Summary:
This presentation will explore some of the findings from a study about LGBTQ+ pains of imprisonment, including bullying and discrimination, a lack of specific LGBTQ+ support in prison and the uncertainty and belonging of trans prisoners. While focussed on women’s prisons, this presentation will offer tentative reflections and encourage new dialogue about how this work might be relevant in a youth justice setting. So, how does structural harm impact LGBTQ+ youth in conflict with the law? How might we create safer spaces for LGBTQ+ youth in secure care or YOI’s? What kind of care systems do we need instead?
Bio:
Dr Kayleigh Charlton is a Research Associate at CYCJ. She joined CYCJ on the Nuffield-funded project ‘Challenging Justice Inequalities: Co-producing Change with Children in Conflict with the Law’. The project will run from 2024-2026 and aims to explore how intersecting inequalities affect children’s experiences of (in)justice. Kayleigh completed her PhD at the University of Bath titled ‘The Imaginary Queer Prison: The Possibilities and Limitations of Queering the Prison’. This was an interdisciplinary thesis that explored conceptualisations of queer spaces, uses and meanings of ‘queer’, LGBTQ+ pains of imprisonment and the use of speculative fiction to (re)imagine responses to the social and economic inequalities faced by LGBTQ+ communities.
Download the presentation slides here.
Relevant links:
PhD thesis – (Kayleigh_Charlton_PhD_Thesis_Amended.pdf)
Practice Guide chapter on Diversity – https://www.cycj.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Section-7-Diversity.pdf
Paper on the letter writing study – Reflecting on and Managing the Emotional and Ethical Challenges of Letter Writing as a Method of Data Collection With Prisoners – Kayleigh Charlton, 2024
Info sheet Gender, sexual identity and crime – Info-sheet-78-final.pdf
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