Wormwood Scrubs Prison, London: wikipedia
Currently, there are 807 Polish-born inmates in UK prisons, and a total of 2400 from former Eastern bloc countries.
Foreigners who are given sentences of over a year are automatically considered for deportation by the UK Border Agency, while other potential deportees are evaluated on a case by case basis.
Nevertheless, Britain's Sunday Express paper, which obtained the figures, notes that over the last two years, close to 16,000 foreign national prisoners stayed in UK jails beyond their sentences, so as to fight deportation.
“More foreign prisoners must serve their sentences in their own countries,” UK Prison Minister Jeremy Wright told the paper.
“There are far too many in our prisons,” he said.
The paper noted that UK tax-payers are paying 90 million pounds per year to cover the prison costs of the 2400 Eastern European-born inmates in British jails, at a cost of 38,000 pounds per prisoner.
Overall, there are 83,757 inmates in British prisons at present.
Data from Poland's Central Statistical Office (GUS) indicated that at least 560,000 Polish citizens were resident in the UK in 2011.
Romanians constitute the second largest number of former Eastern bloc inmates in UK prisons. Their numbers have risen by 40 percent since September 2011 (454 to 624).
The UK government has proposed a negative campaign to dissuade more Romanian and Bulgarian nationals from moving to Britain to find work.
As of next year, Bulgarians and Romanians, whose countries joined the EU in 2007, three years after Poland, will be able to claim UK benefits if they move to work in Britain. (nh)