Britain's prison population crisis is being fuelled by a big increase in foreign criminals including 218 Indians, the country's home secretary has said.
Overseas nationals now made up about one in eight inmates or almost 10,000 out of a record 78,000, Charles Clarke told the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee Tuesday.
Over the past five years, while the number of British prisoners had gone up by 11%, there had been a 75% increase in foreigners, taking up 3,500 more prison places than anticipated.
The highest number of foreign prisoners in Britain are from Jamaica (2,039), followed by Ireland (708), Nigeria (504) and Pakistan (388). India (218) is seventh after Turkey (233) and Somalia (230).
The jail population is now close to critical levels. With police cells once again being used to hold remand prisoners, more inmates are being forced to share cells and officials are desperately searching for extra accommodation.
Ministers are considering letting more prisoners out early under curfew to help ease pressures. At present, thousands leave jail up to four and a half months before their normal release date and this could be extended to six months, though Clarke conceded that this was not an option he wanted to follow.
Clarke has been trying to persuade courts to send fewer people to jail in the first place and to use a range of non-custodial community sentences now available.
According to Home Office figures, in 2000 there were 5,586 foreign prisoners. Today there are almost 10,000.
There are people of around 165 nationalities in custody at a cost of more than 300 million pounds a year.
The problem is particularly acute among women inmates, with one in five now a foreign national. The majority comprises of Jamaicans, jailed for drug smuggling.
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