we've been doing it in newyorkcity for YEARS!!! course they are barges not ships but the same idea
Posted on 12/19/2004 5:44:19 PM PST by bruinbirdman
Plans to use a moored ship on the Thames as a prison were criticised last night by human rights groups.
The Metropolitan Police said it would decide before the New Year whether to use HMP Weare, currently berthed at Portland, Dorset, to tackle overcrowding in cells.
The proposals would see inmates who had been arrested or on remand being held temporarily on board the ship.
However, the Labour MP Andrew Mackinlay said the plan raised human rights issues after prison inspectors described the vessel as "unacceptably cramped".
"It's indicative of some of the confused thinking and poor decision making which has become a hallmark of the senior management of the Met in recent times," he said.
"The reasons why such a proposal was rejected by the Home Office a few years ago remain today."
Enver Solomon, of the Prison Reform Trust, also expressed concern over the plan.
"Our position has always been that the Weare is completely inappropriate to hold prisoners," he said. "If the Metropolitan Police wants to consider using it to hold people overnight or for short periods, that's their decision.
"But the verdict of the Chief Inspector of Prisons was that it was totally inadequate."
HMP Weare was originally a troop ship in the Falklands war before becoming a floating jail in America.
The Government purchased it in 1997 as a temporary measure to ease overcrowding and intended to close it in 2000. It now holds 400 inmates.
Isn't it amazing how ships that housed sailors serving the United Kingdom's navy , and at times, risking their lives in protection of the United Kingdom are not fit to house those who's purpose has been to steal or worse from that same kingdom?
I had this idea years ago. Why not use some of these mothballed troop carriers, refit them for use, fill them up with hard cases and anchor them several miles off the coast?
Yep, makes you long for the days when the murderous scum of society never complained about gaol crowding while awaiting their appointment to swing from the yardarm.
,,, or being shipped to Australia.
i always thought the mexican border would make a good place for a 50-state prison.
ocean to ocean, from the pacific to the gulf of mexico.
if an occasional escape were to be made, the weakest link should be on the south side, into mexico.
Hmmm
A floating version of Gitmo.
Sounds interesting.
Ah . . . Australians! Selected by the finest judges in England.
Done we have a Carrier that just got de-commissioned?
And use them for target practice ;-)
Keeping prisoners in old ships on the Thames, called hulks, is a fine old English tradition. The masts, rigging and everything else that made it go were removed and the rest used as a prison. Conditions ranged from hellish to fatal, which given the skyrocketing crime rate in Old Blighty, ought to be just about right.
we've been doing it in newyorkcity for YEARS!!! course they are barges not ships but the same idea
If and when they riot, pull the plugs and watch the riot gurgle to an end. The loud bubbling stops in a few days.
Must have been a Royal Caribbean Cruise.
There was a scene in Charles Dicken's Great Expectations where two convicts escaped from a prison hulk. Not sure how they escaped with a 16lb weight, maybe that was a later innovation.
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