Penal Reform and Gender inside prisons. Good arrangements for family visits (including private family visits) are likely to defuse tension. Much of prison life revolves around security procedures and in many systems the measures used to maintain security involve intrusive and humiliating procedures such as strip searching, internal searching, or forcing prisoners to squat on mirrors or urinate in front of prison staff to collect samples for detecting drug use.17 Searching by prison staff of the opposite sex is permitted in some systems. However, the need to protect prisoners from harassment and abuse can come into conflict with equal opportunity legislation that opens up all posts in prisons to both men and women. Dignity and respect are often compromised by aspects of prison life such as bathing and toilet facilities that offer no privacy because they are not closed off, and ill-fitting or dirty clothes for prisoners issued from a common pool. Instituting gender-responsive policies and practices within the prison system can help prevent human rights violations and ensure an effective response if they do occur. If a state has inadequate policies and practices in place to deal with these matters it is not meeting its human rights obligations. 3.2 To ensure equitable penal policies that do not discriminate Sentencing policies can be discriminatory. Women may be held in pre-trial detention unnecessarily and may face harsher sentencing because of a perception that only very ‘bad’ women commit crimes. Detention and sentencing policies can have a different impact on men and on women, particularly in cases where women are the main carers in the family unit. In some jurisdictions women are less likely to be given non-custodial sanctions because facilities that are available to men are not available to women.18 Lesbian and gay defendants may face discrimination in sentencing because of stereotyping and prejudice on the part of the judiciary. People from minority and indigenous groups tend to be disproportionately represented in the prison population. Most prison systems do not provide equal outcomes for men and women. The proportion of women held in any prison system throughout the world varies between 2% and 9%.19 One consequence of this minority status is that prisons and prison systems and policies tend to be organised on the basis of the needs and requirements of male prisoners. The profile of women prisoners is different from that of male prisoners. Women are more often imprisoned for acquisitive crime and are less likely to be found guilty of serious violence, criminal damage and professional crime. Women are particularly vulnerable to being detained because of their inability to pay fines for petty offences and/or to pay bail. Women prisoners nearly always face a structural situation that is discriminatory. They are subjected to security levels grossly disproportionate to the risks they pose because the security requirements apply to the whole prison system and no special policies are deemed to be necessary for women. Because they are a minority, the training of prison staff usually neglects the special situation of women prisoners. As such, education and training programmes often focus on meeting the requirements of male prisoners. The Special Rapporteur on prisons in Africa notes that in South Africa: ‘In most of the prisons, vocational training for trades such as woodwork, metal work, steel work and building is given only to male inmates. In the Durban Female Correctional Centre, women are engaged in sewing and laundry only and, because there are few machines, not all of them participate.’20 Sometimes the small number of women prisoners means there is only one women’s prison for a whole country. Because women are more likely to be held far from their homes, it is difficult for their families to visit them, and so prison disproportionately affects their right to family life. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment notes that women ‘are often held at a small number of locations (on occasion, far from their homes and those of any dependent children), in premises which were originally designed for (and may be shared by) male detainees. In these circumstances, particular care is required to ensure that women deprived of their liberty are held in a safe and decent custodial environment.’21 Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in prison also face discrimination. A study in the US shows that gay and lesbian young people in custody can be held in isolation ostensibly for their own protection. A court in Hawaii was given extensive evidence of assaults against such young prisoners.22 ‘When I arrived at [the juvenile detention facility] they ripped the weave out of my hair, broke off my nails, wiped my makeup off, stripped me of my undergarments, and made me wear male underwear and clothes.’ From interviews with a young transgender prisoner in the US 23 State institutions are obliged to prevent discrimination. Ensuring that penal policies take account of gender helps to identify discrimination against women and girls as well as men and boys in prison, and shapes actions to eliminate it. 3.3 To achieve prisoners’ reform and rehabilitation Prisons do not hold a representative sample of the adult population in any country. Discrimination in society at large is reflected in prisons. Poor people and those from socially marginalised groups are much more likely to end up in prison. Most people who come into contact with the penal system as defendants or convicted individuals are from the most disadvantaged groups in society, often with backgrounds of violence and sexual abuse. Four out of five women in prison in Canada report that they have been abused in the past.24 However, more resources are spent by society on processing them through the criminal justice system and on their subsequent imprisonment than on repairing the harm suffered by them in their earlier lives. Penal systems must recognise the needs of the population they are dealing with and ensure that help is 3