Sexual Discrimination

If this isn't a clear case of sexual discrimination then I don't know what is-

Women's prisons should be shut down and replaced with small secure units, according to a report commissioned for the Home Office. The plan is being recommended by Labour peer Baroness Corston as part of a 10-year reform programme.

If adopted by the home secretary, Baroness Corston's approach would see Holloway and about 14 other all-female prisons in England and Wales shut down or converted into jails for men.

Lady Corston recommends a significant cut in the overall number of women who are sent to jail, with greater use of community punishments instead. There are currently 4,300 women in jail in England and Wales.

Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said "prison simply doesn't work" for women.

"If the Government fails to take radical action it will be held accountable for the deaths and injuries of women in prisons for years to come."

Last year, three women committed suicide in prison. So far in 2007 there have been two apparently self-inflicted deaths.

What she doesn't see fit to mention are the male suicides committed by prison inmates. The figure is six times the average for those outside of prison. The high figure for 2004 (13 women and 82 men) was linked to mental illness at the time. No one seems at all concerned about prison not working for men however- probably because they know how ridiculous an assertion that is. And obviously the same standards should apply to women who break the law too.

The report makes 43 recommendations, including improved jail sanitation and a ban on strip-searching of women inmates.

Sure, remove a security measure in order to keep the criminals happy while you're at it. In fact, now that I think about it the words "crime" and "criminal" occur once each in the article- and never in connection with those women serving sentences for breaking the law. The simple fact is that they are asking for a complete change in the way the law treats men and women- when men suggest such things it's usually branded "gender apartheid". I fully expect the feminists to be in uproar about this suggestion that somehow they are too weak or fragile to be treated in a similar manner to men when they are punished for breaking the law.