When it comes to handing out prison sentences, Britain is much harsher than any other European country. The UK has the European Union's biggest prison population, and has more people serving life sentences than the rest of Europe COMBINED. England and Wales have a prison capacity of 79,600, and the current number of prisoners is 79,000. Within a few weeks, the capacity will be reached. And that's not including the thousands of prisoners in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Britain imprisons 139 of every 100,000 people, compared with 126 in Spain, 96 in Germany and just 85 in France.
Because of the overcrowding problem, the Government was thinking about letting some prisoners free early.
But The Sun newspaper has an even better idea. Stick cons into ex-military bases..........
Turn MoD camps into jails
By ANDREW PORTER
Deputy Political Editor
Lock them up here: the disused barracks at RAF Bentwaters, which closed in 1993, could be used to hold prisoners.
BRITAIN’S prison overcrowding crisis could be solved by putting lags in disused Ministry of Defence camps.
The step would provide a rapid boost to a system currently close to breaking point.
The Sun has found 16 suitable places and calls on the Government to use them — and to ABANDON its plan to ease the problem by releasing up to 50,000 convicts early.
The sites — in thousands of acres of land — are mostly part of the Ministry of Defence estate so already Government owned.
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis has long said that the country’s bulging prisons needed urgent attention.
DISUSED military bases already have buildings and perimeter fencing which could form the basis of minimum security jails. And such transformations have been a success in other parts of the world. The Sun has identified 16 such sites in Britain. Not all may be suitable. Others might be even better. But the list proves the land and facilities DO exist.
Last night he gave heavyweight backing to our campaign.
He said: “The Government has failed to address the chronic lack of prison places.
“They need to get a grip on this as a matter of urgency.
“While the use of MoD camps is not the most ideal option
as it could prove difficult to provide adequate security and rehabilitation arrangements, it is much better than simply releasing dangerous criminals on to our streets.”
At current rates, jails in England and Wales will run out of room for criminals within a fortnight. The capacity is 79,600 and there are already more than 79,000 cons inside.
Prison numbers have been swelled by the huge increase in foreign criminals being caged in recent years.
There has been a furious row in Whitehall over why new prisons have not been built.
The Home Secretary has been promised money to build more jails but the Home Office has, in the past, failed to act even when the cash is there. A multi-million pound prison scheme failed to take-off two years ago. The Home Office received £30million to buy land.
It was then supposed to kick-start the planning process for two new jails.
But the land has still not been purchased.
Over the same period the Home Office has underspent on capital projects by £370million.
That could have been used to extend EXISTING prisons. Earlier this year, The Sun revealed that an extra 8,000 prisoners would be caged in new jails and additional cell blocks at currently used prisons.
But they will not be ready for FIVE YEARS.
Home Secretary John Reid is now under increasing pressure to get more spaces — quickly.
Some estimates say that the total prison capacity needs to be raised to 100,000.
Mr Reid has promised tougher sentences in response to The Sun’s campaign against lenient judges. But the courts have nowhere to send either young or adult criminals.
Police cells are having to be used and some young offenders are being freed early.
In many cases, the disused military bases already have buildings on the sites which could be re-developed.
Extensive grounds could be used to put in Portakabin-style “prefab prison” blocks.
Prefabricated buildings are already planned for use in existing prisons to increase the number of cells. New jails housing up to 500 inmates can cost up to £300million and it can take years to win local planning permission and then build them.
But the military land — and the facilities — are freely available and the Government has already splashed out money looking at the possibility of using some of them.
It spent millions of pounds on feasibility studies when it was intending to build four, 750-bed centres to accommodate asylum-seekers. The proposed cost for each centre was £60million — one fifth of the expenditure needed for a new prison.
In most cases, however, local residents were horrified at the thought of hundreds of immigrants roaming in small rural communities.
But would there be a problem when it involved captive inmates?
The desperate situation with prison overcrowding demands, at least, that ALL possibilities are considered.
Controversy surrounded the use by America of the Guantanamo Bay military base to house prisoners from the Middle East and Afghanistan.
But the military proved the logistic possibility of quickly transforming an army site into a prison.
Lock 'em
up here
DISUSED military bases already have buildings and perimeter fencing which could form the basis of minimum security jails. And such transformations have been a success in other parts of the world. The Sun has identified 16 such sites in Britain. Not all may be suitable. Others might be even better. But the list proves the land and facilities DO exist.
DRAKELOW TUNNELS, WORCESTERSHIRE: This 53-acre underground complex at Wolverley, near Kidderminster, is privately owned. There were plans for it to be a job training centre.
RAF NEATISHEAD, NORFOLK: The 40-acre former radar station, due to be sold by the MoD by the end of March 2007, was once set to be turned into a worm farm.
RAF LOCKING, SOMERSET: The 200-acre former Weston-super-Mare training school was closed in 1998 and still no decisions have been made about its future.
RAF COLTISHALL, NORFOLK: The 750-acre base will not close completely until later this year. But operational flying has ended after 66 years, draining £20million from the local economy.
