On October 17, 2019, the New York City Council voted to close Rikers Island, one of the world’s largest and most brutal penal institutions,
Rikers Island is a 415-acre island in the East River, located just off the Queens shore (the location of its only bridge—before it was built in 1966, all travel to the island was by boat). Due to a historical quirk, the island politically is part of the Bronx. It traces its beginnings to 1664, when Governor Peter Stuyvesant granted the then 87-acre island to a local farmer named Abraham Rycken. In 1884, the island was sold back to the City for $180,000. Initially, the City used the island as a landfill (which caused it to expand to its present size). In 1935, the first jail opened on Rikers Island, replacing the City’s crumbling one (built 1832) on Blackwell (now Roosevelt) Island. Today, Rikers Island is home to 10 jails that hold, at any given time, 11,000–13,000 inmates. By the 1970s, the jails on Rikers Island had become “notoriously overcrowded and explosive.” For photographs of the vessel, see its Wikipedia page: A five-story jail barge built in New Orleans to DOC specifications, the facility houses medium to maximum security detainees. Opened in the Fall of 1992, it is named for a former Warden who died in a car accident. It serves as the Bronx detention facility for intake processing. New York City Department of Correction, Director Brian De Palma featured the VERNON C. BAIN in his 1993 movie
There has been relatively little published about prison ships,
The best work I have found is Allan L. Patenaude, For a discussion of fictional prison ships, see
Prison ships are vessels that have been converted by the government into floating jails.
The VERNON C. BAIN, however, was built to be a prison ship. My research has not revealed any privately-run prison ships. Nevertheless, numerous sources claim, without attribution, that in 1980 plans were made to turn the ITALIS, an aging ocean liner launched in 1939 as the AMERICA, into such a vessel. By the autumn of 1979 she was, once again, out of service, so [she] went back to her moorings in Perama Bay. [While there, rumors began to fly.] There [were] reports that the America would become a floating hotel in a West African port, then a “floating prison” at Galveston, Texas and even one wildly enthusiastic report that she would return to [the] New York waterfront, but as a restored “luxury hotel”—the Hotel America! In May 1980, she was sold to the Inter Commerce Corporation, a Swiss-backed arm of the Panamanian-flag company Noga d’Importation et d’Exportation. [R]enamed [the] Noga, she remained at her Greek moorings. Ken Ironside,
Except in passing, this article does not discuss the following related subjects:
1) “Convict ships,” which are vessels that transport banished convicts to their place of exile.
Historically, the “place of exile” was a remote penal colony. For a look at such institutions, Although the United States has never used convict ships (subject to the next paragraph), the 1927 movie In Flavell’s Case, 8 Watts & Serg. 197 (Pa. 1844), the defendant, an Irish national, was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. Subsequently, however, the governor, persuaded that the defendant had been insane at the time of the crime, pardoned him “on the express condition that he be taken direct from the penitentiary on board the vessel which is to convey him [back to Ireland], there to remain until the vessel put to sea. . . .” It is estimated that 162,000 convicts were transported to Australia.
Portugal also resorted to transportation, shipping convicts to Brazil (1755–1822) and, when that country ceased being an option, to Africa (1822–1932).
In 1929, a group of prisoners being transported to Angola tried to take over their ship: The Colonial Office reported today that a serious mutiny among convicts on a Portuguese prison ship bound for the African penitentiary at Loanda, Angola, had been quelled only after desperate hand-to-hand fighting. The reports said the convict ship Guinea was conveying 126 long-term prisoners when the outbreak came. The ship was within five miles of the coast when the convicts made a wild dash for freedom, savagely attacking the guards and crew.
The French likewise used ships to transport convicts to Cayenne, better known as Devil’s Island, their penal colony in French Guiana (1854–1946).
2) “Deportation ships,” a term that now usually refers to the ships Great Britain used to send back Jews caught trying to illegally enter Palestine (1933–48).
For a comprehensive look at such ships,
3) “Slave ships,” which from 1440 to 1870 forcibly carried 12 million Africans to the New World.
4) Vessels used to take guards and prisoners to and from offshore prisons.
As explained I was taken to these Institutions by water, in a boat belonging to the Island jail, and rowed by a crew of prisoners, who were dressed in a striped uniform of black and buff, in which they looked like faded tigers. They took me, by the same conveyance, to the jail itself. C 1 Cl. Ct. 305 (1982).
Lastly, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in hundreds of ships being detained at sea.
In a June 8, 2020 press release, the International Labor Organization estimated that 150,000–200,000 seafarers were “trapped on board ships around the world because of measures to contain the COVID-19 virus.” In August 2020, crewmembers in Miami sued the Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line, claiming that its delay in repatriating them constituted false imprisonment.
Prison ships have been used, most famously, to house prisoners of war (“POWs”).
For a general discussion of POWs,
During the War of 1812, the British again used prison ships. In one notable incident, the British seized the MAGNET, an American vessel, and brought her to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
After observing that the government’s requests were highly unusual,
A third petition is from Vice-Admiral This petition depends upon the same principles [as the previous two petitions and therefore is granted].
Closer to home, the British used POW ships in numerous conflicts, including the Napoleonic Wars (1803–15),
Many of the French POWs later told lurid stories about their captivity. For a case in which an American seaman was held as a POW by the British during the Napoleonic Wars, see Cotteral v. Cummins, 6 Serg. & Rawle 343 (Pa. 1821) (explaining, In describing his visit to the prison hulk PENELOPE at Simon’s Bay (South Africa), one reporter wrote: The majority of the prisoners are sleek, contented, and indifferent. They told me that they thought the war would be a picnic, that they would rush Natal [Province] before the imperial troops arrived, that Great Britain would be involved in foreign complications, and that they would be able to dictate terms from Pietermaritzburg [Natal’s capital] and Durban [Natal’s principal city]. They [expected] to view the Cape peninsular as conquerors, not from a prison-ship. At the beginning of the war, for example, the British detained thousands of aliens in Portsmouth Harbor: By early 1915, following the initial round-up, there were 4,000 men and women on prison ships in Portsmouth Harbour. This was reminiscent of the treatment of French and American prisoners of war in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and there was an outcry locally. The protestors were concerned not so much about the welfare of the internees but by the security risk. These people were in custody in the middle of Portsmouth dockyard which was itself at the heart of the Inner Defence Area. Surely this was imperiling the nation’s security? In an answer to a question in the House of Commons from local MP, Lord Charles Beresford, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, admitted that the situation was not ideal but that they were doing their best to find alternative accommodation. He was as good as his word. Within two weeks, the local papers were able to report that prison ships had gone from the harbor and those at Motherbank would be emptied soon and their occupants sent to camps. S In July 1940, for example, the press reported: The United Kingdom’s first “evacuated” prisoners of war stepped to Canadian soil on a sunny summer’s day, ending a voyage of tense days and nights climaxed by death on the high seas. One prisoner went to an unknown fate while en route by diving through a porthole. . . . The exact number of prisoners and interned enemy aliens shifted to Canada from the United Kingdom could not be made known. The United Kingdom Government requested Canada to receive them because of the danger they might present in the British Isles should the Motherland be invaded. T.R. Walsh, One day later, the ARANDORA STAR, another British ship headed to Canada with German POWs, was sunk by the notorious German submarine U-47. By the time the war ended, 34,000 German POWs had been transferred to Canada. For a further discussion,
In the Russian Civil War (1918–19), POW ships known as “death barges” were used by both sides.
