Several inmates in Jersey cannot be transferred to UK prisons due to overcrowding
A shortage of UK spaces means more than a dozen prisoners in Jersey cannot transfer back to their home country.
Under the Repatriation of Prisoners (Jersey) Law 2012, prisoners may be transferred to the UK to serve their sentences if they are citizens there.
However, the States of Jersey Prison Service says 13 prisoners are still waiting to be transferred to the UK to serve their sentences.
On average, the La Moye prison aims to send one prisoner a month to the UK, but only two have been transferred this year.
Guernsey Prison has also revealed they are affected by the same restrictions, with six prisoners currently unable to transfer back to the UK.
A statement from the island's prison service said: "Those on the transfer waiting list face challenges in maintaining family contact through in-person visits.
"Additionally, prisoners who cannot be transferred may experience limited access to resettlement and early release opportunities available in the UK, which would affect their rehabilitation and reintegration prospects."
Jersey's HMP La Moye currently houses around 140 prisoners, with a capacity for up to 200, according to the prison service's latest Annual Report.
However, the prison service says the transfer stop will not directly affect their capacity.
In July, the UK parliament approved legal changes to make it easier for prisoners serving fixed sentences to be released into the community on licence to free up more prison space.
Under the previous law, offenders serving these fixed sentences were usually released from prison automatically after serving half of their sentence.
The hope is that this will reduce pressures on UK prisons nearing maximum capacity.
Those serving sentences for certain sexual, violent, domestic abuse, terrorism and national security offences are excluded from these changes to the law.
Rob Preece, Communications Manager for The Howard League for Penal Reform, the world's oldest prison charity, says the "desperate" situation will detrimentally affect prisoners.
He explains: "It simply can't be right that people are being held in prisons a long way from home without access to family and friends who might help them move on from crime.
"Wherever possible you want people to be serving their sentences close to the people who care for them.
"While people may be fortunate enough for people to come to Jersey to see them, for many people that won't be an option so it's obviously an undesirable situation.
"Hopefully the measures that the Government are taking in the UK will ensure that some people can be moved back quickly but the fact they can't at the moment just reflects how serious the situation is."
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