Survey shows 11m people have taken drugs

Positive for Class A substances

4m admit taking class A substances

Prison officers responsible for smuggling into jails

Nearly 4 million people in England and Wales have tried class A drugs - including heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, LSD and magic mushrooms - at least once. The annual British Crime Survey drug findings show that 11 million people, aged between 16 and 59, say they have tried some illegal drug at least once, with 3.5 million saying that they have taken them in the past year.

The figures show that since the launch of the government's drug strategy in 1998, overall use in England and Wales has remained broadly stable. Class A abuse, the most serious, has increased, mainly due to a surge in cocaine use up until 2000, despite the government's now-abandoned target of cutting class A abuse by 25%.

Fresh Home Office research also confirmed the extent of abuse in prisons yesterday, and suggested that prison staff were one route for drugs to get in. The study found that smuggling by uniformed or civilian staff was thought to be "substantially increasing" the availability of heroin and cannabis behind bars.

The figures show a fall in cannabis use in all age groups since the law was relaxed over the past 12 months.

But 9 million people say they have smoked cannabis, 1.75 million of them in the past month.

The picture for class A drugs has been stable over the past year, but there has been a fall in cocaine use and a rise in use of hallucinogens, particularly magic mushrooms.

Two million people say they have tried mushrooms, possibly because, until this summer, the class A drug could be bought legally.

Despite media coverage warning of a crack cocaine epidemic, only 239,000 people have tried the drug, against 1.8 million who have had cocaine. There are said to be about 16,000 regular crack users. It is estimated 200,000 people have used heroin; 21,000 in the past month.

Among young people (aged 16 to 24) the BCS estimates 45% have tried illicit drugs at least once, 26% in the past year and 16% in the past month. A million young people, or one in eight, have used a class A drug.

More generally, cannabis was the most commonly used drug, followed by cocaine, which is now more popular than ecstasy. There is also significant use of amyl nitrate, also called poppers, and amphetamines by young people.

Further Home Office research by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research at King's College London shows that heroin, cannabis, non-prescribed medication, and crack cocaine were all in circulation at the six prisons studied.

Main routes of entry were social visits, mail, new prisoners, drugs thrown over the perimeter, and contact after court appearances.

More than half the prison officers and ex-prisoners questioned said staff were responsible for smuggling - the fourth most commonly mentioned route.

"Many of the staff who were interviewed acknowledged that such trafficking goes on, and could substantially increase the amount of illegal drugs available in an establishment," said the report.

At one prison a member of staff had been convicted of supplying drugs and sentenced to seven years.

Once an officer has been persuaded to bring in contraband, he or she is vulnerable to blackmail, the report said.

By Alan Travis posted 31 October 05

People: 'Prisoners' of Drugs'

People who are addicted to heroin usually take the drug because it relieves them of problems such as low self-esteem, distrust and fear of abandonment. They may have poor communication skills & poor relationship skills.

Blunkett's Quest, but is he on drugs?

The legislation is expected to introduce a new definition of "possession" of an illegal drug, making it an offence to have a certain amount in the bloodstream. This is likely to prove controversial - not least because some drugs, such as cannabis, can remain in the bloodstream for weeks.

POSSESSION? OR INVASION?

UK: This absolutely preposterous idea/theory of allowing a person/s to be possibly charged with 'possession', if found to have a drug substance within their bloodstream, just goes to prove such hypocrisies which certain hierarchies feel justifies passing legislation, is another blow for democracy!

Related:

Plea to release Biggs rejected by ruling-class
UK: Home Secretary Charles Clarke has rejected a plea by Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs to be released from prison on compassionate grounds.

Prisons chief hits at 'gross' overcrowding
Martin Narey, a civil servant who has served every Home Secretary since 1989, highlights statistics showing that thousands of mentally ill inmates and a record number of children now constitute a significant part of the prison population.

Clarke faces a fight over probation overhaul
UK: The home secretary, Charles Clarke, yesterday confirmed his plans to abolish 42 local probation boards and instead create "a vibrant mixed economy" in the management of 200,000 offenders in the community.

The devilish advocate
UK: The devilish advocate John Hirst taught himself law in jail, and has never lost a case against the prison service. Erwin James meets up again with the former 'lifer' who won inmates the right to vote.

Racism still rife in jails, five years after the murder of Zahid Mubarek UK: The prison service will be strongly criticised for continued racial discrimination against ethnic minority inmates by the official report from the Zahid Mubarek inquiry.

UK prisoners should get vote, European court rules
UK: Laws setting out who can and cannot take part in elections are to be rewritten after the European court of human rights today ruled in favour of giving British prisoners the right to vote.

Prison plan 'will cut reoffending'
UK: A network of community prisons to help cut the number of criminals who re-offend has been outlined by Home Secretary Charles Clarke.

Clarke to scrap plan to peg prison numbers
UK: The home secretary, Charles Clarke, has said he is to abandon his predecessor's aspiration of pegging the prison population in England and Wales at 80,000. He will also drop plans to put a legal obligation on the judges' sentencing guidelines council to take the size of the prison population - currently 77,000 and rising - into account when laying down the "going rate" for major crimes.

Crowded jails 'boosting suicides'
UK: The chief inspector of prisons warned that an overcrowding crisis in Britain's jails was leading to an increase in prisoner suicides.

Chief justice calls for new approach to law and order
UK: The retiring [ruling class] lord chief justice, Lord Woolf, made a passionate plea for a new approach to law and order which would see a major shift away from punishment towards the solution of problems which generate crime.

Britain's only prison ship ends up on the beach
UK: The last inmates have departed and a skeleton staff is left guarding Britain's only prison ship - in case anyone is minded to break in rather than out.

Throw away the key
The one profession to get results on recidivism has been sacrificed to Labour's desire to lock up criminals in private prisons.

Judges' misdeeds will remain secret
UK: Judges who are disciplined for bad behaviour will not have the findings against them made public under a complaints regime to be launched next year.

Prisoner total rises 15% in six years
England and Wales are continuing to jail offenders at a higher rate than any other major country in western Europe, it emerged today. New research indicates that the government's use of prison as its main tool of penal policy has increased by 15% since 1999.

CPS drops prosecution over death in custody
UK: The family of Roger Sylvester, who died after being restrained by police officers, yesterday expressed their disappointment at a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute any of the officers involved.

Prisoner's cell death
UK: A prisoner was found hanged in his cell last week, the Home Office said, fuelling criticism over the soaring number of suicides in custody.

Plans for five new 'superprisons'
Recent figures show a total of 75,550 prisoners were held in 139 jails in England and Wales, nudging up the previous record of April 2004 by just six inmates.

Prison has lost its way - report
UK: Bristol prison is suffering wide-ranging problems because of inconsistent management, the Chief Inspector of Prisons has said.

Row over acupuncture for prisoners
UK: The Home Office has responded to criticism over prison inmates who are being offered acupuncture on the NHS in order to relieve stress.

Number of prisoners sent back to jail trebles
UK: The number of prisoners being sent back to jail after release has nearly trebled in the past five years, according to a report published today.

