Extradition
Earlier this year a German court refused an extradition request because of concerns about British prisons. An article in the Law Society Gazette gives some details. An Albanian who lived in the UK went to Germany. He was wanted by British police for drug trafficking and money laundering and an international arrest warrant was issued leading him to be arrested by German police. His defence lawyer argued that British prisons are overcrowded and short-staffed and violence is rife. The Court understandably demanded guarantees that British prisons complied with minimum standards in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and asked for more information about where the Albanian would be sent and the conditions they would experience.
A Manchester police station provided a response on the last day of the deadline set by the court and offered only plans for improving overcrowding, with no guarantees or specifics regarding the detention of the Albanian.
The German court was not impressed.
They asked again for specific guarantees but this time no-one bothered to reply. The extradition was refused and the Albanian was immediately released as he hadn't committed any crimes in Germany.
The Law Society Gazette article also mentioned that the Irish High Court declined to extradite a defendant to Scotland because of overcrowding an an inability to provide proper care for someone with his mental health disorders.
1 in 10 Prisons 'barely fit for purpose'
Yesterday the chief inspector of prisons announced that 14 prisons in England and Wales were 'barely fit for purpose' and should be closed in an ideal world, but accepts that they 'won't be closed any time soon'.
This is appalling. How on earth are we locking people in burnt out cells?!He said the constant demand for cells at Wandsworth meant that on his last visit a burnt-out cell could not be repaired before a new prisoner was moved in.
Taylor said: “We saw a cell that was ready for a first-night arrival, potentially your first night in a jail cell, having been burnt out by the previous occupant. It was just hideous. If the prison was not overcrowded, what you would say is: ‘We’ll take that out of commission and paint it and fix it up.’ But it’s just one out, one in.”
The overcrowding also means that there is no space for meaningful activity,
The Guardian has put together an explainer, showing how the prison population is rising.Taylor’s reports found that 36 out of 37 men’s prisons inspected in 2022-23 were not good enough for “purposeful activity” such as education, employment and activity that keeps prisoners meaningfully occupied.
Numbers are predicted to continue increasing with the Ministry of Justice estimating that the prison population will exceed 100,000 within 2 years. There appear to be two main reasons for this - an increase in the number of people on remand (being put in prison while you wait for your trial) and people being given longer sentences.There were 87,685 prisoners across the male and female estates last week, 7.5% higher than in the same week last year, Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures show.
There are two ways of measuring overcrowding.one in five people in prisons were on remand in mid-2023 compared with one in nine in the last pre-pandemic year, 2019....
More than 32,200 people were in jail for a sentence of four years or more in June 2023 compared with 23,700 in June 2010, a 36% increase (in the same period sentences of between one and four years dropped by a similar proportion while sentences of one year or less dropped 54%).
The first is how many people are in cells beyond their intended capacity. By this metric almost a quarter of prisoners are living in overcrowded conditions.
The second is whether the prison is within the targets set by the service. By this metric almost 2/3 of prisons are overcrowded with 8 being at 150% or more above their accepted accommodation levels.
Unsurprisingly, this has led to high turnover of staff and a reduction in experienced staff as many have left.
You will, I'm sure, also be completely unsurprised to hear that real-term funding has reduced. The budget is 5.3% less than it was back in 2010-11, despite the massive increase in the prison population and the deteriorating quality of the facilities.
Self-harm among prisoner has reached epidemic levels. In the year to March 2023, 733 incidents of self-harm were recorded for every 1,000 prisoners. I don't know what to say about those figures. They're appalling.
Violence in prisons
Assaults have increased following a temporary decline during covid. There are 185 assaults against prisoners per 1,000 prisoners, and 92 assaults against staff per 1,000 prisoners.
Pepper spray has been used in men's prisons since 2018.
Yet despite the clear risks with its use,Since then, there have been claims of disproportionate use against disabled people and those from minority ethnic backgrounds.
Black adult prisoners were seven times more likely to have Pava spray [a synthetic form of pepper spray] used against them than white prisoners, MoJ figures showed in December.
Dogs and stun grenades are already used in young offenders institutions but now officers want to use pepper spray as well.The prison officers’ union, the POA, has called for the spray to be introduced in [Young Offenders Institutions] to restore confidence among staff.
It is clear from the article that violence in these institutions is rampant and needs curtailing, but it is unclear to me how this proposal will help.Two teenagers were burned in May by a grenade, a device designed to temporarily disorient not but physically harm...
Between June 2022 and June 2023, the MoJ said the National Dog and Technical Support Group was deployed 62 times to YOIs, with dogs – German shepherds or similar – used in six of those incidents.
What is so puzzling is how bad everything is when you consider how much is being spent,
According to the non-profit prisoners’ paper Inside Time, each teenager costs the taxpayer £275,000 a year – six times the fees for attending Eton College.
That's around £750/day and yet kids are scared to leave their cells.
Adult prisons cost an average of £40,000/year/prisoner. That's £109.58/day which isn't a huge amount but still feels enough to not require putting you in a cell that isn't burnt out.
We need proper prison reform. We need to ask why we are locking people up and what we hope to achieve by doing so. Are we just punishing people, or are we wanting them to reform? There will likely always be a need to keep the most dangerous people away from the rest of society but there are better ways of achieving this than sticking people into overcrowded vermin-infested Victorian-era prisons with too few staff and crap facilities.
If covid taught us anything it's that losing your freedom is bad enough. Locking someone away is punishment enough. Inhumane conditions should never be part of our punishment and I'm really disappointed in how resigned the chief inspector of prisons seems to be to the situation. I realise we have a government here who thinks there's nothing wrong with working people being reliant on food banks and who think that human rights are 'woke' so I know he hasn't a hope in hell in getting the government to improve things, but at least call them out, make a noise, show you care about the people stuck in these appalling conditions.
There's a huge long list of things that are falling apart in the UK right now. It'd be much quicker to list the things that aren't being underfunded (politicians, politicians' mates and their businesses?) but how we look after those we have committed to our care says a lot about us as a country and right now it is saying nothing good.