Prisoners who have male genitalia will now be blocked from serving time in women's prisons in the United Kingdom.
According to a report by the Daily Mail, UK Justice Secretary Dominic Raab will introduce a new policy that will see Ministers required to sign off on the relocation of prisoners who identify as female to women’s prisons if they still have male genitals.
Raab's new policy will also hand the government the power to remove any transgender prisoners from UK jails and move them to correctional facilities that coincide with their private parts.
The Daily Mail claims that the new policy comes following a string of sex scandals involving a trans inmates, one of whom has been jailed for murder and is currently incarcerated in a women's correctional facility.
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Karen White, formerly known as Stephen Wood, was caught having consensual sex with another inmate, the Daily Mail reports.
The inmate was previously described as a 'predator' by a judge and a danger to women and children.
There were also other accusations against the same inmate of sexual assault against other female prisoners.
A whistleblower at women’s prison Bronzefield told the Daily Mail that the prisoners with male sex organs makes the female prisoners feel 'uncomfortable and upset'.
"Every time there is a transgender male to female with a male organ brought into the prison, the female prisoners are extremely uncomfortable and upset," the whistleblower said.
"But the women prisoners don’t feel they can complain because they think nothing will be done."
Bronzefield houses 527 inmates and is the UK's largest women's prison.
The Telegraph reported in 2021 that 197 prisoners serving sentences in England and Wales identified as transgender, which was a 21 per cent jump from 163 in 2019.
The Daily Mail reports that Whitehall have claimed that the current policy of allowing male-bodied prisoners to self-identify as women and switch jails was putting vulnerable women at risk.
"The current approach is not safe.If we cannot protect women in the most tightly controlled environment in the country, where can we protect single-sex spaces?" the Whitehall source told the Daily Mail.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman confirmed to The Telegraph that the changes will be implemented as soon as possible.
"Having reviewed the arrangements in July, the Justice Secretary directed changes so transgender prisoners with male genitalia are not housed with other biologically born women in the female prison estate, unless specifically signed off by a Minister," they said.
"Once confirmed by the new Government in September, it would be implemented as soon as possible."
Rachel Lang