Topical question AQT 971/22-27

Topical question by Mr Justin McNulty on 3 February 2025.

MLA: Mr Justin McNulty
Party at the time: Social Democratic and Labour Party
Date: 3 February 2025
Type: Topical question
Assembly reference: AQT 971/22-27
Business: Oral Answers to Questions
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4774283

Text

Mr McNulty asked the Minister of Justice to explain why the number of women in prison has increased by 200% since before the pandemic, when there were just 40 women in prison, as, at a meeting with the Criminal Justice Inspection (CJINI) last week, he was told that there are now 120 women in prison here, more than half of whom are on remand.

64 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Follow-ups by the same MLA in the Chamber

These were assessed together with this record:

3 February 2025 – Thank you, Minister, for your answer. The question related to the number before the pandemic, not during the pandemic.…

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.04 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.93).
No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
Subject area: Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups.
The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.

This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.

Jev’s structured answers

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.04	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.02	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.01	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.03	No
Controversy escalation	0.02	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.93	Yes
Overall judgement	0.04	At or below not-flagging threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing (chosen)	1.00
Reports or questions it	0.00
Criticises or condemns it	0.00
Adopts it	0.00

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups	0.68
Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues	0.20
No identity-related subject	0.11
Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials	0.00
Parades, bonfires and commemorations	0.00

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:51 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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