Jamaica yesterday reacted angrily to Britain’s move to grant early release, and deport, hundreds of Jamaican nationals from UK prisons, saying the British were fobbing off onto the island a problem that should be handled by their penal system.

The UK’s move, according to Prime Minister P J Patterson, would make it more difficult to control Jamaica’s serious problem of violent crime, which is exacerbated by the illegal drug trade.

“We have to deal with the problems ourselves but in doing so it is not made easier by the fact that some are trying to get rid of their problem by sending them (convicted persons) back home and not deal with them as their penal system requires,” Patterson said at the opening of a conference which the government hopes to use as a platform for deepening links with the Jamaican Diaspora.

Fifty-nine Jamaicans arrived from Britain last night, the first batch of more than 700 who are expected to win early release from UK jails in what is being seen as a move by the British to lessen the number of foreigners in their prisons and to ease pressure on the system.

There are about 2,400 Jamaicans in British jails, among the largest chunk of foreigners in that country’s prisons.

But the British have apparently hit on a scheme of lessening the jail time for the foreigners, many of them women caught smuggling cocaine by swallowing pellets, once they accept deportation.

But Jamaica has long been concerned that among the convicts who return are hard-core criminals, many of them who left the island as youngsters and have little or no connections here.

These deportees, law enforcement officials say, often contribute to the country’s high level of crime and violence, sometimes bringing back sophisticated criminal techniques they learnt abroad.

“The problems posed by the increasing number of deportees are another deeply troubling issue for us all,” Patterson told the Diaspora conference.

“If people feel that they can commit a crime in another country and they’re not going to pay the penalty but they are going to be deported back to Jamaica where we cannot take any punitive action against them, then that is a temptation for them,” the prime minister added.

US Embassy officials were not immediately available for comment on Patterson’s statement, but it is known that the Americans also have hundreds of Jamaicans in their prison population, many of whom will be deported.

The Americans have in the past disputed that those they have sent back were socialised in the US rather than leaving Jamaica as adults and recently commissioned a study on this issue.

However, British High Commission spokesman Mark Waller disputed Patterson’s characterisation of the UK’s approach to the deportees as being “not quite correct”.

“Prisoners who are being returned have served their sentences and were able to apply for early release,” Waller told the Observer. “They would have been returned to Jamaica in any case, even after they’ve served their natural sentences.”

Ironically, not too long ago it was the British, through former High Commissioner, Antony Smith, who were asking Jamaica to give long jail time to cocaine smugglers caught with drugs here.

“There is a case for saying that your sentencing policy is too lenient,” Smith said in a September 2001 speech at a conference in Kingston put on by the UK-based charity, Hibiscus, whose aim is to get softer sentence and early relief for female Jamaican drug smugglers in UK prisons.

“Someone who gets caught with two kilos of cocaine gets six to 18 months,” Smith noted at the time. “If you get £8,000 for each trip and get 18 months when you get caught, then it is not a big problem.”

Yesterday, Waller explained that the early release system, which was being utilised by the Jamaican deportees, was part of a prison reform bill passed last October that brought the rights of foreign nationals in line with that of UK nationals by allowing them the option of shorter sentences in certain circumstances.

In that regard, the early release system was not applicable only to Jamaicans.

“It applies worldwide to all nationalities and the same risk assessment applies to both British and foreign prisoners,” Waller said. “. They are Jamaican nationals and once they have finished their prison term in the UK they are liable for deportation back to their country of origin.”