Britain to Give Floating Jails Another Try
Posted on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 10:41:36 AM EST
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To ease overcrowding in its prisons, Great Britain is about to bring back prison ships, also known as "floating jails."
The government has advertised for contractors to provide up to 800 places on ships in England and Wales.
Britain closed its last prison ship in 2005.
The director of the Howard League for Penal Reform has criticised the Home Office's decision to advertise for spaces on ships and warned it could lead to more prisoner re-offending.
Britain used prison ships in the U.S. during the Revolutionary War.
More Americans died in British prison ships in New York Harbor than in all the battles of the Revolutionary War.
There were at least 16 of these floating prisons anchored in Wallabout Bay on the East River for most of the war, and they were sinkholes of filth, vermin, infectious disease and despair.
In 2005, there were several news articles questioning whether the U.S. was holding terror suspects on prison ships abroad.
The UN has learned of "very, very serious" allegations that the United States is secretly detaining terrorism suspects in various locations around the world, notably aboard prison ships, the UN's special rapporteur on terrorism said.
While the accusations were rumours, rapporteur Manfred Nowak said the situation was sufficiently serious to merit an official inquiry.
"There are very, very serious accusations that the United States is maintaining secret camps, notably on ships," the Austrian UN official told AFP, adding that the vessels were believed to be in the Indian Ocean region.
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