UK plots to deport prisoners to EU nation in battle to free house in | Politics | News | EUROtoday

Ministers are contemplating letting criminals serve their sentences in Estonian prisons in a bid deal with the UK’s overcrowding disaster.

The Ministry of Justice stated it was investigating “all viable options” to extend capability as a result of prisons have been “on the point of collapse”.

It is known the Baltic state has provided to hire out spare capability to different international locations

Government sources stated the controversial answer was “on the table” due to the severity of the scenario.

Men’s prisons in England and Wales practically ran out of cells final month, with simply 83 spare areas.

Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, and Liisa Pakosta, her Estonian counterpart, have been anticipated to debate jail leasing on the sidelines of a Council of Europe occasion in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Thursday.

Speaking to the Telegraph, Ms Pakosta stated: “The UK and Estonia have a history of successful international co-operation, and such a partnership would create further opportunities to benefit and learn from each other.”

Sending offenders to Estonia, a nation of 1.3 million folks, was first proposed by Alex Chalk, the previous justice secretary, eventually 12 months’s Tory convention.

Reports in August urged Magistrates haD been ordered to delay jailing criminals in a bid to ease jail overcrowding.

Court of Appeal decide Lord Justice Green, who’s the deputy senior presiding decide for England and Wales, issued what is called a list path to magistrates’ courts managers within the two international locations, saying offenders prone to be jailed ought to have their sentencing hearings postponed till the Government’s plans to free 1000’s of offenders early from jail come into pressure subsequent month.