At regular intervals over the past year or so, reporters have contacted us about foreign nationals in prison. Usually, they are looking for context and comment on controversial proposals emanating from the USA, the UK, Sweden and Denmark to remove foreign nationals from their prisons and send them to third countries with which they lacked any connection.
As this topic seems likely to remain in the spotlight, we have produced a briefing setting out the data on numbers of foreign national prisoners worldwide, the applicable human rights framework, and the most common repatriation mechanisms.
The statistics held on our World Prison Brief database provide valuable insights about the numbers of foreign nationals in prison and how they have changed in recent years. The database also reveals the capacity challenges many countries’ prison systems are currently facing.
We estimate that at least 4.5% of the world’s prison population are not nationals of the country where they are incarcerated: more than 518,000 people worldwide. There are very high concentrations of foreign nationals in some countries: in Qatar, Switzerland, Greece and Austria, foreign nationals now outnumber nationals in prison.
Foreign nationals face higher risks of mistreatment and often experience social isolation due to language difficulties and lack of contact with family. They have the same rights as other prisoners but, in practice, often struggle to access education, work, healthcare, rehabilitation programmes or reintegration support, all the more so when prisons are overcrowded and under-resourced.
The briefing contains links to several useful resources including the international human rights instruments and guidance on their implementation, as well as details of NGOs that advise and support foreign national prisoners and their families.
With thanks to Simona Anastasi for her help with this research.