Warships - such as the Royal Navy's old aircraft carriers when it gets its new ones - could be used as prison ships.
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Is this the first prison ship?
Possible prison ship ... vast hulk rusting in Barrow docks - the Bibby Renaissance - could become a prison ship
By HARRY MACADAM
OCTOBER 28, 2006
THIS is the ship which could ease Britain’s prison overcrowding crisis. The vast hulk has been rusting in Barrow docks for the last eight years.
But last week the Home Office finally bowed to The Sun’s prison ship campaign, accepting that floating jails could help solve the problem of overflowing cells.
Now the 400-foot Bibby Renaissance has become the frontrunner in the race to become Britain’s next sea-prison. We say next because, embarrassingly, the Government’s hunt for new prison ships began just months after Britain’s last floating jail, HMP Weare — was SCRAPPED.
The owners of the Bibby Renaissance — Liverpool-based Bibby Line — have put in a bid to have one of their so-called “floatels” adopted as a prison ship.
The 15-year-old Renaissance is typical of the type.
The six-storey barge would have room for up to 800 cons after being refitted for use as secure accommodation.
The empty ship offers dramatic evidence which rubbishes Home Office claims that there is a lack of suitable ships to use as prisons.
Refitted ... how it may look
Instead of scouring the globe for suitable vessels, Home Office pen pushers only needed to travel as far as Cumbria to find a solution to their overcrowding problems.
Last night a Barrow port insider revealed: “The boat looks as though it’s rusting away from the outside but the interior is, appropriately, in perfect nick.
“The floors and steel shell are so clean you could eat your dinner off them.
“We’ve been told the ship will soon be on the move to get a refit in a dry dock at Birkenhead.
It’s the ideal shape and structure to put in cells for prisoners or house asylum seekers.”
Bibby Line also operates a string of other accommodation barges, which could be put into service to ease our prison problems.
One is already being used in Rotterdam harbour by the Dutch to house illegal immigrants.
Last night a Dutch government spokesman told The Sun: “There is much less red tape involved in opening a prison ship than a normal jail. They are much more flexible and also cheaper to run than normal land-based prisons.
“What is more, they are more difficult to escape from than normal jails because they are stuck out on the water.”
The Bibby Renaissance could be called up for duty after the Home Office advertised for ships in in the official journal of the European Union.
A Whitehall source explained: “The Home Secretary John Reid has made clear he wants to explore all innovative solutions.”
The prison crisis escalated this month after the jail population spiralled to 79,825 — just over 100 inmates from bursting point. It forced the Home Secretary to rush through emergency powers to allow him to hold lags in police cells.
The owners of the Bibby Renaissance recently published an artist’s impression - revealing how the refitted vessel would look as a prison or detention centre.
The pictures prove the vessel WOULD offer a cheaper, cleaner and effective alternative to land-based prisons. The Sun has fought tirelessly to raise the number of jail places across the country since the 1990s.
Our hard-hitting campaign has highlighted empty jails left to rot — as well as demanding that MOD camps should be converted to prisons in order to ensure that dangerous crooks are kept off the streets.
We will keep monitoring the Government’s progress to ensure they deliver on their pledge to create more cell space.
And if they don’t deliver . . . we’ll blow them out of the water.
HMS Invincible could carry 500 prisoners
HMS Fearless
HMS Intrepid
HMS Newcastle
HMS Glasgow
By TIM SPANTON
FINDING ships to use as jails is not as easy as it sounds, according to Ships Monthly editor Iain Wakefield.
Here he considers the options and explains why the Bibby Line boat is a good bet:
There are minimum standards for holding prisoners so it’s not possible to buy up just any old vessel.
Realistically, the only answer would appear to be purpose-built accommodation barges such as those operated by Bibby.
They were originally meant to provide purpose-built accommodation for workers on oil pipelines, etc.
The vessels would be quite easy to make secure with a minimum of mesh. It was a long-established practice for centuries to use redundant men-of-war as prison hulks.
So how about HMS Invincible, Fearless, Intrepid, Newcastle, Glasgow?
All were built with facilities for accommodating substantial numbers of men and/or women.
Take Invincible for example. She had a crew of more than 1,000 and could carry 500 marines, so space would clearly not be a problem.
Redundant or laid-up oil platforms should also be considered and Second World War forts in the Humber could be another option.