Prior to the civil war, the Tsarist government had used prison ships for more standard purposes: A prison-ship arrived from Odessa in Vladivostok the day before my departure. It was the I went on board of the prison-ship well before she came to anchor. Though in from a voyage of nearly fifty days, and after experiencing severe weather continuously for the past two weeks, I found the vessel and the convict quarters as clean and as sweet as are the steerage compartments on our own Atlantic steamers at the end of a voyage of less than a week. Of course I would have these adjectives to be understood in a relative sense only. There were no “politicals” on board. There were about 1100 convicts, and, judging from their appearance, the great majority of them were criminals of the lowest and most degraded category. I could not conceal my surprise at the smallness of the guard that stood watch over them, and the absence of fear that seemed to be entertained of the possibility of an outbreak. With the exception of three men, who, as punishment for misconduct during the voyage, were chained to the deck, the convicts were free to move about, it appeared, pretty much as they pleased. The guard of soldiers certainly did not number twenty men, who went about generally unarmed; and the sailors of the ship, who were not armed at all, seemed to be on the best of terms with the convicts, with whom they sat and talked, and even played cards. The convicts, judging from their faces, seemed all to belong to one and the same class of confirmed and hardened criminals, but ethnically it was the most varied assortment of types of the races of the human family that I remember to have seen. Stephen Bonsal, In a famous incident early in the war (Feb. 16–17, 1940), the British destroyer COSSACK intercepted the German freighter ALTMARK, which was carrying 299 British POWs, and forced it to release them. For a further discussion, Conditions aboard Japan’s prison ships were so harsh that they became known as “hell ships.” On May 3, 1945 (just five days before the war ended in Europe), for example, British airplanes sank two unmarked German ships carrying concentration camp prisoners: the CAP ARCONA and the THIELBEK. It is estimated that 7,400 prisoners died. During the Falklands War in the early 1980’s, the United Kingdom housed Argentine prisoners aboard the British warships based on practical concerns of being able to provide safer and more habitable temporary detention facilities. Likewise, during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), the United States placed Taliban and Al-Qaeda detainees on board amphibious assault ships for temporary detention and transit to more permanent land-based internment facilities. Later, during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), due to operational exigencies on the battlefield, the amphibious assault ship USS
The United States historically has not kept POWs on ships. Exceptions include the War of 1812
Shortly after the war ended, Union forces captured Jefferson F. Davis (the president of the Confederacy) in Georgia. Subsequently, he was taken by ship to Fort Monroe in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Years later, Confederate General Joseph Wheeler wrote about his failed attempts to free Davis during the voyage. In Clive Cussler’s 1992 novel Very little has been written about the 4,000 World War I POWs. The best source I have found is Leisa Vaughn, In contrast, numerous books have been published about the 425,000 World War II POWs, who were assigned to some 700 camps scattered across 45 states and the territory of Hawaii.
In peace time, prison ships have been used when land-based facilities have been full or otherwise unavailable. In 1775, for example, when the British suddenly were unable to transport convicts to the United States because of the American Revolutionary War, the government decided to use ships as a temporary solution:
The war with America brought an abrupt halt to the steady stream of convict ships that had been heading to its shores. What did not abate, however, was the flow of convicts sentenced to transportation by the courts, and a crisis in prison overcrowding soon began to loom. The immediate, and supposedly short-term, solution was to turn two of the hulks of old battleships berthed on the Thames at Woolwich into floating prisons for 100 inmates. At the same time, two pieces of parliamentary legislation were prepared which proposed longer-term remedies for the problem. The first, the Criminal Law Act of 1776, aimed to extend the use of shipboard prisons. It recommended that transportation be replaced by a period of hard labour lasting between three and ten years. . . . Although the Act made no explicit mention of shipboard prisons, the particular form of hard labour that it proposed—“removing sand, soil, and gravel from, and cleansing the River Thames”—makes it clear that was where its intent lay. Despite some objections, such as the possible nuisance caused to nearby residents, and concerns about the security of the vessels, the bill was passed in May 1776. . . . In August 1776, the contract for supplying and managing the new prison ships, or hulks as they became known, was awarded to Duncan Campbell—one of the merchants who had previously been engaged in transporting convicts to America. Campbell’s initial contract was to provide a ship to house 120 prisoners for each of which he was to receive £32 a year. The first vessel he provided, the The ships were moored in the middle of the Thames at Woolwich Warren. . . . During the day, prisoners worked at dredging the river or providing labour for building works. At night they were crammed below decks, originally in beds, and then in pairs on low wooden platforms. An experiment in using hammocks for beds was abandoned after it became apparent how difficult these were to use while wearing chains. . . . Conditions on the hulks were dire, with ships sometimes housing up to 700 convicts. . . . In the first twenty years of their operation, the hulks received around 8,000 prisoners, of which almost a quarter died on board. As well as diseases, such as goal-fever, tuberculosis, cholera and scurvy, severe depression appears to have been common. . . . By 1788 [when transportation resumed following the establishment of a new penal colony at Botany Bay in Australia], the [hulks] included the P
Even with transportation again available, Great Britain continued to use the prison hulks until 1857, when the Parliamentary act authorizing them
The British maintained detailed rolls of hulk prisoners, and many now are available online. Prison hulks also were used in Antigua, Australia, Barbados, Canada, Ireland, Malta, and South Africa. For a look at the Bermuda and Gibraltar prison hulks, For two pieces focusing just on the Bermuda hulks,
Charles Dickens’ 1861 novel A pair of wry observers have pointed out the impossibility of Magwitch doing so: “One mystery of the novel is how Magwitch, the convict, manages to swim to shore from the Hulks with a ‘great iron’ (a shackle) on his leg. The answer may be that Dickens (a good swimmer himself) intended to endow Magwitch with superhuman power.” J The something that I had noticed before clicked in the man’s throat again, and he turned his back. The boat had returned, and his guard[s] were ready, so we followed him to the landing-place, made of rough stakes and stones, and saw him put into the boat, which was rowed by a crew of convicts like himself. No one appeared glad to see him, or sorry to see him, or spoke a word, except that somebody called as if to dogs, “Give way, you!” which was the signal for the dip of the oars. By the light of the torches we saw the black Hulk lying out a little way from the mud of the shore, like a wicked Noah’s ark; cribbed, and barred, and anchored by massive rusty chains, the prison-ship was ironed like the prisoners. We saw the boat go alongside, and we saw him taken up the side and disappear. Then the ends of the torches were flung hissing into the water, and went out, as if it were all over with him.
C Fans of the book now regularly seek out the places mentioned in it, including Magwitch’s watery cell.
That the hulks were much feared is made clear by a story recounted in a remembrance of Baron Ellenborough, the Lord Chief Justice of King’s Bench (1802–18):
Some magistrate of Middlesex had sent a young man on board a tender, which lay off the Nore to receive impressed men, for the heinous crimes of sitting in his cart on the high road, and of insolence when summoned before them, the legal penalty for the first offence being a fine of ten shillings. He was kept on board the prison-ship seven days, and brought his action for false imprisonment. Lord Ellenborough summed up strongly in favour of exemplary damages. “This is a case that calls for ample justice. A young man, in driving his cart, commits an offence for which he is fineable, instead of which he is imprisoned without any authority of law, and afterwards put on board a prison-ship; there is nothing a magistrate ought to guard so much against as the playing with the liberty of the subject. There can be no excuse for the conduct of the defendant. The plaintiff is entitled to ample justice from a jury of his country; you will therefore, gentlemen, take the case into consideration and give him those damages that you think will make him ample compensation for the injuries he has sustained.” The jury very properly awarded 500
Prison hulks were not limited to Great Britain. In France, for example, prisoners were used as “galley rowers” (“galley slaves”) from the 16th to the 18th centuries.
One of the most famous Toulon prison hulks was the THÉMISTOCLE, which was burned by the British captain William Sidney Smith during the Siege of Toulon (1793) with 260 prisoners aboard.
In modern times, Great Britain repeatedly has used ships to detain political prisoners in Northern Ireland: 1920s (ARGENTA),
On January 17, 1972, seven prisoners escaped from the MAIDSTONE. The R
Shortly after becoming Cuba’s president in 1925, for example, General Gerardo Machado began using the MÁXIMO GÓMEZ to “disappear” his political enemies.
