Prisons have always been placed within the communities they serve. With some notable exceptions (Dartmoor being one) the intention was that prisoners should serve their sentence within reasonable proximity to their relatives thus facilitating visiting, which has long been considered an essential part of any attempt at rehabilitation. Over the years there has been an increasing tendency to group prisoners into categories (High Risk, Dangerous, Medium Risk etc) and this has led to prisoners being held far from their homes and relatives thus "preparation for release" has come to involve moving them nearer to home and thence to "Open" prisons, allowing days out etc.
Now I see there is a proposal to house all Muslim prisoners in the same prison. Whilst I can see that this would prevent any "reprisals" against them because of their faith (and probable reasons for being held) and would make great savings in the provision of special foods, prayer facilities etc. it still seems to me to be a dangerous precedent. Already some of them, or their legal representatives, are claiming they should be granted "Prisoner of War" status. If we give them their own special prison (presumably facing toward Mecca) what will they want next? What indeed would other groups demand?
Deportation seems like a good plan until you realise that in the majority of cases this is little different to setting them free and, given the porous nature of our borders (thanks in no small measure to the EU), they'd be back with a new name and passport before you could clean the cells from their stay.
So what do we do?
