Two British jails converted for foreign nationals only

By Rich Bowden, M&C Staff Writer Oct 24, 2007, 10:10 GMT

(M&C) - It has emerged that the British Prison Service is operating two prisons exclusively for the detention of foreign nationals.

The conversion of the two jails, at Bullwood Hall, Essex, and Canterbury Prison, Kent, has been in operation since the deportation crisis of 2006 when then Home Secretary Charles Clarke was sacked over his failure to process over 1,000 foreign prisoners cases who may have been eligible for deportation.

Justice Minister David Hanson told reporters Wednesday that immigration officials had been added to the two jails to speed up deportation issues.

"What we're trying to do is to have an experiment to see whether we can speed up the deportation of foreign national prisoners, particularly those coming towards the end of their sentence," he said.

"The two prisons particularly have immigration officials working with them very closely, five in each prison, to help speed up the deportation of prisoners..."

He added that deportations for foreign nationals nearing the end of their sentences had increased from 1,500 two years ago to 2,500 this year and the department was on target to reach the goal of 4,000.

Foreign nationals make up more than 11,000 of Britain's 81,000 prison inmates.