Ireland is a small country with relatively little crime. Around a thousand women receive prison sentences each year, almost all short ones for petty offences. At any moment, around 170 are behind bars, of whom between zero and three have committed sex crimes. Until 2019, not a single woman had ever been imprisoned for a sex crime against an adult. Since then, Irish prisons have experienced a sudden influx of ‘female’ sex offenders – according to official records. As you will have guessed, the perpetrators are in fact male. The first, whose name is not public, was convicted in July 2019 on ten
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