FOREIGN prisoners are to be offered a package of help worth up to £2,500 to go home to serve their sentences as part of John Reid’s emergency measures to tackle the rising prison population.
The Home Secetary unveiled the pilot scheme for thousands of prisoners from outside the European Economic Area as he announced that up to 500 police cells would be available for prisoners within 48 hours.
The incentives package will be available for foreign criminals finishing their sentences in England and Wales and to those transferred home to serve their jail term.
Mr Reid also disclosed that the Government will no longer try to deport foreign criminals from within the European Economic Area who have been convicted of low-level crimes. The courts have turned down every attempt to deport EEA foreign criminals.
Criminals will not be given the cash themselves but will be eligible for between £500 and £2,500 of British taxpayers’ support with education, accommodation, medical care, training or help in starting a business. The incentive-to-leave-Britain scheme was announced as Mr Reid said that 19 police forces had agreed to take part in Operation Safeguard, under which prisoners are held in police cells. The Metropolitan Police is not taking part, having told the Home Office that it could not promise to make cells available.
Mr Reid did not rule out the possibility of an early release scheme if the jail population crisis deepens. But he insisted: “I regard that as a last resort.”
Mr Reid also outlined plans for 1,100 new prison places by the middle of next year. His measures were announced as the prison population stood at 79,819 — 234 below the total capacity of the jails in England and Wales.
The plan to offer financial incentives was condemned by opposition politicians. David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “By definition these are not people who you can trust to be honest. How will we stop these people ripping of the taxpayer and coming back?” Nick Clegg, home affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said: “How can our prison system be sorted out with this kind of Keystone Cop incompetence?”
One of the leaders of rank-and-file police officers said that he had fears over Operation Safeguard. Alan Gordon, vice-chairman of the Police Federation, said: “Police cells are not intended to house prisoners long-term and are not fit for purpose.”
Three still on the run
THREE of the most serious offenders involved in the foreign prisoner scandal are on the run despite a six-month hunt, the Home Office said (Richard Ford writes).
Only 86 of the 1,013 foreign criminals released from jail without being considered for deportation have been removed from the country.
An update sent to MPs disclosed the struggle by police in finding the three offenders and by the Government in deporting foreign prisoners who have served their jail terms. The letter from the head of the Immigration Service said that all but five of the 44 most serious offenders — those convicted of murder, manslaughter and rape, and released without being considered for deportation — had been traced.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...396167,00.html