some cases for over a century. Veronica Baleni grows vegetables and has over 200 fruit trees.

The land is owned by the government’s Housing Development Agency, HDA. In May 2022, HDA initiated eviction proceedings, at first allegedly against three farmers but ultimately against the whole population. The farmers resisted, secured legal representation and went to court. On Monday, the Judge in the Western Cape High Court ordered HDA to withdraw their application for eviction and strongly urged the agency to enter into “meaningful engagement” with the community. According to Veronica Baleni, the real impediment for the farmers, both as farmers and as citizens of the Republic of South Africa, is ownership of the land.

In both instances, the ones threatened are assumed, by their aggressors, to be powerless, uninformed, helpless and hopeless. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Workers know the score and they know abuse, exploitation and slavery when they see it. Small-scale farmers know that those who work the land have a right to fully inhabit the earth on which they walk, in which the toil. The fruit of one’s labor must include and support the dignity of those who labor, from the fruit farms of the United Kingdom to the fruit farms of South Africa and beyond.

Farmers celebrate their victory in court

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Photo Credit 1: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism / Nacho Rivera)

(Photo Credit 2: Groundup / Liezl Human)

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As 2022 ends, around the world, mass evictions threaten all that is human

December 31, 2022 by 5 Comments

“Housing should not be a privilege”. After years in shelters and on the streets, 41-year-old Dwayne Seifforth and his nine-year-old daughter D’Kota-Holidae Seifforth live in an apartment in Harlem, in upper Manhattan. Having a stable and decent place to live has made all the difference. Mr. Seifforth moved from working part-time and living on food stamps to a full-time job. His daughter went to school and settled in. Unbeknownst to them and their neighbors, the landlord’s ownership of the building was tenuous, at best, and now they face eviction, through no fault of their own. “Housing should not be a privilege”. It’s a sentiment expressed around the world, and, sadly, with increasing frequency, given the rise this year in mass evictions. Consider just the last month or so, 2022.

In the United Kingdom, November ended with the revelation that, in the depths of the pandemic and its economic and existential hardships, housing associations, home to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable tenants, had secretly lobbied the government to let them charge more rent. At the same time, the typical salary for a housing association executive was around £300,000 a year, close to $400,000. At the same time, Michael Gove, the `levelling up’ secretary, reported that `at least’ tens of thousands of rental properties across the UK were unsafe, due to lack of maintenance. One minister’s “lack of maintenance” is a thousand landlords’ refusal to maintain. Meanwhile, end of the year reports showed that no-fault eviction notices rose 76% in the past year. 48,000 households in England alone were served with no-fault eviction notices.

In Canada, evictions marked the end of the calendar year. Quebec’s non-urban areas saw a marked increase in “renovictions”, forced evictions under the pretense of renovation. Non-urban Quebecois renovictions rose 43% in the past year and look to continue rising. The Coalition of Housing Committees and Tenants Associations of Quebec describes the situation as “alarming”. In metropolitan Quebec, evictions rose from 1,041 in 2021 to 2,256 in 2022, a 154% increase, again in the midst of a pandemic and its hardships.

For the state of Assam, in northeast India, in December, the state went on an eviction spree, and this in a state that has used mass evictions often since May, 2021, when the BJP assumed power. These eviction campaigns have targeted `encroachers’, who are almost Muslim. At the time of the last census, Assam’s population was around 27 million, of whom around 19 million were Hindu and 11 million were Muslim. From May 2021 to September 2022, 4,449 families have been evicted, almost all Muslims of Bengali origin, most of whom have lived in the area for generations. In November, 562 families were evicted from one site, without notice. In the first week of December, 70 families were evicted. On December 19, another 302 families were evicted. On December 26, 40 families were evicted from one site. On December 28, another eviction drive was announced, in Guwahati, Assam’s most populous city. Repeatedly, the government and its supporters have boasted that there was no resistance to the evictions.

Finally, on December 17, a group of people identifying themselves as part of or related to Operation Dudula, an anti-immigrant group in South Africa, invaded a derelict building in the New Doornfontein neighborhood of Johannesburg and evicted over 300 people, almost all migrants. Included among those cast out were more than 60 people living with disabilities, most of whom were blind, and over 200 women and children. As in Assam, the purpose was to remove `encroachers’ who were somehow `foreign’.

