Report

The cost of strangers

This report from UK think tank Onward explores the removal of foreign national offenders and prison capacity.

The report highlights a deepening prison capacity crisis in England and Wales, where adult male prisons are operating at around 98 % occupancy. Around one in eight prisoners is a foreign national offender (FNO) — roughly 10,800 people — and this group is growing, placing extra strain on a system already under pressure from rising violent crime, lengthy sentences and large court backlogs.

Onward’s analysis finds that the cost of detaining and processing FNOs has averaged about £537 million annually since 2019 and has risen sharply under the current government, equivalent to funding thousands of new teachers, nurses or police officers. Removing FNOs more efficiently would materially reduce prison occupancy — in theory lowering it to about 86 % if all were removed — and relieve fiscal and operational strain.

The paper argues that legal and procedural barriers, especially appeals under the Human Rights Act based on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), slow deportations and keep FNOs in the prison system longer than necessary. It sets out how current immigration and removal legislation works, examines routes such as early removal schemes, facilitated returns and prisoner transfer agreements, and identifies how rights protections (particularly Article 8 ECHR claims about private and family life) often prevent removal.

Onward recommends tightening the legal framework and interpretation around deportation appeals to accelerate removals, reduce costs to taxpayers, and ease the chronic capacity issues facing the prison estate.