Mixed Hostels
| DOI | 10.1177/026455059604300306 |
| Published date | 01 September 1996 |
| Date | 01 September 1996 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Mixed Hostels:
Staff and Resident
Perspectives
One solution to the imbalance in the number of men and women
appearing before the courts has been to provide bail and probation
accommodation in mixed hostels but the appropriateness of this
practice has been questioned in recent inspection reports. Emma
Wincup, Research Student and Tutor at the School of Social and
Administrative Studies, University of Wales, Cardiff, draws on the
views of hostel workers and female residents in three hostels to
argue that mixed provision presents a number of challenges in
guaranteeing privacy, safety and equality of service for female
residents. She suggests the need for a more flexible system which
respects individual choice.
A
t present, women requiring hostel
resources and hence many women are
accommodation in the approved
accommodated at long distances from their
sector can be referred to one of
three women-
homes, families or communities.
only hostels or one of the forty-six mixed
This paper aims to address some
hostels in England and Wales. These mixed
important questions which could inform
hostels stand in stark contrast to the traditional
future policy and practice: what types of
tendency to segregate males and females in
hostel provision do staff and residents
the criminal justice system. They
support? what are the arguments for and
predominantly accommodate male bailees
against mixed hostels? what challenges do
and/or probationers, but reserve a small
mixed hostels present in terms of equal
number of beds for females. Previous reports
opportunities? The evidence reported here
by the Probation Inspectorate’ have argued
forms part of a wider study of hostel provision
that this is an unsatisfactory arrangement,
for women awaiting trial, involving in-depth
particularly the practice of accommodating
interviews with fifteen staff and fifteen
lone females in a predominantly male hostel.
residents in three bail/probation hostels. The
Instead, they have advocated the use of
research aimed to explore the particular needs
specialist resources such as women-only
of female defendants and the ways in which
hostels. A major difficulty here is that the
hostels offer support and structure to help
small number of women requiring hostel
many of the women
regain control over their
accommodation leads to the provision of few
lives.
147
A
number of theoretical ideas guide the
development of a self-contained annexe for
research. Firstly, it prioritises gender as an
females. This provided single bedrooms for
essential category of analysis, but recognises
women with their own televisions, self-
how gender interacts with other social
catering facilities and bathroom facilities.
divisions such as class, age, ethnicity and
Staff were willing to visit women in their
sexuality. Secondly, it focuses on the
own
rooms and male residents were strictly
experiences and lives of women and finally,
forbidden to enter. This allowed a women-
considers power relations and the degree to
only space to be created within a mixed hostel.
which women are able to exert control over
However, the costs of this privacy accorded
their lives.
to women
can
be feelings of entrapment. This
The research took place in two women-
was
highlighted by the Inspectorate’s thematic
only hostels, and a mixed hostel which had
inspection (1993).
accommodation for up to four women in a
From the female residents’ accounts,
self-contained part of the building. All shared
diverse views emerged as to the value of
a common
problem of a struggle to maintain
...
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