That’s the end of 2022, along with mass evictions of slum dwellers in Nigeria, villagers and small shop owners in Cambodia, Afghan refugees in Greece, long term residents in Mexico forced out to `welcome’ the new remote workers from the United States and Europe, Palestinians across the occupied West Bank, and especially Jerusalem, and, in the United States, from Connecticut to Oklahoma to Missouri to California to Oregon, and beyond and between, eviction filings and evictions are surging, often to record heights. When it comes to access to decent, stable, and affordable housing, the world map is one of violence, devastation and existential crisis.

Globally, the common theme is fear. In India, for example, the government assured the world that everything was fine because there was no resistance. According to residents, the reason there was no resistance was years of police violence against those who protested.  Ajooba Khatoon, whose house was demolished, explained, “We did not resist them because there were hundreds of policemen. The police had already instilled a sense of fear among us since their arrival on December 13. We were not allowed to step outside on the eviction day.” Across the United Kingdom, renters live with dangerous conditions because they are fearful of revenge evictions if they speak up. In South Africa, one of the survivors of the eviction in Johannesburg, Lazarus Chinhara, explained, “‘We are not scared of deportation or anything. If we remain quiet, we will become prisoners of conscience.” Tadiwa Dzafunwa added, “I don’t know if we will ever recover from this”.

Around the world and around the corner, neighbors are living with histories of State violence, perpetrated by landlords with the assistance of the police. Thinking of the residents’ and the world’s silence at the evictions in Assam, Moumita Alam wrote, “The silence around eviction however can be attributed to the history of violence that has marked the fate of the protestors …. If every protest begets dead bodies to be buried in silence, ‘peace’ of the burial ground shrouds our memory.” If we silently accept the forced disappearances of neighbors, the web of trauma thickens and tightens as the corpses pile up. What threatens all that is human is the cooperative architecture of violence, silence, and trauma of eviction. I don’t know if we will ever recover from this. Housing should not be a privilege.

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Photo Image Credit 1: Next City)     (Photo Image Credit 2: LibCom)

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Around the world, domestic workers demand decent, living wage and work conditions NOW!

December 14, 2017 by 4 Comments

Across the globe, domestic workers are struggling and organizing for decent work conditions, a living wage, respect and dignity. In 2011, the International Labour Organization passed C189, Convention concerning decent work for domestic workers. In 2013, the Convention went into effect. As of now, 24 countries have ratified the Convention. And yet … Yesterday, domestic workers in Tamil Nadu, in India, gathered to demand a living wage and legally enforced protections. Yesterday, in Mexico, the ILO reported that 1% of domestic workers in Mexico have any kind of social security. Yesterday, a report from England argued that the way to end exploitation of migrant workers, and in particular domestic workers, is a fair and living wage. Today, an article in South Africa argued that Black women domestic workers bear the brunt of “persistent inequality”. Today, an article in France argued that economic indicators systematically exclude “domestic labor” and so exclude women. What’s going here? In a word, inequality. Women bear the brunt of urban, national, regional and global inequality, and domestic workers sit in the dead center of the maelstrom.

Today, the inaugural World Inequality Report was issued. Since 1980, income inequality has increased almost everywhere, but the United States has led the way to astronomic, and catastrophic, income inequality. In the 1980s, inequality in western Europe and the United States was more or less the same. At that time, the top 1% of adults earned about 10% of national income in both western Europe and the United States. Today in western Europe, the top 1% of adults earns 12% of the national income. In the United States, the top 1% earns 20% of the national income. It gets worse. In Europe, economic growth has been generally the same at all levels. In the United States, the top half has been growing, while the bottom half, 117 million adults, has seen no income growth.

According to the report, the United States “experiment” has led the a global economic, and state, capture: “The global top 1% earners has captured twice as much of that growth as the 50% poorest individuals …. The top 1% richest individuals in the world captured twice as much growth as the bottom 50% individuals since 1980.” The authors note, “The global middle class (which contains all of the poorest 90% income groups in the EU and the United States) has been squeezed.”

