SSP protest at women’s prison

Mar 11 2010 by Cameron Hay, Paisley Daily Express

A PAISLEY activist headed up a peaceful protest to mark International Women’s Day.

Renfrewshire Scottish Socialist Party member Jimmy Kerr was in Stirling at Cornton Vale Prison to highlight the issues surrounding female imprisonment.

And the Westminister candidate for Paisley and Renfrewshire South used a loudhailer to inform them that they are not forgotten and that they are not alone.

Jimmy and SSP comrades, including SSP national secretary and Renfrewshire branch member Pam Currie, a lecturer in Womens Studies at Stow College, walked around the perimeter fence with a loudhailer, speaking to the women, singing songs and offering messages of solidarity, before delivering a giant greetings card, celebrating International Women’s Day, to the prisoners.

The protest was peaceful, non-violent and unlike previous Women’s Day Protests, no police were called, although the women were moved from their accommodation blocks to other parts of the jail.

Jimmy Kerr said: “That women experience a tougher time in prison than men is an observation so obvious that it has become trite and lazy to talk about it in these simplistic terms – and quite right.

“Because it’s not just that men are ‘better built’ for prison, evident in suicide and self harm rates, but that there are real inequities in our legal system and in wider society that our legislators and our powerful institutions simply refuse to engage with. The issue is all women prisoners are victims.”