Just Build Some More Prisons Will You?

Don't look at me I'm as clueless as the next man
The Guardian

A sweeping range of incentives to persuade foreign prisoners to go home was unveiled last night by John Reid, the home secretary, in an attempt to defuse the jail overcrowding crisis.

Now on day 39 since the Home Office was supposed to have been sorted out who’s betting that none of these sweeping plans to solve the prisons crisis will involve something radical like er… building a few more prisons? I’m not convinced.

Prisoners from countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA ) - which comprises the 25 EU nations plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein - will be offered a package worth between £500 and £2,500 to go home, rather than face detention while they are considered for deportation. Others will be encouraged to serve the remainder of their sentences in jails in their home countries.

Offered a package to go home while they are considered for deportation? Why not deport them? If we pay them £2,500 to go home while they are considered then no doubt they will still be considered and when they are found not worthy of deportation no doubt the EU lawyer types will have us British taxpayers fly them back and give them a home. Meanwhile they can reoffend just like all our home grown prisoners.

Why not just remove the right to residency once you have broken the law?

“Others will be encouraged to serve the remainder of their sentence in the jails in their home countries” – errr isn’t that deportation? And frankly if you’re due to be serving a sentence in say a Thai jail then would bunging someone £500 to leave the leafy polished glades of a British Open Prison and relocate to the Bangkok Hilton?

The Liberal Democrats accused Mr Reid of offering a "bribe" to foreign prisoners. Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem home affairs spokesman, said: "What has the home secretary been doing for the last six months if his efforts to solve the foreign prisoner crisis now amount to a vague pledge to sort the problem out by next spring, and an even vaguer plan to bribe them to go back home?"

And it is a bribe… after all a £2,500 incentive to go back home is just the same as a £2,500 ‘incentive’ to find someone not guilty or a £1 million ‘incentive’ to make someone a peer.

The BBC featured the following phrase in its coverage:

“A Home Office spokesman said the deal would not include giving cash handouts to prisoners.
The money instead would be spent on grants for accommodation, education, or training to help set up a business if they agree to be moved out of the UK.”

So what business do we think the convicted heroin trafficker is going to set up eh?

Just build some more prisons will you and kick out the ones that don't belong here. Twats!