Prisoners may be held on ships

THE HOME Office is thinking of mooring prison ships off the coast at Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, to help alleviate prison overcrowding.

Under the plan, two vessels would accommodate a total of 800 low-security prisoners coming to the end of their sentences or remand inmates awaiting trial. They could also be used to alleviate fall-out from riots elsewhere in the prison system. After the Strangeways riot in 1990, displaced prisoners were housed in police station cells.

Home Office officials have inspected two similar jail ships or 'floating detention units' in New York harbour used for drug offenders. They are reported to have liked what they saw.

The proposal has been made by Bibby Line, the Liverpool- based shipping group, which owns the New York vessels.

John Hogarth, the company's general manager, said: 'Floating detention units would meet British prison design requirements. They would contain conventional cells, security systems and recreational facilities, providing a fast, reliable and cost-effective short-term solution.'

The project would create around 400 jobs in Barrow, which has suffered thousands of redundancies at its VSEL shipyard and is desperate to attract alternative sources of employment. Other sites in the Mersey estuary and on Teesside have been rejected in favour of the largely redundant Cavendish Dock, one of the largest deep-water berths in Europe.

Bibby dismisses comparisons with Dickensian prison hulks. Its 'floatels', which resemble huge, flat-topped barges have no engines. The New York jails, Bibby Resolution and Bibby Venture, formerly accommodated British troops garrisoned in the South Atlantic after the Falklands war.

Elsewhere in the world the barges are used to house refugees and oil workers. The company has one unit, Bibby Progress, which could be towed to Barrow immediately from Poland.

Mr Hogarth refused to say how much the units would cost but maintained: 'They would be cheaper than building a large permanent building at Barrow'.

A Home Office spokesman confirmed that ships 'are one of a possible number of options being considered' to solve prison overcrowding. Others include army camps and greater use of prison cells. Barrow, he said, was 'a potential site' for a floating unit, although it was too early to say whether it would be run privately or by the prison service.

Stan Stevens, chairman of Barrow council finance and policy committee, said he hoped his fellow councillors would endorse the plan. 'It is bound to cause some political opposition but at present, with the loss of employment in Barrow, it is something we should look at very seriously.'

A prison ship was moored in Belfast harbour in 1972 as a stop- gap to cope with the Troubles. In 1987, the Earl William, a converted car ferry, housed 78 Tamil refugees off Harwich. It broke free from its moorings and ran aground.

(Photograph omitted)