In 1927, Chester M. Wright, one of the officers of the Pan-American Federation of Labor, went to Cuba to investigate the MÁXIMO GÓMEZ. In subsequent reporting, he wrote: In Havana harbor, not too near the shore, but well out of the traffic lane and out of sight of tourists, lies the former German ship Maximo Gomez, taken by the Cubans during the World war. It is the prison ship the fear of which spreads throughout Cuba today. Many Cubans told me of friends who had been snatched away and fed into the Maximo Gomez. Those who have come back are so few that I could learn of but one or two and I could find none. The Maximo Gomez is the first step on the road to exile. Every possible effort was made to find a way in which I might visit this hated ship but that seems to be one of the things that is not being done. Chester M. Wright, (Wright’s headline needs a bit of an explanation. Built out of teak and launched at Myanmar in 1840, the SUCCESS served as an Australian prison hulk in the 1850s. It should be noted that not everyone held in the MÁXIMO GÓMEZ was a political prisoner. In 1929, for example, it was reported that “Sydney Hoffman, American citizen, was today placed aboard the Cuban prison ship Maximo Gomez to await deportation on charges of violating the United States-Cuban liquor treaty.” Following the military defeat of the Paulistas early in October 1932, the Pedro I took about one hundred of the rebellion’s leaders to Recife and from there another ship took them to exile in Portugal. Together with the military leaders of the rebellion, the ship carried such civilians as Waldemar Ferreira, Francisco Morato, Paulo Nogueira Filho, Paulo Duarte, Júlio de Mesquita Filho, Francisco Mesquita, Prudente de Morais Neto, Joaquim Sampaio Vidal, and Antônio Pereira Lima. J Glatkowski eventually made his way back to the U.S. and served seven years in prison; McKay escaped and was not heard from again (it is believed he was killed by the Khmer Rouge). For a further discussion, see R During the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, Chile was accused of using the Navy training ship ESMERALDA as a floating prison and torture chamber. In 1987, Colonel Gregorio Honasan led an unsuccessful revolt against President Corazon Aquino. Following its conclusion, many of Honasan’s followers were briefly held in prison ships.
In 1929, Japan turned the former warship MUSASHI into a prison ship for juvenile delinquents.
Because of its clientele, the ship emphasized rehabilitation over punishment: The Juvenile Floating prison, first prison of its kind ever built in Japan[,] was opened near Yokohama with appropriate ceremonies by the [M]inister of Justice and many government officials. The floating juvenile prison is the former Musashi, a scrapped Japanese warship which has been rebuilt. The floating prison takes young juvenile delinquents and teaches the arts of fishing, navigation and kindred subjects, both practical and theoretical. . . . Twenty-six boys have been transferred to the ship from prisons ashore and when the crew is completed over 50 boys are expected to be on the prison ship. Half of the boys are to be between the ages of 14 and 18 years and an equal number between the ages of 18 and 23 years. The floating prison is an experiment in a new treatment of juvenile prisoners, which will give them [the] healthy atmosphere of the sea, plenty of work and at the same time teach them a useful profession. The WEARE was anchored in Portland Harbor in Dorset in southwest England. As explained
In this country, there have been three major peacetime uses of prison ships: in California (1849–54); in California and Maine (1902–16); and in New York City (1987 to present).
More isolated episodes also exist. An early judicial decision, for example, mentions that a prison ship operated in New Orleans during the military governorship of General James Wilkinson (1805–07). In 1891, the United Kingdom and the United States agreed to prohibit sealing in the Bering Sea. To publicize the new ban, the two countries sent a squadron of ships to the area. Included in the U.S. force was the prison ship AL-KI. Upon returning to the United States, Captain Henry C. Cochrane wrote a detailed letter to Colonel Charles Heywood describing the mission: We went on board the steamer Al-Ki, a chartered vessel belonging to the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, at Mare Island [near San Francisco], on the 21st, and sailed from San Francisco on the 22d of June. Arrived in Bering Sea July 2d, and at Iliuliuk, Ounalaska, Aleutian Islands, the same day, in advance of the other vessels ordered. . . . While the men-of-war, together with the United States revenue cutters Rush and Corwin, were engaged in cruising and furnishing all sealing, whaling, and fishing vessels with notice of the President’s proclamation and the orders of the British Government relative to the fur seal fisheries, the Al-Ki acted as harbor and prison ship at Ounalaska. The crews of vessels seized were promptly transferred to our custody upon being brought into port and were uniformly well treated. Owing to the determined attitude of the combined governments, and the custom of giving each vessel found a preliminary warning, [just] four seizures were necessary. These were the schooners E.B. Marvin, British, July 6th, the La Ninfa, American, July 14th, the Ethel, American, July 30th, and the Otto, British, August 31st. The total number of prisoners received was 48, including a dozen Nationalities and 7 Nootka Sound Indians, hunters. The crew of the Otto was not transferred to the Al-Ki. Of these vessels, the first and the last were sent to Victoria for adjudication, and the others were towed to Sitka, 1,200 miles, by the Al-Ki, and turned over to the United States marshal for Alaska. In August 1944, 258 African-American sailors at Mare Island refused to load the U.S. Navy ship SANGAY with mines and other munitions, claiming that the task was too dangerous. Incensed at this show of disobedience, the Navy turned a nearby barge into a makeshift prison. After several days, 208 of the mutineers agreed to accept minor punishments and were reassigned to various overseas units. The remaining 50, who became known as the “Port Chicago 50,” were returned to the barge but then sent to Camp Shoemaker to await trial. In October 1944, the men were sentenced to long prison terms, which were reduced after the war.
Following the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, California experienced a sudden influx of 300,000 people hoping to get rich.
In March 1848, there were roughly 157,000 people in the California territory; 150,000 Native Americans, 6,500 of Spanish or Mexican descent known as Californios[,] and fewer than 800 non-native Americans. Just 20 months later, following the massive influx of settlers, the non-native population had soared to more than 100,000. And the people just kept coming. By the mid-1850s there were more than 300,000 new arrivals—and one in every 90 people in the United States was living in California. Barbara Maranzani, In Mormon channel, near the Center-street bridge, two French-built vessels went aground in 1849. One of these, named the Susannah, was a brig of about 250 tons, built of oak. “It was used as a prison-ship in ’49,” said L. Basilio, in answer to the inquiries of a reporter, “as we had no jail in the city then. I was working as a blacksmith’s hand in a shop, as the corner of Hunter and Market streets, for $8 a day. One of my duties was to rivet shackles on the legs of prisoners. The stage[coach] brought in the prisoners from the mountains late at night, and my work had, therefore, to be done at about 10 o’clock. An old plank, nailed across with cleats, led up to the deck of the Susannah. The rigging and masts were all gone. The man in charge of the prison was a German, who lived on the flooring just below the deck. The men were kept below on the lower floor, to which a cleated plank descended from a hatch-hole. Every night I went down that plank with my tools and shackles, and the German stood guard at the hole above, armed with pistols and guns enough to kill the entire lot of prisoners if they made a demonstration. I stood the work for a while, shackling the men and chaining them to beams which supported the upper flooring, and then I threw up the job as too dangerous.” The Susannah was used as a prison-ship for only a short time. It afterward became the resort of criminals, who made it a lodging-house and place of refuge. About the year 1854 it was therefore burned to the water’s edge.
Similarly, in San Francisco a ship called the EUPHEMIA was turned into a floating prison:
San Francisco’s first jail was an outdated and flimsy log structure built around 1846 at Clay and Stockton streets. . . . The Town Council of San Francisco[, realizing] how insecure their jail was, . . . began to search for a new jail. A special committee was appointed to either purchase or lease a new building for the jail. A particular dilemma faced the committee; the inflated gold prices of San Francisco had driven up the costs of building, hence rents were also high. A possible solution, and a thrifty one, was the use of an abandoned ship for a building. Gold fever had also stricken the crews of the vessels that had brought the argonauts to California, and hundreds of ships lay empty along the water front. The solution for the special committee’s dilemma was at hand; they purchased a ship for use as San Francisco’s new jail. . . . At the October 8, 1849 meeting of the Town Council of San Francisco, the special committee reported “the purchase of the brig James P. Delgado,
In Sacramento, a ship called the LA GRANGE was used for the same purpose:
[In 1850], the City of Sacramento docked . . . the La Grange, at the foot of I-Street in downtown to house people with criminal convictions and mental illnesses. A grand jury report provided a window into the terrible conditions aboard the La Grange: [The jail is] considered insecure and, for close confinement, unhealthy. There are at present only 16 cells, each about 4½ by 8 feet in size, divided by board partitions, and occupying a space in the center of the brig of about 25 by 40 feet. . . . Each of these cells contain from two to three prisoners. . . .
Julia A. Mendoza,
The state was no more prepared than its cities for the sudden population boom. As a result, when California opened its first state prison in 1851, it used a ship known as the WABAN.
