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Floating prisons?

By Gritsforbreakfast

Though I hesitate mentioning it lest I give any Texas Youth Commission officials more bad ideas, I enjoyed this somewhat theoretical but informative article from Bryan Finoki at his blog, Subtopia: A field guide to military urbanism, on the history of "floating prisons." His essay not only details and links to a great deal of history I'd never read before, he hints that floating prisons may still be used today by the US military or intelligence community as part of the War on Terror to incarcerate suspects outside of territorial waters where local or US laws may fetter their activities.From this source we learn a bit about the unhappy history of using ships or "hulks" as floating prisons in Britain, an idea which apparently endured trouble from the start: "The plan of confining offenders on board hulks was first adopted in England in 1776; but so early was their management abused, that in 1778, it was inquired into by Parliament; and in 1785, reported to have singularly improved the practice of villany...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on January 14, 2008 (boomark / email).