From the Telegraph….
“You can’t make this up” is a catch phrase of Inspector Gadget. I faithfully follow his blog and I read various British publications and I have gotten kind of use tales of total absurdity coming out of the United Kingdom. But every now and again, I come a crossed a story that still shocks me. This is one of them.
Figures released by the Conservatives show that 2,196 foreign offenders have been invited to take part in the early release scheme, called End of Custody Licence, since its introduction 15 months ago in response to prison overcrowding.
As well as walking free having served less than half of their sentence, each released prisoner is entitled to around £7 a day in compensation to make up for missing out on the state-provided food and lodging they would have received had they remained in jail.
Offenders released on End of Custody Licence receive an initial discharge payment of £46, followed by the subsistence allowance of £47.12 a week, up to a cap of £168.24.
If all those eligible received the full allowance, the taxpayer would by now have paid out £369,455 in compensation to foreign prisoners who had been released early.