Call it global wealth – state capture relies on expanding “opportunities” for the global poor – particularly in countries like China, India, and Brazil – while squeezing the global middle class, and that’s where domestic workers come in. Paid domestic labor has been one of the fastest growing global labor sectors for the past four decades. Women have entered the paid labor force thanks to other women who have tended to the household work. After its preamble, the ILO C189 opens, “Recognizing the significant contribution of domestic workers to the global economy, which includes increasing paid job opportunities for women and men workers with family responsibilities, greater scope for caring for ageing populations, children and persons with a disability, and substantial income transfers within and between countries …”

That language was formally accepted in 2011. Six years later, domestic workers are still waiting, and struggling, for that recognition. In Mexico, groups are organizing to include domestic workers into Social Security programs as well as to ensure that employers pay the end of year bonus that all decent, and not so decent, employers in Mexico pay. In India, domestic workers are marching and demanding protections as well as a living wage. Domestic workers are women workers are workers, period. Today’s Inequality Report reminds us that the extraordinary wealth of those at the very top has been ripped from the collective labor and individual bodies of domestic workers. Structured, programmatic ever widening inequality, at the national and global level, begins and ends with the hyper-exploitation of domestic workers, through employers’ actions and State inaction. Who built today’s version of the seven gates of Thebes? Domestic workers. It’s past time to pay the piper. NOW is the time!

(Photo Credit: El Sie7e de Chiapas)

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Women on community sentences are being failed by the system

July 4, 2016 by Leave a Comment

Hayley, a former offender, worked for the St Giles Trust’s Wire project, which proved highly effective at helping women prisoners resettle after release from jail. Funding for the project ended March 2015.

The last big change put in place by Chris Grayling still standing is the break up of the 100 year old successful probation service. The impact on women has been catastrophic and something needs to be done urgently to change the system to protect women.

Women given a short prison term now have to be handed over to private companies to supervise them for a year after their release. This didn’t happen until Grayling unnecessarily added it to everyone given a short prison sentence. Some will argue that it was introduced to help and support women, and men, but as I far as I can see it is doing neither, it just punishes them for longer and sets them up to fail. We are already seeing hundreds of people being returned to prison for failing to obey the strictures imposed by the community rehabilitation companies (there is an oxymoron for you).

Many more women are given a community sentence but they too are being failed.

Baroness Corston and I went to see Simon Hughes when he was (briefly) the prisons minister to urge him to make sure that women’s centres were funded as part of the privatisation of probation. He didn’t. The consequence has been that women’s centres have had their funding cut by the private companies and some have withdrawn from delivering justice services completely because it was no longer financially viable.

I have seen a letter from the minister responsible for equalities and justice, Caroline Dinenage, clearly stating that women are being short-changed in the new landscape.

She admits that the capital coming from the sale of Holloway will not benefit women but will sink into the building of huge new prisons for men.

She admits that CRCs do not have to fund women’s centres or provide women only services. In fact, the cut-rate contracts and payment by results model pushes the CRCs to do everything on the cheap and that means getting as many people as possible processed through the system as they can. Group work is the way they do it. It is totally unsuitable, and possibly dangerous, to place a lone woman in a group of men to deal with offending behaviour which I fear is what will happen to women in rural areas and small towns where there simply are not enough women to form a group.

Anyway, group work is not appropriate for many very vulnerable women. The success of women’s centres has been to care for women as individuals. It works, as the Ministry of Justice research and evaluations show.

These years of expertise and experience of successful working with the few women who commit crimes is being lost.

The CRCs are not caring for women properly and safely; they are too expensive.

The only route out of this morass is to take women out of this structure completely.

I suggest we look at having a national system for managing women in the penal system including on community sentences. The CRCs would probably welcome having no more responsibility for managing the handful of women in their area and a national service, or the probation service, could resurrect the centres of excellence and good practice.

I would be all part of a chipping away at the muddle that is ‘Transforming Rehabilitation’ that over coming years is likely to implode anyway. Let’s rescue women first.

 

(This piece first appeared on Frances Crook’s blog. The original is here. Thanks to the Howard League for Penal Reform for allowing us to share this.)

(Photo Credit: Martin Godwin / The Guardian)

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Patriarchy never fails women; patriarchy always assaults women. #PatriarchyMustFall

December 1, 2015 by Leave a Comment

In the news this week: in Cambodia rape victims have been “failed” by the so-called justice system; South Africa’s justice system is “failing” women; the United Kingdom “fails” women who suffer from domestic violence; and the United States’ program of mass incarceration fails all women, particularly women of color. The only problem with these “failures” is that they are successes. They are part and parcel of the public policy of patriarchy-as-nation-State. The State does not fail women; the State assaults women.