Top judge says crowded prisons cannot break cycle of crime
UK: Reoffending rates after a prison sentence are at an "unacceptably high level" and the failure of the criminal justice system to stop prisoners reoffending should shock the public, England's top judge, [Ruling Class] Lord Woolf, said last week.

All the World's a Prison: History
No doubt many of my readers, even those who are well-educated or widely read, think that the prison -- the place where dark deeds are darkly answered[2] -- is an ancient institution, a barbaric hold-over from barbaric times. In fact, the prison is of relatively recent origin, and this tells us a great deal about the pretentions and realities of modern times, and the wisdom and high degree of development of the ancients.

Decade after inspector left in disgust, report tells of filth
UK: Dirty, mice-infested cells, high levels of self-harm, and widespread bullying over drugs and medications were just some of the damning findings of a report into conditions at Holloway, Britain's largest women's prison.

Most women 'should not be jailed'
Women make up 6% of the prison population in England and Wales. Imprisonment of women should be "virtually abolished", a prison reform group has said.

Youth 'murdered for officers' pleasure'
UK: An Asian teenager was murdered by a white racist after they were placed in the same cell as part of a game to fulfil the "perverted pleasure" of prison officers, a public inquiry heard on Friday.

Deaths in isolation as prison segregation increases
The use of segregation [solitary confinement] of prisoners as punishment has been increasing recently in Australia, the US, and the UK. Segregation can be used for protection or punishment, but in both cases it results in extreme psychological stress. An indication that segregation is being over-used is the appearance of deaths in custody from suicide of those placed in segregation.

Inquest blames jail for overdose death
UK: An inquest jury returned a verdict itemising a catalogue of faults at Styal prison in Cheshire, concluding that the prison's "failure of duty of care" contributed to the death of Sarah Campbell, 18, who took an overdose of tablets on the first day of her three-year sentence.

Put in the way of self-harm in a place intended to protect others
UK: Sarah Campbell, 18, spent the last hours of her life in the segregation unit of Styal prison, Cheshire. "The seg", as those places are referred to, used to be known as "the block", short for punishment block. [ Seg is a bullshit word for Punishment, Solitary Confinement, Torture, Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Human Rights Abuse and that is State Terror.]

Britain 'sliding into police state'
The home secretary, Charles Clarke, is transforming Britain into a police state, one of the country's former leading anti-terrorist police chiefs [false flag police chiefs] said yesterday.

UK solitary confinement
UK: Segregation units are prisons within prisons - the places where the most unchecked brutality is meted out to prisoners. In recent years conditions in high security segregation units have deteriorated, and the use of long-term segregation as a control mechanism has increased.

Inquiry must root out prison racists
UK: It is difficult to imagine a more brutal murder than that of Zahid Mubarek. The 19-year-old was clubbed to death by his cellmate at Feltham Young Offender Institution in the early hours of 21 March 2000. He was due to be released just a few hours later.

Prison suicides soar as jails hire 'babysitters'
UK: Prison officers are being taken off suicide watch and replaced by unqualified 'babysitters' because the system is overwhelmed by an epidemic of self-harm.

Plan to sell off juvenile jails as job lot
UK: The government is to put out to tender all its dedicated juvenile jails that hold children under 18 in a departure in Whitehall's privatisation programme.

Failure to sack 'racist' prison staff condemned
UK: Two prison officers suspended for racism are still on full pay three years after a stash of Nazi memorabilia, neo-fascist literature and Ku Klux Klan-inspired 'nigger-hunting licences' was found in a police raid on their home.

Report slams 'unjust' jailing of women on remand
UK: Six out of 10 women sent to jail while they await trial are acquitted or given a non-custodial sentence, a report published today reveals. Introducing the report, Lady Kennedy QC calls for a complete review of the use of remand and bail for women saying it is "inhumane and unjust".

Concern as UK prison suicides hit record level
UK: More prisoners took their own lives in English jails in August than in any other month since records began, prison reformers said today.

End of years of despair as Holloway closes its doors
But now Holloway prison in north London - where Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in Britain, was hanged in 1955 - has been earmarked for closure, along with several other women's prisons, which have been hit by a spate of suicides.

How detox and self-help brought suicide jail back from the brink
UK: Six suicides in 12 months made Styal jail notorious and the Prisons Ombudsman criticised the prison and its staff for serious failures. But things are changing.

Belmarsh detainees consider suicide, says freed man
UK: The first of the Muslim detainees released from Belmarsh high security prison after being held on suspicion of terrorism has told the Guardian his fellow prisoners are suffering such severe mental problems that they constantly consider suicide.

Suicides and unrest have soared, admits Home Office
UK:The already overcrowded prison population is set to go on rising and will top 80,000 within the next three years, a senior Home Office civil servant warned yesterday.

England tops the EU in imprisonment
England and Wales jail more offenders per capita than any other European, Union country, according to new figures.

Restraint methods prone to disaster

Illustration: RESTRAINT ASPHYXIA – SILENT KILLER

UK: In May, 24-year-old Azrar Ayub, a patient at the Edenfield secure mental health unit, part of Prestwich hospital near Manchester, died after being restrained by hospital staff.

Azrar Ayub

It was a tragic reminder of the death of the 38-year-old mental health patient David "Rocky" Bennett in similar circumstances in a Norwich hospital in 1998. Bennett's death caused a public outcry and resulted in an official inquiry, which led earlier this year to the issuing by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) of new guidelines on the use of restraint.

David "Rocky" Bennett

So why, six years after Bennett's death, does it appear that deaths as a result of restraint are still occurring?

First, the big picture. There were 116,000 incidents involving violent or verbal abuse in the NHS in England and Wales in 2002/03. About half were in mental health settings. Many of these would have involved a patient being restrained. It is generally believed that deaths caused by restraint are rare, but there are no reliable figures on injuries or deaths.

Restraint is often regarded by mental health nurses as a vital, if undesirable, measure of last resort for dealing with violence on wards. Establishing why some techniques might lead to injury or death is not easy. Each individual case is different, and a range of factors need to be taken into account - for example, whether staff were trained properly or whether the technique had been applied incompetently.

The Nice guidelines were designed to help guide staff and trusts on what is acceptable, but have been criticised for not going far enough to protect vulnerable mentally ill people against, in particular, prone restraint, where the patient is held face down, and which risks death from asphyxiation.

At a conference called Care or Abuse? last week in Derby, more than 100 mental health professionals, trainers, educators and service users discussed and challenged some of the most controversial and questionable restraint methods. During one dramatic presentation, a former mental health service user recounted - at times in tears - what it was like to come close to death while being held face down on the floor by four nurses when she suffered a "psychotic episode" in 2003.

One mental health trust director called for a ban on methods that, in his view, caused distress or pain to patients. He claimed that at his trust, such methods had been abandoned, leading to a cut in the number and severity of violent incidents. But he was accused by one delegate (a restraint trainer) of being sensationalist. Their exchange illustrated that even after the Bennett inquiry and the Nice guidelines, there is still a fissure in the mental health establishment over what is and what is not ethical and acceptable practice when it comes to restraint.

The conference shed light on why some forms of restraint remain problematic. Some acute mental health services in the UK are managed badly and are short of cash and staff, putting extraordinary pressure on nurses to react to incidents by restraining patients rather than talking to them to defuse potentially violent situations. These difficulties are exacerbated because trusts do not agree on which restraint methods to use or when to apply them.

