British Prison Cells not Islam-Friendly

The Criminal Justice Inspection report examined 21 custody suites in police stations in Northern Ireland.

Although it ruled that the cell blocks were perfectly suitable for short-term detention, a 12 point programme was issued with a list of improvements which could be made to improve conditions for long-term detention.

Among these was installing a treadmill so that prisoners detained for longer than 36 hours could get some exercise.

This is where it gets interesting and we verge into 'Cromer's Believe it or Not' territory. Because the cells are also used for immigration offence detention, the report decided that they must cater for people from a range of cultural backgrounds.

Here is what was actually said, courtesy of the BBC:

The inspectors said greater efforts should be made in all of the custody suites to cater for diverse backgrounds and cultural differences.

They pointed out that no copies of the Qu'ran or other religious texts were available and that there were no directional arrows pointing to Mecca.

Yes, that's right. Prisons in this country are already being referred to as 'universities of terrorism' - but what we need is to give criminals better access to the Koran and draw an arrow on every cell floor, just in case a Muslim happens to take up residence (an increasing likelihood, granted).

Perhaps a knife behind glass on every cell wall, 'in case of sudden Jihad syndrome', would also be appropriate, along with a line drawn on the policemen's throats for easy jugular-severing.

Some days I have no hope at all for this country's future.