Foreign criminal deportations fast-tracked in scramble to ease prisons crisis

15 October 2023 , 23:01

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Prisons in England and Wales are bursting at the seams with less than 700 spaces free (Image: Getty Images)

Foreign criminals will be booted out of the UK in a desperate bid to save the crisis-hit prison service £500million a year.

Convicts including killers and rapists will be deported and banned from the streets "for good" in a new plan laid out by justice chiefs today. Justice Secretary Alex Chalk will also unveil plans to Parliament to make low-level criminals clean up graffiti and plant trees rather than serve time to ease the overcrowding crisis.

Under Texas-style reforms, the Government aims to reduce sentencing verdicts for non-violent offenders and promote probation and drug rehabilitation as alternatives to prison. It comes as capacity in the prison estate buckles under the strain of rocketing numbers.

Government figures published on October 6 showed that the prison population in England and Wales was 88,016 - only 651 short of the “usable operational capacity”. Last week it was claimed that judges had been told to delay sentencing hearings from next week in a desperate bid to keep down the prison population.

Shadow Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood tore into the plans for sentencing reform. “The only thing Texan about this government is that they are running the country like cowboys," she said. “13 years of reckless mismanagement of the criminal justice system has led to a crisis of epic proportions where they are now coming up with policy on the hoof, which does nothing to deal with the immediate overcrowding crisis.

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“As of tomorrow, convicted criminals, including those who have committed sexual or violent crimes remain on our streets, instead of being in prison where they belong. With thousands of offences – including sexual offences – committed by people on bail every year, the Government is seeking to distract from the issue at hand, instead of giving answers on how they plan to keep our streets safe now.

Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael accused the Government of ignoring the "ticking time bomb of overcrowding" for too long. He added: “Not only are prisons overcrowded, the Conservatives have failed to get to grips as court backlogs continue to rise. This is a serious safety breach and the Government must act now before it is too late.”

Extra Home Office staff will be drafted in to speed up the removal of dangerous offenders from overseas languishing in UK prisons under the plans. Currently, foreign criminals can be removed up to a year before the end of their sentence. Under new plans, this will be brought forward six months, potentially saving £70,000 per prisoner.

Justice Secretary Alex Chalk will unveil prison reforms in Parliament on Monday (PA)

Mr Chalk said: “It’s right that foreign criminals are punished but it cannot be right that some are sat in prison costing taxpayers £47,000 a year when they could be deported. "Instead of letting foreign nationals take up space in our prisons at vast expense to the law-abiding public we will take action to get them out of the country and stop them from ever returning.”

The Government claims they have removed more than 3,100 foreign offenders in the year up to March 2023. But they admit there remain 10,500 foreign prisoners in prison in England and Wales, up more than 1,000 from the 9,300 before the pandemic.

Ministers are also working on removing foreign criminals convicted of less serious crimes more quickly, to stop them "clogging" up the courts. And they also claim they will also impose strict conditions on foreign criminals to ban them from returning to the UK. This will include striking new prisoner transfer deals like one recently agreed with Albania.

Mr Chalk is expected to set out plans to reduce sentencing verdicts for non-violent offenders and promote probation and drug rehabilitation as alternatives to prison. Admitting the prison system was under "intense pressure", he said short stints behind bars weren't enough to rehabilitate offenders - and instead took them away from family, home and work connections that kept them away from crime.

Mr Chalk said: "No prison system should further criminalise offenders or trap criminals who might otherwise take the right path in a cycle of criminality through a merry-go-round of short sentences."

Judges can make offers "repay their debt to society in communities – cleaning up neighbourhoods, scrubbing graffiti off walls, and even helping to plant new forests", he said. But he vowed to ensure rapists serve their full term behind bars by removing the option of freeing them halfway through their sentences.

Lizzy Buchan