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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Brexit means brexit.
And if the UK withdraws from the ECHR, which the tories keep going on about, it’ll become even harder to extradite known criminals.
Which means everyone can visit the UK, go on a crime spree safe in the knowledge the police are underfunded, then take the eurostar and enjoy your ill gotten gains without worrying about ever having to serve jail time.
You’d still get arrested there would just be a lot of fucking around with paper work before you are transferred. I don’t think this guy’s wondering around free.
The man was arrested by German police and held in extradition custody.
Yeah, he’s been arrested so he’s not exactly having a fun time over there.
Related reading:
Prison Privatisation: A Failure of the British Penal System
During the early 1990s, the British government began to rely on the private sector to provide extra prison places to deal with overcrowding and help spread the costs of interning offenders. Currently in England and Wales, there are 14 prisons run by private companies such as G4S Justice Services, Serco Custodial Services and Sodexo Justice Services.
A 2019 analysis of official UK prison data found that private prisons tend to generally be more dangerous than public prisons.
For the past 17 years, privately-run prisons have been more likely to have overcrowded conditions than public sector prisons.
The three companies that run the UK’s private prisons have faced accusations of violating prisoners’ human rights.
https://www.standrewslawreview.com/post/prison-privatisation-a-failure-of-the-british-penal-system
After a decade of austerity, urgent changes are needed to improve prison services
The UK government’s austerity measures, implemented in English prisons by the 2012 Benchmarking Programme, have led to a sharp reduction in the prison workforce and a cut in budgets. This has left English prisons unable to provide safe environments for rising prison populations.
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/policybristol/policy-briefings/prison-funding-austerity/
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A German court has refused to extradite to the UK a man accused of drug trafficking because of concerns about prison conditions in Britain, in what is thought to be the first case of its kind.
Westminster magistrates court issued an international arrest warrant, also known as an Interpol red notice, asking for him to be returned to the UK.
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.
Failing to receive the assurances it sought about UK prison conditions, the German court determined the extradition of the Albanian as “currently inadmissible”.
The trade and cooperation agreement concluded between the EU and Britain in 2020 states that an arrest warrant can be subject to certain conditions, and “if there are reasonable grounds for believing that there is a real threat to the protection of the fundamental rights of the requested person, the executing judicial authority may, where appropriate, require additional guarantees”.
There have been similar court decisions before under the European arrest warrant framework, but in relation to member states whose records on prisons and human rights the UK would not wish to compare itself with.”
The original article contains 621 words, the summary contains 213 words. Saved 66%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Peak Britain 👌
