Government is spending £3million modernising foreign jails

The British Government have announced plans to fund an initiative to make prisons in countries like Jamaica and Nigeria more comfortable, in a desperate bid to persuade foreign criminals to serve their sentences at home.  

The government have decided to take this unprecedented step by establishing a £3million annual pot to make it easier for convicts to serve their sentences back in their home countries, after it emerged that the UK’s own prison system housed  11,127 foreign inmates (from 156 countries, this is up from 10,778 in 2011), costing taxpayers an estimated £420million. .Officials insist it will be cheaper in the long run than the annual £38,000 bill for keeping a single prisoner locked up in the UK.

Currently, money is being spent in Jamaica to ‘assist Jamaican authorities in modernising their prison service and rehabilitation and reintegration activities’.
In Nigeria, one project supports the provision of ‘human rights training for prison officers’. A second project will construct new facilities at a women’s prison in Lagos, to reduce overcrowding.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch, said: ‘To some extent, this is the inevitable legacy of mass immigration of 3.5million people under Labour.
‘The resources necessary to tackle the rising number of foreign prisoners have not been made available.’
Tory MP Priti Patel said: ‘Prison is always the best place for dangerous criminals, but our jails should not be used as hotels for foreigners. Ministers need to take action to deport them to serve their sentences in the countries they come from and then stop them from coming back to Britain.

‘Living in Britain is a privilege and foreigners who come here and flout our laws should be sent packing without delay.’
‘We believe that, wherever possible, foreign national prisoners should serve their sentences in their own country.
‘Not only will it save money for the UK, it will also mean that these prisoners will be closer to family and friends.This helps to support prisoners’ social rehabilitation and reintegration into society.


In the past, the Labour government tried to reduce the number of overseas inmates. Offenders were offered credit cards pre-loaded with more than £450 - funded by the taxpayer - if they agreed to return home.This was part of a package worth up to £5,000.