Jail Cells Could Be Set Up In High Streets

[flatron]

Further pushing the UK into a police state - I don't like where this is heading folks.
Probable cause is back

Quote:<span style="color:#FFFFFF">'Retail jails' ease police burden
Jail cells could be set up in high streets and shopping centres to detain suspects for short periods, under Home Office plans to increase police powers.

At present suspects must be taken to a police station.

Officers could also be given greater powers to take fingerprint or DNA evidence from anyone they suspect of committing an offence. Civil rights campaigners said the ideas replaced the best traditions of English law with a presumption of guilt.

Shoplifters

Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, if a suspect refuses to give their name, they must be taken to a police station to be interviewed. But a Home Office consultation document, Modernising Police Powers, argues that this wastes time and takes officers off the streets. To speed up the process, the document suggests creating a network of "short-term holding facilities" in shopping centres and town centres to hold suspects for up to four hours.

The plan is aims to help the police deal more quickly with petty offenders like shoplifters. "Persons would be subject to detention to a maximum period of four hours to enable fingerprinting, photographing and DNA sampling. "The aim would be to locate the short-term holding facility in busy areas to allow quick access and processing of suspects to enable the officer to resume operational duties as quickly as possible," the document says.

Fingerprints

The Times newspaper says that discussions have already started on plans to build a "retail jail" in the Selfridges store in Oxford Street, London. The consultation document also contains proposals to allow the police to take fingerprint and DNA evidence from people accused of crimes which do not carry a prison sentence.

<span style="color:#FFFFFF">At present these kind of samples can only be taken when the crime carries a prison term. The civil rights group Liberty accused the Government of replacing the best traditions of English law with "a chilling presumption of guilt".

[Shinobi]

In the UK in some towns in outer London there still exists holding cells on a few high streets, they are the smallest police stations mind you with approximately 2 to 5 cells in each station. Fortunately much of these small high street police stations are now derilect or shut down even so converted in to more shops or flats.

Retail Jails is definately an excuse for something more
and from reading this article it states so, cheers for posting it.

I guess I cant go shoplifting anymore lol