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Source: Daily Star (2016) – http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/506979/foreign-criminals-prisoners-UK-taxpayer-expensive-prison-population

 

Main Claims:

1.      More than 10% of prisoners in the UK are from abroad – and each costs £65k a year

2.      Each costs UK taxpayers £65,000 every year – adding up to a whopping £643million

3. Some 9,895 foreigners including killers, rapists and terrorists are being held.
4. Most are from Poland and Romania.
5. Others come from Jamaica, Pakistan, Lithuania, Nigeria and Ireland.
6. There are dozens more from Somalia, India, Albania and Bangladesh.

 

Assessment:

• In 2015, 1 in 12 (8.7% – round up to 9%) of the usual resident population of the UK had non-British nationality, which compares with 1 in 20 (5.0%) in 2004. [Source: ONS – Population of the UK by Country of Birth and Nationality: 2015]
• Around 5.2 million people were citizens of another country in 2015, according toestimates from the Office for National Statistics. [Source: ONS – Population by Country of Birth and Nationality underlying datasheets]
• The foreign national population held in custody and NOMS-operated IRCs remained just below 10,000 offenders (9,891) as at 30 June 2016. This represents a decrease of 6% compared to 30 June 2015.

This is due mainly to the withdrawal of Home Office commissioned places at Dover IRC in November 2015. The foreign national population, however, still represents just under 12% of the total prison population (round up to 12%).

The five most common nationalities after British Nationals in prisons in England and Wales are Polish, Irish, Romanian, Jamaican and Albanian, together accounting for approximately one third (35%) of the foreign national population and 1 in 25 (4%) of the prison population overall.

[Source: Ministry of Justice – Offender Management Statistics Bulletin, England and Wales – Quarterly January to March 2016 with Prison Population as at 30 June 2016]

• The Government spends an average of £37,000 on keeping an inmate for a year. [Source: The Howard League for Penal Reform]
• 9,891 foreign inmates x average cost of £37,000 = it costs around £369,297,000 a year to keep foreign inmates.

 

Conclusion:

The claim that more than 10% of prisoners in the UK are from abroad is correct, with the actual figure standing at 9,891 (12% of prison population) in 2016.

The claim that each foreign inmate costs £65,000 a year is false, with the actual cost being £37,000. Therefore, the claim that the foreign prison population costs £643,000,000 is also false, with the correct cost being substantially lower at £369,297,000

The claim that most of the foreign prison population is made up of people from Poland and Romania is false, as the 5 most common nationalities after British Nationals in prisons in England and Wales are Polish, Irish, Romanian, Jamaican and Albanian, which when combined account for 35% of the foreign national prison population, as opposed to ‘most of it’.