More on the Drive to Reduce Female Sentences

While doing a little research on this female sentencing guideline issue, I had a hunch it must have something to do with suicides in prison. I’ve been reading up about suicides in jails lately, because suicide risk can rise to critical levels for a lot of guys who are thrown in jail by their wives. Feminists don’t care about male suicide, and often point out that higher rates of suicide amongst men are simply “natural,” and therefore “equal” even when four times as many men kill themselves as women. However, when enough stress is placed on women that they begin to kill themselves in numbers approaching parity, it sets off feminist alarm bells.

This happened briefly in the early 00s in Britain, when there were close to double digit suicides in the female inmate population for about three or four years in a row. In 2003 and 2004, respectively, 14 and 13 women killed themselves. This was held to be an epidemic, and much noise was made about it in official circles. Since then, the rate has dropped back to the norm, in which about 5% of prison suicides are female.

I am not a statistician, but it seems to me that when dealing with such small numbers in a country of tens of millions of people, the difference between 3 and 14 is not all that statistically significant, and a couple years of elevated prison suicides among women would be expected to occur from time to time, but I suppose it would be a mistake to think rationally about these matters.

Another issue is that criminality is often connected to mental problems, if not outright mental illness, and these are in turn strongly connected to suicide. Given that women have such a low rate of imprisonment, one would assume that the women who are locked up represent an even more troubled cross-section of their sex than incarcerated men. And the more troubled they are, the more likely they are to be suicidal. Therefore, it makes sense that women who are locked up woud be much more prone to suicide than your average woman.

Nevertheless, it became a minor national issue, and was reported in the newspapers. A 2003 article in The Guardian reports on the “soaring” rate of female suicides in prison, suggesting that the women were simply harmless, mentally ill and troubled young women who don’t pose a danger to the community:

‘These are deeply shocking statistics; these women were mentally unstable and traumatised before they even got to prison and many were already repeatedly self-harming,’ said Claire McCarthy, of the Howard League for Penal Reform, who carried out the research.

‘The vast majority of these women represented no danger to the community,’ she added. ‘They were a danger to themselves only.’

Almost 80 per cent were in prison for non-violent offences.

The final statement is quite frankly untrue. At the end of the article there is a list of the women and their offenses, and it clearly shows that to suggest that the majority of the women who killed themselves were not dangerous is a lie.

Here is the list:

Leanne Gidney, 18, died at Brockhill. Offence: robbery

Sarah Campbell, 18, Styal. Manslaughter

Clare Parsons, 20, Eastwood Park. Witness intimidation

Jennifer Clifford, 19, Bullwood Hall. Crime not known

Helena Price, 27, New Hall. Handling stolen goods

Sue Stevens, 48, Durham. Wounding

Jolene Willis, 24, Styal. Theft

Jayne Buck, 28, Durham. Arson

Hayley Williams, 41, Styal. Theft

Jessica Adam, 22, New Hall. Handling stolen goods

Julie Walsh, 39, Styal. Theft

Emma Levey, 25, Downview. Robbery

Wendy Booth, 35, Durham. Murder

Petra Blanksby, 19, New Hall. Arson

Aside from the two killers, we have one in for wounding, two arsons, a witness intimidation, and two robberies. That makes eight out of the fourteen dangerous criminals. These women were a danger to society. This doesn’t mean we should cheer the suicides, but the crimes were far from inconsequential. Here in the US, for example, robbery and arson are taken very seriously, because they often result in deaths, whether that was the intent or not.

It is these kinds of moral panics, often cynically created by activists themselves, that serve as the justification for measures such as the recent order from Dame Laura Cox to go easy on female criminals. There is often a great deal of intensive, insider lobbying that provides the impetus for what are obviously unjust and stupid policies. To reduce suicides in women’s prisons, more competent mental health professionals could be hired to keep an eye on procedure and the detainees, but instead we are seeing calls to take it easy on killers, robbers and arsonists – by definition dangerous people – by reducing their sentences.

What sane, justice-loving and clear-thinking men ought to do is roll up their sleeves, write reports, testify in front of committees, and make their case with as much vigor as the entrenched feminist lobbyists. It’s a hard job, but now that so many women have locked themselves into careers, perhaps there’s more time and resources available to men willing to take on the responsibility.

Tagged as: female sentencing, female suicides in prison