James Slack, Daily Mail (London), July 9, 2009
British taxpayers are to provide £1million for a comfortable jail in Nigeria to take convicts whose crimes were committed in the UK.
The prison would house 400 Nigerian inmates incarcerated in our own packed prisons who cannot be forcibly sent home to complete their punishments.
Jails there are considered so rough that any prisoner the UK tried to deport could oppose their removal on human rights grounds.
But the Government hopes that by spending as much as £1million turning a rundown Nigerian prison into something approaching British standards, the convicts could be repatriated.
Lin Homer, the chief executive of the UK Border Agency, told MPs the deal would save taxpayers’ money, because the UK would no longer have to pay the £30,000-a-year cost of keeping inmates in our own jails.
‘We are in negotiations with Nigeria to help them establish better prison conditions,’ she said.
‘It’s about helping them generate a structure that can cope with the prisoners. It would be well worth the money to do so.’
But Matthew Elliott of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘It’s an absolute scandal that British taxpayers may foot the bill for a Nigerian prison.
‘The Government should not even entertain this nonsense proposal, particularly at a time when our own prison service is so desperately in need of funds.
‘If Nigerians are here illegally and are going to be deported, we should be sending them home immediately.’
Damian Green, the shadow immigration minister, said: ‘This should not mean in the long term we build prisons all around the world instead of sorting out our own deportation processes.’
Ministers have been frantically searching for a solution to the UK’s chronic prisoner overcrowding crisis since 2005, when the number of foreign criminals soared past 11,000—the equivalent of more than one in every eight inmates.
Prisoners have been offered cash windfalls—which some say are bribes—if they returned home voluntarily.
But this is the first time the Government has announced firm plans to provide funding for a jail overseas.
The idea had been suggested in relation to Jamaica, but never got off the ground.
It would require Nigeria to change its laws so prisoners could be sent back without their consent.
Human rights groups say current conditions in Nigerian prisons are appalling.
Amnesty International said there was severe overcrowding, and more than half of prisoners are awaiting trial—some for up to ten years.
During the same home affairs committee evidence session yesterday, Mrs Homer updated MPs on how the Home Office is dealing with two scandals—the 2006 foreign prisoner fiasco, and the discovery of up to 450,000 outstanding asylum claims.
Three years on from the mistaken release of 1,000 overseas inmates without them even being considered for deportation, almost two-thirds are still in the UK.
Incredibly, 87 of the 1,000 convicts—who included killers and sex attackers—have yet to be even traced. Of those who have been located, only 348 have been deported or removed.
The remainder have either been told they can stay—often because removal back to their homeland would be a breach of human rights law—or are still going through the deportation process.
Mrs Homer also revealed that, so far, 197,500 of the 450,000 asylum ‘legacy’ cases discovered by the Home Office in 2006 had been processed.
More than 30 per cent have been awarded asylum, in an exercise that has been described an amnesty by opponents. At current rates, more than 100,000 people with claims dating back years will be awarded permission to stay in the UK.
Original article
(Posted on July 9, 2009)
Comments
It would require Nigeria to change its laws so prisoners could be sent back without their consent.
Good luck with that.
The better (and far less expensive proposals) is not to let illegal Nigerians in the country to begin with, so they’re not there to commit the crimes.
The idea had been suggested in relation to Jamaica, but never got off the ground.
Jamaica, Nigeria. What have they in common?
I hope this story goes around the world, if only to show others what the long-suffering British people are going through at the hands of the Fabian Socialist/neo-Marxist criminal politicians & the fact that Lin Homer, UK Border Agency head could reveal this to the public with a straight face. The latest 2009 figures are that foreign prisoners make up one in SIX of the prison population. Possibly she is a graduate of Marxist lunatic Julia Middleton’s Common Purpose, for only a Marxist lunatic could blissfully tolerate a job situation were taxpayers are forced to pay for foreign criminals who shouldn’t even be in the country in the first place & then have to pay again to build a prison in their native Nigeria. I suppose it would be a waste of time pointing out to these Marxist imbeciles that if they hadn’t brought these ‘refugees’ here in the first place they’d have saved UK taxpayers a fortune. Of course it would. Cretins. These people are barking mad & belong in nice jackets that are very straight, & can whittle away the hours in cells that are soft & padded, reading volumes on Lenin, Marx & Gramsci while they await the next glorious revolution. Let’s just make sure it’s in faraway Nigeria & the people of the UK don’t have to pay for their delusional fantasies.