The W The Dec. 20, 1851 edition of the “The bark Waban, with about forty state prisoners, was towed over to Angel Island yesterday by the steam tug Firefly, Capt. Grifflin. We learn the prisoners are intended to work in the stone quarry, under the direction and supervision of our efficient Sheriff, Jack Hays,” the newspaper reported at the time. The state [soon] opted for a permanent prison, rather than a ship, and in 1852 . . . purchased 20 acres of land at San Quentin for $10,000. . . . As folklore has it, the Waban arrived [at San Quentin] on July 14, 1852 (Bastille Day) with 40 to 50 convicts. On Oct. 12, 1852, a “contract was let for the first cell building,” according to reports. The building was completed in 1854. Inmates slept on the [Waban] at night and worked to construct the prison during the day.
Gwen Kubberness, The officers always called him “Old” Jim Smith, but he was merely “old” in criminal experience. Born in Prussia about 1831, few have heard of James P. Smith (probably Schmidt), although he was as colorful as he was unsuccessful as a bandit. Various nautical tattoos on his body indicated that he had been a seaman and had probably jumped ship at the time of the 1849 California Gold Rush. His first conviction was for grand larceny at Sacramento in September of 1851. He was sentenced to a two-year term in the California State Prison. At this time there was really no prison at all. The twenty-acre site, at Point San Quentin on the bay just north of San Francisco in Marin County, had recently been purchased for $10,000. The old bark Listing himself as a baker by trade, Jim may have been put to work preparing the bread, potatoes, meat and soup that constituted the convicts’ main diet. The thirty or forty other prisoners were kept busy quarrying stone on nearby Angel Island, gathering firewood, filling in swampland around the prison site or leveling the ground. Prison life was mostly working out in the open and there were few complaints until they were herded below deck on the The lower deck of the old ship had been divided into a series of eight-foot-square cells with four or five convicts occupying each cell. It was blistering hot in summer and cold and damp in winter. Toilet facilities consisted of a bucket and the smell of the place by morning can well be imagined. Worse, in bad weather the men might be cooped up for days, the stench becoming so unbearable the guards refused to go downstairs until the place had been aired out.
S
The second significant use of prison ships in the United States during peacetime came in the early 1900s, when the U.S. Navy used five different vessels as prison ships—two on the East Coast and three on the West Coast.
In addition to these five ships, other Navy vessels occasionally were assigned prison duty. At the U.S. Naval Academy, for example, the training ship SANTEE regularly doubled as a cadet detention ship.
On the East Coast, the collier SOUTHERY began operating as a prison ship in Boston in 1902; moved to Maine in 1903; and was joined there by the gunboat TOPEKA in 1905.
In his 1915 report to Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, Captain Ridley McLean, the Navy’s Judge Advocate General, after first noting that the SOUTHERY no longer was being used as a prison ship, summed up conditions aboard the PHILADELPHIA and TOPEKA (which were in the process of being phased out):
Reports from the U.S.S. Reports from the U.S.S.
By far, however, the most significant peacetime use of prison ships in the United States has occurred in New York City. Since 1987, it has had five such vessels: BIBBY RESOLUTION, BIBBY VENTURE, HAROLD A. WILDSTEIN, VERNON C. BAIN, and WALTER KEANE.
The impetus for this mini-armada was a crack epidemic that, beginning in 1985, sent the City’s inmate population soaring.
To combat the epidemic, in 1984 the City launched “Operation Pressure Point.” Both the CORNELIUS G. KOLFF (named for a prominent Staten Island businessman) and the PRIVATE JOSEPH F. MERRELL (named for a Staten Island World War II Medal of Honor recipient) were built in 1951 as part of the City’s sixth class of ferries (the third member of the class was the VERRAZZANO, named for the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano). Initially, the VERRAZZANO also was in the running to be turned into a floating jail.
Although Koch neglected to mention it—perhaps he did not remember or did not know—in 1965 DOC Commissioner Anna Kross had pushed a similar proposal:
Special state investigator Herman T. Stichman last night dismissed as “entirely unsound” City Correction Commissioner Anna Kross’ suggestion that obsolete aircraft carriers be used as prison ships to relieve overcrowding in the Women’s House of Detention and other city jails. He declared that historically prison ships were “hell holes” and that “we don’t want prison ships any more than we want . . . a return to Devil’s Island.” “What an absolutely unfortunate image it would give visitors to this country,” Stichman exclaimed, “if the first thing they were to see were prison ships tied up in our harbors!”
Following months of conversion work, the PRIVATE JOSEPH F. MERRELL, renamed the VERNON C. BAIN,
The new name honored a popular Rikers Island warden who had been killed in a 1985 car accident. Within a month, there was even more red ink: New York City’s prison ferry, which opened three months late and $3 million over budget, is 60 percent empty because its operation is being changed to prevent $3 million in unexpected staffing costs. Among the unusual expenses the city has encountered is a Coast Guard requirement that a licensed mate and an engineer be stationed aboard at all times—even though the ferry is permanently docked at its Rikers Island pier and has no engines. . . . To save money, officials have cut the guard staff in half by converting the ferry for use by work-release inmates, who are gone most of the day for jobs and classes. But since there are only 65 such inmates, the remaining 97 beds on the ferry are empty. To put them to use, the city is expanding the work-release program. Officials hope to fill the ferry to capacity by the end of the month. Unresolved, Correction Department officials say, is how the city will address the same staffing problems on a second ferry that has been ordered for arrival in the fall. One possibility is to also use the second ferry for work-release inmates, if the program can be expanded that much. . . . [Manhattan Councilwoman Ruth W.] Messinger called the ferry problems another example of the city’s lack of long-range planning. “The ferry boat prison is not a solution,” she said. “It’s a gimmick and a costly one at that. It’s expensive to create and has an outrageously high operating cost.” Bruce Lambert, The new named honored Walter B. Keane, a veteran DOC officer who had been killed in a job-related accident. Having learned from the numerous mistakes it had made while converting the PRIVATE JOSEPH F. MERRELL, the City’s conversion of the CORNELIUS G. KOLFF proceeded much more smoothly. As Borg explains, the CORNELIUS G. KOLFF was converted by Newport Offshore Ltd. of Rhode Island, which had been awarded the $4.8 million job through competitive bidding. In contrast, the PRIVATE JOSEPH F. MERRELL was converted by First Marine Shipyard of Staten Island, “a company run by the family of Mr. Koch’s former Ports and Terminals Commissioner, Susan Frank” that was picked following “a declaration of emergency . . . [that allowed] Correction Commissioner Richard J. Koehler [to] bypass[] strict competitive bidding procedures and Board of Estimate Review.” For a further look at the two companies (neither of which still exist), see, e.g., In re Newport Offshore Ltd., 219 B.R. 341 (D.R.I. Bankr. 1998) (explaining that Newport Offshore filed for bankruptcy in 1985); Anthony Bianco,
Even as it waited for the WALTER KEANE to arrive, the City was busy negotiating with Bibby Line, the venerable Liverpool shipping company, to lease two of its “accommodation barges” ( In 2007, Bibby Line celebrated its 200th birthday. The BIBBY RESOLUTION was built in 1979 in Stockholm at the Götaverken Finnboda shipyard as a floating dormitory for offshore oil-and-gas workers. At her launching, she was known as the BALDER SCAPA. In 1980, she became the FINNBODA 12. In 1982, she served as a British troop barge in the Falkland Islands War. She then was acquired by the Consafe Group of Sweden and renamed the SAFE ESPERIA. When Consafe went bankrupt, she was purchased by Bibby Line and renamed the BIBBY RESOLUTION. Following her time as a New York City prison barge (1989–92), she performed the same role in England under the name WEARE (1997–2005). Similarly, the BIBBY VENTURE was built in 1980 in Stockholm at the Götaverken Finnboda shipyard as a floating dormitory for offshore oil-and-gas workers. At her launching, she was known as the FINNBODA 11. In 1982, she served as a British troop barge in the Falkland Islands War. She then was acquired by the Consafe Group of Sweden and renamed the SAFE DOMINIA. When Consafe went bankrupt, she was purchased by Bibby Line and renamed the BIBBY VENTURE. Now known as the VENTURE, she is owned by Intership SVI (London) and is being used in Kingstown (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines).
The negotiations, which consumed nearly 18 months, were followed with intense interest by the media.