There are around 2,500 restraint techniques currently being taught by a multitude of private companies, but there has never been a national evaluation to standardise training. Some research has been conducted but it is patchy and the results are far from conclusive. The Department of Health has plans to collect more accurate figures on injuries and deaths caused by restraint, but scepticism persists over their reliability because of fears of under-reporting.

In the absence of robust evidence on physical restraint or injuries caused by it, we are gambling with the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in our society. It is a matter of urgency that we identify what works, what does not, and that we act on it.

By Mary O'Hara posted 27 October 05

Related:

Ohio's Abu Ghraib
In January 2001, Charles Austin and 28 other prisoners filed a lawsuit claiming that Ohio had violated their Eighth Amendment rights. The prisoners argued that medical and psychiatric care and recreation were inadequate at the supermax, and physical restraints were too harsh. Prisoners received medical injections through their narrow food slots, for example, and had both hands handcuffed to the wall during medical exams.

Abu Ghraib, USA
In another incident reported by Amnesty International that happened during McCotter's watch, an inmate at the Utah State Prison "was shackled to a steel board on a cell floor in four-point metal restraints for twelve weeks in 1995. He was removed from the board on average four times a week to shower.

On Solitary Confinement
I have witnessed prison guards from 2002 to 2004, while I was in Angola's even more restrictive punishment unit, who have thrown buckets of ice water (in winter) on men who were in 4- point restraints, wearing only paper gowns.

Clarke to scrap plan to peg prison numbers

* New emphasis placed on reducing reoffending rates
* Community prisons will make family visits easier

UK: The home secretary, Charles Clarke, has said he is to abandon his predecessor's aspiration of pegging the prison population in England and Wales at 80,000. He will also drop plans to put a legal obligation on the judges' sentencing guidelines council to take the size of the prison population - currently 77,000 and rising - into account when laying down the "going rate" for major crimes.

"I am not convinced that an overall obligation to look at the overall size of the prison population is the right thing to do," Mr Clarke, who succeeded David Blunkett, said. Instead, the home secretary wants to cut Britain's reoffending rates by creating a network of community prisons to ensure that those serving short sentences remain close to their families and communities.

He recognises that an overcrowded prison system means that goal will be difficult to achieve but believes a system of community prisons can be set up by restructuring the jail network and by greater use of community punishments for some of those serving short sentences.

The new approach will be unveiled tonight by Mr Clarke in a speech to the Prison Reform Trust - his first major statement on penal policy since he became home secretary last December.

Mr Clarke also dismissed "as a complete horlicks" repeated Sunday newspaper speculation that Tony Blair is unhappy with his performance as home secretary and intends to reshuffle him.

He described himself as "tough but not populist", a position he says No 10 is very happy with. Some described Mr Blunkett as populist, so Mr Clarke is signalling a change in style.

He also said that he wants to end the remote image of the Home Office. Because of the pressure on his time caused by the terrorist outrages, he admitted he has not yet had the chance to spell out his vision of penal policy, saying today's speech to the Prison Reform Trust will make clear that for a government that puts health and education at the heart of its mission, the prison system does not reflect Labour values. "We don't do enough for the least healthy and the least educated people in the country, who are the people in the criminal justice system, particularly if we know that if you solve issues like literacy and numeracy then you can solve issues like drug abuse and mental health [so] that people are less likely to offend than would otherwise be the case."

He said a large proportion of the prison population, including some on remand or serving shorter sentences, need to remain more closely integrated with their communities. "We need to get to a state of affairs where prisoners are able to reintegrate into society through developing their relations with their friends and family. The break in that - and it happens often -is the damaging thing in people's ability to stop reoffending."

Families and friends on average travel five hours to visit an inmate and the number of jail visits is dropping. As many as two-thirds of prisoners see their relationships with partners end. Many others lose job or home.

"We need to work much harder to organise community prisons so that prisoners when they are in prison are in reasonably close geographical proximity to the people who they know and to their future."

He added that he was asking some multinational companies to employ a set number of former prisoners, so long as they had acquired the relevant skills. One such deal has already been struck, with Transco, the gas pipelines company.

Main aims

* create a network of community prisons so inmates are closer to their families

* abandon the aspiration of pegging the prison population to 80,000

* abandon proposals that sentencing take into account prison overcrowding

* end the remote image of the Home Office

By Patrick Wintour and Alan Travis 19 September 05

Related:

Crowded jails 'boosting suicides'
UK: The chief inspector of prisons warned that an overcrowding crisis in Britain's jails was leading to an increase in prisoner suicides.

Chief justice calls for new approach to law and order
UK: The retiring [ruling class] lord chief justice, Lord Woolf, made a passionate plea for a new approach to law and order which would see a major shift away from punishment towards the solution of problems which generate crime.

Britain's only prison ship ends up on the beach
UK: The last inmates have departed and a skeleton staff is left guarding Britain's only prison ship - in case anyone is minded to break in rather than out.

Throw away the key
The one profession to get results on recidivism has been sacrificed to Labour's desire to lock up criminals in private prisons.

Judges' misdeeds will remain secret
UK: Judges who are disciplined for bad behaviour will not have the findings against them made public under a complaints regime to be launched next year.

Prisoner total rises 15% in six years
England and Wales are continuing to jail offenders at a higher rate than any other major country in western Europe, it emerged today. New research indicates that the government's use of prison as its main tool of penal policy has increased by 15% since 1999.

CPS drops prosecution over death in custody
UK: The family of Roger Sylvester, who died after being restrained by police officers, yesterday expressed their disappointment at a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute any of the officers involved.

Prisoner's cell death
UK: A prisoner was found hanged in his cell last week, the Home Office said, fuelling criticism over the soaring number of suicides in custody.

Plans for five new 'superprisons'
Recent figures show a total of 75,550 prisoners were held in 139 jails in England and Wales, nudging up the previous record of April 2004 by just six inmates.

Prison has lost its way - report
UK: Bristol prison is suffering wide-ranging problems because of inconsistent management, the Chief Inspector of Prisons has said.

Row over acupuncture for prisoners
UK: The Home Office has responded to criticism over prison inmates who are being offered acupuncture on the NHS in order to relieve stress.

Number of prisoners sent back to jail trebles
UK: The number of prisoners being sent back to jail after release has nearly trebled in the past five years, according to a report published today.

Top judge says crowded prisons cannot break cycle of crime
UK: Reoffending rates after a prison sentence are at an "unacceptably high level" and the failure of the criminal justice system to stop prisoners reoffending should shock the public, England's top judge, [Ruling Class] Lord Woolf, said last week.

All the World's a Prison: History
No doubt many of my readers, even those who are well-educated or widely read, think that the prison -- the place where dark deeds are darkly answered[2] -- is an ancient institution, a barbaric hold-over from barbaric times. In fact, the prison is of relatively recent origin, and this tells us a great deal about the pretentions and realities of modern times, and the wisdom and high degree of development of the ancients.

Decade after inspector left in disgust, report tells of filth
UK: Dirty, mice-infested cells, high levels of self-harm, and widespread bullying over drugs and medications were just some of the damning findings of a report into conditions at Holloway, Britain's largest women's prison.

