With our prisons bursting at the seams, why not offshore our convicts to a third world country on an agreed contract? That way everybody would benefit.
Consider this:- It costs an average of £35,500 per annum to keep a prisoner in a UK jail. At Delhi's Tihar jail it only costs Rupees 62 per head per day, or about £310 per annum. In Zambia, it's about the same. So why not enter into a bilateral contract with another government to pay them say £5,000 pa per head to lock up some of our lags offshore.
Then, on returning to the UK on completion of sentence, give the lags a gratuity of £5,000 each for year spent offshore. This gratuity money would give them a massive head start when they got back to the UK and it would stop many returning to stealing and other crimes.
The foreign host country would benefit from the foreign exchange and could use it for development purposes.
The savings to the UK treasury would be massive.
If only half the current convicts were sent offshore, the savings would be in the realms of £800 million each year.
Also they would get a better climate and they might even want to stay overseas..