British jails have been inhumane, violent and degrading for years. Now other countries are noticing
The prisons are “inhumane and degrading”, in the words of a court in Amsterdam, as it refused an extradition request. The judges were referring not to a Russian penal colony, but to HMP Liverpool halting the extradition of a fugitive wanted in the UK on drug-smuggling charges. The cause of this damning judgment is the appalling conditions in prisons such as Walton (Liverpool), Bedford and Birmingham.
The Daily Mail may have been outraged by the judgment, but it didn’t surprise me. I have been arguing similar extradition cases regarding prison conditions in other countries – and often winning – in the UK courts for years. It was only a matter of time before European countries looked at our Dickensian prison system and asked the same difficult questions.
It was the stinging criticism of HMP Liverpool by the chief inspector of prisons that pushed the Dutch court to refuse extradition. It was the worst prison they had inspected – filthy, squalid and with little control over the violence that ruled it. The situation is so serious that the justice committee has discussed the issue in parliament. There is a list of matters that need to be resolved but little progress has been made; violence persists and guards have threatened to strike.
On top of this, prison overcrowding is becoming a real problem in the UK: we incarcerate more people as a proportion than any other western European state. This wrecking of the prison service is thanks to the former justice secretary, Chris Grayling. It was a deliberate and ideological attack on human rights by a man hellbent on crushing public service. It is the poison that he spread that now permeates the system.
Continue reading @ the Guardian,
No comments