One of every twenty women in the world lives in the United States. One of every three women prisoners in the world is currently in a United States prison or jail, and that figure does not include immigrant detention centers. Globally, the 25 jurisdictions with the highest rate of female incarceration are 24 individual states and the District of Columbia. West Virginia tops that list, imprisoning 273 out of 100,000 women. There is no failure here. There is a decades long campaign to cage and otherwise brutalize women, and particularly women of color, all in the name of `protecting’ not only Society but also the women themselves.

In Cambodia, LICADHO, the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, released a report yesterday that documented the massive “failure” of the State to address rape: “LICADHO’s monitors report that it is usually the result of a failure by police to respond to reports by victims, and in some cases, of suspects being tipped off by police that a claim has been made against them … This report brings to light the immense failure of the Cambodian justice system to properly investigate and punish cases of sexual violence against women and children. The reasons for this failure are many: corruption, discriminatory attitudes towards women and girls, misinterpretation of the law, and lack of resources all combine to perpetuate and entrench a system in which impunity prevails.

“The report has focused on the failures of the justice system rather than on the experience of individual victims; it must not be forgotten that at the centre of all the cases discussed there were women and children who had experienced a terrifying and violent attack resulting in psychological and often physical trauma. The failure of the criminal justice system to punish their attackers compounds their experience of abuse and perpetuates the harm they suffer. Moreover, every failure to punish reinforces existing public mistrust of the Cambodian justice system and conveys the message that rape is not an offence that will be treated seriously; it not only lets down the victims concerned but reduces the likelihood that future victims will take the risk of reporting the crimes committed against them.”

There is no failure in Cambodia. Police refuse to respond. The State refuses to put women and children at the center. We hear similar reports from South Africa, where the justice system fails “to adequately address gender based violence since the impunity of men as rapists is tacitly accepted.” Likewise, in the United Kingdom, when the State proposes to cut or almost eliminate domestic violence services, we are told, “The current government is failing women.”

There is no failure here. The State seeks to reduce women’s autonomy and dignity, and thereby extract ever more value, all of which accrues to men’s power, stature, wealth and pleasure. None of this is new. It’s the oldest play in patriarchy’s rulebook. Stop calling structural violence against women “failure.” Call it violence against women, and stop it. #PatriarchyMustFall

(Photo Credit: EPA / Kim Ludbrook / Daily Maverick)

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Why the number of prisoners committing suicide rose so sharply last year

March 23, 2015 by 4 Comments

Last year, prison suicides in England and Wales reached a seven-year high, according to the Howard League for Penal Reform, the Prison and Probation Ombudsman for England and Wales, and the House of Commons Justice Committee. For all three, this dubious accomplishment parallels cuts in prison staff, harsher prison regimes, and various `efficiencies’ imposed across the so-called justice system. Add to that cuts in public health and housing services. Austerity kills.

The Ombudsman’s most recent report, Learning from PPO Investigations: self-inflicted deaths of prisoners – 2013/14, found a 64% increase in self-inflicted deaths in custody over the previous year. While that number captured a bit of attention, here’s a paragraph that many overlooked: “There were self-inflicted deaths at 53 different prisons, 56% more than the previous year. This included prisons where there had not been self-inflicted deaths for many years, sometimes ever.” Under austerity measures, the Empire of Prison Suicides has expanded rapidly and hungrily.

The Empire has expanded both geographically and demographically. Who are the ones who perished `at their own hands’? “In 2013/14, the prisoners who died were significantly less likely to have been convicted or charged with violent and sexual offences. There was also a significant increase in deaths among those serving short sentences of less than six months.”

Most of the prisoners who committed suicide were in their first month of custody. More had spent less than two hours out of their cell in the days before their deaths. Not `hardened’ nor `violent’ nor `in for long’. In other words, more or less ordinary people.

Frances Cook, Executive Director of the Howard League, noted, “No one should be so desperate whilst they are in the care of the state that they take their own life. The numbers hide the true extent of misery inside prisons and for families. It is particularly tragic that teenagers and other young people have died by their own hand in our prisons and we should all be ashamed that this happened.”

