By Maureen O’Hara

This report addresses the impact of policies and practices within the criminal justice system in England and Wales which classify and treat suspects, defendants in criminal trials, and convicted offenders on the basis of their ‘gender identity’ rather than their biological sex. In recent years, self-declaration of ‘gender identity’ has been adopted as policy by all of the key criminal justice institutions, despite the fact that this is not aligned with the law. This change appears to have come about largely as the result of policy capture, as it is a widely contested belief and has been adopted without public scrutiny. Current criminal justice policy prioritises the wishes and feelings of those who identify as transgender over the rights of others, and particularly over the sex-based rights of women, such as rights to single-sex facilities. This publication examines the detrimental effects of this approach and makes recommendations about the development of policies which are based on acknowledgment of the significance of biological sex in the field of criminal justice.

London: Policy Exchange, 2022. 73p.

By Interventions Alliance, Jess Lawrence, et al.

LGBTQ+ people have a long and complex history with the justice system and the policing of sexual orientation and gender expression. ‘Homosexual acts’ were only partially decriminalised in England and Wales in 1967 (1981 in Scotland, 1982 in Northern Ireland). The lives of LGBTQ+ people (particularly gay men) were still heavily policed in the following decades, and this legislation was finally replaced in 2004 (Sexual Offences Act, 1967). The sentiment of anti-gay laws and the related association between (and fear of) sexual deviance and gender diversity (Redburn, 2022) can be seen in laws and attitudes across the globe (Miles-Johnson, 2015). In the US, there were city ordinances against ‘cross-dressing’ as recently as 1980, and the legality of using public restrooms aligned to one’s gender identity (as opposed to sex assigned at birth) is still under threat (Dwyer & Valcore, 2023). While there have not been explicitly anti-trans laws in the UK in the last few decades, trans people still fear interacting with police due to the ‘historic baggage’ (Pickles, 2019) and experiencing discrimination and mistreatment from police (Bachmann & Gooch, 2018a). Although LGBTQ+ people now have legal protections from discrimination in the form of the Equality Act 2010, they still have significantly different experiences of the justice system than their cisgender counterparts. Many trans people still express fear and distrust of the police, either due to experiences of victimisation or transphobia by police officers, or due to negative interactions when reporting abuse (Hord & Medcalf, 2020). There is a growing body of research on the experiences of LGBTQ+ people in the justice system, however only a minority of this work has focussed on the experiences of trans people. HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) policy and operational guidance for working with transgender people is heavily focussed on those preparing for, or in prison, or latterly, Approved Premises (Ministry of Justice, 2023a; 2023b). This focus is reflected in the extant research on trans people in the justice system, which also tends to focus on their experiences in prison (such as Maycock, 2022) or other justice related residential facilities (such as Ellis & Opsal, 2023). Meanwhile, research on trans people in the community predominantly considers their experiences of victimisation, discrimination and abuse (Hord & Medcalf, 2020). A summary of this knowledge is outlined below, though it remains that little to no research has been published on the experiences of trans people on probation orders or prison licence.

Hockley, Essex, UK: Interventions Alliance, 2024. 53p.