Your Revenge Fantasies Aren’t an Argument for Prison

The carceral justice system offers no solutions to transphobic violence. It is one of the primary sources of that violence.

I got this message on Tumblr today, and I want to make my response to it very, very clear.

You can have whatever emotions you want about the horrific stabbing of Jacob Williamson, and in the privacy of your mind you can envision whatever kind of gruesome fate for his murderer that you want. But the reality is that the carceral justice system is one of the largest sources of physical, emotional, and sexual torment for transgender people on this planet. Prison is not a solution to transphobic violence. It is a cause of transphobic violence.

Transgender people are ten times more likely to be assaulted by a fellow inmate and five times more likely to be assaulted by a corrections officer, according to a National Center for Transgender Equality Report.

Within the prison system, transgender people are frequently denied gender-affirming medical care, and housed in populations that do not match their identity, which increases their odds of being beaten and sexually assaulted.

The alternative to being incorrectly housed with the wrong gendered population is…