#EqualJustice

Caroline Criado Perez has spent years investigating the gender data gap — and how women are simply forgotten in a world designed for men. Her best-selling book, Invisible Women, was published to critical acclaim, and Caroline was inundated with readers sharing their own stories of the “default male”.  But what happens next? How can we close the gender data gap and design a world that works for everyone? In Visible Women, a new 12-part podcast series from Tortoise, Caroline recovers invisible women from history, hunts for missing data, and gets into fights with manufacturing companies. Most importantly, she will look to the future, and ask: how do we solve such a giant problem? Join us for a ThinkIn with Caroline where we discuss her world and work, and how we can fix a world designed by men.  editor and invited experts Liz MoseleyEditor Caroline Criado-PerezJournalist, Activist and Author of ‘Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men’

Women make up around 4% of the UK prison population, which means that more than 3,000 women are incarcerated in a system largely designed for men. They’re often poor, marginalised, traumatised and vulnerable individuals, mostly convicted for non-violent and petty crimes, More than half of women in prison have little or no educational qualifications, many have drug and alcohol dependencies, and an alarming number suffer from mental health issues. NHS data shows two thirds of women in prison are suffering from a mental disorder with record numbers being driven to suicide or self-harm by the lack of appropriate care. Does incarceration of women do more harm than good for society, and if so – what’s the alternative? editor and invited experts Liz MoseleyEditor Angela KirwinFormer Prison Social Worker and Author of ‘Criminal: How our prisons are failing us all’ Keri BlakingerJournalist and Author of ‘Corrections in Ink: Dispatches from an American Prison’

This is a digital-only ThinkIn.Earlier this year, a Tortoise investigation found that last autumn’s “needle spiking epidemic” almost certainly didn’t happen – at least not in the way it was reported to have done. But that’s not the end of this story. Our research unearthed as many questions as it did answers. Why is there no crime code for drink spiking? If we don’t know how big the problem is, what steps can we take to fix it? Why do police toxicology reports take anywhere between three months to a year to come back?  What does the “spiking epidemic” phenomenon of last autumn tell us about women’s trust in the police, and trust between women and men more generally? Might believing alleged victims without scrutiny do more harm than good in the long run? This ThinkIn is part of Tortoise Investigates: Police and Misogyny. A year-long collaboration between Tortoise reporters and members, this project seeks to explore the way police culture consistently permits the failure to prosecute, and sometimes even to investigate, sexual and violent crime against women and girls.If you have an experience to share that would help our investigation, on or off the record, please contact liz@tortoisemedia.com. editor and invited experts Liz MoseleyEditor Patricia ClarkeTortoise Data Journalist and Reporter Vickie BurginScience Director, Forensic Capability Network

This is a newsroom ThinkIn. In-person tickets are sold out, but please do join us online by booking a digital-only ticket.What an absolute treat. We are beyond thrilled to be able to invite members to spend an hour with us in the company of Caitlin Moran, in person in the Tortoise newsroom. As if you didn’t know, she’s a best-selling author with a natural wit, disarming honesty and sharp intellect that is rare and irresistible. Following the release in 2020 of More Than A Woman (the follow up to How to Build A Woman) and a successful UK tour, Caitlin is coming to Tortoise for a glass of wine and a chinwag about anything and everything, but almost certainly feminism, music, celebrity culture, politics… Buy Caitlin’s book More Than a Woman.  editor James Harding Editor and Co-founder

Warning: Before we begin, I just need to warn you this is a hard listen at times. It deals with self-harm and suicide, and you might feel this is not for you. If you are affected at all, please ask for help at Samaritans.org. Why this story? There are just 128 secure, Ofsted-regulated care homes in England for children suffering from severe emotional and behavioural difficulties. Social workers must scrabble daily for beds for the highly distressed, often suicidal children in their care. Usually, they can’t find one.  As a result, scores of children are ending up deprived of their liberty by the family courts, but still with nowhere to go… except for ad-hoc, unregulated placements, with no independent checks on the standard of care they receive. Sometimes children end up locked up for months, physically and chemically restrained. We ask why there isn’t enough capacity in the system, and why these children are being harmed, not helped.