1/29/2007

Prisoners locked up for six months extra because prison service cannot get documents sorted

It's little wonder we have a prison overcrowding crisis when you consider what Radio Five Live were covering early.

In Norwich prison, a Jamaican national who has been serving a sentence for drugs offences, should have been released and deported on August 3rd, but has stayed in prison for the last six months because the prison service have not got his birth certificate so they can deport him.

It turns out that one of the board of visitors, a lay person who monitors the prison, when he heard about this, managed to get the birth certificate himself by making two phone calls, and the whole process took two days.

He explained on the radio that he believes that this also applies to 10 other prisoners in Norwich prison, and if you multiply that by the 160 prisons in the UK, that could mean more than 1500 people are taking prison places up that could be filled by real criminals, the same real criminal that are currently running free, thanks to Home office advice to judges.

When you also consider how much it costs to keep someone in prison for a week, this is another chocking display of Home Office incompetence.

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