USA: Almost 50% of Trans Inmates in Federal Custody for Sex Offences

Data obtained from the Bureau of Prisons has revealed that almost 50% of trans-identified male inmates are in custody for sex offences, compared to just 11% of the general male population.

The shocking revelation comes after documents were acquired through a Freedom of Information request filed with the Bureau of Prisons by Amanda Stulman, the Director of the USA branch of Keep Prisons Single Sex. Stulman obtained the documents on December 14, 2021 – several weeks after submitting the request.

The breakdown of trans-identified criminals was sectioned into two categories – one for male-to-female transgenders and one for female-to-male.  According to the document, 48.47% of biological male inmates identifying as women are in federal custody for sex offences, compared to just 4.71% of biological females identifying as men, and 11.2% of the non-transgender male population of federal inmates in general.

Stulman says she's not surprised by the data, but was pleased the information had at least been tracked.

"A challenge in making decision-makers and the public aware of the problems in housing male inmates in women's prisons and jails is the difficulty in obtaining precise data." Stulman says, noting that state-level correctional facilities often don't keep accurate statistics due to coding based on gender identity markers on legal documents rather than actual biological sex.

Stulman points to a recent case where a biological male convicted of sexually abusing two toddlers was coded as a female in the in Bureau of Prisons system. Jakob Neives, also known as Dakota, had been a trans activist publicly advocating for male access to women's spaces based on gender self-identification prior to his incarceration.

In June of last year, Neives was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for sexually abusing two toddlers, as well as one count of distributing child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. In the Department of Justice release on his sentencing as well as media reports, he was uniformly referred to as a "woman" and by "she/her" pronouns.

Neives is currently housed at an institution which has separate units for male and female inmates, but Stulman says the Bureau of Prisons has not disclosed which unit he is located on.

Another dangerous male inmate currently in federal custody and coded as female by the Bureau of Prisons is Cristian Noel Iglesias, who was convicted of launching an anthrax terror attack on the British Foreign Office in 2002 while in prison for similar terror-related offences. Iglesias was recently transferred to a women's institution with the help of the ACLU.

"It's maddening that so much effort has to be expended in finding and producing data to show that men who identify as 'trans' have criminal patterns similar to other men." Stulman says, "The vast majority have male genitalia, are sexually attracted to women, and have gone through male puberty so they are, on average, bigger, taller, and stronger than women."

Stulman goes on to state the male inmates seeking to move to women's institutions are often in for more serious offences than their female counterparts, so have less to lose for engaging in misconduct while incarcerated.

"The mere presence of these men is disruptive to [female inmates] wellbeing. That we are allowing any men to opt into women's prisons is a monstrous societal failure."

Keep Prisons Single Sex is an activist organization dedicated to campaigning for the rights of incarcerated women. Started in the U.K in 2020, a U.S branch was quickly established to compliment it. The U.S site notes some of their current goals include ensuring the most recent iteration of the Equality Act does not pass the Senate, and pursuing amendments to the Prison Rape Elimination Act "so as to address current regulations which permit cross-sex housing in prisons." (read more)