US-style ‘supermax’ jails to house terrorist prisoners in crackdown following Manchester Arena plotter’s attack on prison guards
Terrorist prisoners will be housed in ‘supermax’ style prison units under new plans to improve the security of prison staff.
Justice Secretary David Lammy said he would look into creating new more robust ‘separation centres’ inspired by harsh US prisons.
He also announced a review into how the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is used by extremist prisoners to challenge their treatment in prison, including their segregation from other prisoners.
The move comes after Manchester Arena bomb plotter Hashem Abedi allegedly carried out a ‘terrorist’ attack on three prison officers with hot cooking oil and makeshift weapons in a maximum security prison.
Mr Lammy said a review of the incident at HMP Frankland in County Durham last year showed improvements were needed.
The report, prepared by Jonathan Hall KC, an independent reviewer of the government’s terrorism legislation, examined the operation of three existing sorting centers in Frankland, England and Wales; Full Sutton, near York; and Woodhill in Milton Keynes.
Mr Hall’s review, published today, said: ‘During my current review I have seen leaflets being circulated justifying the killing of prison imams and have read reports of prisoners describing themselves as ‘soldiers’ making direct threats to staff.’
But he concluded that there were “strong reasons why supermax classification is not the correct response to the Abedi attack.”
ADX (administrative maximum) Supermax Prison in Florence, Colorado is a state-of-the-art isolation prison for repeat and high-profile offenders in the United States.
Hashem Abedi, from Fallowfield, south Manchester, was jailed for a minimum of 55 years in August 2020 after being found guilty of 22 murders and one attempted murder. He is now accused of a new violent attack on prison guards.
HMP Frankland in County Durham, where Manchester Arena bomb plotter Hashem Abedi allegedly attacked three prison guards with hot cooking oil last year
Instead, he recommended the creation of ‘a tiered separation center system in which all separation center units are brought together within a single prison’.
Prisoners will be able to move up to tiers that offer better conditions and privileges (like access to cooking facilities) in exchange for good behavior, while troublemakers will be demoted to tiers with harsher conditions.
Mr Lammy told MPs he would look at ‘the creation of new, tougher, supermax-style units for the most violent, disorderly prisoners’.
‘This will be a tiered system and movement between tiers will only be allowed following stringent new risk assessments,’ he said.
However, the Government said it would aim to have ‘multiple separation center areas’ rather than concentrating them in a single prison.
Mr Hall’s review concluded that ministers ‘should take steps to limit the application of Article 8 of the ECHR so that it does not apply to placement in a separation centre’.
But despite his conclusion, Mr Lammy announced that Article 8, the ‘right to private and family life’, would be reviewed in more detail.
It will look at whether a change in the law is needed to limit prisoners’ ability to challenge their human rights.
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy has announced work to introduce supermax-style prison units and a review into how Article 8 of the ECHR is used by prisoners
In a similar case last year, the Supreme Court ruled that a convicted terrorist’s rights were violated when he was kept away from other prisoners. Some inmates won significant payouts.
Shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy said Labour’s Article 8 promises contained ‘nothing concrete’, adding: ‘The truth is that as long as we remain in the ECHR it cannot guarantee anything and that’s why we must leave.’
The Conservatives have promised to leave the human rights convention if they win the next election.
Reform MP Robert Jenrick said: ‘If Lammy wanted to resolve this crisis he would leave the ECHR. But he doesn’t, so taxpayers’ money will continue to go to convicted terrorists in prison.’
Abedi, who was found guilty of the Manchester Arena bombing that killed 22 people in 2017, denied the attack on HMP Frankland in his appearance at the Old Bailey last year.
