How many transpeople are also criminals? The numbers must be fairly small, as the number of criminals in the population is already fairly small.
There is a lot of data here (HoC library), but to save you sifting through it all, there are :
159 prisoners per 100,000 of the population in England and Wales
162 per 100,000 in Scotland.
97 per 100,000 in Northern Ireland.
Of those, according to the Office of National Statistics in England 93.5% of the population said that they 'identified into' the same sex as they have always been. So roughly 6.5% of the population 'identifies' as trans.
To stick with England for ease of reference (Scottish figures are very similar) if 159 out of 100,000 people 'identifies as' trans, and 6.5% of those are in jail, we are looking at 10.33 transpeople per 100,000 prisoners - a tiny percentage. 0.0001%?
The figures for trans-identifying people are taken from the last census, as of course there is no way of counting what is after all a 'feeling', rather than a reality. Of course, the census is not asking people about to be imprisoned if they feel like women or men (or if it is, the stats are not sorted to give that data). We don't know what the numbers are for people who have been convicted of crimes serious enough for prison and are also trans - we can count the number of people in prison who identify as such, but that is not the same thing.
This means, therefore, that the stream of male sex offenders awaiting sentence who appear in the News also claiming to be 'in the wrong body, part of 'the most marginalised group in society', and pleading to be housed in female prisons seems remarkable disproportionate to the minute number of transpeople likely to be in jail, but there is no data to support that. Am I the only one to feel cynical about this?
Also, if there are 'special wings' for trans prisoners, will they be new, modern ones, built on 21st century models of how prisons should be, or will they be decaying overcrowded Victorian ones, along with much of the existing estate? Given that there does appear to be an incentive for men to ask to go to female jails where they will be amongst the stronger, larger, more powerful prisoners, wouldn't nicer special wings become even more of a draw? And wouldn't grotty ones lead to accusations of victimisation of this 'marginalised' group?
Now I know that there will be cries of 'so what should be done about 'trans' rapists and other sex offenders who are marginalised already, and might hate prison so much that they threaten suicide?' I would refer the question back to those who ask it. I am not sympathetic to their demands, so am probably not the best person to ask. I do not believe that under any circumstances they should be given better treatment than other rapists or sex offenders, and nor do I think that they should be foisted onto female prisoners. What do those who do have sympathy with their plight think should happen to them? Do those who think that TWAW so they should be housed as such believe that a sex offender identifying as a minor should be housed in a YO institution or a secure unit with children, or is it just women who should have to take the risk of being locked up with them?
There are, of course, prisoners who are not rapists or sex offenders, which complicates things still further. I don't know what should be done about them either, but I don't see that as a cop out, or because I am 'privileged'. It's because I am not in any way qualified to come up with solutions to such a complex issue. My (unqualified) thoughts are that if they have surgically transitioned then they should be treated as women for the purposes of their sentence. 'People with vaginas' would be at huge risk in a male prison, and I am more inclined to believe that someone who has gone so far along the road to being female is not likely to be as much of a risk, because of hormones and so on (assuming they are able to keep taking them inside). But that may be nonsense, which is why I am not the right person to ask that either.
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