Former Limerick Prison inmate talks Transgender
“Disgusting and vulgar talk”
The hashtag #KeepPrisonsSingleSex was trending on Twitter yesterday following the sentencing of Pandora Electra:
Veteran (former RTE) broadcaster Paddy O’Gorman’s insightful podcast offers a platform for voices we rarely hear.
Last week, Paddy spoke to former inmate Leanne Casey, who spoke candidly about her experience of transgender prisoners.
“I find standing outside a prison, is a good way to find out what’s going on inside a prison,” he said.
Leanne, a recovering drug addict who swapped cell time for a college course, talked about her experience of sharing a landing with three transgender prisoners housed in the female wing at Limerick Prison.
“I was a prisoner myself in Limerick Prison,” Leanne said.
“We’d get punished, if a prisoner said ‘sure he’s a man he should be over on the male landing’, then it’s for us speaking it out - saying that we didn’t feel safe on the landing -you’d get locked back into the cell for that, because you were disrespecting them and not treating them as women,” she said.
Paddy met Leanne as she was leaving the prison, having attempted to visit her brother. He was jailed shortly after their mother’s death just over three months ago.
She was stopped because of the metal wire in her bra. She hasn’t seen her brother for a month.
“I usually wear sports ones but I was rushing this morning and I just forgot.”
“They are stopping people a lot. For the last couple of months I’m a visitor but over the last couple of years I’ve been a visitor and a prisoner in Mountjoy and in Limerick Prison,” she said.
During her time inside, Leanne was able to access treatment that helped her turn her life around. She said others view their time inside differently.
“There’s free meals, they are warm, they are clothed, some people just look at it like that.”
“There’s an officer inside there and to this day I thank her. I was sitting inside in a prison cell and this officer said, if this helps one woman on this landing I’ll be a happy woman and it actually did (help) because when I came out of prison I went for treatment. If more treatment centres linked in with prisons then I’m sure it would help a lot of prisoners from ending up back in jail after getting out,” she said.
Paddy asked how is she doing now please?
“I’m in recovery the last two years and I’m doing good. I’m after going from Limerick Prison to Limerick Senior College across the road so now I am student instead of a prisoner,” she laughed.
“I was in for 12 months. I was in and out. I was reoffending due to addiction and homelessness.
“It’s everywhere and it’s big. Crack cocaine, heroin, tablets, weed, everything. It’s everywhere.”
“I was up for possession, assaults and all that. Addiction was a person that wasn’t really me. It turned me into a completely different person. Even in recovery you have to face the consequences of addiction. It can be tough. With Coolmine they had hope in me when I had none in myself. And Sport Ireland. They were really good as well for funding and getting into the fitness and that.
“You can change (yourself) but you can’t change the world,” Leanne said.
There were three transgender prisoners housed on the women’s wing when Leanne was serving time at Limerick Prison.
“There’s three transgender prisoners on the women’s landing. We had to be locked back because they were screaming things about women prisoners. I was on E2, they were on E1. We’d come out for breakfast or dinner, then we’d get locked back into the cell.
“There’s a lot of complaints in there, because like you couldn’t go down the stairs, you had to go all opposite ways (so as not to pass the cells) so it just made it very awkward for the women.
“Yeah and they roaring out the doors, disgusting and vulgar talk from the transgenders. Now that’s not all of them, it could be two out of the three. When I was in, there was three.
“The transgenders would get left out in the yard on their own.
“They can’t be mixed. But we could still hear them and the vulgar talk out of their mouths as well. Like, things happen to women; do you know what I mean? And then it’s to hear that all over again.
“And then they want to be treated like a woman. I think that some of the transgenders are actually fooling the government. They’d be on the landing and they’d be having fun out of it,” she said.
“It’s the truth that goes on behind the prison walls,” she said.
Minister for Justice Helen McEntee visited Limerick Prison to review upgrade works that will more than double capacity for female prisoners, in September.
The €60million project includes a new two storey female prison facility with cells, training, health facility and apartments fronting onto Roxborough Road.
This new facility will end the practice of housing transgender prisoners on the women’s landing.
“They’d be in protection anyway from being transgender and that,” Leanne told Paddy’s Podcast.
“I don’t have anything against transgenders but they shouldn’t be on the landings with women.
“If they are a male, really a male that wants to be a woman, that’s what it is. I can dress up as a man, now are they going to put me on the men’s landing? If I chop up my hair and put on baggy clothes? Seriously. That’s the truth of the matter,” she said.
“They are not going to do that but they do it for transgenders. It’s just very unfair to the female prisoners.”
Leanne said that during her time in prison, females were kept apart from transgender prisoners.
“When I was in there, they were kinda being cautious with them because they are criminals too. Some of us don’t even know what charges they are in for but some are in for serious charges. Some are in for harming women and then they are on a women’s landing?
“It’s to protect them from other prisoners, because on a women’s landing, if you’re in for harming a woman, you’re gona get attacked. On a woman’s landing and you’re after hurting someone’s child, there’s most of them women inside are mothers, so they wouldn’t like that. You would get attacked inside for something like that,” she said.
Leanne referenced Rule 63 of the Prison Rules 2007.
In Ireland, protection prisoners are defined as prisoners considered to be under threat or at risk from other prisoners.
From the Irish Penal Reform Trust briefing on Solitary Confinement, Isolation, Protection and Special Regimes:
“Protection prisoners are defined under Rule 63 of the Prison Rules 2007 as those prisoners considered to be under threat or at risk from other prisoners “who are reasonably likely to cause significant harm to him”. Prisoners may be put ‘on protection’ either as a result of a request from the prisoner or after consideration by the prison governor.”
In August 2021, the Law Society Gazette published an article that raised concerns over two transgender prisoners living “an extremely isolated existence” separated from the general population on E Wing in Limerick Prison.
The article was based on a report by the Inspectorate for Prisons advising that ‘these protective measures should involve no greater restriction of rights than is experienced by the general prison population.’
“Prison personnel should be required to undertake training and awareness-raising programmes regarding international human rights standards and principles of equality and non-discrimination, including in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity,” the report stated.
The transgender inmates are offered education, training and weekly ‘psychology sessions’ according to the Gazette. Both inmates told the inspection team that isolation had adversely impacted their mental health. One felt ‘uncomfortable and alone’ and described isolation as ‘mental torture.’
The Inspectorate urged the Irish Prison Service (IPS) to develop a national policy regarding the safe custody of transgender women and men.
www.paddyspodcast.ie
Listen to the full episode – which features a newly released prisoner emerging from incarceration with cocaine he brought out ‘from inside’ : here
Paddy O’Gorman is producing weekly podcasts between now and Christmas on his Paddy’s Podcast platform. This Substack is reproduced with Paddy’s permission.
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I was one of transwomen on e1 wing and I passed women on route to use the yard and they all motivated me with positivity- this Leanne girl I never seen or heard and maybe was so fucked by drug addiction aside from going to the public to be voiced is very needy
So much lies in this post - the noise that came from our landing was a lot more peaceful than around us