Women’s prisons consistently being shut down in GB.

Similar to the trend in California and other parts of the United States, it seems that Great Britain has also found the need to shut down female prisons, to make space for the high rates of male incarceration. Why is this a feminist issue? A varity of reasons. First of all, why is the rate of male incarceration going up in the UK and world-wide? This is a gendered problem where constructions of masculinity are in fact affecting crime rates. Furthermore, as women’s prisons are shut down they are forced into smaller, more overcrowded prisons with less resources and less ability to rehabilitate.
via BBC.

But Deborah Coles of Inquest said the news was concerning.
“The pressure this re-roling will place on already overcrowded, poorly resourced women’s prisons cannot be underestimated and is potentially life-threatening,” she said.
“The recent reduction in overcrowding across the women’s prison estate was seen as one of the reasons for the decrease in suicide rates amongst women in prison in 2005-2006.

“It would be a great shame to see a reversal of this trend and suggests the welfare of women is a low priority on the Home Office agenda.”
Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said instead of putting the women into other “bleak establishments” the Home Office should put the vast majority into the drug and alcohol treatment or mental healthcare they desperately need.

The race and class of women that these regressive policies affect is overlooked (mostly poor women of color), but usually a reason that these types of policies tend to go unoticed.