At the beginning of the negotiations, the City, as an alternative to the BIBBY RESOLUTION and the BIBBY VENTURE, considered buying the much larger British accommodation barge PURSUIVANT. Able to hold 700 inmates, she had been built in 1977 and originally was known as the BARGEMAN. After several years of commercial work, she was leased in 1983 by the British government, renamed the PURSUIVANT, and moved to the Falkland Islands to house the soldiers that had been left there as a deterrence force. With the troops finally relocated to permanent onshore barracks, the PURSUIVANT was available and being offered by a consortium called North Venture Investment (U.K.) Ltd. for $10 million.
The BIBBY VENTURE arrived first, pulling into New York City in October 1987.
Officials overseeing New York City jails say the troop barge the city has leased from a British company to cope with inmate overcrowding is dangerous to both prisoners and correction officers. “Quite simply, it is a labyrinth of spaces that is largely unsupervisable by either sight or sound,” wrote Kenneth Schoen, director of the Office of Compliance. Mr. Schoen monitors city jails for the Federal District Court in Manhattan, which has overseen the jails’ operation since 1979. “I don’t think the barge is cost-effective space,” Mr. Schoen wrote in a letter to Richard J. Koehler, the Commissioner of Correction. He called the Correction Department’s plans to erect partitions to better utilize the space a “Rube Goldberg scheme” and said the barge would require more guards than a conventional jail. Mr. Schoen urged the city to reconsider leasing the $19 million barge and its option to buy the vessel at minimum cost in five years. He also suggested that the city reconsider leasing a larger barge for $21 million. . . . Other experts who have visited the barge—which arrived two weeks ago and was officially transferred to the city yesterday—voiced similar concerns. Robert Kasanof, chairman of the Board of Correction, the city’s jail oversight agency, pointed out that the barge was designed for well-disciplined British soldiers, not detainees awaiting trial for serious crimes. Mr. Kasanof said the barge’s narrow corridors and individual rooms would obstruct guards’ views. “It will require extraordinarily rich, heavy staffing for it to be a secure place,” Mr. Kasanof said. Others have criticized the quality of construction, saying inmates could easily hide contraband in ceilings and make weapons from plastic fixtures. They cite exposed smoke-detector wires, buckled floors, and European-style hand-held shower [heads] that are too delicate for jail use, among other failings. “The whole thing could be taken apart very easily,” said Ted Katz, director of the Legal Aid Society’s Prisoners Rights Project.
Douglas Martin,
Officially known as “Maritime Facility I” (BIBBY VENTURE) and “Maritime Facility II” (BIBBY RESOLUTION),
Initially, the BIBBY VENTURE was located at Pier 36 in the East River (off South Street on the Lower East Side). Subsequently, she was moved to Pier 40 in the Hudson River (off Houston Street near Greenwich Village). When the BIBBY RESOLUTION arrived in 1989, she was assigned to Pier 36. The city’s newest jail barge at Pier 36 near the Manhattan Bridge [is] [b]attleship gray and equipped with razor wire[.] [T]he five-deck, 216-foot craft is named the Bibby Resolution. . . . Each air-conditioned cell has double bunks, a large window and a bathroom compartment with shower, commode and sink. There’s a pharmacy that an official said has “lots of Dramamine,” and a gymnasium, weight room, Nautilus machine, law library and medical clinic. Two swimming pools were not part of the tour reporters were given. “There are no plans to use them,” Correction Department spokeswoman Ruby Ryles said. G
When the residents of Lower Manhattan complained about the barges,
As explained When I say every drug pusher should be arrested and put in jail, [people say] that’s fine. When I say that means we have to have jails in which to put them, and we dock a jail barge alongside a neighborhood, there are opponents. I say to these groups, “Would you rather have these people walking around in your neighborhood, or be in jail on a barge in your neighborhood?”
Although the City’s residents may have disliked the barges, inmates initially had nothing but praise for them. Conditions on the two vessels subsequently grew much harsher. Thus, in Daniel Nina’s novella
Although it already had four floating jails, in March 1989 the City announced that it had awarded a $125 million contract to New Orleans’ Avondale Shipyard
Founded in 1938, Avondale Shipyard closed in 2014 following numerous ownership changes. In 2018, it was announced that the 254-acre site would be turned into a global logistics hub. Various items from the time of the vessel’s construction can be viewed at Lacking propulsion, the VERNON C. BAIN had to be towed from New Orleans to New York City by tugs, an 1,800-mile trip. [The U.S. Supreme Court’s] rule against exculpatory clauses in towage contracts [creates] an intolerable result: A tug is responsible in tort for the welfare of its tow, yet the tug is unable to contract freely with that tow as to the duties of the tug. The nature of tows today, huge oil rigs, gambling casinos, generating plants, and floating prisons, among others, makes it imperative that the Court afford relief to tugs so that they may specifically define the parameters of their obligation. Charles E. Lugenbuhl & David B. Sharpe, The easing had started to become apparent six months earlier. John R. Horan, the vice chairman of the City’s Board of Correction, told reporters: “The money was clearly misspent.” In more recent times, the VERNON C. BAIN has been criticized for being incompatible with its surroundings: In the early 1990s, the Hunts Point neighborhood around the barge was overrun by rampant prostitution, other crime, homelessness and junkyards. At night, the main attraction was strip clubs. Children in the area had some of the country’s highest asthma rates. The closest bus stop in Hunts Point, a roughly 900-acre peninsula in the South Bronx, was a 20-minute walk from the jail. “Hunts Point was a place to put things that no one else wanted,” said John Robert, a former president of the local community board. . . . . Now, the barge is part of a changing Hunts Point. The strip clubs have been shut down; violent crime, including homicides and rapes, has plunged by 280 percent from 1990 to 2018, according to the Police Department. Down the street from the jail, Amazon opened a warehouse over the summer, where trucks line up throughout the day to pick up packages to be delivered. The city’s Economic Development Corporation, which owns much of the prime waterfront real estate in Hunts Point, has big plans for the area. It recently asked companies to submit ideas for a redesigned Hunts Point Produce Market, one of neighborhood’s economic engines. Roughly 16,000 trucks travel through the area, shuttling goods like produce, meats and beer from warehouses to restaurants and shops throughout New York City. The city, hoping to significantly reduce congestion, has announced plans to develop a marine terminal at Hunts Point. City officials envision that the marine terminal could anchor a major shift in how goods like produce and lumber enter the New York market, moving them off roads and onto waterways. Whatever the future holds for Hunts Point, it does not include a city jail taking up precious and valuable waterfront property, [Bronx councilman Rafael Salamanca, Jr.] said. “We should give this land back and create jobs,” he said. “Some could be green space for the community so we can enjoy the view of the East River.” Matthew Haag,
In describing the City’s newest jail, the The squat, 47,326-ton barge, named the Vernon C. Bain, is five stories high and resembles a jumble of incongruous blue and gray steel slabs without portholes. . . . The deck of the new barge is as long as two football fields and 125 feet wide. Lower decks contain dormitories for 700 inmates and cells for 100, a medical clinic, a law library, a chapel and a mess hall. An enclosed exercise pen is on the top deck.
To staff the vessel’s medical clinic, Executive Health Group, the City’s contractor, ran the following “want ad” flanked by an attractive ship silhouette that looked nothing like a barge: If you’d like to be part of an innovative Medical Service, we have outstanding opportunities available for qualified healthcare professionals. EHG National Health Services, Inc., a leading national health service corporation, is seeking healthcare staff for a state-of-the-art maritime correctional facility located on the shores of the Southeast Bronx. . . . We offer full-time, part-time and per diem shifts and are able to accommodate flexible hours and variable sessions. When you
The Fall 1992 opening of the VERNON C. BAIN at Rikers Island
The existing VERNON C. BAIN ferry became the HAROLD A. WILDSTEIN.