But, at the end of the day, the accommodation barges are the most likely to get Government approval.
thesun.co.uk
[/b]
-------
Is this the first prison ship?
Possible prison ship ... vast hulk rusting in Barrow docks - the Bibby Renaissance - could become a prison ship
OCTOBER 28, 2006
THIS is the ship which could ease Britain’s prison overcrowding crisis. The vast hulk has been rusting in Barrow docks for the last eight years.
But last week the Home Office finally bowed to The Sun’s prison ship campaign, accepting that floating jails could help solve the problem of overflowing cells.
Now the 400-foot Bibby Renaissance has become the frontrunner in the race to become Britain’s next sea-prison. We say next because, embarrassingly, the Government’s hunt for new prison ships began just months after Britain’s last floating jail, HMP Weare — was SCRAPPED.
The owners of the Bibby Renaissance — Liverpool-based Bibby Line — have put in a bid to have one of their so-called “floatels” adopted as a prison ship.
The 15-year-old Renaissance is typical of the type.
The six-storey barge would have room for up to 800 cons after being refitted for use as secure accommodation.
The empty ship offers dramatic evidence which rubbishes Home Office claims that there is a lack of suitable ships to use as prisons.
Instead of scouring the globe for suitable vessels, Home Office pen pushers only needed to travel as far as Cumbria to find a solution to their overcrowding problems.
Last night a Barrow port insider revealed: “The boat looks as though it’s rusting away from the outside but the interior is, appropriately, in perfect nick.
“The floors and steel shell are so clean you could eat your dinner off them.
“We’ve been told the ship will soon be on the move to get a refit in a dry dock at Birkenhead.
It’s the ideal shape and structure to put in cells for prisoners or house asylum seekers.”
Bibby Line also operates a string of other accommodation barges, which could be put into service to ease our prison problems.
One is already being used in Rotterdam harbour by the Dutch to house illegal immigrants.
Last night a Dutch government spokesman told The Sun: “There is much less red tape involved in opening a prison ship than a normal jail. They are much more flexible and also cheaper to run than normal land-based prisons.
“What is more, they are more difficult to escape from than normal jails because they are stuck out on the water.”
The Bibby Renaissance could be called up for duty after the Home Office advertised for ships in in the official journal of the European Union.
A Whitehall source explained: “The Home Secretary John Reid has made clear he wants to explore all innovative solutions.”
The prison crisis escalated this month after the jail population spiralled to 79,825 — just over 100 inmates from bursting point. It forced the Home Secretary to rush through emergency powers to allow him to hold lags in police cells.
The owners of the Bibby Renaissance recently published an artist’s impression - revealing how the refitted vessel would look as a prison or detention centre.
The pictures prove the vessel WOULD offer a cheaper, cleaner and effective alternative to land-based prisons. The Sun has fought tirelessly to raise the number of jail places across the country since the 1990s.
Our hard-hitting campaign has highlighted empty jails left to rot — as well as demanding that MOD camps should be converted to prisons in order to ensure that dangerous crooks are kept off the streets.
We will keep monitoring the Government’s progress to ensure they deliver on their pledge to create more cell space.
And if they don’t deliver . . . we’ll blow them out of the water.
Why empty vessels make
the loudest argument
the loudest argument
HMS Invincible could carry 500 prisoners
HMS Fearless
HMS Intrepid
HMS Newcastle
By TIM SPANTON
FINDING ships to use as jails is not as easy as it sounds, according to Ships Monthly editor Iain Wakefield.
Here he considers the options and explains why the Bibby Line boat is a good bet:
There are minimum standards for holding prisoners so it’s not possible to buy up just any old vessel.
Realistically, the only answer would appear to be purpose-built accommodation barges such as those operated by Bibby.
They were originally meant to provide purpose-built accommodation for workers on oil pipelines, etc.
The vessels would be quite easy to make secure with a minimum of mesh. It was a long-established practice for centuries to use redundant men-of-war as prison hulks.
So how about HMS Invincible, Fearless, Intrepid, Newcastle, Glasgow?
All were built with facilities for accommodating substantial numbers of men and/or women.
Take Invincible for example. She had a crew of more than 1,000 and could carry 500 marines, so space would clearly not be a problem.
Redundant or laid-up oil platforms should also be considered and Second World War forts in the Humber could be another option.
But, at the end of the day, the accommodation barges are the most likely to get Government approval.
thesun.co.uk
[/b]