By Somjen Frazer, Richard Saenz, Andrew Aleman, and Laura Laderman

OUR VOICE IS OUR POWER: In 2022, Lambda Legal, in partnership with Black and Pink National, launched the Protected and Served? community survey. With this project, we aimed to learn more about the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ+) people and people living with HIV with the criminal legal system, to assess these communities’ levels of trust in government institutions, and to create a new resource for community members, advocates, policymakers, and researchers for LGBTQ+ and HIV liberation.

This report describes the findings of Protected and Served?. In addition to asking structured questions that provide a quantitative (numerical) account of the participants’ experiences, the survey also asked for qualitative data (open-ended questions); these answers were analyzed systematically, and the qualitative findings are included throughout the report.1 Protected and Served? focuses on the widespread harm caused to LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV by the criminal legal system, including the adult carceral system, immigration system, juvenile systems, the courts, and schools. The report also examines intersectional disparities within these impacted groups of people.

Lambda Delta, 2022. 82p.

By The Working Group

The Minister for Justice Helen McEntee T.D has today published the final report and recommendations of the Working Group examining the Disregard of Convictions for Certain Qualifying Offences Related to Consensual Sexual Activity between Men. The report contains 95 recommendations regarding the introduction of a statutory scheme to enable the disregard of relevant criminal records.

“Nearly 30 years on from decriminalisation, Ireland has become a much more tolerant society. But there are many people who still feel the hurt and stigma created by the laws that criminalised consensual sexual activity between men.