The new name honored a Rikers Island psychologist who had been killed during a 1990 robbery. The BIBBY RESOLUTION and the BIBBY VENTURE were closed
Bids will be received by the City of New York, Department of General Services for the sale of barges, “BIBBY RESOLUTION” and “BIBBY VENTURE” on June 22, 1994 at 11:00 a.m. For additional information, please contact the N.Y.C. Department of Correction. . . . When he learned that the vessels were being put up for sale, former Mayor Ed Koch implored the City to keep them, arguing they could be turned into “homeless shelters or AIDS hospices.” Navarro, Ironically, just two years earlier the City had received a $3.2 million offer but had rejected it as being too low. By the time of the sale, the City’s investment totaled $53.5 million: $42 million for acquisition, renovation, and siting; $6.5 million to upgrade Pier 40 so that the BIBBY VENTURE could be moved to it; and $5 million for post-use ( The HAROLD A. WILDSTEIN and the WALTER KEANE ferries continued for a time to be used as inmate auxiliary housing but eventually were turned into administrative space.
The crack epidemic of the late 1980s and early 1990s was not confined to New York City.
In 1986, the City of Philadelphia agreed to a consent decree capping its inmate population. The decree also required it to build a new downtown detention center by December 31, 1990. Even before the crack epidemic, government officials in several states had suggested that prisoners be kept on ships. Some private citizens also pushed the idea.
In a 2018 interview, Admiral Paul F. Zukunft revealed that the U.S. Coast Guard was considering hiring a private prison ship to hold drug smugglers caught at sea until they could be brought to the United States.
Prison ship cases can be organized as follows: 1) “mere mention”; 2) “literary effect”; and, 3) “key role.” Due to their volume, I have made the modern-day “New York City” cases their own category.
In “mere mention” cases, prison ships are mentioned, but only in passing. In 25 F. Cas. 41 (C.C.D. Va. 1807) (No. 14,692F). Failing to get from him such a deposition as he desired, it was alleged that General Wilkinson had then caused [Knox] to be arbitrarily and illegally imprisoned. . . . Judge Hall, it was said, must be presumed to have acted under the influence of General Wilkinson, who was exercising a military dictatorship in New Orleans. Knox was taken from the jail to the “prison ship,” it was contended, by . . . military force.
Burr’s trial later inspired Edward Everett Hale’s famous short story
In 11 Johns. 9 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1814). The place where the ship was driven ashore was nearly opposite
In 11 Johns. 72 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1814).
While in Jamaica, the PHILIP’s crew had been forced to live on a prison ship, a fact the court noted but did not find relevant:
The
In 24 So. 818 (La. 1897). In the month of June, 1846, a young woman, apparently about nineteen years of age, who stated her name was Fanny Minerva Seymour, shipped from Liverpool, England, for New York. . . . From New York she came to this city [New Orleans], arriving here in the latter part of the summer or early in the fall of 1846. . . . Seymour . . . reached San Francisco in 1850, and lived there a short time in a house of ill fame. In the same year, she went to Sacramento, and became the proprietress of a place called “The Palace,” and the mistress of a gambler, Rube Raines, who owned a gambling saloon, the El Dorado. She lived in Sacramento under the name of Fanny M. Smith, until December 20, 1851. On that night, she shot and wounded a man named Albert Putnam, was arrested, carried to the prison ship in the river, from which she escaped, and left California. . . .
In 2 Vet. App. 150 (1992). Appellant served on active duty with the Armed Forces during World War II from May 21, 1941, to May 28, 1946. R. at 1. . . . In May 1942, appellant was captured by Japanese forces and was interned in Japanese prison camps until September 1945. R. at 51, 62. During this period, appellant was confined for 21 days in the hold of a prison ship taking him from the Philippines to Japan. R. at 51.
Lastly, in 264 F. Supp. 2d 1088 (N.D. Ga. 2003). [t]wo inmates [who] testified by videotaped deposition: Carlos Hill and John McCullough. Hill had been in Cell House C with [Anthony] Battle at [the U.S. Penitentiary in] Atlanta. In part, he testified that Battle thought [the FBOP] was putting “computer chips or things in his brain to find out what he knew. . . .” Tr. 7. In response to habeas counsel’s question, “Q: implants?” Hill said “Yeah. Transplants, implants.” He related watching a television program with Defendant regarding alternatives to prison. One suggestion was making an aircraft carrier into a floating prison, and implanting devices in the prisoners which would relay their thoughts. At that point, Defendant had said that’s what BOP had done to him.
In “literary effect” cases, prison ships are mentioned to emphasize a specific point. In 151 U.S. 242 (1894). Counsel for the government admits that [based on previous cases], the petitioner should not have been sentenced to imprisonment in the [state] penitentiary, but he claims that the judgment and sentence are not for that cause void, so as to entitle the petitioner to a writ of habeas corpus for his discharge; and he asks the court to reconsider [the previous precedents]. According to his argument, it would seem that the court does not exceed its jurisdiction when it directs imprisonment in a [state] penitentiary[, or] the guard house of a fort, or the hulks of a prison ship, or in any other place not specified in the law. We are unable to agree with the learned counsel, but [instead] are of opinion that, in all cases where life or liberty is affected by its proceedings, the court must keep strictly within the limits of the law authorizing it to take jurisdiction, and to try the case, and to render judgment.
In 163 U.S. 468 (1896). There is, doubtless, a technical distinction between the two in the fact that a contagious disease is communicable by contact, or by bodily exhalation, while an infectious disease presupposes a cause acting by hidden influences, like the miasma of prison ships or marshes, etc., or through the pollution of water or the atmosphere, or from the various dejections from animals. The word “contagious,” however, is often used in a similar sense of “pestilential” or “poisonous,” and is not strictly confined to influences emanating directly from the body.
In 193 A.2d 294 (Del. Super. Ct.), An article in the “Massachusetts Chronicle” expressed the common feeling: “As Hannibal swore never to be at peace with the Romans, so let every Whig swear, by his abhorrence of slavery, by liberty and religion, by the shades of departed friends who have fallen in battle, by the ghosts of those of our brethren who have been destroyed on board of prison-ships and in loathsome dungeons, never to be at peace with those fiends the refugees, whose thefts, murders, and treasons have filled the cup of woe.”
Lastly, in 256 F.R.D. 398 (E.D.N.Y. 2009). In the sentencing of this sixty-nine year old captain and killer for the [M]afia, the government requests that severe conditions be imposed by the court on his imprisonment and supervised release, limiting his right to interact with: 1) relatives who were or are criminals; and 2) members or associates of organized crime families. Even if modified, the restrictions sought would probably result in long-term solitary confinement, onerous segregation, and alienation from natural family. The request is considered from chambers high in the new federal courthouse for the Eastern District of New York, with historical memories sunk into its foundations and rising into [the] surrounding atmosphere. On these sanctified grounds, cruelty to American prisoners was first practiced on a mass scale. The deadliest battle of the Revolutionary War was fought here on August 27, 1776, when Washington’s Army was defeated. So, when the government seeks to impose terms that make life in prison and on supervised release harsher than necessary, the United States District Court for this district cannot ignore history and this country’s aspiration to provide justice for all. It must seriously consider whether it would be justified in granting the government’s motion to impose cruel prison conditions.
In “key role” cases, prison ships play a significant factual or legal role.
In 2 Cal. 68 (1852).
By the time of the lawsuit (Dec. 22, 1851), the warrant was owned by Ira D. Thompson.
The trial court ordered Rowe to pay Thompson the full value of the warrant, plus interest.
In 36 Ct. Cl. 392 (1901).
Until shortly before the battle, the NANSHAN had been a British merchant ship in Hong Kong.
In deciding that no bounty was due, the Court of Claims distinguished 1 Dod. 105 (High Ct. Adm. 1811). On the argument and in the brief of counsel the court’s attention is called to the case of the Ceylon . . . in which it is held in substance that the employment of a vessel in the public military service of the enemy, by those who have competent authority so to employ her, “is a sufficient setting forth for war” under the prize act, though the vessel may not be furnished with any formal commission of war. The facts upon which that decision is predicated are briefly as follows: [The Ceylon, a British merchant] ship[, was] captured by French frigates. . . . She [later] was . . . dismantled[] and fitted out as a prison ship for English prisoners of war, in which condition she was found at the time of [her recapture by the British Navy]. The question was whether this ship was “sufficiently set forth for war” to come within the prize act, which directs restitution of British ships recaptured from the enemy, unless they shall have been “set forth as ships or vessels of war by the enemy.” The court held in that case, by Sir William Scott, that she came within the phraseology of the statute “set forth as ships or vessels of war.” The question presented and decided in [The Ceylon] is not the question submitted to the consideration of the court in this proceeding. The question is not whether the [NANSHAN] belonged to the United States as a part and parcel of the war equipment, but whether, in the battle of Manila, she was so constituted, equipped, and conditioned as to come within the letter or spirit of the statute entitling vessels to participate in the bounty, upon the theory that they participated in the battle. The claimant in this case and his crew were not in the military service of the United States. They had not been enlisted or hired to perform and discharge military duty. They were not identified with the naval force, in a military sense, which fought the battle and won the victory at Manila. It would be an unjust discrimination against the men who were in the service, subject to all the restrictions and requirements of that service, and all the dangers incident to that battle, to allow the demand of the claimant, who did not undertake, by any obligation, to perform the duties and discharge the functions of a soldier.
