After it was revealed that a number of prisoners had set up Facebook pages from inside jail, Facebook said it had removed 30 individuals. Used to communicate with outside associates and, in some cases, taunt victims, Jack Straw, Justice Secretary, said he’d asked the company to remove the content three weeks ago.
Whilst the Ministry of Justice said that social networking sites were blocked to inmates, double murder plotter Colin Gunn was shown to have taunted rivals through posts to his Facebook page. Explaining that he’d asked them to remove content three weeks ago, Mr Straw said “We’ve made requests for the removal of 30 sites and they’ve responded to do that positively, with no single refusal, within 48 hours, so we just want to push this forward.” Meanwhile he added that the government continues to look at ways to protect victims, “We’re looking at other ways in which we can raise the stakes against prisoners who seek to use these sites. It’s unlawful, it’s against prison rules, which is the law.” One such way will be by altering parole and day-release papers “to make it explicit that even if they’re outside prison, but if they are on licence, they can’t make use of sites in this way”.
The news was welcomed, particularly by murder victim’s families who have recently met with Mr Straw. Barry Mizen, father of murder victim Jimmy who was killed in 2008 said “I’m sure Facebook is a massive organisation and there’s lots of money floating around. If you have to spend a bit more on monitoring, then you have just got to do it.”