Most women 'should not be jailed'
Women make up 6% of the prison population in England and Wales. Imprisonment of women should be "virtually abolished", a prison reform group has said.

Youth 'murdered for officers' pleasure'
UK: An Asian teenager was murdered by a white racist after they were placed in the same cell as part of a game to fulfil the "perverted pleasure" of prison officers, a public inquiry heard on Friday.

Deaths in isolation as prison segregation increases
The use of segregation [solitary confinement] of prisoners as punishment has been increasing recently in Australia, the US, and the UK. Segregation can be used for protection or punishment, but in both cases it results in extreme psychological stress. An indication that segregation is being over-used is the appearance of deaths in custody from suicide of those placed in segregation.

Inquest blames jail for overdose death
UK: An inquest jury returned a verdict itemising a catalogue of faults at Styal prison in Cheshire, concluding that the prison's "failure of duty of care" contributed to the death of Sarah Campbell, 18, who took an overdose of tablets on the first day of her three-year sentence.

Put in the way of self-harm in a place intended to protect others
UK: Sarah Campbell, 18, spent the last hours of her life in the segregation unit of Styal prison, Cheshire. "The seg", as those places are referred to, used to be known as "the block", short for punishment block. [ Seg is a bullshit word for Punishment, Solitary Confinement, Torture, Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Human Rights Abuse and that is State Terror.]

Britain 'sliding into police state'
The home secretary, Charles Clarke, is transforming Britain into a police state, one of the country's former leading anti-terrorist police chiefs [false flag police chiefs] said yesterday.

UK solitary confinement
UK: Segregation units are prisons within prisons - the places where the most unchecked brutality is meted out to prisoners. In recent years conditions in high security segregation units have deteriorated, and the use of long-term segregation as a control mechanism has increased.

Inquiry must root out prison racists
UK: It is difficult to imagine a more brutal murder than that of Zahid Mubarek. The 19-year-old was clubbed to death by his cellmate at Feltham Young Offender Institution in the early hours of 21 March 2000. He was due to be released just a few hours later.

Prison suicides soar as jails hire 'babysitters'
UK: Prison officers are being taken off suicide watch and replaced by unqualified 'babysitters' because the system is overwhelmed by an epidemic of self-harm.

Plan to sell off juvenile jails as job lot
UK: The government is to put out to tender all its dedicated juvenile jails that hold children under 18 in a departure in Whitehall's privatisation programme.

Failure to sack 'racist' prison staff condemned
UK: Two prison officers suspended for racism are still on full pay three years after a stash of Nazi memorabilia, neo-fascist literature and Ku Klux Klan-inspired 'nigger-hunting licences' was found in a police raid on their home.

Report slams 'unjust' jailing of women on remand
UK: Six out of 10 women sent to jail while they await trial are acquitted or given a non-custodial sentence, a report published today reveals. Introducing the report, Lady Kennedy QC calls for a complete review of the use of remand and bail for women saying it is "inhumane and unjust".

Concern as UK prison suicides hit record level
UK: More prisoners took their own lives in English jails in August than in any other month since records began, prison reformers said today.

End of years of despair as Holloway closes its doors
But now Holloway prison in north London - where Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in Britain, was hanged in 1955 - has been earmarked for closure, along with several other women's prisons, which have been hit by a spate of suicides.

How detox and self-help brought suicide jail back from the brink
UK: Six suicides in 12 months made Styal jail notorious and the Prisons Ombudsman criticised the prison and its staff for serious failures. But things are changing.

Belmarsh detainees consider suicide, says freed man
UK: The first of the Muslim detainees released from Belmarsh high security prison after being held on suspicion of terrorism has told the Guardian his fellow prisoners are suffering such severe mental problems that they constantly consider suicide.

Suicides and unrest have soared, admits Home Office
UK:The already overcrowded prison population is set to go on rising and will top 80,000 within the next three years, a senior Home Office civil servant warned yesterday.

England tops the EU in imprisonment
England and Wales jail more offenders per capita than any other European, Union country, according to new figures.

More than half of jails in England are too full

UK: More than half the jails in England and Wales are dangerously overcrowded and the conditions could be contributing to the number of prisoner suicides, a penal reform group warned last night.

The Prison Reform Trust, which campaigns on behalf of inmates and their families, said the prison system had 10,000 more inmates than it was designed to hold.

With inmates reaching a record 76,897 this week, 74 of the 142 jails are over the prison service's "certified normal accommodation", the charity said. It added that 15 prisons exceeded even their safe overcrowding limit in July.

The "operational capacity" of a jail is defined as the total number of prisoners it can accommodate, allowing for a safe level of overcrowding

In July last year, the then prisons' minister, Paul Goggins, was asked in parliament about overcrowding. He said: "All those prisons are within their operating capacity, which is the total number of prisoners that an establishment can hold, taking into account control, security and proper operation of the planned regime."

But a year on, the charity said, 15 prisons across England and Wales were operating beyond their overcrowding limit, thereby jeopardising, the "control, security and the proper operation of the planned regime".

"This overcrowding poses a real and serious danger to prison and public safety," said Juliet Lyon, the director of the trust. The government had grown complacent about overcrowding and was "breaching its own final buffer".

"The summer holiday season usually gives prisons a respite while the courts take their break, instead the population is growing month on month. Even in the quietest months of the year, pressure is still building up within prisons."

The charity fears the situation could worsen in the next five years. The most recent Home Office projections forecast a jail population of up to 90,000 by 2010.

The Home Office last night played down the concerns.

"Prisons may exceed their certified normal accommodation, the figure at which the prison operates comfortably, but we do not operate above the operational capacity," a spokeswoman said.

"On some occasions prisons are listed as having populations higher than their operational capacity.

"The reason is most often attributed to the fact [that] a prisoner or a number of prisoners are absent on authorised absences, such as when a prisoner is recorded as part of an establishment's population but is held outside, for example in hospital or on release on temporary licence."

The trust claimed that overcrowding and worsening conditions were linked to a recent spate of suicides in prison and called for an investigation.

It said more than 17,000 prisoners were being held two to a cell built for one, and that such cells do not have to have separately ventilated lavatories, meaning more than one person must eat, sleep and defecate in the same small room.

Since the beginning of June, it said, there had been 26 apparent self-inflicted deaths in custody. Of these, 24 occurred in overcrowded jails.

"The terrible correlation between overcrowding and deaths demands urgent investigation," said Ms Lyon.

The growth in the number of prisoners could not be checked without proper measures. "It will take a concerted effort to reserve prison for serious and violent offenders and to invest in drug treatment, mental healthcare and safe, effective alternatives to custody," she said.

"Right now, the prison population is mushrooming out of control, and the government is still trying hopelessly to build its way out of a crisis."

Lucie Russell, director of SmartJustice, which campaigns for more alternatives to custody, said: "There is nothing smart about stacking up prisoners in overcrowded jails. It leads to more, not less, offending on release. It is not tough on crime, it is tough on the rest of us."

It emerged last month that senior judges are planning to urge the courts to cut average sentences by 15% in the hope of preventing the prison population from reaching 90,000 by 2010.

