System for foreign criminals dysfunctional, say MPs
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Version 0 of 1. The Home Office has been responsible for a complete failure to improve the management of foreign criminals, according to a report released by parliament’s spending watchdog. Data sent to the public accounts committee shows that 758 overseas offenders living in the community who have since vanished had been found guilty of serious crimes including murder, rape and kidnapping. MPs criticised officials for failing to conduct criminal record checks on more than two-thirds of arrested foreign nationals. Among a range of recommendations, the committee said the Home Office and National Offender Management Service should evaluate whether designated foreign national offender prisons result in more early removals and, if so, extend their use. The report is an uncomfortable read for May, who will be aware that a Labour home secretary, Charles Clarke, was forced to resign in 2006 after neglecting the management of foreign offenders. In a joint statement, Margaret Hodge, chair of the committee, and a Conservative committee member, Richard Bacon, said the Home Office had failed to improve the management and removal of foreign offenders. “Despite firm commitments to improve and a massive tenfold increase in resources, the system still appears to be dysfunctional. “There is a worrying combination of a lack of focus on early action at the border and police stations, poor joint working in prisons, inefficient case-working, very poor management information and non-existent cost data,” they said. A letter to the committee from Mark Sedwill, the Home Office’s permanent secretary, says that many of the 758 offenders who remain unaccounted for were involved in serious crimes. They include 34 rapists and sex offenders, 19 convicted of conspiracy to defraud, murder or kidnap and up to 12 of murder, manslaughter or death by dangerous driving. The number of foreign nationals in prison has remained at around 10,000 with the number of foreign criminals removed from the UK peaking at 5,613 in 2008-09 and not matching that level since. The figure fell to 4,539 in 2011-12 and it remains below peak level. The Home Office was forced to pay £6.2m in compensation to 229 foreign national offenders because of delays in dealing with cases since April 2012 – an average of £27,000 each. The issue of foreign offenders has risen up the political agenda since October when it emerged that Arnis Zalkalns, the prime suspect in the killing of schoolgirl Alice Gross, had served seven years for murder in his native Latvia. Both Labour and Ukip sources claim that the Tories are vulnerable on the issue as the general election approaches. The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said: “This is a damning report of failure and incompetence in Theresa May’s Home Office. Previous home secretaries have resigned over this kind of thing. Yet time and again Theresa May just hides and blames everyone else. “Under Theresa May, the Home Office is deporting fewer foreign criminals, criminal records are not being checked at the borders, basic errors are delaying deportations, her department isn’t sharing information on criminals with the police,” she said. The Tories have sought to reassure core voters that they will be tough on foreign criminals. They claimed victory in the deportation of Abu Qatada, the hardline cleric, to Jordan after a 10-year legal battle, even though he was cleared in September of terrorism charges and set free. Ministers have said that the recently passed Immigration Act will make it easier to remove people from the UK and harder for individuals to prolong their stay with appeals, by reducing the number of grounds on which foreign offenders can appeal their deportation from 17 to four. They have also introduced appeals known as “deport first, appeal later” measures, which came into force in July. Human rights organisations have claimed the measures are a breach of the European convention and could easily lead to deaths and mistreatment. Reacting to the report, the immigration and security minister, James Brokenshire, said that foreign nationals who commit crime in Britain should be in no doubt of the government’s determination to deport them. “We are also dealing more robustly than ever before with those who break our laws. “Joint work with the police to intercept foreign nationals in custody suites has led to 3,300 removals since 2012, while police checks on the overseas convictions of EU nationals are up almost 600% under this government. “Alongside tougher crime fighting measures, improved protection at the border and greater collaboration between police and immigration enforcement officers, the Immigration Act will help us to identify, remove and ban more foreign criminals than ever before,” he said. |