English Prison Ships

Billy MacTold

How are the Brits coping? Not too well it seems. A recent report said as many as 165,000 asylum-seekers are being granted an amnesty to stay – they’re mostly failed refugees whose files were left lying in boxes by bungling Home Office staff. As these refugees have been living there so long, officials have ruled it would be a breach of their human rights to now kick them out.
I ADMIT to having felt a tad uneasy when I read the following report. I mean, in an earlier time when the Brits opted for this type of imprisonment, they also shipped on the incacerated far across the seas to distant places. Notably Australia, with Van Diemen’s Land prominent in the scheme of things.

Yes, it was way back in another century, of fledgling colonies. They wouldn’t dare contemplate such a thing these days would they?

It does serve though to highlight that Britain has a major population problem, in and out of prison. In the latter case, the story is prison chiefs may be about to buy two ships to ease their crammed jails (as of earlier this month the prison population was just a few short of 81,500, with just nine officially empty jail places in the overstretched system).

The Ministry of Justice is reported to be negotiating with the Dutch to buy these prison ships, one capable of holding 500 inmates, the other 300 (Britain had a 400-capacity ship of its own, but sold it).

Seems the Dutch introduced such high-security ships to ease a severe shortage of cells, but they’ve mainly been used to hold asylum-seekers denied residency. And they’re earmarking some ships for sale because they’ve also poured money into new onshore prisons and have eased their own overcrowding by abolishing a “one prisoner, one cell” system (it was too costly).

Overcrowding is causing much angst in Britain these days, and it’s not just the prisons – it’s overcrowding in general, with massive immigration, legal and illegal.

Consider England. A report said it’s about to become (if it hasn’t already done so) the most crowded major nation in Europe. Official stats show the number of people occupying each square kilometre is set to overtake the most populated country – Holland.

England’s figure was 387 people per each square kilometre in 2005 and 390 by 2006. Holland had 393 in 2005, but its population is growing at a much slower rate than Britain’s.

How are the Brits coping? Not too well it seems.

A recent report said as many as 165,000 asylum-seekers are being granted an amnesty to stay – they’re mostly failed refugees whose files were left lying in boxes by bungling Home Office staff. As these refugees have been living there so long, officials have ruled it would be a breach of their human rights to now kick them out.

I like the story of a guard protecting the Home Office who was found to be an illegal immigrant – he’d been doing these duties for 19 months.

Alarm bells are ringing loudly. Citing England’s now top position in overcrowding, the Daily Mail said in an editorial:

“For ten years, Tony Blair sat back and did nothing while a Britain that had lost control of its borders experienced the most dramatic population surge in its history.

The long-term problems caused by this massive influx are not merely a question of numbers – although there are some areas in which public services are already being strained to breaking point.

They are also cultural, striking at the very roots of Britain’s identity as a nation. The fact is that foreigners, unversed in our language, traditions and laws, are being admitted much faster than they can be comfortably absorbed.”

But I return to prison overcrowding, and here’s another twist to the story. The Home Office made a pledge to repatriate 4,000 foreign prisoners by the end of last year. But it’s emerged 850 left only after being offered a “resettlement” deal worth up to some two and a half thousand pounds each to go.

That’s a bribe in any language.

And back to the point of Britain looking to prison ships. In the bad old days those infamous rotting hulks were used there to hold prisoners before they were shipped off to the colonies, with Van Diemens Land serving as a significant dumping ground.

Still, in the end, it was many of those convicts who provided the foundations for the nation to grow into the vibrant Oz of today. And given the overcrowding problems Brits generally are facing today there is no doubt many there are thinking about a new life in the Land Down Under.