The Watchmen – State Violence in a Democracy
The role of the police in western society is beginning to be understood and challenged in ways that were inconceivable only a decade ago. The belief in ‘law and order’ and the infallibility of the police – or at least their role as a force for moral good in a system designed to uphold basic rights was deeply held. But the deluge of state violence now routinely witnessed and shared has fatally undermined that belief system and exposed as being based on a set of myths. ‘Policing by consensus’ – the idea that you can only police a society if a level of good relations is maintained is under threat and new radical notions of abolishing the police system as we understand it are emerging.
A policy of placing trans women in female prisons unlawfully discriminates against other women by exposing them to an increased risk of sexual assault, the High Court has been told.
A female prisoner, known only as FDJ, is bringing a legal challenge against a Ministry of Justice policy.
It allows prisoners to be housed according to their gender identity irrespective of whether they have taken any legal or medical steps to acquire that gender .
The woman argues the policy indirectly and unlawfully discriminates against women who were born that gender.
At a High Court hearing on Tuesday, lawyers for FDJ argued that accommodating transgender women in the female prison estate exposes female prisoners to a risk of sexual assault that would not arise absent that allocation .