As you know that male and female prisoners are separated. However, you probably never know why they need to be separated. Well, prisons surely have reasons why they are separated.
Reasons Why Male and Female Prisoners Are Separated
Let’s say that male and female prisoners are not separated. If it happens, I think there will be some problems and risks. For example, it is not impossible that female prisoners become victims of beating because male prisoners and female prisoners fight. Besides, female prisoners also have a risk to get sexual abuse if male and female prisoners are not separated. Another possibility is that a male prisoner and a female prisoner fall in love and then they do inappropriate things in the prison. So, to avoid these bad things and the other bad things, male prisoners and female prisoners are separated.
On the Association For The Prevention of Torture site it is explained that separation is a measure applied to help protect the physical and mental integrity of prisoners, to monitor them individually, and also to contribute to their rehabilitation. Also, it facilitates proper prison.
On that site, it is also explained that international standards clearly set that women should be separated from men, minors from adults, untried persons from convicted detainees, and civil detainees from detainees who are imprisoned for criminal offenses. On that site, it is also explained that certain prisoners can be exposed to the risk of violence and abuse by fellow prisoners because of their age (young adults or older inmates), ethnicity, health condition, sexual orientation, or gender identity. So, to be able to minimize these risks or get rid of the exposure of these prisoners to violence, the authorities need to take protective measures that can result in their physical separation, for example by transferring the inmates to different units, cells, or to other institutions in some cases.
Furthermore, on that site, it is also explained that as a matter of principle women need to be separated from men where the intention is to protect them from all kinds of verbal or physical abuse, especially sexual violence. If it is possible, women need to be held in separate institutions. If the institutions are open to both male and female inmates, the premises allocated to women need to be entirely separate. In some contexts, the authorities are permitted to make arrangements to permit couples to take part together in organized activities where the activities are designed to improve their quality of life and the activities also need to ensure the protection of the participants, especially women, and need to be supervised adequately.
About Inmate Separation in Prison
On the APT site or Association for the Prevention of Torture site, there is an explanation about inmate separation. However, separation here is not only limited to male and female prisoners who are separated, but also the other separation such as minors from adults, untried detainees from convicted detainees, etc.
On that site, it is explained that separation in prison has a main purpose, namely to ensure the protection and safety of people whose liberty is deprived and the optimal management of prisons. Besides, it is also a measure to preserve the principle of the presumption of innocence of untried people and to provide the appropriate prison conditions for each category of inmates. In principle, women need to be separated from men, untried detainees need to be separated from convicted detainees, and minors are separated from adults. People who are imprisoned for debt and other civil prisoners need to be separated from people who are imprisoned for criminal offenses. The measures of separation need not lead to restrictions of access to services and care, or to the deterioration of material conditions of detention for the people concerned.
On that site, it is also explained that other separation criteria is able to be justified with the aim to protect inmates in situations of particular vulnerability because of their health condition, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or gender identity. In these cases, separation should not be systematic, but should consider the consent of the people concerned, and it should not be considered as solitary confinement or to restrictions in accessing services and care which are provided by the institution.
About Women’s Prisons
Prisons for male and prisons for females are different. According to the Study site, here is the explanation about prisons for women.
In the United States, there are around 4,500 prisons, but from this number, only about 170 are women’s prisons. If there are women who are sentenced in a prison, they are held in prisons which are designed specifically for women. Meanwhile, men serve their sentences in prisons which are designed for men. The main difference between prisons for men and for women is security level. The security level of a prison decides the type and number of safety measures which are used to keep the public protected from the inmates and the inmates protected from one another. Let’s take an example. It is seldom to find women’s prisons with tall stone walls, armed guarded towers or razor wire barriers. Prisons for women usually resemble men’s minimum or medium security prisons. And even they look like a college campus or a camp where inmates are housed in dormitories or cottages rather than cell blocks. Prisons for women are usually less violent if they are compared with prisons for men. In women’s prisons, there are fewer violent incidents between inmates and also between the prison guards and inmates. So, no wonder why female inmates tend to have more freedom where they are usually able to walk around the prison to attend the classes or programs, exercise, or eat in the dining hall.
One of the reasons why prisons for women are less violent is because there are fewer inmates as a result of violent crime. Female inmates are more possible to serve time in prison because of drug or property offenses than their male counterparts. There is a study that found that as many as 60% of female inmates have unhealthy substance use, while almost 75% live with a mental illness. From the same study, it showed that the women’s crimes were most often a direct result of these issues.
A bookworm and researcher especially related to law and citizenship education. I spend time every day in front of the internet and the campus library.
