On the back of this evidence, the German court sought reassurances on two occasions from the UK authorities about prison conditions there.
The court said guarantees from the UK of compliance with minimum standards in accordance with the European convention on human rights were required. In addition, the court asked the British authorities to specify which prisons the Albanian man was going to be detained in and what his conditions of detention would be in those prisons.
A police station in Manchester replied to the court’s first request on the final day of the deadline for a response, saying 20,000 extra prison places were being built to deal with the problem of overcrowding. The second request for reassurance about UK prison conditions received no response from the UK.
“Just hand it over to us right now. It’s overcrowded, but there will be new places soon ™. Also, we won’t tell you what prison.”
So sloppy and unprofessional. I didn’t think the state of UK prisons was so bad.
This sounds like it’s kind of even worse than that, looks to me like nobody even bothered reading the response from the German court until it was too late! One vague response from one police station on the final day, sound like this just got forgotten.
I’ve heard that the British police is understaffed. So that have something to do with this.
Yeah it is.
It’s so bad that the Home Office is issuing quotas for “High-priority” crime which is code for solve things that make the news headlines: large scale drug busts, charging murderers, seizing large sums of cash and assets.
But they’re completely deprioritising other crimes from bike theft to shoplifting to domestic violence and reducing the amount of community engagement activities.
Addressing smaller crimes and having officers engaged with the community is essential for fostering a safe environment. And here’s the kicker; the more these low-level crimes go unpunished, the more high-level crimes happen are more likely to happen when fuelled by economic downturn.
Most countries prisons are not in a good state. Germany is playing hardball here because its funny, but I’d wager German prison aren’t really that much better.
The basic reason is that most people don’t feel like their country should spend more on convicted criminals than they already do, so running on “I’m going to build better prisons” isn’t really a thing that gets you votes.
I can’t speak to German prison conditions, but I can absolutely guarantee that it would generate votes if a candidate ran on that; it’s just that those votes are from the underserved and disenfranchised that gave up voting long ago, and we largely want to keep those non-voters underserved, disenfranchised and not voting.
Actually, we deny requests quite often for various reasons from all kind of countries. Only except is the EU where there are special agreements in place. I think we would’ve delievered in the UK if the police station named a prison where he would’ve been gotten in. So I put that on the reluctant communication by the Manchester police station on a large degree.
As for German jails, putting aside some events like someone burning to death despite being completely restrained and the police saying “oh wow, no idea how that happened. Probably magic.” we solve overcrowding by letting people with minor offenses go. Although statewise, specifically looking at Berlin, it’s getting pretty bad.
I bet the Manchester police station don’t actually know where he’ll be sent. Police don’t actually assign people prisons. That’s an admin task.
I’m sure they could find out if they really needed to, and then reply with that information, but they just don’t seem that interested in doing so.
There were news reports this week of multiple prison officers smuggling contraband and even having sexual relations with inmates at HMP Berwyn. That’s one of the UK newest prisons.
The system feels like it’s in free fall at this point.
Man, it really feels like the UK is coming apart at the seams. It’s still holding together, but everything gets worse bit by bit. And despite it being in the open, some people just pound the drums louder, wave the flag more and think that past glory will protect from current failures.
I do hope you get a government worthy of Britain’s positive legacy, not just rest on it as if it’s eternal and unending.
