Deportation of foreign criminals in English and Welsh jails to be sped up with new £5million immigration unit_Nhy
Jailed foreign criminals in England and Wales will be deported quicker after the government announced a new £5million immigration unit.
As part of the taskforce, specialist frontline staff will be sent to 80 jails in a bid to remove those with no right to stay and to ease the current capacity crisis, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said today.
This new unit will be operational by April 1 and will also support the Home Office to identify and manage those going through the immigration process, deporting criminals up to 18 months before the end of their custodial sentence.
It will also transfer the criminals to serve sentences in their home countries.
Data shows that foreign offenders make up around 12 per cent of the country’s total prison population.
Since the Labour government came to power in July last year a total of 3,200 foreign national offenders (FNOs) have been removed.
That represents an increase of 19 per cent compared to same period 12 months prior.
Labour’s Prisons Minister Lord James Timpson. The Ministry of Justice has announced today that Jailed foreign criminals in England and Wales will be deported quicker with a new £5million immigration unit
Data shows that foreign offenders make up around 12 per cent of the country’s total prison population (file image)
The ministry has claimed this is the highest rate of removals for more than half a decade.
According to the latest MoJ figures, as of February 24 the number of prisoners in England and Wales reached 87,199.
This is the highest figure since October 21 last year (87,465), the day before more than 1,000 prisoners were released early as part of the Government’s urgent measures to ease overcrowding.
Ministers have also promised to find a total of 14,000 cell spaces in jails by 2031 amid other long-term measures to fix prisons and cut reoffending.
Prisons minister Lord James Timpson said: ‘It cannot be right for British taxpayers to foot the bill for jailing foreign criminals who have brought misery to our communities.
‘Under this Government, removals are up by nearly 20 per cent. We’re now taking action to ensure this is done swifter, easing pressure on overcrowded prisons and on the public purse.
‘This is part of our Plan for Change – fixing the broken prison system we inherited and keeping our streets safe.’
Last year, shocking data from MoJ revealed that foreign criminals who avoided deportation carried out more than 10,000 crimes in a year.
The data shows nearly a quarter of foreign offenders were responsible for a further offence after being released from jail or handed a court order.
The 3,235 criminals who were freed from jail without being deported were behind 10,012 offences in the year to March 2022 – a rise of 25 per cent on the last annual total of 8,021.
Over the last four years of data – released by officials in a parliamentary question – foreign offenders were guilty of 40,000 crimes ranging from robbery and drug dealing to murder.
As well as criminals who were freed from jail and avoided deportation, the MOJ data also includes people who were previously deported before returning to Britain illegally.
