The UK government on Monday activated emergency measures to ease overcrowding in prisons in northern England as a growing number of people are sentenced for their part in riots earlier this month.
The decision to invoke “Operation Early Dawn,” which allows defendants to be held in police cells and not summoned to trial until prison space becomes available, follows hundreds of convictions for taking part in rioting.
This has led to a capacity crisis, with the new Labour government warning of an imminent “collapse” of the prison system. AFP reported.
England and Wales have the highest prison population per capita in Western Europe. The government has already announced plans to release thousands of prisoners in early September to deal with the crisis.
Operation Dawn will see officers across the north of England conduct an operational assessment each morning and throughout the day on which defendants can attend court, depending on prison capacity.
“We have inherited a justice system in crisis and vulnerable to shocks,” Prisons Minister James Timpson said in a statement.
“As a result, we have been forced to make difficult but necessary decisions to continue operating.”
The Justice Ministry said the move would help “manage the pressure on prison capacity that is being felt in the short term in a small number of regions.”
Police have indicated that this will not affect officers' ability to make arrests, the ministry added, insisting that “anyone who poses a risk to the public will not be released on bail.”
However, representatives of prison workers and the judiciary warned that the policy would inevitably impact on policing and other areas of criminal justice.
“It's justice that is delayed at the moment because we're not crowding the police cells so they may have to delay some of their operations,” said Prison Officers' Association president Mark Fairhurst. BBC.
Meanwhile, Tom Franklin of the Magistrates' Association said: “There will be a delay in some people who have been charged coming to court because the Prison Service cannot guarantee… that there is a place for them.”
The recent riots in England and Northern Ireland followed the fatal stabbing of three girls at a dance class in Southport, north-west England.
Authorities have blamed far-right agitators for fuelling the unrest, in which police were attacked and mosques and hotels used to house asylum seekers were also targeted.