In 76 N.Y.S.2d 742 (Surr. Ct. 1948). Japan’s hell ships are discussed The respondent also contends the proponent’s testimony showed that the decedent was a prisoner of war on a prison ship and if killed as claimed in Subic Bay on such prison ship that he was no more in actual military service than a civilian would be. It is well known that prisoners of war many times escape and return and ofttimes kill or wound the enemy in making such escape and no special ceremony or re-enlistment is necessary on the return of such prisoners to their commands. Section 846 of 10 U.S.C.A. Army, relied on by respondent, does not hold to the contrary, but by providing for payment during captivity even after the expiration of the soldier’s term of service indicates the soldier is at all times in actual military service. Such argument must be, therefore, brushed aside, and it is here held that this decedent as such prisoner was at all times from the date of his capture in the actual military service of the United States. Any contrary view would defeat the very purpose of Section 16, Decedent Estate Law, itself.
Lastly, in 2020 WL 3053375 (C.D. Cal. 2020). The nature of the relief[,] coupled with the provisional class certification[,] is simply not what lawyers and judges think of as habeas, even under § 2241, let alone §§ 2254 or 2255. . . . [Moreover,] Petitioners have carefully argued that release is the only remedy; however, relief could be obtained by transferring prisoners, including by such extraordinary measures as recalling the U.S.N.S. Mercy from San Diego to serve as a prison ship.
The “New York City” cases include all decisions that mention, individually or collectively, the BIBBY RESOLUTION, BIBBY VENTURE, HAROLD A. WILDSTEIN, VERNON C. BAIN, and WALTER KEANE.
During its time as the VERNON C. BAIN, the HAROLD A. WILDSTEIN appeared in four opinions. In contrast, no case mentions the WALTER KEANE.
In 659 F. Supp. 1006 (S.D.N.Y. 1987). For instance, the New York Times has reported that the conversion of a ferry boat into a “prison boat,” a project which was planned to take sixty days and cost 4.86 million dollars, actually took more than twice as long and cost almost twice that much.
In
The ensuing litigation resulted in three opinions. In the first, Judge Charles S. Haight, Jr., The contracts at bar are not for the construction of a new vessel (clearly non-maritime); nor are they for the repair of an existing vessel so that she may return to navigation (clearly maritime). Strictly speaking, the contracts are for the conversion of a vessel. If the purpose of the work was to return the vessel to navigation in a different form for a different purpose, the contracts would clearly be maritime. . . . That cannot be said of the conversion of the ferryboat Private Joseph F. Morell [sic—should be Merrell] into the detention facility Vernon C. Bain: the Department of Corrections [sic] acquired the vessel not to transport inmates over water, but to keep them housed in a floating facility attached to the land. The City argues that the conversion work must be for the purpose of continuing the vessel in navigation. While the question is not free from doubt, I think that the Bain’s continued documentation as a vessel, her ongoing voyages under tow for inspection, and her residual utility as a vessel imbue these contracts with the requisite maritime nature. Indeed, the vessel in her present occupation follows in the melancholy tradition of the prison ship, relatively unknown today, but a familiar form of incarceration in the days of Dickens. Regarding the contract for jurisdictional purposes as one of “uncertain intendment,” and resolving those reasonable doubts undoubtedly present in favor of the admiralty jurisdiction . . ., I conclude that the contracts at bar are maritime in nature and hence within the Court’s admiralty jurisdiction. The case would be different if plaintiff’s contracted-for work had at its purpose the reduction of the ferryboat to scrap, or its conversion to use exclusively on land, without residual capacity for navigation.
1990 WL 89343, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. 1990) (footnote omitted).
In 525 N.Y.S.2d 186 (App. Div.), The trial court’s opinion is unreported. Order of the Supreme Court, New York County (Shirley Fingerhood, J.), entered November 13, 1987, which preliminarily enjoined the respondents from transferring any prisoners or staff to Pier 36 or to the barge, the “Bibby Venture,” and which set the matter down for an evidentiary hearing as to whether an emergency situation exists and as to whether the use of the pier and barge is and will be of a temporary nature, reversed, on the law and facts, and in the exercise of discretion, and petitioners’ motion for preliminary injunctive relief denied, without costs or disbursements. Respondents selected Pier 36 for the temporary mooring of a prison barge to alleviate overcrowding elsewhere. Petitioners commenced this proceeding to compel respondents to comply with Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (“ULURP”), State Environmental Quality Review [Act] (“SEQRA”) and City Environmental Quality Review (“CEQR”) procedures and also to preliminarily and permanently enjoin further action with respect to the preparation of the pier for the mooring of the barge. Since petitioners have failed to show the applicability of ULURP, SEQRA or CEQR to the actions of the respondents, the grant of a preliminary injunction by the [trial] court was an abuse of discretion. Furthermore, petitioners did not establish their likelihood of success on the merits, irreparable harm to them absent the grant of the relief sought, nor a balance of the equities in their favor (
One year later, a different group of residents filed a new lawsuit, raising the same types of claims, when the City announced that it was planning to move the BIBBY VENTURE to Pier 40 in Greenwich Village. Once again, the residents succeeded in obtaining a preliminary injunction from the trial court (Apr. 13, 1989).
Much of petitioners’ arguments on this issue fall into the realm of the NIMBY syndrome (not in my backyard) (see, Greenberg v. Veteran, 89 Civ. 0591, WL36290 [SDNY April 17, 1989]; Lewis, I would concur in the affirmance. The underlying questions raised in this Article 78 proceeding, brought with respect to the mooring of the Bibby Venture as a prison barge, as well as the contentions of those interested, already have been considered and passed upon by this court (
During their brief time as New York City jails, the BIBBY RESOLUTION and the BIBBY VENTURE spawned two reported decisions. In both, the firings of guards accused of dereliction of duty were upheld.
In In In the instant matter, petitioner herself admitted that she was off post and went to an unauthorized section of the prison barge in order to visit with an inmate. Thus, regardless of whether or not she was, in fact, engaged in a personal relationship with Cedeno, and even putting aside for purposes of this analysis the ample corroborative testimony of witnesses, her own concessions were sufficient to support the reasonableness of respondents’ actions. (The opinions, it should be noted, do not identify either vessel by name. In
Additionally, in 737 F. Supp. 1257 (D.R.I. 1990). Dr. King is the Medical Director and Vice President for Professional Affairs at the Saint Vincent Hospital and Medical Center of New York City. In addition to his responsibilities for the direction of the medical services within the hospital, he is responsible for the provision of ambulatory medical, dental and mental health services at the Manhattan Detention Center in Manhattan as well as two maritime facilities housing additional inmates. . . .
Lastly, as previously explained,
This is an action for money damages arising out of the sale of two barges by the City of New York (the “City”) to defendant A.L. Burbank Shipbrokers Ltd. (“Burbank”) rather than to the plaintiff, Impact Shipping, Inc. The plaintiff sues the City and Joanne Foulke, the Acting Deput[y] Commissioner of the City’s Department of General Services, contending that the failure to sell the barges to it deprived it of property without due process in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (first cause of action), constituted a breach of contract (second cause of action), and violation of the City’s own regulations (third cause of action). The plaintiff also sues defendant Burbank on the grounds that Burbank tortiously interfered with the plaintiff’s contract (fourth cause of action) and with the plaintiff’s prospective economic relations (fifth cause of action). The City and defendant Foulke now move for summary judgment pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56 dismissing the plaintiff’s first, second, and third causes of action. Defendant Burbank moves for summary judgment dismissing the plaintiff’s fourth and fifth causes of action. The plaintiff cross-moves for partial summary judgment on the issue of liability on its first, second, fourth, and fifth causes of action and for summary judgment on its third cause of action. For the reasons explained below, the defendants’ motions are granted, and the plaintiff’s motion is denied.
