6:02am Tuesday 4th March 2008
By Stuart Arnold
FOREIGN prisoners in North-East jails were offered payments of up to £3,000 each to go back to their home countries in an attempt to reduce overcrowding.
The move was part of a series of measures intended to tackle the problem of overcrowding, which last Friday saw the number of prisoners in jails across the country exceed normal operational capacity for the first time.
The Northern Echo has spoken to serving prison officers who said that, as a result of a directive from the Prison Service, they were asked to identify foreign nationals who might be eligible for the offer.
It is thought it only related to prisoners convicted of lesser offences, and not to violent or more serious offenders.
In one instance at Holme House prison, near Stockton, eight prisoners were said to have been identified for the payments, which are not cash in hand, but financial support towards housing and training in their home countries.
However, only one, a Polish national, is understood to have taken up the offer.
Terry Fullerton, chairman of the Prison Officers Association (POA) at Holme House, said: "We had to go to their cells and offer them £3,000 if they were prepared to be repatriated to their own country.
"That is four times more than the annual pay award we received this year. That sticks in the throat of every prison officer."
Mr Fullerton added: "The problem is that we have more prisoners to lock up than we have spaces.
"We are constantly amazed at the ridiculous things the authorities come out with to try to reduce the numbers in prisons."
A spokeswoman for the Prison Service said it was happy to answer questions about overcrowding, but referred calls over payments to prisoners to the Home Office.
In turn, it issued a statement from Lin Homer, chief executive of the Border and Immigration Agency.
She said the agency was operating what she called a facilitated returns scheme for "foreign law breakers".
She said: "We strongly believe foreign lawbreakers should be sent home at the earliest opportunity.
"Every day that we can get these individuals out of the country early saves our taxpayers over £100 a night.
"That's why we want to use the facilitated returns scheme to get as many foreign criminals out of the UK as possible."
Last Friday, there were 82,006 inmates in England and Wales, nearly 100 above the normal operational ceiling set by the Prison Service. Of these about 11,310 were foreign nationals.
The Government responded by announcing that thousands of convicted offenders would be eligible for release and deportation from Britain 270 days before the halfway point of their sentences, rather than 135 days as had been the case.
Justice Secretary Jack Straw has asked magistrates to send fewer criminals to prison and urged courts to consider using more non-custodial sentences.
The POA said its members had also been asked to move as many as possible of those prisoners deemed not to be a risk to the public from higher category closed prisons in the region to less secure open jails. Steve Cox, national vicechairman of the Prison Officers Association, said: "Overcrowding is currently a huge problem. "The powers that be are wandering around prisons across the country looking at broom cupboards to see if they can be converted into a cell. "We have got prisoners being locked up for longer and when you do this, they get more aggravated. "We are heading towards a Nineties Manchester riot situation in many prisons." Mr Cox said that on top of that, the Prison Service was having to make cuts to its budget from next month. The service has said it plans to "maximise its resources" to deliver a safe and decent regime for prisoners. Mr Cox said: "The authorities have a lot of difficult decisions to be made. Unfortunately, decisions like these should have been taken five or six years ago when the indications were that we were facing a prison population problem."
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