By Sam Jones posted 15 August 05

Related:

Britain's only prison ship ends up on the beach
UK: The last inmates have departed and a skeleton staff is left guarding Britain's only prison ship - in case anyone is minded to break in rather than out.

Throw away the key
The one profession to get results on recidivism has been sacrificed to Labour's desire to lock up criminals in private prisons.

Judges' misdeeds will remain secret
UK: Judges who are disciplined for bad behaviour will not have the findings against them made public under a complaints regime to be launched next year.

Prisoner total rises 15% in six years
England and Wales are continuing to jail offenders at a higher rate than any other major country in western Europe, it emerged today. New research indicates that the government's use of prison as its main tool of penal policy has increased by 15% since 1999.

CPS drops prosecution over death in custody
UK: The family of Roger Sylvester, who died after being restrained by police officers, yesterday expressed their disappointment at a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute any of the officers involved.

Prisoner's cell death
UK: A prisoner was found hanged in his cell last week, the Home Office said, fuelling criticism over the soaring number of suicides in custody.

Plans for five new 'superprisons'
Recent figures show a total of 75,550 prisoners were held in 139 jails in England and Wales, nudging up the previous record of April 2004 by just six inmates.

Prison has lost its way - report
UK: Bristol prison is suffering wide-ranging problems because of inconsistent management, the Chief Inspector of Prisons has said.

Row over acupuncture for prisoners
UK: The Home Office has responded to criticism over prison inmates who are being offered acupuncture on the NHS in order to relieve stress.

Number of prisoners sent back to jail trebles
UK: The number of prisoners being sent back to jail after release has nearly trebled in the past five years, according to a report published today.

Top judge says crowded prisons cannot break cycle of crime
UK: Reoffending rates after a prison sentence are at an "unacceptably high level" and the failure of the criminal justice system to stop prisoners reoffending should shock the public, England's top judge, [Ruling Class] Lord Woolf, said last week.

All the World's a Prison: History
No doubt many of my readers, even those who are well-educated or widely read, think that the prison -- the place where dark deeds are darkly answered[2] -- is an ancient institution, a barbaric hold-over from barbaric times. In fact, the prison is of relatively recent origin, and this tells us a great deal about the pretentions and realities of modern times, and the wisdom and high degree of development of the ancients.

Decade after inspector left in disgust, report tells of filth
UK: Dirty, mice-infested cells, high levels of self-harm, and widespread bullying over drugs and medications were just some of the damning findings of a report into conditions at Holloway, Britain's largest women's prison.

Most women 'should not be jailed'
Women make up 6% of the prison population in England and Wales. Imprisonment of women should be "virtually abolished", a prison reform group has said.

Youth 'murdered for officers' pleasure'
UK: An Asian teenager was murdered by a white racist after they were placed in the same cell as part of a game to fulfil the "perverted pleasure" of prison officers, a public inquiry heard on Friday.

Deaths in isolation as prison segregation increases
The use of segregation [solitary confinement] of prisoners as punishment has been increasing recently in Australia, the US, and the UK. Segregation can be used for protection or punishment, but in both cases it results in extreme psychological stress. An indication that segregation is being over-used is the appearance of deaths in custody from suicide of those placed in segregation.

Inquest blames jail for overdose death
UK: An inquest jury returned a verdict itemising a catalogue of faults at Styal prison in Cheshire, concluding that the prison's "failure of duty of care" contributed to the death of Sarah Campbell, 18, who took an overdose of tablets on the first day of her three-year sentence.

Put in the way of self-harm in a place intended to protect others
UK: Sarah Campbell, 18, spent the last hours of her life in the segregation unit of Styal prison, Cheshire. "The seg", as those places are referred to, used to be known as "the block", short for punishment block. [ Seg is a bullshit word for Punishment, Solitary Confinement, Torture, Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Human Rights Abuse and that is State Terror.]

Britain 'sliding into police state'
The home secretary, Charles Clarke, is transforming Britain into a police state, one of the country's former leading anti-terrorist police chiefs [false flag police chiefs] said yesterday.

UK solitary confinement
UK: Segregation units are prisons within prisons - the places where the most unchecked brutality is meted out to prisoners. In recent years conditions in high security segregation units have deteriorated, and the use of long-term segregation as a control mechanism has increased.

Inquiry must root out prison racists
UK: It is difficult to imagine a more brutal murder than that of Zahid Mubarek. The 19-year-old was clubbed to death by his cellmate at Feltham Young Offender Institution in the early hours of 21 March 2000. He was due to be released just a few hours later.

Prison suicides soar as jails hire 'babysitters'
UK: Prison officers are being taken off suicide watch and replaced by unqualified 'babysitters' because the system is overwhelmed by an epidemic of self-harm.

Plan to sell off juvenile jails as job lot
UK: The government is to put out to tender all its dedicated juvenile jails that hold children under 18 in a departure in Whitehall's privatisation programme.

Failure to sack 'racist' prison staff condemned
UK: Two prison officers suspended for racism are still on full pay three years after a stash of Nazi memorabilia, neo-fascist literature and Ku Klux Klan-inspired 'nigger-hunting licences' was found in a police raid on their home.

Report slams 'unjust' jailing of women on remand
UK: Six out of 10 women sent to jail while they await trial are acquitted or given a non-custodial sentence, a report published today reveals. Introducing the report, Lady Kennedy QC calls for a complete review of the use of remand and bail for women saying it is "inhumane and unjust".

Concern as UK prison suicides hit record level
UK: More prisoners took their own lives in English jails in August than in any other month since records began, prison reformers said today.

End of years of despair as Holloway closes its doors
But now Holloway prison in north London - where Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in Britain, was hanged in 1955 - has been earmarked for closure, along with several other women's prisons, which have been hit by a spate of suicides.

How detox and self-help brought suicide jail back from the brink
UK: Six suicides in 12 months made Styal jail notorious and the Prisons Ombudsman criticised the prison and its staff for serious failures. But things are changing.

Belmarsh detainees consider suicide, says freed man
UK: The first of the Muslim detainees released from Belmarsh high security prison after being held on suspicion of terrorism has told the Guardian his fellow prisoners are suffering such severe mental problems that they constantly consider suicide.

Suicides and unrest have soared, admits Home Office
UK:The already overcrowded prison population is set to go on rising and will top 80,000 within the next three years, a senior Home Office civil servant warned yesterday.

England tops the EU in imprisonment
England and Wales jail more offenders per capita than any other European, Union country, according to new figures.

Prisoner total rises 15% in six years

England and Wales are continuing to jail offenders at a higher rate than any other major country in western Europe, it emerged today. New research indicates that the government's use of prison as its main tool of penal policy has increased by 15% since 1999.

Despite government attempts to reduce it, England and Wales have a prison population rate of 142 per 100,000, which remains higher than France, Germany, Italy and Greece.

There are 76,000 people in jails in England and Wales, and this does not include immigration detainees. Last week Amnesty International estimated that 25,000 asylum seekers were locked up last year in the UK.

There are around 1,300 prisoners in Northern Ireland and 6,700 in Scotland.

The analysis, by the International Centre for Prison Studies (ICPS) suggests authorities around the world are sending their citizens to jail at an ever increasing rate.

As before, the United States, China and Russia are responsible for half the world's 9 million prisoners.

