200 YEARS SINCE THE GAOLS ACT: SCOTLAND

After the success of our event in Westminster at the end of March, we are delighted to be holding an online event focussing on the situation facing women's prisons in Scotland. This event will be recorded and uploaded to our Vimeo.

In 1823, The Gaols Act passed into law. This marked the beginning of centrally imposed standards across all prisons in England and Wales. Amongst its provisions, the Act identified the distinct needs of female offenders and that these should be met through single-sex prison accommodation and same-sex service provision. The Gaols Act was also an important moment for what would later be understood to be feminist criminology.

Elizabeth Fry, also known as the “Angel of Prisons”, had begun her campaign for prison reform in 1813 following a visit to Newgate Prison. The desperately overcrowded conditions women and children were held in and the sex-based vulnerabilities women in prison experienced appalled her. Her diaries make clear the risk to female prisoners when male prisoners were held with them, including rape and sexual exploitation.

Fast forward to the twenty-first century. The unmet needs of female offenders remain of pressing concern. Two hundred years after The Gaols Act, women are not just “marginalised within a system largely designed by men for men”, they and their children are subject to additional sanction.

It’s been 200 years since The Gaols Act - where do we go from here? What are the issues specific to women's prisons in Scotland?

Introducing our chair:

Johann Lamont was a Scottish Labour MSP from 1999 to 2021 and was Leader of the Scottish Labour Party from 2011 to 2014. Throughout her political career she has campaigned on equalities issues and against violence against women and girls. Her amendment tabled in December 2020 to the Forensic Services Bill, "for the word 'gender' substitute 'sex'", permitted victims of rape and sexual assault to choose the sex of the person examining them. As surprising as it sounds, this amendment was controversial and attracted vehement opposition. However, it thankfully passed by 113 votes to 9.

Introducing our speakers:

Ian Acheson is a former prison governor with extensive involvement in operational command of serious prison incidents and counter-terrorism policy and practice. He has also been Chief Operating Officer for the Equality and Human Rights Commission. He is currently visiting professor at the University of Staffordshire School of Policing, Law and Forensics and a specialist in counter extremism.

Rhona Hotchkiss trained as a nurse, specialising in ITU. She worked as an advisor to Scottish Government before going into management consultancy working in healthcare and education. Rhona spent the last 10 years of her working life as a Prison Governor, in charge of both male and female prisons. She managed the project to develop the new women’s prison in Scotland. Since retiring in 2019, Rhona has written and spoken extensively about the need for women’s prisons to be single sex and the impact of gender identity. She has featured on STV and BBC TV and Radio.

Jo Phoenix is an author and Professor of criminology in the School of Law at the University of Reading. Her research interests include sex, gender, sexualities and justice, youth justice and punishment, the production of criminological knowledge and research ethics. She has studied and written about a wide variety of subjects including managerialism and ethics in the production of criminological knowledge, prostitution, prostitution policy reform, child sexual exploitation, youth penalty and youth justice practice and policy. Her most recent research concerns academic freedom, politics ethics and research and sex, gender, gender identity and criminal justice policy. Jo is also a trustee at the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies.