Within the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE 1984), heteronormative language is prevalent, reflecting a dichotomous understanding of gender. The use of ‘same-sex’ and ‘opposite sex’ within the broader Code of PACE serves to exclude people who identify as trans, non-binary, intersex or agender. While the need for sensitivity to ‘transgender, transsexual or transvestite people’ in custody is acknowledged (Code C, Annex L), in practice there is little guidance or training on what this entails. In such cases, the treatment of an individual depends heavily on the interpretations, attitude, and discretion of the officer in charge. Thus, trans and non-binary people face unique challenges within custody. Little research has been conducted that explores the intersection of vulnerability and gender identity in custody settings or the role of an appropriate adult (AA) in safeguarding individuals impacted by Annex L. This is despite intense debates on trans rights and an increased awareness and understanding of gender diversity in recent years.
Custody suites are complex spaces with varying narratives surrounding risk, vulnerability, and safeguarding, and populated by a range of professionals working in parallel to respond to the needs of the person and situation. Through a triangulated approach, this project collates a range of experiences, perspectives, and understandings in relation to the treatment of trans and non-binary suspects. This is achieved through exploring perspectives of practitioners and lived experience narratives, this research aims to feed into organisations to inform effective practice and interpretations of Annex L. These include practitioners, AAs, and trans and non-binary people with lived experience of custody.
This paper presents the preliminary findings from interviews with people affected by Annex L to explore how policy and guidance from governmental bodies is used, negotiated, and experienced. Here we present our recommendations for evidence-based policy and practice development.

In this presentation, I draw from my previous work on pleasure in prison settings (Vasiliou, 2020) and I argue for the application of queer and decolonial methodologies as a means of deconstructing the binary formation through which pain and pleasure in prison are understood. To do that, I explore how former prisoners’ narratives might reveal (queer) moments of pleasure and complement existing criminological scholarship that has neglected such an issue. My starting point is Foucault’s theory of pleasure as a productive force that renders pleasure akin to power: pleasure produces an effect. Recent developments in criminology acknowledge the complexity of emotional states in prisons (Chamberlen, 2018; Laws, 2022). These approaches contribute significantly to understanding emotions, feelings, and affects across a spectrum. Expanding on those findings, my argument posits that the binary view of pain and pleasure is less productive. This presentation draws data from two sources: a broader study of ex-prisoners in Cyprus where I focus on their experiences in prison through the lens of queer and decolonial theory, and my hands-on experience as an educator in prison settings for a period of five years. My presentation posits a question about the possibility and productivity of pleasure in conditions where individuals resist, experience failure, and endure suffering. I argue that this framework goes beyond normative criminological approaches to reveal how the prison experience is a complex nexus that considers pleasure and pain on a spectrum and in relation to power, punishment, resistance, failure, and self-destruction.

This paper uses interviews with twenty-eight bisexual women who had experienced intimate partner violence to understand their experiences of hypersexualisation. Using black feminist work on testimonial smothering, objectification and hyperseuxalisation to explore bisexual women's experiences of multiple types of violence including physical violence, coercive control and sexual violence. It will argue that highly gendered stigma attached to bisexuality contributes to understanding why UK and US victim surveys show bisexual women report experiencing violence more frequently in relationships.

Throughout the past decades, hate crimes have received increasing academic and legislative attention in the United States. Although hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation have a rooted history in the United States, it is only relatively recently that scholars have endeavored to understand the theoretical applicability of criminological models in comprehending the spatial variation of such crimes. The breadth and efficacy of the existing scholarship remain circumscribed, however, primarily due to the constraints intrinsic to the utilization of official datasets. Drawing upon the minority threat theory framework and relevant research, this study addresses the official data constraints by employing a restricted version of the 2005-2015 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to investigate the effects of contextual characteristics on the risk of hate crime victimization based on sexual orientation. In doing so, we merge these data with multiple external datasets. The results from a set of survey regression models reveal a curvilinear effect of gender economic inequality and a positive effect of the percentage of same-sex households, as well as a negative effect for the change in the percent of same-sex households on the risk of hate crime victimization based on sexual orientation. Additionally, the results indicate that the percentage of young males attenuates the positive effect of gender economic inequality, while illustrating a positive interactive effect between young males and changes in the percentage of same-sex households and marriage equality laws, respectively. Overall, these findings underscore the relevance of the minority threat theory for understanding victimization based on sexual orientation, thus emphasizing the role of heteronormative and patriarchal power structures in generating violence. We point to the necessity for policymakers to foster gender equality and diversity within the social context.

Keywords: Gender, Hate Crime, Sexual Orientation