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A prison ship, is a current or former seagoing vessel that has been modified to become a place of substantive detention for convicts, prisoners of war or civilian internees. Some prison ships were hulked. While many nations have deployed prison ships over time, the practice was most widespread in 18th- and 19th-century Britain, as the government sought to address the issues of overcrowded civilian jails on land and an influx of enemy detainees from the War of Jenkins' Ear, the Seven Years' War and the French Revolutionary and .
The vessels were a common form of internment in Britain and elsewhere in the 18th and 19th centuries. Charles F. Campbell writes that around 40 ships of the Royal Navy were converted for use as prison hulks. Other hulks included , which became a prison ship at Woolwich in February 1840.Colledge, p. 375 One was established at Gibraltar, others at Bermuda (the Dromedary), at Antigua, off Brooklyn in Wallabout Bay, and at Sheerness. Other hulks were anchored off Woolwich, Portsmouth, Chatham, Deptford, and Plymouth-Dock/Devonport. Brad William, The archaeological potential of colonial prison hulks: The Tasmanian case study HMS Argenta, originally a cargo ship with no portholes, was acquired and pressed into service in Belfast Lough Northern Ireland to enforce the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act (Northern Ireland) 1922 during the period around the ' Bloody Sunday (1920). Private companies owned and operated some of the British hulks holding prisoners bound for penal transportation to Australia and America.
HMP Weare was used by the British as a prison ship between 1997 and 2006. It was towed across the Atlantic from the United States in 1997 to be converted into a jail. It was berthed in Portland Harbour in Dorset, England.
Christopher Vail, of Southold, who was aboard one such prison ship, in 1781, later wrote:
When a man died he was carried up on the forecastle and laid there until the next morning at 8 o'clock when they were all lowered down the ship sides by a rope round them in the same manner as tho' they were beasts. There was 8 died of a day while I was there. They were carried on shore in heaps and hove out the boat on the wharf, then taken across a hand barrow, carried to the edge of the bank, where a hole was dug 1 or 2 feet deep and all hove in together.
In 1778, Robert Sheffield, of Stonington, Connecticut, escaped from a British prison ship and told his story in the Connecticut Gazette, printed July 10, 1778. He was one of 350 prisoners held in a compartment below the decks.
The heat was so intense that (the hot sun shining all day on deck) they were all naked, which also served well to get rid of vermin, but the sick were eaten up alive. Their sickly countenances, and ghastly looks were truly horrible; some swearing and blaspheming; others crying, praying, and wringing their hands; and stalking about like ghosts; others delirious, raving and storming,--all panting for breath; some dead, and corrupting. The air was so foul that at times a lamp could not be kept burning, because of which the bodies were not missed until they had been dead ten days.
Conditions aboard these prison ships were poor, and mortality rates were high. Inmates aboard the first Justitia slept in groups in tiered bunks with each having an average sleeping space long and wide. Weekly rations consisted of biscuits and pea soup, accompanied once a week by half an ox cheek and twice a week by porridge, a lump of bread and cheese.Frost 1984, p. 21 Many inmates were in ill health when brought from their gaols, but none of the ships had adequate quarantine facilities, and there was a continued contamination risk caused by the flow of excrement from the sick bays. In October 1776 a prisoner from Maidstone Gaol brought typhus aboard. It spread rapidly; over a seven-month period to March 1778, a total of 176 inmates died, or 28 percent of the prison ship population.
Conditions thereafter improved. In April 1778 the first Justitia was converted into a receiving ship, where inmates were stripped of their prison clothing, washed and held in quarantine for up to four days before being transferred to the other vessels.Frost 1984, p. 24 Those found to be ill were otherwise held aboard until they recovered or died. On the second Justitia the available sleeping space was expanded to allow for just two inmates per bunk, each having an area long and wide in which to lie. The weekly bread ration was lifted from 5 to 7 pounds, the supply of meat enhanced with the daily delivery of ox heads from local abattoirs, and there were occasional supplies of green vegetables. The effects of these improvements were evident in the prisoner mortality rates. In 1783 89 inmates died out of 486 brought aboard (18%); and by the first three quarters of 1786 only 46 died out of 638 inmates on the ships (7%).Frost 1984, p. 25
In New South Wales, hulks were also used as juvenile correctional centers. In 1813 a tender document was advertised in the Australian newspaper for the supply of bread to prisoners aboard a prison hulk in Sydney Harbour.Sydney Morning Herald 2 September 2013
Between 1824 and 1837 Phoenix served as a prison hulk in Sydney Harbour. She held convicts awaiting transportation to Norfolk Island and Moreton Bay. One source claims she was Australia's first prison hulk.Bateson (1974), pp. 210–211.
Vernon (1867–1892) and Sobraon (1892–1911) – the latter officially a "nautical school ship" – were anchored in Sydney Harbour. The commander of the two ships, Frederick Neitenstein (1850–1921), introduced a system of "discipline, surveillance, physical drill and a system of grading and marks. He aimed at creating a 'moral earthquake' in each new boy. Every new admission was placed in the lowest grade and, through hard work and obedience, gradually won a restricted number of privileges."
Between 1880 and 1891 the hulk Fitzjames was used as a reformatory by the South Australian colonial government in Largs Bay. The ship kept about 600 prisoners at a time, even though it was designed to carry 80 or so crewmembers.
Marquis of Anglesea became Western Australia's first prison hulk following an accident in 1829.
was used as a prison ship in [[Northern Ireland]] in the 1970s for suspected Republican [[paramilitaries|Paramilitary]] and [[non-combatant]] [[activist]] supporters. The former president of the Republican political party Sinn Féin, [[Gerry Adams]], spent time on ''Maidstone'' in 1972. He was released in order to take part in peace talks.
In 1997 the United Kingdom Government established a new prison ship, HMP Weare, as a temporary measure to ease prison overcrowding. Weare was docked at the disused Royal Navy dockyard at Portland, Dorset. Weare was closed in 2006.
The barge Bibby Stockholm, planned to house asylum seekers, has been called a "floating prison".
In June 2008 The Guardian printed claims by Reprieve that US forces are holding people arrested in the Global War on Terrorism on active naval warships, including the and , although this was denied by the US Navy. The United States subsequently admitted in 2011 to holding terrorist suspects on ships at sea, claiming legal authority to do so. The national Abu Anas al-Libi who worked as a computer specialist for al-Qaeda was imprisoned in the for the 1998 United States embassy bombings.
In 2009 the US Navy converted the main deck aboard the supply ship into a Military prison to hold pirates captured off the coast of Somalia until they could be transferred to Kenya for prosecution. The brig was capable of holding up to twenty-six prisoners and was operated by a detachment of Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit.[4]
French artist and author Ambroise Louis Garneray depicted his life on a prison hulk at Portsmouth in the memoir .
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