Cruel & Unusual Punishment: The Male Takeover Of Women's Prisons

There are criminals, such as Andrew Franklin, who were sentenced to 270 years in prison for sexually abusing children. Or Donald A. Moyer, who was sentenced to 132 years on the same charges. Historically speaking, the judicial system was designed to deliver justice to those wronged by evildoers in our society. Or that's what it's supposed to do, that is. 

In recent times, transgenderism has become the exception, bypassing any sense of justice.

Last August, Breitbart reported, "The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the state of Indiana filed a lawsuit on behalf of a convicted child murderer who was refused transgender surgery." In 2001, Jonathan C. Richardson murdered his 11-month-old stepdaughter and was sentenced to 55 years in prison for his heinous crime. 

However, in 2020, Richardson decided to identify as a woman. He wanted transition surgery but was denied. The ACLU lawsuit claimed denying a murderer transition surgery was discrimination and a "deliberate indifference to a serious medical need."

In 1999, a man from Canada, Adam Laboucan, was sentenced to an indeterminate prison sentence for raping a three-month-old infant. At the time, Laboucan was considered the youngest criminal violent sex offender at age 17. Currently, this male sex offender is allowed to live with women in the Abbotsford Fraser Valley Institution for Women, "a minimum-security annex that hosts a program for incarcerated mothers and their babies," because he now identifies as a female.

As one other piece of evidence, Mark Campbell was sentenced to 34 years in prison for raping his own 10-year-old daughter in 2007. In 2013, Campbell began to identify as a woman and sued the Department of Corrections for denying approval for him to transition in 2016. This case was overseen by U.S. District Judge James Peterson, and in 2020, this rapist was able to undergo taxpayer-funded transition surgery, and now sits among female prisoners.

Here are three cases to consider of criminals who were convicted of murder and rape (of children and infants), yet, because they claimed to identify as transgender, were defended by activist groups and district courts. In Campbell's case, Judge Peterson "went as far as to argue that Campbell has been 'in anguish' due to his 'gender dysphoria' not being acknowledged by the state." In reality, these child rapists and murderers are not being acknowledged as heinous criminals because they identify as transgender.

In an attempt to affirm someone's gender confusion, serious and evil crimes are ignored. That alone is a problem. However, the problem doesn't go away after a man who wants to identify as a transgender woman gets what he wants and is transferred to a women's prison. Rather, in many instances, the problem only gets worse.

Independent Women's Forum (IWF), a conservative nonprofit, recently released a trailer to a "new documentary series exposing the reality of housing biological males who identify as transgender with female prisoners." It's titled, "Cruel & Unusual Punishment: The Male Takeover of Women's Prisons," and will feature a series of interviews with women who've been forced to share facilities with men convicted of rape and other sexual offenses. This is especially concerning when 92% of female inmates have already experienced some form of sexual abuse prior to incarceration.

Kelsey Bolar, director of storytelling at IWF, shared that this project started with the "desire to take a stance in this fight and be a voice for current and former female inmates who, sadly, don't have a voice." Even though this battle seems under the radar, IWF is not alone in their efforts. To help protect women facing the threat posed by trans-identifying men in female prisons, Keep Prisons Single Sex (KPSS) was established -- first in the U.K. in 2020, then in the U.S. in 2021.

KPSS's goal is to help ensure inmates are in prisons that correspond with their "sex registered at birth." In addition to tracking data and reports of prison misconduct at the hands of transgender-identifying individuals, KPSS wants to elevate why this issue matters and deserves attention. They wrote, "Throughout the criminal justice system, it is acknowledged that sex matters." Yet, when incidents occur where a female inmate is harassed by a female-identifying man, media coverage is "at best, confusing."

For centuries, the justice system has acknowledged that the criminal patterns between men and women are different, with men "offending at significantly increased rates compared to females." When a media outlet covers a crime using pronouns that do not correlate to biological sex, data is misrepresented.

KPSS wrote, "In crime reporting, where gender identity is stated in lieu of sex as registered at birth it portrays a misleading and inaccurate version of events. ... Not only does this portray a false version of the particular event in question, it contributes to a wider shift in narrative where increasing numbers of women are reported as committing serious sexual and violent offences, yet some of these 'women' are in fact male."

In an interview with The Washington Stand, Amanda Stulman, U.S. director of KPSS, explained how this issue is like an "unending onion." With each layer you pull back, there's yet another layer to be found. She described this field of interest as the "prison context of gender identity," and she first became interested when she realized no one else was focusing on this specific matter.

As work is done to expose the dangers of trans-identifying men being housed in women's prisons, Stulman said their first aim is for things "not to get worse." But the long-term goal is to make sure that no biological men are in any women's prison, because, as she said, even "one male in a women's prison" means "it's no longer a women's prison." But "what really needs to happen" for this goal to be met is to address this at the federal level, she urged.

TWS has reported before on some cases of female inmates being assaulted by male inmates who identify as transgender. It's a harsh reality to face that actions do, indeed, have consequences. The second a biological male is permitted into women's sports, bathrooms, or prisons, the risk of harm increases significantly. And in many cases, actual harm ensues.

Of course, the women compromised are also criminals. But that doesn't mean they should be subjected to what many consider may be cruel and unusual punishment. And the fact that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) gives rapists and murderers special treatment because it's "inclusive" is a low perhaps no one anticipated.

But DEI efforts are also contributing to airplanes falling apart mid-air, military standards declining, and teachers hiding children's gender-identity from parents -- examples that only scratch the surface of the plague of "inclusion and acceptance."

The jaws of DEI look to devour any and everything it can, and it looks like even prisons are on the menu.

Originally published at The Washington Stand