Overseas criminals could be booted out of the country rather than prosecuted, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk has said, in accordance with bold new plans to create more space in Britain’s overcrowded jails.
Mr Chalk is proposing to give foreign offenders “conditional cautions” under which they will be expelled from the UK and banned from returning.
Policing minister Chris Philp has the task of crafting the deportation scheme, which proponents home will reduce the 3,300 foreign prisoners who are currently on remand, having been charged but not yet convicted.
They make up almost a third of the 10,441 foreign offenders in jails in England and Wales, out of the total prison population of 88,000.
The plan could yet be derailed by criminals who lodging legal challenges, however.
Mr Chalk also said he was talking with both Poland and Romania with a view to to deporting dangerous prisoners to serve their sentences in their home countries.
Additionally he is fast-tracking the expulsion of foreign offenders who are approaching the end of their sentences, as well as restarting the use of police cells for criminals.
Prison places could run out within just weeks as courts step up prosecutions after the recruitment of 20,000 police officers. There were just 1,000 spaces available out of 89,041 as of Friday.
During a visit to HMP Liverpool, Mr Chalk told The Telegraph: “There is a power that exists in certain lower-level cases, that in place of prosecution, the Home Office deports someone.
“Now there are some cases where it’s absolutely right that you are going to want to go through the criminal justice process to ensure that that person is properly punished.
“But there will be other cases where actually it’s in the public interest to simply get them out of the country.”
Given the Government has the power to act already, extension to foreign prisoners is unlikely to need new legislation, Mr Chalk acknowledged.
As the power to issue conditional cautions already exists, its extension to foreign prisoners is unlikely to require new legislation.
He stressed: “I’ll always do whatever it takes to keep the British people safe.
“I will focus absolutely on supply, that is my overwhelming priority. I will always make sure that there are sufficient places to give effect to an order of the court to incarcerate people and to ensure that the British people are kept safe with dangerous people behind bars.”
Albanians make up 13 per cent of all foreign criminals in UK jails, the highest proportion, with 1,323 currently incarcerated.
Mr Chalk has already struck a deal with the country to transfer 200 people serving sentences of four years or more.
Now he is targeting Poland (nine per cent) and Romania, at seven per cent, in the hope of striking similar agreements.
Mr Chalk said the prison overcrowding crisis stemmed from a Government decision not to grant early release to 16,000 prisoners early on in the pandemic, as well as not to abandon jury trials.
He said: “Releasing 16,000 people would have been a mistake because it would have prioritised the protection of the prisoner rather than protection of the public.”
However, he acknowledged: “There is a price you pay for principle”.