Impact Shipping, Inc. v. City of New York, 1997 WL 297039, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. 1997).
The gravamen of Impact’s complaint was that after it had won the barges at auction, the City decided to restart the process and accepted Burbank’s bid because it was double Impact’s offer:
In May and June 1994, the City publicly advertised the sale of two prison barges by competitive sealed bid. (Mun. Defs.’ 3(g) Statement ¶¶1–3; Pl.’s 3(g) Statement ¶1.) The bid package contained several documents including an invitation to bid, which specified the bid opening date as June 22, 1994, at 11:00 a.m., and the bid terms and conditions of sale (the “bid terms”). (Hochman Aff. ¶ 24 & Ex. I.) The plaintiff submitted a bid, which included an executed copy of the bid terms, a completed and signed invitation to bid, and an initialed copy of the bid package cover sheet. (Hochman Aff. ¶ 34 & Ex. J.) When the bids were publicly opened and read on June 22, 1994, the plaintiff’s bid was the highest at $450,000 per barge, for an aggregate of $900,000. (Mun. Defs.’ 3(g) Statement ¶¶ 32–33; Pl.’s 3(g) Statement ¶ 14.). . . . On June 23, 1994, [the City] received a late bid from defendant Burbank. (Hochman Aff. ¶ 40 & Ex. L.) Defendant Burbank’s bid was $900,00 per barge, for an aggregate of $1.8 million. By letter dated July 20, 1994, the City requested that the plaintiff extend its bid. (Hochman Aff. ¶ 46 & Ex. M.) By letter dated July 21, 1994, the plaintiff extended its bid to August 1, 1994, but stated that it considered its bid accepted as of 11:00 a.m. on June 22, 1994. (Hochman Aff. ¶ 47 & Ex. N.). . . . By letter dated July 21, 1994, the City invited both the plaintiff and defendant Burbank to participate in an informal re-bid. (Hochman Aff. ¶ 50 & Exs. P, Q.) The plaintiff received the informal re-bid letter, but did not respond to it. (Kanji Dep. (Hochman Aff. Ex. C) at 155–60.) Defendant Burbank signed and notarized the July 21, 1994 informal re-bid letter and returned it to the City including its bid in the amount of $900,000 per barge, for a total of $1.8 million. (Hochman Aff. ¶ 52 & Ex. R.). . . . The City sent Burbank a written sales order dated July 28, 1994, accepting its bid. (Hochman Aff. ¶ 56 & Ex. T.)
The plaintiff never received written acceptance of its bid from the City. (Kanji Dep. (Hochman Aff. Ex. C) at 109, 268; Blustein Dep. (Hochman Aff. Ex. D) at 131, 251.) Therefore, because the plaintiff’s bid was never accepted in writing, no contract was ever formed and the City did not breach the terms of the bid.
Since it opened in 1992, the VERNON C. BAIN has been mentioned in 102 decisions.
This figure is based on an August 15, 2020 Westlaw search I conducted using the term “Vernon w/2 Bain.” In 2018 WL 1033236 (S.D.N.Y.), Plaintiff Ahmadou Sankara brings this action pro se pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Deborah Mateo (“Mateo”), a medical professional at the Vernon C. Bain Center (“VCBC”), and the City of New York (the “City,” and together with Mateo, “Defendants”), alleging that Defendants were deliberately indifferent to his medical needs.
In 2020 WL 1673790 (S.D.N.Y. 2020). Plaintiff, proceeding
More recently, in Trail v. New York City Department of Corrections,
2020 WL 2539080 (S.D.N.Y. 2020). Plaintiff, currently detained at the Vernon C. Bain Center in the custody of the New York City Department of Correction (DOC), brings this
In some instances, the court does not give the vessel’s name, but the date of the underlying events usually makes it clear that the case involves the VERNON Sometimes, however, it is impossible to know which of the City’s prison ships are being discussed. In Muhammad v. City of New York Department of Corrections, 904 F. Supp. 161 (S.D.N.Y. 1995), DOC maintains a procedure that allows inmates to request religious accommodations. (Pl.Ex. 30; Tr. 711.) This procedure was previously utilized by a group of approximately twenty-five inmates of Chinese descent, housed on a DOC prison barge. (Tr. 707-08, 711.) The group requested that a congregate religious service be conducted by a Buddhist monk. Imam Luqman, with the assistance of the DOC Jade Society, an Asian-American fraternal organization of civilian and uniformed staff, located a Buddhist monk to provide a Buddhist service on the prison barge for the group. (Tr. 707-08.) 936 A.2d 957 (N.J. 2007). Jury selection proceeded without [Luna] and was completed on Tuesday, August 13, 2002. Later that day, after the jury had been sworn but before the start of testimony, the assistant prosecutor learned that Luna had been arrested in New York the previous Friday and was incarcerated on a prison barge near Riker’s Island. The prosecutor reported that news in open court the following morning. Defense counsel then asked for an adjournment in order to arrange for Luna to be brought to court from New York. . . . The trial court denied the motion for an adjournment [and w]ithout developing a full record, . . . conducted the trial in absentia. After a three-day trial, the jury convicted Luna on all six counts. . . . [D]efense counsel made a timely motion for an adjournment after jury selection, which was denied. Without a hearing, the trial court lacked a basis to . . . proceed with trial. In light of the complete circumstances presented, the failure to allow defense counsel the opportunity to explore the information just received—that Luna was in jail in another state—rendered the subsequent proceedings defective. Therefore, . . . a new trial is warranted.
In 2012 WL 4511358 (E.D.N.Y. 2012).
In 2016 WL 1532365 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2016). On the date of the incident, plaintiff was in custody of the NYC Department of Corrections (“NYDOCS”) in the process of leaving the prison barge at Riker’s Island at 4:00 AM to go to court. Inmates had to walk single-file through a sliding metal gate operated by a corrections officer; its door slides to the right. At deposition, Mr. Brown testified that he was the last person in line; his left hand was handcuffed to the inmate in front of him. Plaintiff alleges that as he passed through the gate, the female corrections officer “must have pushed the button too quick,” causing his free right hand to get caught in the door. When the corrections officer failed to respond, the inmates pulled back the gate. . . . The City’s reliance on the doctrine of res ipsa loquitor fails: Having assumed physical custody of plaintiff, the City owes a duty of care to safeguard a handcuffed plaintiff. (
Lastly, there are many cases in which the VERNON C. BAIN is merely a bystander, such as 2020 WL 3173020 (S.D.N.Y. 2020). Plaintiffs seek to add the Vernon C. Bain Center (“VCBC”)—the Rikers Island facility where Zhang was detained—as a defendant, but note that if Defendants will concede that VCBC is part of Rikers Island Facilities, they will not seek to add VCBC as an additional defendant. (Mem. at 10; ECF No. 178 at 5.) At oral argument, Defendants agreed that VCBC was part of the Rikers Island Facilities. (Oral Arg. Tr. at 3.) Accordingly, Plaintiffs motion to add VCBC as a defendant is denied as moot.
Prison ships have had a long tenure in the United States, dating back to the American Revolutionary War. It therefore is difficult to understand why so little has been written about them. Additionally, any serious study of America’s penal system is incomplete without them.
The VERNON C. BAIN is particularly deserving of attention, given the fact that it is the only vessel ever built to be a prison ship. Moreover, by the time it closes in 2026, it will have held upwards of 500,000 prisoners,
The City does not publish records showing how long inmates spend in specific correctional facilities. It does, however, release borough-wide figures. Thus, with a capacity of 800 inmates; each inmate being replaced every two weeks; and the ship being in service for 34 years (1992–2026), the math works out to 800 × 26 × 34 = 707,200. Of course, the vessel is not always at 100% capacity. According to the Mayor’s report, in 2019 the average daily inmate population of the VERNON C. BAIN was 620. The quick turnover reflects the fact that the facility primarily is used to hold pre-trial suspects who are released once they make bail. For a further discussion,