Criminals - overcrowding

[Creamcakes99]

Why don’t we deport foreign criminals?
we have 100 spaces left in UK male prisons.
Surely setting up an agreement with other countries by funding their time in birth place prisons is cheaper than keeping them locked up here
I read it costs the tax pay £50k to keep someone locked up

What if we pay to house them in foreign jails, but then the jail release them and keep the money?
But I do think they should be deported on release, and prevented from returning.

Because you can’t enforce a sentence passed here in a foreign land.

We sent the Dutch child rapist back and they released him.

I suspect the admin time and costs of 'sending them back' is massively more than we'd save.

Legalise and tax all illegal drugs. Properly fund MH services. Do some decent crime prevention. Fund and empower diversion programs for young offenders. Work on the things that feed prisons; domestic violence, head injuries, bereavement, homelessness and trauma. Prisons would magically empty.

That would probably happen but sending a fraction of the money to a corrupt country is better than financing them here surely?

the government will be releasing terrorists and perverts back into society, with no ability to watch them. Then we are back to square one with trying to put them back inside. The situation doesn’t make sense to me.

I think we have higher than average reoffending rates in the uk. 70% reconviction by 4 years, compared to 51% in the US and 54% in France (chosen as examples but many other countries have lower rates)

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/recidivism-rates-by-country

I don't know what the solution is or how to do it, but if other countries have lower rates of reoffending, we should be able to lower ours.

Edit - 51 not 41!

I think we do, there’s been a few stories in the press about young men deported because they have been convicted of crimes. One poor guy who’d been in the uk since he was a small child, had been in care, social services hadn’t applied for citizenship and so he was sent to a country he had no memory of and knew no one in. The rule is that anyone without citizenship is deported on release from prison I think.

Re your first sentence, don’t you think that the people affected by the crimes might have an issue with this?

I thought they'd made clear that neither sex offenders nor people with terror related convictions would be released early under this scheme?

Im Not surprised we have higher reoffending rates than the USA, our sentences are so short it's a joke. I know someone who sold heroin and check and was out in less than a year 🙄 some deterrent

I agree, OP. Foreign nationals should not be detained at the expense of the taxpayer and should be automatically deported.

The point of prison is to separate from society. It really doesn't matter what a foreign nation decides to do - the aim should be to keep Britain safe.

Most would agree
But the big cuddly fluffy bleeding hearts of Mumsnet will be along in a minute to argue thats racist

They have. Early release is for relatively minor offences. It’s debatable whether prison was appropriate in the first place for many of them.

Nothing to do with length of sentence. The reoffending rate here in Sweden is 41% and sentences are a fraction of the UKs.

I suspect it's more related to what you do with them once they're in prison. The US is all about punishment. The Swedish system is about rehabilitation. The UK system is confused and wants both.

How would you define foreign national?
Someone on holidays here who commits a crime?
Someone who has lived here for most of their life but for some reason is not a British citizen?
I'm Irish, would you deport all Irish people who commit serious crimes?
And presumably you would be ok with any British nationals who commit crimes abroad being returned here as well.

Maybe because the victims are uk citizens they may be offered no protection from
The suspect who is released and could get back to the uk through illegal means? Thinking domestic violence etc

Some crimes would mean they would eb tortured in then own country

How would you define foreign national?
Someone on holidays here who commits a crime?
Someone who has lived here for most of their life but for some reason is not a British citizen?

Don't know if it's the right option but Australia does this. Although only after they've been released. Here's an example - a murderer who left the UK as a child when his family emigrated to Australia (his case stuck in my mind because his family was from the north of England but when deported to the UK from Australia he was put up in a hotel in the most expensive part of the UK - London).

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/australia-deports-uk-murder-christopher-clark-jones-queensland-a9572281.html

Legalise and tax all illegal drugs. Properly fund MH services. Do some decent crime prevention. Fund and empower diversion programs for young offenders. Work on the things that feed prisons; domestic violence, head injuries, bereavement, homelessness and trauma. Prisons would magically empty.

I agree with this. Add in tackling poverty, improving public services, and building more social housing. It wouldn't stop all crime but it would dramatically reduce it.

i don’t think you should receive special treatment because you come from a neighbouring country outside of the UK.

I don’t think we need to tackle poverty
we need to tackle drugs
having a zero tolerance policy would help solve many of our problems
countries in the far east have a better way of managing it
we appear to be out of control

Sweden has some very real issues now due to their immigration policies
the low crime friendly approach will not cut the mustard going forward
follow Peter Sweden - he’s very interesting

We do deport foreign national criminals. Except to the countries we don't have treaties with like Iran and North Korea but they aren't exactly a massive source of UK offenders.

we need to tackle drugs
having a zero tolerance policy would help solve many of our problems

It really really wouldn't. I won't go into the myriad ways you're wrong about this but the major one is that if you care about prison overcrowding, you're wrong to think zero tolerance is the way to go.

Thoughtful, well-managed legalisation reduces crime, use, first use, criminality, addiction, death, infection rates... all the measures we should care about. The Asian models aren't useful. Look at Switzerland and Portugal to start.

My point about being Irish is that Irish people can live here without being a UK citizen not that they should have special treatment.
But you would include that in your deportation policy, fair enough.

Would you be ok with Irish people with British passports staying here or would you want people to be born in the UK?

Legalise and tax all illegal drugs.

How would this work? Would anyone be able to buy any drug they wanted - heroin, cocaine, tramadol - in a shop, like it’s possible to buy alcohol?

The Asian models aren't useful.

MrsTerry - because they are too strict, or because East Asian countries have worse problems with drugs than they are letting on?