Apparently african blacks still need help from the old colonial powers - even after centuries of the British trying to improve their lot.
‘If Nigerians are here illegally and are going to be deported, we should be sending them home immediately.’
While I agree with that attitude, one shouldn’t allow the best to be the enemy of the good. Right now, they’re not being sent at all.
You mean there are Africans in the UK who commit crimes? That’s odd. I thought only blacks in America did that because of the legacy of slavery.
Now the multicults are going to have come up with another excuse for out-of-control black crime rates in the UK.
Wait a minute. How about saying “colonialism” is to blame?
See, all it takes is a little bit of thought, and whitey’s on the old hook again.
“At current rates, more than 100,000 people with claims dating back years will be awarded permission to stay in the UK.”
Enoch Powell warned Britain 40 years ago. The arrival of the ‘Rivers of Blood’ he spoke of is a factor of immigrant numbers like these, hastened by the imminent economic collapse.
In 2007, Amnesty International raised alarm over the terrible prison condition in the country. The agency had described the nation’s prisons as too poor for human habitation. The agency in one of its report, lamented “the circumstances under which the Nigerian government locks up its inmates are appalling. Many inmates are left for years awaiting trial in overcrowded cells with children and adults often held together. Some prisoners are called ‘forgotten inmates’ as they never go to court and nobody knows how much longer their detention will last, simply because their case files are lost.” Among the places visited by Amnesty International during its two weeks of investigation of the prison condition in the country were Enugu, Kano and Lagos, and the Federal Capital Territory. The organisation visited 10 prisons, and worried by its findings. It further called on the Nigerian government to properly fund urgent prison improvements and ensure all inmates are tried within reasonable time. According to the body, many prison inmates routinely sleep two to one bed or on the floor in what were described as “squalid cells”. “Toilets, often little more than holes in the floor, are generally overflowing by the end of each day. Disease is rampant in the filth and crowded conditions. Three out of every five people in Nigeria’s prisons are awaiting trial, often for years,” the report said.
Also last February, the agency carried out another investigation perhaps to know if anything had improved, in which it reported that 65 per cent of prison inmates have never been convicted of any crime, revealing that many of them have been on awaiting trial for about 10 years. The agency as a result condemned the federal government because the nation’s prisons are filled with people whose human rights are being systematically violated. The report added: “Torture by police is said to be widespread, with “confessions” extracted by torture often used as evidence in trials.” One of the officials of the agency who took part in the investigation, Mr. Aster Van Kregten lamented over the situation when he spoke to newsmen in Abuja. “The problems in Nigeria’s criminal justice system are so blatant and egregious that government had no choice but to recognise them - and has pledged many times that it will reform the system.
However, the reality is that those in prison stand little chance of their rights being respected. Those without money stand even less chance. Some could end up spending the rest of their lives behind bars in appalling conditions without ever having been convicted of a crime-sometimes simply due to their case files having been lost by the police. “Many inmates awaiting trial are effectively presumed guilty-despite the fact that there is little evidence of their involvement in the crime of which they are accused,” he said. Kregten recalled that on numerous occasions, the Federal government had made promises to reform the criminal justice system as part of its concern about prolonged detention and overcrowding to no avail.
For instance, the report noted that though there have been many presidential commissions and committees recommending reform, these have never been implemented. Rather what the government has often done has been to”set up new committees and commissions to study, review and harmonise the previous recommendations,” the agency report said. Amnesty gave an example of the terrible situation in the Prison with the case of one Bassey, a 35-year-old woman with mental illness, who never committed any offence but was dumped at the prison by her relations on the excuse that she was disturbing members of the family. It took the intervention of a non-governmental organisation, PRAWA to relocate the woman to a hospital from where she spent some months with 11 others in a cell.
