Reply to post: Re: *shakes head* @Bob

Drug drone not high enough: Brit lags' copter snared on prison wire

Peter Gathercole Silver badge

Re: *shakes head* @Bob

Unlike the US, where prisons tend to be isolated outside population centres and can afford to have wide perimeters with more than one fence (at least that is what I see on US telly), in the UK, older prisons, many of them built in the Victorian era are often in towns or cities, where there is just no space to have a wide perimeter.

It is often the case that there are public roads right next to the perimeter wall. Prisons such as these mean that it is impossible to prevent the public getting close enough to catapult small amounts of contraband over the wall. Here are the co-ordinates of HMP Bedford: 52.139530, -0.469831. Look at it the satellite image in Google Maps or something to see the problem.

You might say that it is poor planning to have prisons in towns, but the UK is smaller and has a much higher population density than the US or many other countries. If prisons are built away from a population centre, first of all, there is a huge outcry about using precious green-field sites for prisons, and then if they do get built, a new population centre grows up around the prison, because people working in the prison tend to like living close to where they are working. The prison then has to expand because of the increasing prison population, so it tends to grow towards it's perimeter, using the space.

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