Racism and sexism are deeply embedded in the British criminal justice system. At the start of September 2024 the total number of women in prison in England and Wales was 3,656. According to the 2021 statistics, 20% of women prisoners are black and minority ethnic, compared to 11% of the general population.
According to a 2017 Prison Reform Trust report, black women are twice as likely to be arrested as white women, 29% more likely than other women to be remanded in custody by crown courts, and 25% more likely than white women to receive a prison sentence following conviction. Once imprisoned they suffer serious human rights abuses, such as being physically ‘restrained’ when pregnant, inadequate access to health care, including mental health care, arbitrarily being put in to solitary confinement and physical and verbal abuse from prison guards.
The 2007 Corston Report into ‘women with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system’ found that BAME women prisoners were ‘more likely to be living in a deprived area, more likely to be subject to poverty, have experienced care and been excluded from school’. Ten years on, a Women in Prison report quoted Corston, adding that ‘Women in prison have often experienced extensive abuse and are likely to have complex mental health, addiction and other needs. 46% of women in prison report having suffered domestic violence and 53% report having experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse during childhood.’
The ‘offending behaviour’ of most imprisoned women has its roots in abuse and trauma, such as drug use to cope with the mental health effects of abuse, and sex work to pay for self-medication. The imprisonment of women is therefore built upon the criminalisation of these women’s survival strategies. Gender roles and cultural expectations also mean that women in prison face even greater stigma and demonisation than male prisoners.
The institutionalised sexism of the criminal justice system in Britain finds its most brutal expression in the treatment of working class women ‘offenders’ and prisoners, whose struggle is often a struggle for basic survival itself, and the institutionalised racism of that system makes this yet more acute in the treatment of black and minority ethnic women. A fight against these attacks needs to be built, linked to a broader struggle against the systemic repression of the poorest and most marginalised of the working class, which is integral to maintaining the capitalist system of power and control.
John Bowden
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 302 October/November 2024