Kregten was quoted as saying, “the Nigerian government is simply not complying with its national and international obligations when it comes to the criminal justice system in Nigeria and must begin to do so seriously and urgently. The conditions we saw and the stories we heard from inmates are a national scandal.” Although the Amnesty International investigation was carried out between 2007 and last year, THISDAY’s visit to Enugu Prisons showed that the situation is even worse. At the gate of the Prison yard were relations of some of the inmates who were visiting, one after the other, they have woes of tale to tell over the condition of their brothers who are in prison custody. One man who identified himself as Emmanuel told THISDAY that his cousin, a motor mechanic has spent over three years in the prison custody awaiting trial in a case of missing car in his workshop. Emma said that even the owner of the car had made attempts to get the case withdrawn having later found his car, but that the case file was said to be missing.
Another visitor who was seen at a cubicle by the side of Prison gate facing Ogbute market also lamented that his relation, who is awaiting trial now looks like a skeleton as a result of the poor condition in the prison. He said that the case of stealing involving his brother has only come up twice; adding that what was painful is that the allegation against his brother by a village head was not true. Sources close to the Prison said a good number of inmates lose their bearings as they are reduced to mere skeletons due to poor feeding and environment. For instance, most of the inmates who are sick never get medical attention. It was gathered that except they can afford to tip some of the officials, they will not be given medical attention. Feeding them is said to be worst, as most of them are fed on tasteless food. It was also gathered that even for relations to have audience with the inmates, they will have to tip the prison officials. It’s a circle of corruption in the prison environment.
They better not make the prison too nice, or else they’ll have the locals committing crimes just to get in.
I wouldn’t buy a product that had a no return policy unless I was really sure that it was well made.
On the subject of rejected asylum seekers and illegals who aren’t able to be deported to their home countries because of Human Rights concerns.
Makes them surrogate Westerners.
Will they have a gym so they can get stronger and bigger in order to increase their daily mugging rate?
If so, I’m all for that, if they release them to the care and custody of the multicults.
After all, a liberal is a conservative who hasn’t been mugged yet.
And the mugged liberal who stays a liberal and excuses his own mugging is a blooming idiot who is in the last stage of blossum.
“Lin Homer, the chief executive of the UK Border Agency, told MPs the deal would save taxpayers’ money, because the UK would no longer have to pay the £30,000-a-year cost of keeping inmates in our own jails.”
£30,000-a-year? That’s $48,547/yr! Doesn’t it cost about $30,000/yr here in the U.S. per prisoner? What kind of luxury prison is this? £1,000,000 for 400 prisoners seems like a great bargain for Brits, unless the staffing and maintenance costs are to be paid too, and they are high.
On the face of it,this seems like a bargain. If it holds 400 prisoners, who would cost the UK taxpayer 30k a year each, if jailed in Britain, then thats £12 million saved in the first year. Unfortunately, within a short space of time, the prison will degenerate to Nigerian standards, and the same excuse will be trotted out. “Deporting them will be a breach of their “Human Rights” (sic), because of the conditions they will be housed in.” How many Nigerian prisons will the UK taxpayer end up paying for?
Doesn’t it cost about $30,000/yr here in the U.S. per prisoner?
MORE! South Carolina newspapers years ago, pointed out that it cost $84,000 a year to keep an inmate incarcerated. I worked in the Dept. of Corrections then and we (officers) wondered where the money went! I don’t work there anymore, but I still wonder WHERE THE MONEY GOES!
BTW! are we going to be building a nice, new prison in Mexico too?
7 — Yorkshireman wrote at 2:16 AM on July 10:
Good article you have posted above. Perhaps the bleeding hearts at Amnesty International (I’ve had a few run ins with the Belgian/Swiss/French fools) should tell people not to commit crimes in Nigeria…wait until they get to the U.S. where they cannot be prosecuted APPARENTLY!!!!
