The government has overturned the commitment to reduce the number of women in jail. This ignores how female offenders are very different from their male counterparts
Does aspiring to equality mean treating people equally or differently? This is a question that has long divided right and left.
The right would wish away structural discrimination: treat everyone the same when it comes to the workplace or the education system and the people who deserve to flourish will; no matter that the biggest impediment to women’s careers is going part-time after having a baby, or that young black men in London have grown up in a society where they are 19 times more likely to be stopped and searched by police. The left recognises that equal treatment might not be enough to overcome deep-seated structural disadvantage.
