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Prisoner transport is the transportation of prisoners from one secure location to another. It may be carried out by law enforcement agencies or private contractors such as Prisoner Transportation Services.
To extradite a suspected or convicted criminal from one jurisdiction to another, a rendition aircraft may be used, although the high cost involved means that it is normally used only to transport the most dangerous of prisoners; more commonly, a person convicted of a non violent crime with low risk of escape is often would be put onto a commercial airliner, albeit escorted by law enforcement officers. One notable example of a prisoner transported on a commercial airliner was that of Christopher Tappin, a Briton extradited to the United States in February 2012 to face American charges of selling arms parts to Iran. Tappin was flown on United Airlines flights from London Heathrow Airport to El Paso, Texas via Houston accompanied, but not handcuffed, by US Marshals at all times.