Transsexual prisoner wins right to be in female prison

A transsexual killer who tried to rape a woman must be moved to a female prison because holding her with men breaches her rights, a judge has ruled.

By Tom Whitehead, Home Affairs Editor

The prisoner, who cannot be identified, won a human rights battle against Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, that keeping her in a male prison was a violation.

Lawyers for the 27-year-old inmate, who is still at the preoperative stage, described her as a “woman trapped inside a man’s body” and argued keeping her among men was preventing her from having a full sex change.

She will be moved to a women’s jail within weeks following the High Court ruling but the Ministry of Justice warned it will cost taxpayers an extra £80,000 a year because she will have to be kept in segregation.

The entirely publicly funded case will also have cost tens of thousands of pounds.

The killer, known as “A”, is currently serving life for the manslaughter of a boyfriend and the attempted rape of a female shop assistant, both committed while she was man.

Although born a man, she had been undergoing the process of gender reassignment, and in 2006 was granted a certificate under the 2004 Gender Recognition Act which required her to be recognised as a woman "for all purposes".

Her birth certificate has been changed to say she is a female, while hair on her face and legs has been permanently removed by laser and she has developed breasts after hormone treatment.

She is allowed to shower in private, launder her female clothing herself and has access to cosmetics.

However, she was forbidden from wearing skirts or blouses, or more than "subtle" make-up, at the men's prison where she was being held on a "vulnerable prisoners" wing.

The court heard that in order to complete her change to full womanhood, she must live for a time as a woman and that could only be achieved if she was moved to a female jail.

Deputy Judge David Elvin QC, sitting at London's High Court, quashed Mr Straw's decision to continue detaining "A" in a male prison saying it breached her right to a private and family life the European Convention on Human Rights.

He said: "It follows that, so long as the claimant remains within the male prison estate, she is unable to progress towards the surgery which is her objective."

The judge said the Ministry of Justice had recently produced a draft Prison Service Order (PSO) to give guidelines on managing gender dysphoria cases, but final approval had been delayed until the result of A's case was known.

He ruled that far greater restrictions were being imposed on A than would be the case in a female prison - "I doubt that similar restrictions would apply in the rare case of a biological woman held in a male prison".

The prisoner, dressed in a dark blue blouse and striped jacket and wearing gold earrings, listened by video link.

She was originally convicted of manslaughter in 2001 and jailed for five years after smothering her boyfriend with a pillow and strangling him with a pair of tights.

She says that, although at first accepting of her gender dysphoria, he moved to hostility when she became increasingly feminised and she lost control after a row.

Less than a week after her release on licence two years later, "A" attacked a shop assistant, forcing her into a back room, tied her up with a suspender belt and tried to rape her.

She was given a life sentence for that offence under a "two strikes" system following the manslaughter conviction.

Her legal team said the attempted rape was closely linked to her obsession with becoming a woman and her intense frustration at the authorities' refusal to help her qualify for full gender reassignment surgery.

In July 2007, the Parole Board refused her release because "the risk to life and limb" were too high.

Phillipa Kaufman, A’s barrister, said: “So long as she stays in the male estate, she has no hope of realising her desire to become fully a woman.

"There is absolutely no security reason why she should be kept where she is. If she remains in the male estate, she is looking at the bleakest future in terms of what matters to her.

"What she would have in the female estate is hope; hope that she will be able to live in role and persuade her doctors that she should have gender reassignment surgery."

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said: "We contested this case and are disappointed at the judgement. We are studying it carefully and will consider whether to appeal."

1 in 31 Americans in jail; cost of locking them up too high

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One in every 31 U.S. adults is in the corrections system, which includes jail, prison, probation and supervision, more than double the rate of a quarter century ago, according to a report released on Monday by the Pew Center on the States.

The study, which said the current rate compares to one in 77 in 1982, concluded that with declining resources, more emphasis should be put on community supervision, not jail or prison.

"Violent and career criminals need to be locked up, and for a long time. But our research shows that prisons are housing too many people who can be managed safely and held accountable in the community at far lower cost," said Adam Gelb, director of the Center's Public Safety Performance Project, which produced the report.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate and the biggest prison population of any country in the world, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Most of those in the U.S. corrections system -- one in 45 -- are already on probation or parole, with one in 100 in prison or jail, the Pew study found.

Those numbers are higher in certain areas of the country, and Georgia tops all states with one in 13 adults in the justice system. The other leading states are Idaho, where one in 18 are in corrections and Texas, where the rate is one in 22. In the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., nearly 5 percent of adults are in the city's penal system.

This was the first criminal justice study that took into account those on probation and parole as well as federal convicts, Pew said.

'STATES SPENDING TOO MUCH'

The numbers are also concentrated among groups, with a little more than 9 percent of black adults in prisons or jails or on probation or parole, as opposed to some 4 percent of Hispanics and 2 percent of whites.

Pew compiled the report as states consider cutting corrections spending during the recession. The research group said that by changing sentencing laws and probation programs states can lower incarceration rates and save money.

"Among the many programs that are competing for scarce taxpayer dollars, there is one area of the state budget that could use some trimming, and that area is corrections," said Susan Urahn, the center's managing director, in a call with reporters. "The bottom line is that states are spending too much."

Penitentiary systems have been the fastest-growing spending area for states after Medicaid, the healthcare program for those with low income. Over the last 20 years their spending on criminal justice has increased more than 300 percent, the study found.

During the last 25 years prison and jail populations have grown 274 percent to 2.3 million in 2008, according to the Pew research, while those under supervision grew 226 percent over the same span to 5.1 million.

It estimated states spent a record $51.7 billion on corrections in fiscal year 2008 and incarcerating one inmate cost them, on average, $29,000 a year. But the average annual cost of managing an offender through probation was $1,250 and through parole $2,750.

"The huge differences between states are mostly due not to crime trends, or social and economic forces," Gelb said. "The rates are different mostly because of choices that the states have made about how they respond to crime."

"New community supervision strategies and technologies need to be strengthened and expanded, not scaled back. Cutting them may appear to save a few dollars, but it doesn't," Gelb said.

Some states have begun experimenting with ankle bracelets, Global Positioning Systems, and even kiosks akin to cash machines in order to track those on probation for less, he said.

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Eric Walsh)