LONDON: Britain will use an emergency measure to detain suspected criminals in police station cells until it can find space for them in its overcrowded prisons after police arrested hundreds over widespread rioting this month.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government said on Monday the arrests of more than 1,100 suspects over the racist violence aimed at migrants and Muslims had worsened a prison capacity crisis, which has already forced ministers to say they will allow jails to release more prisoners early.
The new, temporary measure will mean suspects will be summoned to court only when it is confirmed that a cell is available in one of the more than 100 prisons across the country. Until then they will be held in a police station.
“We inherited a justice system in crisis and exposed to shocks,” prisons minister James Timpson said in a statement. “As a result, we have been forced into making difficult but necessary decisions to keep it operating.”
Overcrowded prisons have presented Starmer, who took office last month, with an early crisis, leaving his government with unpalatable and costly choices.
Britain has western Europe’s highest rate of incarceration and prisoner numbers have risen sharply since the pandemic, due to longer sentences, court delays and a requirement for serious offenders to serve at least 65 percent of their sentences behind bars.
Under plans announced by Starmer last month, most prisoners will become eligible for release after serving 40 percent of their sentences behind bars, down from 50 percent previously.
Monday’s measures are expected to tackle lower prison capacity in the north of England, a region affected by the recent rioting, which followed misinformation that the suspect in the murder of three young girls was an Islamist migrant.
As rioters fill overcrowded prisons, UK turns to police cells
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As rioters fill overcrowded prisons, UK turns to police cells
- The arrests of more than 1,100 suspects over the racist violence had worsened a prison capacity crisis
- Britain has western Europe’s highest rate of incarceration and prisoner numbers have risen sharply since the pandemic
Italian police fire tear gas as protesters clash near Winter Olympics hockey venue
- Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue
MILAN: Italian police fired tear gas and a water cannon at dozens of protesters who threw firecrackers and tried to access a highway near a Winter Olympics venue on Saturday.
The brief confrontation came at the end of a peaceful march by thousands against the environmental impact of the Games and the presence of US agents in Italy.
Police held off the violent demonstrators, who appeared to be trying to reach the Santagiulia Olympic ice hockey rink, after the skirmish. By then, the larger peaceful protest, including families with small children and students, had dispersed.
Earlier, a group of masked protesters had set off smoke bombs and firecrackers on a bridge overlooking a construction site about 800 meters (a half-mile) from the Olympic Village that’s housing around 1,500 athletes.
Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue. A heavy police presence guarded the entire route.
There was no indication that the protest and resulting road closure interfered with athletes’ transfers to their events, all on the outskirts of Milan.
The demonstration coincided with US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Milan as head of the American delegation that attended the opening ceremony on Friday.
He and his family visited Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” closer to the city center, far from the protest, which also was against the deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to provide security to the US delegation.
US Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE unit that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. The ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown in the US is known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication its officers are being sent to Italy.
At the larger, peaceful demonstration, which police said numbered 10,000, people carried cardboard cutouts to represent trees felled to build the new bobsled run in Cortina. A group of dancers performed to beating drums. Music blasted from a truck leading the march, one a profanity-laced anti-ICE anthem.
“Let’s take back the cities and free the mountains,” read a banner by a group calling itself the Unsustainable Olympic Committee. Another group called the Association of Proletariat Excursionists organized the cutout trees.
“They bypassed the laws that usually are needed for major infrastructure project, citing urgency for the Games,” said protester Guido Maffioli, who expressed concern that the private entity organizing the Games would eventually pass on debt to Italian taxpayers.
Homemade signs read “Get out of the Games: Genocide States, Fascist Police and Polluting Sponsors,” the final one a reference to fossil fuel companies that are sponsors of the Games. One woman carried an artificial tree on her back decorated with the sign: “Infernal Olympics.”
The demonstration followed another last week when hundreds protested the deployment of ICE agents.
Like last week, demonstrators Saturday said they were opposed to ICE agents’ presence, despite official statements that a small number of agents from an investigative arm would be present in US diplomatic territory, and not operational on the streets.
