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By Conor Gaffey
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Britain will contribute £25 million ($37.9 million) towards building a new prison in Jamaica, with the aim of deporting around half of the 600-plus Jamaican nationals currently in U.K. jails to the Caribbean island, the BBC reported.
The deal could save U.K. taxpayers £10 million ($15.2 million) per year when transfers commence in 2020, according to government officials. The U.K. cannot currently deport Jamaican nationals because of the poor conditions of Jamaican jails, which could lead to appeals under the human rights law.
British Prime Minister David Cameron made the announcement at the start of his official visit to Jamaica on Tuesday, the first time a U.K. prime minister has visited the island for 14 years.
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Preparations for the visit have been dogged by demands that Britain pay Jamaica billions of pounds in reparations for its role in the slave trade, The Guardian reported.
Sir Hilary Beckles, the chair of Caricom's Reparations Commission, wrote an open letter to Cameron that was published on Monday in the Jamaica Observer, in which he encouraged the U.K. to "play its part in cleaning up this monumental mess of Empire" by acknowledging its responsibility and by contributing to "a joint program of rehabilitation and renewal."
A Downing Street official told The Guardian that the U.K. government maintained that reparations were not the right approach to solving the issue.
The new prison in Jamaica will be a 1,500-bed facility, and the prisoner transfer deal applies to those with sentences of four years or more and with 18 months or more left to serve. 69 percent of Jamaican prisoners in U.K. jails are serving time for drug of violent offences.
The average cost of a U.K. prison place is £25,900 per year ($39,276), according to Downing Street. As of June 30, there were 619 Jamaican nationals in English and Welsh prisons, bringing the total annual cost of supporting them to more than £16 million ($24.3 million). The money for the prison will come from the government's existing aid budget.
Welcoming the deal, Cameron said, "It is absolutely right that foreign criminals who break our laws are properly punished but this shouldn't be at the expense of the hardworking British taxpayer."
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