Britain helps launch state-of-the-art prison… in Albania

Britain has helped launch a new multimillion-pound pioneering prison – in Albania.

UK prison officers have worked with their Albanian counterparts to develop the country’s first open prison following a £4 million-a-year prisoner transfer deal with the Balkan state.

Britain is paying Albania the money to take back 200 of its most dangerous prisoners as well as funding the training of prison officers, refurbishing jails, extra security, workshops and rehabilitation equipment.

The UK has also paid for a £1.5 million fleet of 15 electric cars and 22 minibuses to help upgrade Albania’s prison service.

It is part of the Government’s efforts to tackle the overcrowding crisis that saw jails in England and Wales almost run out of space this summer.

There are some 1,270 Albanians held in jails in England and Wales, the biggest number from any nationality and accounting for nearly one in seven of the 10,500 foreign prisoners.

The 10,500 foreign inmates are taking up one in nine places in jails at a cost of £52,000 per person, or nearly £550 million, which is why ministers are trying to find ways to repatriate them to their home countries.

The new Albanian open prison, called Ali Demi and based in the capital Tirana, will be targeted at offenders in the last six months of their jail sentences where it will emulate similar institutions in the UK.

A team of UK prisoner service managers and technical experts have been advising on the planning and regime for the new prison where inmates will have their own rooms set in a terraced-style street with freedom to come and go.

It was originally a women’s prison with a “softer” regime designed to rehabilitate and reintegrate them into Albanian society. There will now be space for 25 male prisoners.

Klevis Qose, director-general of the Albanian prison service, said: “We are ready to populate the Ali Demi open prison, the newest prison in Albania.

“The project, funded by the Albanian government and with the support of the British embassy in Tirana in increasing and strengthening the human resources capacities, is expected to prepare offenders to adapt as naturally as possible to civil life.”

The open prison could be used by the more serious Albanian offenders transferred from the UK towards the end of their sentences.

Under the two-year deal, the criminals – all serving more than four-year sentences – complete their jail terms in Albania at a cost of £32 a day compared with £109 a day in the UK.

The 200 prisoners include murderers, rapists and drug dealers who will be transferred in “bulk” groups to be processed into the Albanian prison system where they will serve the same length of sentence as they would have in the UK.

There will be a joint oversight group to prevent mistreatment of the prisoners with the Albanian government producing an annual report on the prisoners and their conditions, and the UK Government retaining the right to carry out physical checks. Each country has a right to end the agreement with two months’ written notice.

Among the 200 to be transferred are 17 lifers including Koci Selamaj, the murderer of the schoolteacher Sabina Nessa, who was jailed for a minimum of 36 years for beating and strangling her to death in a park in south-east London.

He has so far served only two years, which would mean the UK paying the Albanians £400,000 to imprison him for the remaining 34 years of his sentence. It would cost more than £2 million if he remained in the UK.