148 criminals have escaped detention centres since 2005
January 28 2010 by Liam Clifford
UK immigration face embarassment over the admission that detention centres are not secure.
It has been revealed today that a staggering 148 immigrants being held in detention centres have escaped over the past 5 years, with 108 of those still at large in the greater community having never been apprehended.
The figures dating back to 2005 reveal the shocking statistic that all the escapees were foreign national criminals awaiting deportation after serving their prison sentence.
The protocol of many of the centres has come under criticism as unlike prisons the inmates are allowed to freely walk around and are not restricted in their actions within the confines of the facility.
Shadow UK immigration minister Damian Green released a statement yesterday condemning the statistic and calling on Labour to hold someone to account for the embarrassment.
“These are meant to be secure institutions. Why are so many people allowed to escape back on to the streets? Ministers need to explain this latest failure.”
Labour has previously had to take action on a minister, that being Home Secretary Charles Clark, after he was held accountable in 2006 for a blunder that saw more than 1,000 foreign criminals released instead of deported, many are still at large and he was sacked.
The means in which the prisoners escaped has been reported to range from during riots to through holes in fences, perhaps one of the more bizarre cases was that of an escaped robber who unknowingly knocked on the door of a prison officer pleading to be hidden; needless to say he was one of the recaptured.
Sources at the UK immigration centres say that ‘the prisoners have little to lose as they are set to be deported anyway, and so are constantly trying to find ways of escaping.’
UK immigration minister Phil Woolas claimed last night that despite the figures they have actually ‘removed record numbers of foreign criminals’.
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