But whereas in Russia the prison population has fallen from more than 1 million in 1999 to 763,000 now, the total has risen in the US - by far the world's biggest jailer - from 1.86 million in 1999 to more than 2 million. There is also an upward trend in China where there are more than 1.5 million people in jail, a prison population rate of 118 per 100,000 of the population.

Rob Allen, director of the ICPS, said: "Given the high cost and disputed efficacy of imprisonment, the data should prompt policymakers in every country to consider what they can do to limit the size of their prison population. Excessive use of prison does nothing to improve public safety."

Geoff Dobson, deputy director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: "Does this country really want to be seen to imprison far more of our population than our neighbours, France and Germany, and does this help to make ours a safer society than theirs?"

The study, conducted at King's College London, shows a rise in the prison populations of 73% of those countries analysed. This applied to 64% of countries in Africa, 79% of those in the Americas, 83% in Asia, 69% in Europe and 69% in Oceania.

Of particular interest were Brazil, where the rise in the prison population was 70%, Japan, where the figure rose by 40%, and Mexico, where the increase was 37%.

The largest rise in Europe occurred in Holland, where the jail population has leapt over five years from 14,000 to 20,000, an increase of 42%. The authorities there have reacted to public calls for tougher sentences.

The changing situation in Russia is in part attributable to the work of Yuri Kalinin, the deputy minister of justice and former director general of the Russian prison service, who has made a big impact on the country's penal policy.

The biggest drop has been in the remand population. In 1996, it stood at 300,000 but that figure had fallen to 150,000 at the start of the year.

Roy Walmsley, honorary consultant to the United Nations and an ICPS associate, said: "We sought to draw attention to the huge world prison population and the vast differences in different parts of the world and in different countries. The question of how effective prisons are should be a matter of great public debate. It is to be hoped that countries with a high prison population will look at their neighbours, who imprison many fewer of their people and ask if their society is necessarily safer as a result."

Two months ago Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, called for "greater sense" in sentencing to improve public confidence and make the criminal justice system more effective. He said detention should be primarily reserved for the most serious offences, particularly violent and dangerous offenders.

But many politicians and some within the criminal justice system hold to the philosophy first espoused by Michael Howard, that "prison works"

Earlier this year Paul Kernaghan, chief constable of Hampshire, urged judges to send more offenders to prison for the protection of the public.

By Eric Allison and Hugh Muir posted 29 June 05

Not With Our Money

Today, millions of people living in the U.S. find themselves on the front lines of a deadly "war on crime" with no end in sight. Since 1970, the number of men and women behind bars grew by nearly 600% to a staggering two million. The bulk of the newly incarcerated are not serial killers or drug kingpins, but young people of color from urban neighborhoods who have been convicted of non-violent drug offenses, and increasingly, immigrants whose only crime is being undocumented.

Politicians tell us that prison expansion will help us "win" the war on crime, but research and the lived experience of victims, offenders, families and communities suggest that over-incarceration has actually weakened the social fabric of crime-ridden communities. Thirty years of "tough-on-crime" policies have left American more fearful, more alienated, and more racially divided, yet the U.S. government touts the "success" of American criminal justice around the world.

This section will provide you with general facts about the prison industrial complex, the private prison industry and the corporations that finance it, organizing efforts to abolish the industry once and for all, and resources to assist you in your activism.

Related:

CPS drops prosecution over death in custody
UK: The family of Roger Sylvester, who died after being restrained by police officers, yesterday expressed their disappointment at a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute any of the officers involved.

Prisoner's cell death
UK: A prisoner was found hanged in his cell last week, the Home Office said, fuelling criticism over the soaring number of suicides in custody.

Plans for five new 'superprisons'
Recent figures show a total of 75,550 prisoners were held in 139 jails in England and Wales, nudging up the previous record of April 2004 by just six inmates.

Prison has lost its way - report
UK: Bristol prison is suffering wide-ranging problems because of inconsistent management, the Chief Inspector of Prisons has said.

Row over acupuncture for prisoners
UK: The Home Office has responded to criticism over prison inmates who are being offered acupuncture on the NHS in order to relieve stress.

Number of prisoners sent back to jail trebles
UK: The number of prisoners being sent back to jail after release has nearly trebled in the past five years, according to a report published today.

Top judge says crowded prisons cannot break cycle of crime
UK: Reoffending rates after a prison sentence are at an "unacceptably high level" and the failure of the criminal justice system to stop prisoners reoffending should shock the public, England's top judge, [Ruling Class] Lord Woolf, said last week.

All the World's a Prison: History
No doubt many of my readers, even those who are well-educated or widely read, think that the prison -- the place where dark deeds are darkly answered[2] -- is an ancient institution, a barbaric hold-over from barbaric times. In fact, the prison is of relatively recent origin, and this tells us a great deal about the pretentions and realities of modern times, and the wisdom and high degree of development of the ancients.

Decade after inspector left in disgust, report tells of filth
UK: Dirty, mice-infested cells, high levels of self-harm, and widespread bullying over drugs and medications were just some of the damning findings of a report into conditions at Holloway, Britain's largest women's prison.

Most women 'should not be jailed'
Women make up 6% of the prison population in England and Wales. Imprisonment of women should be "virtually abolished", a prison reform group has said.

Youth 'murdered for officers' pleasure'
UK: An Asian teenager was murdered by a white racist after they were placed in the same cell as part of a game to fulfil the "perverted pleasure" of prison officers, a public inquiry heard on Friday.

Deaths in isolation as prison segregation increases
The use of segregation [solitary confinement] of prisoners as punishment has been increasing recently in Australia, the US, and the UK. Segregation can be used for protection or punishment, but in both cases it results in extreme psychological stress. An indication that segregation is being over-used is the appearance of deaths in custody from suicide of those placed in segregation.

Inquest blames jail for overdose death
UK: An inquest jury returned a verdict itemising a catalogue of faults at Styal prison in Cheshire, concluding that the prison's "failure of duty of care" contributed to the death of Sarah Campbell, 18, who took an overdose of tablets on the first day of her three-year sentence.

Put in the way of self-harm in a place intended to protect others
UK: Sarah Campbell, 18, spent the last hours of her life in the segregation unit of Styal prison, Cheshire. "The seg", as those places are referred to, used to be known as "the block", short for punishment block. [ Seg is a bullshit word for Punishment, Solitary Confinement, Torture, Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Human Rights Abuse and that is State Terror.]

Britain 'sliding into police state'
The home secretary, Charles Clarke, is transforming Britain into a police state, one of the country's former leading anti-terrorist police chiefs [false flag police chiefs] said yesterday.

UK solitary confinement
UK: Segregation units are prisons within prisons - the places where the most unchecked brutality is meted out to prisoners. In recent years conditions in high security segregation units have deteriorated, and the use of long-term segregation as a control mechanism has increased.

Inquiry must root out prison racists
UK: It is difficult to imagine a more brutal murder than that of Zahid Mubarek. The 19-year-old was clubbed to death by his cellmate at Feltham Young Offender Institution in the early hours of 21 March 2000. He was due to be released just a few hours later.