HMS DAEDALUS, LEE-ON-SOLENT, HAMPSHIRE: The 483-acre Royal Naval Air Station contains a million square feet of buildings, some currently used by coastguards and police.
RAF ST MAWGAN, CORNWALL: The 840-acre airfield near Newquay was doomed when it was overlooked in 2005 as a future base for the Joint Combat Aircraft.
CULTYBRAGGAN CAMP, PERTHSHIRE: The 64-acre base is a former prisoner of war camp and SAS training centre. Its 1940s Nissen huts were in use until 2004.
RAF WEST RAYHAM, NORFOLK: The 684-acre site, which closed a decade ago, was recently acquired by a consortium in a multi-million pound deal, but no plans have been submitted.
RAF THROCKMORTON, WORCESTERSHIRE: The 150-acre former airfield, which was owned by the MoD, was considered for use as an asylum seekers’ centre during 2002. It is still derelict.
RAF NEWTON, NOTTS: The Government failed to get permission to use this 560-acre site for an accommodation centre for asylum-seekers.
RAF SEALAND, FLINTSHIRE: The 400-acre base, a civil airfield until taken over in 1916, closed amid defence cost-cutting in 2004.
RAF BICESTER, OXFORDSHIRE: The 580-acre site was the only one of four ex-bases given the go-ahead as a centre for asylum-seekers in 2004. Some £24million was spent on it until plans changed.
RAF YATESBURY, WILTSHIRE: The former home of a Radar and Wireless training school in Marlborough has lain derelict for more than 40 years.
CONNAUGHT BARRACKS, KENT: The last 85 soldiers left the 80 acre-site in April. The Parachute Regiment’s departure ended 1,000 years of Dover being a stronghold protecting Britain from invasion.
BROUGHTON MOOR, CUMBRIA: The vast 1,740-acre site was earmarked in 2004 as the venue for the UK’s first endurance sports village. But the £80million scheme has stalled.
RAF HULLAVINGTON, WILTSHIRE: This vast Chippenham site has not been fully operational since 1965 and is now only partly used by the Army for glider training.
********************************************************
We have the biggest prison population in Europe, and that's could be why Britain has been more successful than it's European counterparts when it comes to fighting crime -
Total recorded crime rose by 1% in the EU but fell by 8% in England and Wales.
Violent crime rose by 14% in the EU, and by 15% in England and Wales.
England and Wales has one of the lowest homicide rates in Western Europe.
Domestic burglaries fell by 15% in the EU but by 31% in England and Wales.
Thefts of motor vehicles fell by 2% in the EU but by 27% in England and Wales.
Drug trafficking offences fell on average by 5% in the EU but by 10% in England and Wales.
www.crimeinfo.org.uk
Britain imprisons 139 of every 100,000 people, compared with 126 in Spain, 96 in Germany and just 85 in France.
Because of the overcrowding problem, the Government was thinking about letting some prisoners free early.
But The Sun newspaper has an even better idea. Stick cons into ex-military bases..........
Turn MoD camps into jails
By ANDREW PORTER
Deputy Political Editor
Lock them up here: the disused barracks at RAF Bentwaters, which closed in 1993, could be used to hold prisoners.
BRITAIN’S prison overcrowding crisis could be solved by putting lags in disused Ministry of Defence camps.
The step would provide a rapid boost to a system currently close to breaking point.
The Sun has found 16 suitable places and calls on the Government to use them — and to ABANDON its plan to ease the problem by releasing up to 50,000 convicts early.
The sites — in thousands of acres of land — are mostly part of the Ministry of Defence estate so already Government owned.
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis has long said that the country’s bulging prisons needed urgent attention.
DISUSED military bases already have buildings and perimeter fencing which could form the basis of minimum security jails. And such transformations have been a success in other parts of the world. The Sun has identified 16 such sites in Britain. Not all may be suitable. Others might be even better. But the list proves the land and facilities DO exist.
Last night he gave heavyweight backing to our campaign.
He said: “The Government has failed to address the chronic lack of prison places.
“They need to get a grip on this as a matter of urgency.
“While the use of MoD camps is not the most ideal option
as it could prove difficult to provide adequate security and rehabilitation arrangements, it is much better than simply releasing dangerous criminals on to our streets.”
At current rates, jails in England and Wales will run out of room for criminals within a fortnight. The capacity is 79,600 and there are already more than 79,000 cons inside.
Prison numbers have been swelled by the huge increase in foreign criminals being caged in recent years.
There has been a furious row in Whitehall over why new prisons have not been built.
The Home Secretary has been promised money to build more jails but the Home Office has, in the past, failed to act even when the cash is there. A multi-million pound prison scheme failed to take-off two years ago. The Home Office received £30million to buy land.
It was then supposed to kick-start the planning process for two new jails.
But the land has still not been purchased.
Over the same period the Home Office has underspent on capital projects by £370million.
That could have been used to extend EXISTING prisons. Earlier this year, The Sun revealed that an extra 8,000 prisoners would be caged in new jails and additional cell blocks at currently used prisons.
