Dear Dame
I have just returned from Bulgaria.
Bulgarian prisons are empty( one assumes their criminals are in the UK)
Violent crime in our cities is now of such a magnitude that we should consider this stratagem.
We agree with the governments of Poland, Bulgaria and Romania they accept UK prisoners convicted of violent crime.
Our prisoners are sent to serve their sentences in prisons in those countries sited close to Ryanair/Easyjet destinations so that prisoner’s families are able to visit. We charter Ryanair planes to transport prisoners.
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| Cozy Balkan Clink |
Currently, it costs the UK government £50,000 a year to house a prisoner.
In Eastern European countries the annual cost is £1500/2000...so what are the benefits?
1. We export our violent prisoners to friendly neighbouring countries
2. Provide those countries with a boost to their economies
3. Suspend our prison building and renovation programme saving hundreds of millions
4. Stop violent crime overnight
5. Give our violent convicts the opportunity to quickly learn a new language under the tutelage of a friendly Balkan warder.
Just an idea, dear Dame
Yours faithfully,
XXXXXX
Brilliant idea...I imagine the Balkan warders are gentle souls and would never dream of using violence to get their message across....
ReplyDeleteA horrid idea...some of these prisoners have suffered a great deal and deserve rehabilitation. Warders in Eastern Europe are brutal and would beat up British prisoners using batons and much worse.
ReplyDeletePolish prisons don't have TV in cells
ReplyDeleteBrilliant idea. The Dame at her very best!
ReplyDeleteThe thought of NPB, Rocky & Black imprisoned in Romania excites me. I've heard that property market over there has a potential so who knows, without a tv in their cell, they could come up with an ingenious marketing plan while doing their time?
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ReplyDeleteNothing in this post is true. According to the latest European survey, known as SPACE 1 and covering the prison situation in all European countries (except Russia) on 1 September 2016, compiled by University of Lausanne on behalf of the Council of Europe and published in March 2018 (https://www.coe.int/en/web/human-rights-rule-of-law/-/european-prisons-are-almost-full-according-to-latest-council-of-europe-survey), Bulgaria had a prison population (including pre-trial detainees) of 116.7 persons per 100,000 inhabitants, while England and Wales had 146.4, Scotland 142.4 and Northern Ireland 80.7. (Survey SPACE 1, table 1.5).
ReplyDeleteThis puts England and Wales on 16th place and Scotland in 17th place in the European league of countries with the most prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants. That league is topped by Georgia and Turkey, and all the other countries between those two leaders and the UK are East European or former Soviet republics. Bulgaria ended up on 26th place, between Catalonia and Belgium (Table 1.4).
The survey also shows (in table 1.6) that, compared to 1 September 2015, the prison population in Bulgaria increased by 10.8%, while it went down by 2% in England and Wales, 1.5% in Scotland and 11.8% in Northern Ireland.
Another popular myth is that British prisons are full of foreigners. The survey shows that (in table 4) that 11.9% of the prisoners in England and Wales were foreign nationals, i.e. 88.1% were British nationals. Compared to other countries, the percentage of foreign nationals in English and Welsh prisons is lower than anywhere else in western Europe: Switzerland 72.0%, Austria 53.9%, Greece 55.2%, Malta 41.7%, Cyprus 41.5%, Belgium 40.7%, Germany 35.6%, Norway 33.9%, Italy 33.8%, Spain 28.5%, Denmark 28.0%, France 21.5%, Sweden 21.3%, The Netherlands 18.2%, Portugal 16.7%, Iceland 16.9% and Ireland 12.7%.
Of the foreign nationals in English and Welsh prisons, 42.5% were from EU countries and the remaining 57.5% were from outside the EU.
Finally the cost to house a prisoner. The SPACE 1 survey states that Bulgarian cost per prisoner is on average €57.11 per day, i.e. €20,845/year (ca £18,280). The survey hasn't been able to get the cost to house prisoners in England and Wales, because the authorities have refused to divulge it, but Scotland has been more forthcoming: €140 per day, i.e. € 51,100/year (ca £44,813), which is the lowest cost per prisoner in any of the high salary countries of western Europe (table 14), probably due to the fact that UK prisons have fewer staff per prisoner than most other western European countries (4.8 prisoners per guard, compared to 1.3-1.7 in Scandinavia and Ireland, 2.5 in France and Greece, and 3.3 in Spain and Switzerland).
So, to conclude: British prisons have a smaller share of foreigners than any country in western Europe; Bulgarian prisons are far from empty; and the cost per prisoner is much higher per year in Bulgaria and much lower in the UK than the author of the post claims.
(The above reposted, as I spotted a few typos that I wanted to correct)
In that case we choose a cheaper country....maybe Albania or Moldova.
ReplyDeleteTom loves violent crims and wants to give them bigger telly's and gaming machines!
There should be NO foreign prisoners in our jails. They should serve their sentences in their own semi barbaric countries
ReplyDeleteor gas?
Deletegas is very economic
DeleteLefties like Mr Stennson are part of the problem. They refuse to accept that the majority of those convicted of violent crime are incapable of reform and need to be kept off our streets and in extremely harsh conditions.
ReplyDeleteWhat the Dame's friend is suggesting is that making them serve their sentence offshore is more about deterrent than anything else
ReplyDeletePrisons will be privatised as well in the future. Government must cash in whenever wherever possible including breating tax just in case if you decide to breath out CO2.
ReplyDeleteWith 74,749 British nationals in the jails on 31 December 2017, the 9,340 foreign nationals (11,07% of the total) aren't the main problem.
ReplyDeleteDuring the last five years, the EU nationals' share of the prison population has stayed still at five percent, so there hasn't been any large increase.
And as for having them serve their sentences in "their own semi barbaric countries", the largest group (821) were the Poles and thge second largest (725) were the Irish...
In 2016 there were more than 2,500 British citizens held in prisons abroad. 900 of them were drug dealers and 154 were pedophiles. 520 sat in US jails, 247 in Spanish jails, 222 in Irish jails and 144 in Australian jails. Following your logic, we should of course accommodate all of those in our prisons evern if they have committed the crimes abroad.
yes, we should....what the problem with that?
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