The tragedy is in the deaths, not the ages, and we should indeed all be ashamed. The State is not ashamed. As a Justice Committee report last week noted, “The prison system in England and Wales has one of the highest incarceration levels in Europe, standing at 149 per 100,000 people.” The report noted that when Justice Secretary Grayling was presented with the rising tide of suicide, his response was to blame society. On the question of suicides, the Justice Committee report concluded, “The Ministry told us they had looked hard for evidence of factors which could be causing an increase in suicide rates, self-harm and levels of assault in prisons. Worryingly, they had not managed to arrive at any hypothesis as to why this has taken place. In our view it is not possible to avoid the conclusion that the confluence of estate modernisation and re-configuration, efficiency savings, staffing shortages, and changes in operational policy, including to the Incentives and Earned Privileges scheme, have made a significant contribution to the deterioration in safety.”

We should all be ashamed, and we should all be worried, worried about States that have looked and refuse to see, refuse to see unavoidable conclusions and, even more, refuse to see the humanity in each of us. Global leaders of incarceration, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, have gained their ascendancy by stuffing more and more people into prisons and jails, and then expressing shock and dismay when the conditions of confinement push prisoners to self-harm and suicide. A war on crime turns whole populations into `a problem’ and entire neighborhoods into lands belonging to no one. It’s a kind of genocide by erasure.

In the United Kingdom last year, almost all those prisoners who killed themselves did so by hanging. They turned the belittling spectacle of their erasure into one last spectacle of sacrifice. While the State spokespeople express dismay, and the State accountants chalk it up as another efficiency, the various gods of justice and humanity look on and weep.

(Image Credit: rs21.org.uk)

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UK uses destitution and violence to `protect’ women domestic violence victims

February 25, 2015 by Leave a Comment

 


In London last week, the Joint Committee on Human Rights presented Parliament with its report, Violence Against Women and Girls. As before, the report is grim, in particular when it comes to State inaction vis-à-vis domestic violence. The authors of the report describe themselves as troubled and concerned, especially about women asylum seekers and refugees: “We heard particular concerns regarding victims with insecure immigration status, asylum seekers or refugees. These women and girls are often overlooked. Immigration policy is developed separately from policy about violence against women and girls. We urge the Government to address the gap in service provision for women with insecure immigration status and to review the use of the detained fast track process for victims of violence against women and girls.”

The abusive treatment of women asylum seekers who are in abusive relationships is State policy, not the error of overworked or unimaginative staff members. “The gap in service provision” and “the use of the detained fast track process” are not oversights. They achieve their intended goals: render efficiencies at the expense of women whose lives mean less than nothing to the State: “Throughout our inquiry we have heard about the experiences of a wide range of different groups of women including those with particular needs, for example women seeking asylum or refugees, women with learning difficulties, women from black and minority ethnic communities and women from communities of belief or religion.”

The treatment of women asylum seekers and refugees in abusive relationships in the UK is in direct opposition to the treatment of women in post-disaster zones: “We are concerned that, during the time it takes for a spouse suffering from violence to regularise their immigration status, they are very often left facing destitution or having to remain in a violent relationship. We find it worrying that current Home Office policies leave people destitute during the asylum and immigration process and that this in itself leads to women being at a greater risk of being a victim of violence. This is in contrast to funding being provided by the Department for International Development to post-disaster zones which looks specifically to address such survival strategies used by women.”

In other words, what’s good for Darfur is no good for Dover. Why is that?

To answer that, the report analyzes the fast track detention system; the culture of disbelief; and the lack of gender sensitivity; and concludes: “Despite the Minister’s assurances, we are disturbed by the evidence we received that the routine use of male interpreters, the operation of fast-track detention system and the reported culture of disbelief within the Home Office all result in victims suffering further trauma whilst seeking asylum or immigration to the UK. We find this unacceptable.”

We find this unacceptable. “This” is the systematic behavior and public policy of the State. The report has been described as demonstrating a failure: “UK failing to protect female domestic violence victims”; “Trapped with your abuser: How the Home Office fails domestic violence victims.” The Home Office didn’t fail; it achieved its stated goals. Calling it failure is an alibi. Rather say this: UK refuses to protect female domestic violence victims. How the Home Offices violates domestic violence victims. How the State uses destitution and violence to `protect’ women domestic violence victims. We find this unacceptable.