But they will not be ready for FIVE YEARS.
Home Secretary John Reid is now under increasing pressure to get more spaces — quickly.
Some estimates say that the total prison capacity needs to be raised to 100,000.
Mr Reid has promised tougher sentences in response to The Sun’s campaign against lenient judges. But the courts have nowhere to send either young or adult criminals.
Police cells are having to be used and some young offenders are being freed early.
In many cases, the disused military bases already have buildings on the sites which could be re-developed.
Extensive grounds could be used to put in Portakabin-style “prefab prison” blocks.
Prefabricated buildings are already planned for use in existing prisons to increase the number of cells. New jails housing up to 500 inmates can cost up to £300million and it can take years to win local planning permission and then build them.
But the military land — and the facilities — are freely available and the Government has already splashed out money looking at the possibility of using some of them.
It spent millions of pounds on feasibility studies when it was intending to build four, 750-bed centres to accommodate asylum-seekers. The proposed cost for each centre was £60million — one fifth of the expenditure needed for a new prison.
In most cases, however, local residents were horrified at the thought of hundreds of immigrants roaming in small rural communities.
But would there be a problem when it involved captive inmates?
The desperate situation with prison overcrowding demands, at least, that ALL possibilities are considered.
Controversy surrounded the use by America of the Guantanamo Bay military base to house prisoners from the Middle East and Afghanistan.
But the military proved the logistic possibility of quickly transforming an army site into a prison.
Lock 'em
up here
DISUSED military bases already have buildings and perimeter fencing which could form the basis of minimum security jails. And such transformations have been a success in other parts of the world. The Sun has identified 16 such sites in Britain. Not all may be suitable. Others might be even better. But the list proves the land and facilities DO exist.
DRAKELOW TUNNELS, WORCESTERSHIRE: This 53-acre underground complex at Wolverley, near Kidderminster, is privately owned. There were plans for it to be a job training centre.
RAF NEATISHEAD, NORFOLK: The 40-acre former radar station, due to be sold by the MoD by the end of March 2007, was once set to be turned into a worm farm.
RAF LOCKING, SOMERSET: The 200-acre former Weston-super-Mare training school was closed in 1998 and still no decisions have been made about its future.
RAF COLTISHALL, NORFOLK: The 750-acre base will not close completely until later this year. But operational flying has ended after 66 years, draining £20million from the local economy.
HMS DAEDALUS, LEE-ON-SOLENT, HAMPSHIRE: The 483-acre Royal Naval Air Station contains a million square feet of buildings, some currently used by coastguards and police.
RAF ST MAWGAN, CORNWALL: The 840-acre airfield near Newquay was doomed when it was overlooked in 2005 as a future base for the Joint Combat Aircraft.
CULTYBRAGGAN CAMP, PERTHSHIRE: The 64-acre base is a former prisoner of war camp and SAS training centre. Its 1940s Nissen huts were in use until 2004.
RAF WEST RAYHAM, NORFOLK: The 684-acre site, which closed a decade ago, was recently acquired by a consortium in a multi-million pound deal, but no plans have been submitted.
RAF THROCKMORTON, WORCESTERSHIRE: The 150-acre former airfield, which was owned by the MoD, was considered for use as an asylum seekers’ centre during 2002. It is still derelict.
RAF NEWTON, NOTTS: The Government failed to get permission to use this 560-acre site for an accommodation centre for asylum-seekers.
RAF SEALAND, FLINTSHIRE: The 400-acre base, a civil airfield until taken over in 1916, closed amid defence cost-cutting in 2004.
RAF BICESTER, OXFORDSHIRE: The 580-acre site was the only one of four ex-bases given the go-ahead as a centre for asylum-seekers in 2004. Some £24million was spent on it until plans changed.
RAF YATESBURY, WILTSHIRE: The former home of a Radar and Wireless training school in Marlborough has lain derelict for more than 40 years.
CONNAUGHT BARRACKS, KENT: The last 85 soldiers left the 80 acre-site in April. The Parachute Regiment’s departure ended 1,000 years of Dover being a stronghold protecting Britain from invasion.
BROUGHTON MOOR, CUMBRIA: The vast 1,740-acre site was earmarked in 2004 as the venue for the UK’s first endurance sports village. But the £80million scheme has stalled.
RAF HULLAVINGTON, WILTSHIRE: This vast Chippenham site has not been fully operational since 1965 and is now only partly used by the Army for glider training.
********************************************************
We have the biggest prison population in Europe, and that's could be why Britain has been more successful than it's European counterparts when it comes to fighting crime -
Total recorded crime rose by 1% in the EU but fell by 8% in England and Wales.
Violent crime rose by 14% in the EU, and by 15% in England and Wales.
England and Wales has one of the lowest homicide rates in Western Europe.
Domestic burglaries fell by 15% in the EU but by 31% in England and Wales.
Thefts of motor vehicles fell by 2% in the EU but by 27% in England and Wales.
Drug trafficking offences fell on average by 5% in the EU but by 10% in England and Wales.
www.crimeinfo.org.uk