Prison suicides soar as jails hire 'babysitters'
UK: Prison officers are being taken off suicide watch and replaced by unqualified 'babysitters' because the system is overwhelmed by an epidemic of self-harm.

Plan to sell off juvenile jails as job lot
UK: The government is to put out to tender all its dedicated juvenile jails that hold children under 18 in a departure in Whitehall's privatisation programme.

Failure to sack 'racist' prison staff condemned
UK: Two prison officers suspended for racism are still on full pay three years after a stash of Nazi memorabilia, neo-fascist literature and Ku Klux Klan-inspired 'nigger-hunting licences' was found in a police raid on their home.

Report slams 'unjust' jailing of women on remand
UK: Six out of 10 women sent to jail while they await trial are acquitted or given a non-custodial sentence, a report published today reveals. Introducing the report, Lady Kennedy QC calls for a complete review of the use of remand and bail for women saying it is "inhumane and unjust".

Concern as UK prison suicides hit record level
UK: More prisoners took their own lives in English jails in August than in any other month since records began, prison reformers said today.

End of years of despair as Holloway closes its doors
But now Holloway prison in north London - where Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in Britain, was hanged in 1955 - has been earmarked for closure, along with several other women's prisons, which have been hit by a spate of suicides.

How detox and self-help brought suicide jail back from the brink
UK: Six suicides in 12 months made Styal jail notorious and the Prisons Ombudsman criticised the prison and its staff for serious failures. But things are changing.

Belmarsh detainees consider suicide, says freed man
UK: The first of the Muslim detainees released from Belmarsh high security prison after being held on suspicion of terrorism has told the Guardian his fellow prisoners are suffering such severe mental problems that they constantly consider suicide.

Suicides and unrest have soared, admits Home Office
UK:The already overcrowded prison population is set to go on rising and will top 80,000 within the next three years, a senior Home Office civil servant warned yesterday.

England tops the EU in imprisonment
England and Wales jail more offenders per capita than any other European, Union country, according to new figures.

Most women 'should not be jailed'

Women make up 6% of the prison population in England and Wales

Imprisonment of women should be "virtually abolished", a prison reform group has said.

The Howard League for Penal Reform said jail should be reserved for women who commit serious or violent offences and remain a danger to the public.

Fewer than 10% of the 4,400 women currently locked up in England and Wales would receive jail terms if such a policy were introduced.

The number of female inmates has almost trebled since 1993.

Howard League chief Frances Crook will present the policy paper to the United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention in Bangkok next month.

"Women are being sent to prison in unacceptable numbers and are suffering disproportionately when they are inside," she said.

"Even the Government recognises that this is not a consequence of increased crime amongst women but rather greater severity by the courts.

"The Howard League is recommending that prison custody for women should be virtually abolished so that only those women who are convicted of serious and violent offences and who represent a continuing danger to the public should be held in custody.

"For other women offenders, community-based interventions that make amends for the wrong done and encourage women to change their lives offer the best change of creating a safer society."

The number of women being sent to jail - many on short sentences - increased to 13,380 in 2002, a leap of about a third compared with just three years earlier.

By The Howard League posted 9 March 05

Related:

Children of Imprisoned Mothers
United Nations lobbying body reports on women in prison and their children. I thought that two recent publications from the Quaker group that lobbies the UN might be of interest to you.

Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO)
On-line Resources on Women in Prison

Prison System Fails Women, Study Says
State policies designed for violent men make female offenders' rehabilitation difficult, an oversight panel finds. "If we fail to intervene effectively in the lives of these women and their children now, California will pay the cost for generations to come," said Commissioner Teddie Ray, chairwoman of the subcommittee that produced the report.

Prison suicides soar as jails hire 'babysitters'
UK: Prison officers are being taken off suicide watch and replaced by unqualified 'babysitters' because the system is overwhelmed by an epidemic of self-harm.

Report slams 'unjust' jailing of women on remand
UK: Six out of 10 women sent to jail while they await trial are acquitted or given a non-custodial sentence, a report published today reveals. Introducing the report, Lady Kennedy QC calls for a complete review of the use of remand and bail for women saying it is "inhumane and unjust".

Concern as UK prison suicides hit record level
UK: More prisoners took their own lives in English jails in August than in any other month since records began, prison reformers said today.

End of years of despair as Holloway closes its doors
But now Holloway prison in north London - where Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in Britain, was hanged in 1955 - has been earmarked for closure, along with several other women's prisons, which have been hit by a spate of suicides.

How detox and self-help brought suicide jail back from the brink
UK: Six suicides in 12 months made Styal jail notorious and the Prisons Ombudsman criticised the prison and its staff for serious failures. But things are changing.

Parents on the inside leave children on the edge
Life in jail is an ordeal but it's a much harsher sentence for the child of a prisoner, writes Paola Totaro. 30 July 03.

2nd Renaissance -36 Let The Girls Go! [263]
During 2003 an Australian woman, Kathleen Folbigg, was sentenced to 40 years in prison, with a non-parole period of 30 years. Her crime, which she continues to deny, was to consecutively smother her four children when they were aged between 8 and 19 months. She was largely convicted on the basis of entries in her private diary, although these did not specifically refer to her having killed her two sons and two daughters; only that she was her father's daughter. Her lawyers are appealing her conviction.

Prisons accused of ignoring age trend

UK: A 70-year-old prisoner who uses a wheelchair has to pay "unofficial helpers" six chocolate bars a week to help him get around and to collect his meals, according to an investigation by the chief inspector of prisons into the growing number of elderly inmates.

The inquiry by Anne Owers also found that one of the most common complaints from older prisoners was that they ended up in the top bunk in a shared cell. Not only is climbing in and out difficult, but also the more arthritic tend to fall out.

The chief inspector said such problems needed to be taken much more seriously as the number of prisoners in England and Wales over the age of 60 had risen threefold to more than 1,500 in the last 10 years. Far from being "old lags" with a lifetime of prison behind them, 75% have not been behind bars before.

Ms Owers said prisons were mainly built for and inhabited by young men, and were not geared up to deal with an ageing population, some of whom are likely to spend the rest of their lives behind bars.

But interviews with 442 older and infirm prisoners showed no national strategy for their treatment and care. Among examples the inquiry team came across were:

* a prisoner in a wheelchair who was unable to use the shower and was taken to have a bath only once a month;

* prisoners with mobility problems who were allocated to upper bunk beds in cramped cells;

* the 70-year-old whose wheelchair was deemed to be for "general use" and so was not always available;

* prison staff who refused to push inmates in wheelchairs "because they had not been properly trained";

* the group of older prisoners who when asked their first choice of an outside speaker opted for an undertaker.

Her conclusions were disputed last night by Martin Narey, chief executive of the national offender management service, who said very few prisoners required special facilities as a result of age, and implementing the chief inspector's report would require considerable investment and would be unrealistic.

By Alan Travis posted 15 December 04

Related:

Tony still seeking release after half a lifetime inside
After serving imprisonment continually since February of 1956, because of his age 74, he suffers from high blood pressure, angina, has survived a mild stroke and two major strokes in the past few years, leading to mobility problems on gradients and he continues to have irregular heart problems.

