Sun writer's wild assertion is belied by the facts
Professional bigmouth Rod Liddle writes against calls for reparations by Jamaican prime minister Portia Simpson Miller, in a piece steaming with his usual wit and charm.
After the predictable references to marijuana (ho ho), the Sun columnist explains that ‘we’ already give ‘the Jamaicans’ enough money.
He adds:
“That’s because British jails are crammed with Jamaican criminals. Drug-dealing Yardie thugs and the like.
Despite being a tiny island, Jamaicans are the third-largest contingent of foreign prisoners in British politics.
If there was an Olympic Games for criminality, Jamaica would punch well above its weight.”
And so on.
In fact, as the Sun Apologies Twitter account reports, Ministry of Justice data (2014) shows of a UK prison population of 85,509, Jamaican nationals make up just 718 – or 0.83 percent.
Of foreign nationals, they make up 6.62 per cent.
So much for the claim ‘British jails are crammed with Jamaican criminals’.
Liddle is correct to say Jamaican nationality has the third highest number of inmates in UK prisons.
But he doesn’t say that this number has been decreasing steadily since 2002, when there were 2,588.
Incidentally, the countries in first and second place are the Irish Republic and Poland. Would Rod Liddle say ‘British jails are crammed with Irish and Polish criminals’?
Probably, yes.
***
Like this story? Support our work: visit our crowdfunding page here.
Adam Barnett is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow MediaWatch on Twitter
Sign up for our weekly email by clicking here.
To reach hundreds of thousands of new readers and to make the biggest impact we can in the next general election, we need to grow our donor base substantially.
That's why in 2024, we are seeking to generate 150 additional regular donors to support Left Foot Forward's work.
We still need another 124 people to donate to hit the target. You can help. Donate today.
14 Responses to “Rod Liddle says UK prisons are ‘crammed with Jamaican criminals’ – who are 0.83% of prison population”
NHSGP
Your link to the ministry of justice data does not work.
NHSGP
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/339036/prison-population-2014.xls
The link above works. Table A1.10
10,834 known foreign nationals.
Of those, Around 700 are from countries were there are issues deporting them.
There you go. 10K deported. That can be done quite quickly, saving lots of money
Prison Reform Trust
It’s actually even less than that as 2015 data is available. See table A1.11i in the MoJ’s Prison Population 2015 stats. 619 Jamaican nationals in prison in England and Wales as of June this year, accounting for 0.72% of the total prison population.
Data available at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/449241/prison-population-2015.xlsx
Cole
That’s not the point – the point is the inaccurate rubbish in Liddles article.
JoeDM
Excellent article by Liddle in the Specie on the Cereal Killer Café riot.
http://new.spectator.co.uk/2015/10/class-war-are-fatuous-idiots-but-at-least-they-hate-some-of-the-right-people/