The Feline Warrior

To Ms. Sara Thornton (Chair of National Police Chiefs’ Council, U.K.), in response to her call for laws to allow “positive race discrimination.”

Let’s be honest: There are very serious inequalities in the British criminal justice system.
When we analyze the data and statistics, it is abundantly clear that such inequalities are by no means isolated incidents, but rather institutional and systematic injustice.

Common sense tells us that males take up about 50% of the population in the U.K.
(In fact, there are slightly more females than males — the male-to-female ratio is estimated to be 0.99.)

And yet, nearly 95% of the British prison population is male.
95%!

Men are, without any doubt, very disproportionately prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated.
They are being locked up at a rate so grossly disproportionate to their population that is shocking and disturbing to anyone who cares about gender equality.

No evidence can be more painfully obvious in demonstrating that the British criminal justice system does, indeed, purposefully target and discriminate against men.
Because, well, how else can you explain that men make up 50% of the country’s population, but 95% of the prison population?

This disgraceful trend of disproportionate incarceration must be stopped, and it must be stopped now.
This is why we, more than ever before, need some groundbreaking reforms to address the gender-based discrimination within the criminal justice system.

And this is why I’m proposing a bold plan: the Solution To Unequal Prosecution, Injustice and Disproportionality (S.T.U.P.I.D.).

This is how S.T.U.P.I.D. is going to be implemented:

• During roll call before every shift, every police officer in the U.K. will be briefed and provided with the latest statistics: how many people have been arrested this week so far in their jurisdiction, and the male-to-female gender ratio of these arrestees.
• If they find that females and males each constitute about 50% of arrests, they may carry on with their police duties as usual.
• But if they find that male arrestees have already exceeded (or are about to exceed) 50%, the following protocol is to be followed:
  1. Temporarily halt the apprehension of all known male fugitives, even if they are armed and dangerous and pose a threat to public safety. Because, well, equality comes first.
  2. If an officer encounters a crime-in-progress committed by a male perpetrator, the officer must make every effort to avoid making an arrest.
  3. If an officer unintentionally detains or arrests a male suspect, the suspect must be immediately released as soon as his gender identity is confirmed, and the officer must immediately report to their supervisor and face possible disciplinary actions.
  4. Officers must make every effort to bring the male-to-female ratio of arrestees to an equal level by the end of the day, even if this means they have to arbitrarily arrest females without legal justification. Because, well, equality comes first.
  5. If all else fails, the Crown Prosecution Service must refuse to prosecute male suspects, while arbitrarily prosecuting females who are in fact innocent, until the male-to-female ratio of suspects is brought to an even 50-50.

Bottom line: since men are 50% of the total population, they are supposed to make up 50% of the prison population, too.
They do not deserve to be overrepresented in prisons, no matter what, period (or, as you Brits would say, “full stop”).