WOMEN IN PRISON closed in 2000, incidentally after an inspection by the Parliamentary Ombudsman in 1998. Among the reasons for the closure was that the inspection revealed that the prison was in an extremely poor structural condition. Women are received at all local prisons, including those in Copenhagen. Five state prisons receive female prisoners: Ringe State Prison, Horserød State Prison, Møgelkær State Prison, Eastern Jutland State Prison and Herstedvester Prison. In other words, female prisoners serve their sentences together with male prisoners. Danish legislation does not contain provisions specifying that women and men have to serve their sentences in separate institutions. European prison rules lay down that the need to separate male and female prisoners must be taken into consideration when deciding to house prisoners in particular prisons or prison blocks. Men and women together The question is whether it causes problems for women that female prisoners serve their sentences together with male prisoners in Denmark. The short ­answer is: yes, it causes major problems. For space reasons, I will only consider the conditions of female prisoners at Herstedvester Prison. Herstedvester Prison has a special women’s block with room for 14 women (now distributed in two sections). During their imprisonment, the women serving sentences for serious crimes are offered treatment by psychiatrists and psychologists, among others. The women are able to spend time with male prisoners in the workshops and during their leisure time. The women’s block has been inspected by the Parliamentary Ombudsman on several occasions and the Ombudsman has monitored the women’s conditions on a regular basis. The problems were/are due to the fact that the women are serving their sentences in the same institution as some of the worst male sexual offenders in the country. A recommendation by a Prison and Probation Service working group considering ‘vulnerable’ prisoners in the institutions of the Prison and Probation Service which was issued in March 1996 also considers the conditions of women. In relation to female prisoners being housed at Herstedvester Prison, the Prison’s chief medical officer at the time, Heidi Hansen, wrote, among other things, in a minority statement: ‘On the basis of the experiences gained by the institution since the establishment of the women’s block, it is considered a cause for grave concern that women are housed among the male prisoners at all. 49