UK government plans to deport foreign prisoners
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The problem has been resolved for several years now
Convicted foreign criminals, including murderers and rapists, will be deported, the UK Ministry of Justice said. Authorities took the step as ministers grapple with serious problems with a shortage of prison places. It is a desperate £500 million bid to save the crisis-hit sector.
The government will try to free up space in Britain’s overcrowded prisons by speeding up the deportation of criminals, the Ministry of Justice said on October 16. In the year to March 2023, authorities sent home 3,100 foreign criminals – with 10,500 remaining in prisons in England and Wales.
According to The Independent, the move will be just the first of a series of measures that Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor Alex Chalk will unveil later. The politician proposes forcing prisoners convicted of minor crimes to perform community service to “pay off their debt to society – cleaning up neighborhoods, clearing graffiti from walls, and even helping to plant new forests.”
A list of emergency measures including sending “foreign criminals” back to their country of origin as quickly as possible. This type of “deal” has already been concluded with Albania. The UK will pay the country around £8 million over two years to send 200 offenders there.
Director of Campaigns for the Howard League for Penal Reform Andrew Neilson recalled that the idea of deporting criminals is not new. He told The Guardian that money spent on securing agreements with other countries is “a distraction from the domestic issue. Namely because we have a prison population that is projected to reach over 100,000 in the next decade. And these will not be primarily foreign prisoners.”
Foreign criminals can now be sent back to their countries of origin for the final year of their sentence. Ministers say they hope to extend this period to 18 months. New immigration rules will be added to prevent such people from returning to the UK.
Government figures showed the prison population in England and Wales was 88,016.
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