'Lifers' swap cells for nursing beds
A MURDERER and a child molester each judged too dangerous to ever be free of the prison system have been paroled to ordinary nursing homes where other residents have not been told about their pasts. Child sex offender Phillip Adamson and murderer Percy David Bond, who were both in poor health, were moved in recent weeks. Both have spent more than 30 years in jail and both were sentenced under conditions that mean they will never technically be released.

Blunkett to extend long arm of the law

UK: Sweeping changes to police powers were proposed by the government yesterday, with officers in England and Wales to be permitted to arrest suspects for any offence, rather than only those which attract prison sentences.

The idea, included in a consultation paper published today by the Home Office - just two days after the Conservatives made a series of hardline crime and order proposals - could be on the statute books by next summer.

But civil rights campaigners have already branded the idea of arresting people for offences such as graffiti and dropping litter "disproportionate".

The 30-page consultation paper also raises a series of other proposals, including roadside fingerprinting, extending search warrants to cover all properties connected to a suspect, and greater powers for community support officers (CSOs). The police minister, Hazel Blears, said the moves would "maintain the crucial balance between the powers of the police and the rights of the individual".

However, the director of civil rights group Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti, said of the arrest proposals: "When you create a broad, unnecessary power there is a danger of arbitrary and racially discriminatory use.

"This comes just a couple of weeks after statistics showed a 300% rise in the number of Asian people being stopped and searched.

The Home Office says the detail will be set out in guidance - an approach which has failed as far as stop and search is concerned. If powers are truly needed then parliament should debate them and perhaps pass them. But I have yet to hear any serious voice in policing in this country say that the problem the police faces is that they don't have powers to arrest people for dropping litter," she told Radio 4's Today Programme.

She added: "In a democracy you do not create extremely broad powers and say they will not be used in practice - you give the police powers they actually need.

However, Ms Blears insisted that a "necessity test" would ensure that not all suspects were arrested for petty crimes. "What we are saying here is that in future all offences will be arrestable but that does not necessarily mean that everybody will be arrested, because there will be a necessity test.

A constable could come upon an offence and he might not be sure whether it is arrestable or not. In future that would be very clear, she told the BBC.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said: "Today's announcements are just another headline-grabbing initiative from a gimmick-crazy home secretary. "We agree with the efforts to make the definition of arrestable offences simpler. But will we now find ourselves in a crazy situation where a litter lout is arrested and a cannabis smoker is not?  

"Every arrest brings with it reams of paperwork," he added. "The government is in danger of encouraging police to make arrests based on their heavy workload of paperwork and not on the seriousness of the offence."

The new principal speaker of the Green party, Keith Taylor, dismissed the proposals as the "latest in a series of attacks on civil liberties". He said: "This government already monitors its citizens more closely than any in Britain's history.

"The power to arrest on the suspicion of even the most minor offences undermines the fundamental right to go about one's day-to-day business without interference from the state. "As with current stop-and-search procedures, there is also the risk that these new powers could be disproportionately used against members of certain communities."

The consultation period ends in October, enabling the government, if it wishes, to table bills based on the proposals in a November, [war criminal], Queen's speech.

The paper - entitled Modernsing Police Power to Meet Community Needs - also suggests giving CSOs greater powers to direct traffic, tackle beggars, [?] search people for weapons and enforce bylaws, leaving police officers free to concentrate on frontline duties. It also proposes that CSOs - who can already issue £40 on-the-spot fines for being drunk and disorderly - be given extra powers to deal with drunks and underage drinkers.

The proposals, which originate with the Home Office rather than the police forces, were given a guarded welcome by the Association of Chief Police Officers.

The association's vice-president, Denis O'Connor, said: "There is undoubtedly a need to rationalise some of the powers we currently hold and strengthen those we need most. "We are supportive of the government's effort to enhance the powers of the wider police family, particularly CSOs, enabling them to assist the police in tackling crime and disorder." He added: "However, we would sound a note of caution at any major extension of powers for CSOs before the Home Office evaluation is complete."

The Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers and is opposed to the expansion of the role of CSOs, gave the proposals a lukewarm reception. Its vice chairman Rod Dalley said: "Any use of or change in police powers should be taken seriously.

"Therefore we will carefully consider the Home Office paper and will be engaging fully in the consultation process. In particular we will be closely examining any proposals to extend the powers given to CSOs in view of the fact that no evaluation of their role has taken place."

Other proposals include:

- Testing people arrested for property crimes for class A drugs.

- New powers to fingerprint suspects at the roadside and to take DNA samples and footwear impressions.

- Allowing police to take DNA and fingerprint samples covertly.

- for example, by undercover officers

- to determine identification of suspects and their possible involvement in an offence, although such material would be for intelligence use only and not as evidence in court.

- Allowing revenue from motoring fixed penalties to fund automatic number plate recognition systems, which are already in use in 23 forces in England and Wales.

- Removing the requirement for civilian investigators to wear a uniform, so that they can go "plainclothes" if required.

- Allowing the courts to remand in police custody anyone suspected of swallowing parcels of drugs

- possibly for as long as 12 days

- to allow the drugs to be passed and seized as evidence.

- Create a new offence of "keeping an incorrectly registered vehicle" to tackle the problem of an estimated 1.2 million untaxed, unsafe or uninsured vehicles on Britain's roads.

- Giving police a new power to stop, search, seize and confiscate fireworks where they suspect the items are held illegally under the Fireworks Act 2003.

- which made possession by under-18s illegal.

- Possible new legislation to deal with demonstrations outside parliament.

- Allowing officers to photograph suspects outside the police station, and use moving images such as video.

By Matthew Tempest posted 13 August 04

Related:

Welcome to the MatrixB
US - In what civil liberties advocates call the most massive database surveillance program in US history, the Multistate Anti-Terrorism, [scapegoat and patsy], Information Exchange, or Matrix, continues to compile billions of records on law-abiding citizens and receive federal funding, despite public outcry and suspicion.

Govt tests airport security eye scanner
Technology that identifies people by scanning their eyes could be introduced into Australian airports as early as next year.

law and order days over, says Blair
Their 3D-iD system is ideal for both stationary assets, such as large physical inventories or for mobile assets like people and portable equipment.

Fingerprints now required for US visas
United States consulates in Australia have begun taking fingerprints from Australians applying for visas.

I won't be a criminal for you!
The only looming rules are for fools giving up personal details to the Devil in the first place when visiting the US.

Putting Your Finger on the Line: Biometric Identification Technology The NSW Department of Corrective Services has progressively been implementing biometric identification technology (BIT) for use on all entrants into maximum security prisons since August 1996. It currently operates in seven prisons in NSW and is scheduled for introduction at Parklea prison later this year. BIT has raised the ire of many community agencies, the legal fraternity and government authorities. Framed examines what the controversy is all about and what the implications of this technology are.

Mossad agents Killing Oz Tourists Steal their Identity to use in terror opps
The fugitive Israeli Mossad intelligence agent Zev Barkan has been dealing with Asian criminal gangs to obtain Australian and other passports stolen from Australians Killed in Asia, a New Zealand security official has said.

The U.S. system of 'justice' is a tragic joke
US: Police abuse, and sometimes kill, innocent persons at will. Cops plant evidence, they lie, they coerce confessions and they commit perjury. Many are, simply, criminals.