 

(Photo Credit: Lacuna)

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Campsfield House: And torture survivors should not be detained

February 3, 2015 by 11 Comments

According to a report released today by HM Chief Inspectorate of Prisons: Report on an unannounced inspection of Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre, prison is a bad place for children and survivors of torture. Compared to last year’s inspection of Harmondsworth, a real hellhole, Campsfield House is ok: “Overall, this was a very positive inspection. Staff and managers at Campsfield House should be congratulated in dealing professionally and sensitively with detainees who were going through what, for many, was a difficult and unhappy time. However, whatever the strengths of the centre, detention should not be used for children, victims of torture or anyone for unreasonable lengths of time. Further improvements to national processes are required to ensure this does not happen.”

Ian Dunt, who follows UK prison matters, responded, “Britain detains torture victims. It is happening in even the best-run and most conscientious detention centres. It is in the small print of the positive inspection reports. It is starting to become a truism – a moral inconvenience, the pothole of the human rights world.” The BBC focused on the detention of children. No one, as of yet, has focused on “unreasonable lengths of time.”

The key phrase is “national processes.” Campsfield House may have a fine staff, although there was last year’s hunger strike and the prison’s brutal response. Whether or not the conditions have improved, one imagines today’s prisoners repeating last year’s prisoners: “We want our freedom. We want our life with dignity.”

Freedom and dignity for asylum seekers is not part of “national processes,” not at the bleak hellhole of Harmondsworth or at the pastel hellhole of Campsfield House.

Consider Rule 35. According to the Home Office, “Rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules 2001 sets out requirements for healthcare staff at removal centres in regards to any detained person: whose health is likely to be injuriously affected by continued detention or any conditions of detention; suspected of having suicidal intentions; and for whom there are concerns that they may have been a victim of torture.”

For whom there are concerns that they may have been a victim of torture. There’s the rub, because no one with any authority is concerned. The Rule is clear, and its application is laid out in great detail, and none of that matters. Here’s Rule 35 at Campsfield: “Many [Rule 35 reports] merely repeated the detainee’s account and failed to provide a medical opinion, for example, on the consistencies between scarring and alleged methods of torture. Caseworkers’ responses were prompt, although sometimes dismissive, while others did not comply with Home Office policy. In two separate cases, a doctor stated that a detainee might have been the victim of torture but caseworkers maintained they should remain in detention stating that this would not impact on the detainee’s health; the impact on their health was irrelevant as Home Office policy is not to detain torture survivors. In another case, a caseworker maintained that a person should remain in detention because he ‘did not mention being tortured during your screening interview ….’ “

The Inspectorate recommends, “The Home Office should ensure that the rule 35 process provides vulnerable detainees with adequate protection. The reports should include a clinical opinion wherever possible, caseworkers’ responses should address detainees’ vulnerability and torture survivors should not be detained.”

The Home Office has no interest in ensuring protection for the vulnerable immigrant or migrant. The Home Office feels that such protections are a waste of time and money. In 2013, the Home Office was forced by the High Court to pay compensation to torture survivors for the abuse they had endured in “immigration detention centres.” The abuse was the systemic violation of Rule 35. Did anything improve after that? No.

In 2014, Women for Refugee Women documented the rampant violation of Rule 35 in Yarl’s Wood and elsewhere. In 2012, Medical Justice detailed the extensive, systemic violation of Rule 35, and its impact on immigrants, migrants, asylum seekers who are survivors of torture. Throughout this period, researchers have studied the role of doctors in investigation, prevention and treatment of torture; health care for immigrant detainees; and the health implications of the state of immigration detention centres in the UK. They all found that systemic violation of Rule 35 leaves those who have somehow managed to survive torture to fend for themselves behind bars. Has anything improved as a result of the research? No.

Instead, the Home Office has responded by tightening the screws. What’s the difference between last year’s horrible Harmondsworth and this year’s not-so-horrible Campsfield House: “Routine searches of detainees’ rooms were unnecessary. Strip-searches and handcuffs were only used when justified.” We are the people who demonstrate our sense of justice, compassion and humanity by seizing those torture survivors who have struggled to move beyond the violence and throwing them into cages where strip-searches and handcuffs are used only when justified.

 

(Photo Credit: Campaign to Close Campsfield)

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