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For over a year now, the news media have covered a class action lawsuit concerning the Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin, which argued that the women incarcerated at FCI-Dublin were routinely subjected to sexual violence, harassment, intimidation and other forms of brutality<\/a>. This lawsuit is only one of over 60 that have been filed against FCI-Dublin since 2021, all claiming a pattern of sexual violence in the institution. In April, FCI-Dublin was shut down, and the women were moved to other institutions all over the country. What if it\u2019s the same everywhere?<\/p>\n Thanks to a recent, and some would say consequential, election, the government of the United Kingdom changed hands from Tory to Labour. The Labour government has \u201cdiscovered\u201d that the prisons are a toxic mess. This week, UK Ministry of Justice published its latest Safety in Custody<\/a> report, looking at deaths up to June 2024, self-harm up to March 2024: \u201cIn the most recent quarter, self-harm incidents were up 8% to 19,418, and the rate was up 9% (a 2% increase in male establishments and a 29% increase in female establishments) \u2026. The rate is more than eight times higher in female establishments than male establishments \u2026. The rate of assault was 71% higher in female establishments than male establishments.\u201d Why are the rates so high in women\u2019s prisons, and particularly so much higher than in men\u2019s prisons? Nadia<\/a> spent five months in a women\u2019s prison, which she described as \u201cwalking onto the set of One Flew Over The Cuckoo\u2019s Nest \u2026 Many of the girls there should not be in prison, they need proper help.\u201d The majority of incidents of self-harm and of assault in women\u2019s prisons are not as violent or severe as those in men\u2019s prisons, but the numbers and rates are higher. What does that tell you? As in FCI-Dublin, the response has been to describe the situation as \u201ca failure\u201d. There was no failure, there was, and is, refusal.<\/p>\n In May, it was reported that the number of deaths by suicide<\/a> in the Cefereso 16 CPS Femenil de Morelos, the women\u2019s prison in Morelos, had increased by so much that all cases from then on would be investigated by the Fiscal\u00eda General de la Rep\u00fablica, the Attorney General of Mexico. In July, it was reported that almost half the women held in prisons are remand prisoners \u2026 innocent until proven guilty \u2026 or dead. The United Nations finds this situation \u201cparticularly preoccupying<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0Again, as in the United States and the United Kingdom, the systematic violence against women is seen as a \u201cfailure\u201d. There was no failure. There was simply refusal.<\/p>\n In the global scheme, the women\u2019s prisons of the United States, United Kingdom, and Mexico are not outliers. If anything, they\u2019re viewed as more or less preferable to prisons in many other parts of the world. None of that matters. What matters is justice. Again and again, the State, or the Fourth Estate, \u201cdiscovers\u201d systemic and systematic violence against women in prisons, jails, detention centers. Each time, shock and dismay are expressed, then \u201cfailure\u201d is somberly and solemnly declared, and then \u2026 nothing. At best, the individual house of horror is shut down and the women are moved \u2026 to another. There is no justice in women\u2019s prisons. There is cruelty in the decision that every act of violence was a sign of failure rather than the system working as it was meant to work, to the detriment and ultimate destruction of women. Otherwise, how else explain the infinite and cyclical \u00a0redundancy of discovery? Instead of \u201crepairing\u201d the prisons, \u00a0give the women, and the world, \u201cproper help\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n (By Dan Moshenberg)<\/p>\n