This in from the office of the Conservative Isle of Wight MP, Andrew Turner. Ed
The Island’s MP, Andrew Turner, is pleased that the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon David Cameron MP, has announced that the UK is to build a prison in Jamaica to allow foreign criminals in the UK to be sent home to serve their sentence.
At 31st June this year there were 619 Jamaican nationals in prisons in England and Wales. This was 6% of the total of foreign national prisoners in prisons in England and Wales as a whole. Currently, because of the poor state of prisons in Jamaica, prisoners cannot be sent back to serve their sentences there for fear of challenges under the human rights law.
Mr Turner said:
“At the end of June 2015 there were 143 foreign nationals serving a prison sentence on the Island at HMP Isle of Wight, many of them from Jamaica. I’m very pleased the Government is addressing the situation and an agreement has been reached with the Jamaican government. From 2020, 300 or so existing prisoners who have at least 18 months left to serve, including those on the Isle of Wight, will be sent back under the Jamaica prison scheme from, saving UK taxpayers money.”
