Prisoners Abroad is pleased to publish the second annual edition of the Cheal report.

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The report is named after one of Prisoners Abroad’s founders, Chris Cheal, who had been in prison overseas in the 1970’s and later after his release, alongside others, decided to “start something new”, which went on to become Prisoners Abroad.

Compiled using data that Prisoners Abroad collects and has access to, the report brings together important insights into the number and characteristics of British people that are in prisons around the world, their family and friends, and those that return to the UK each year. 

Some notable trends this year include:

• another gradual increase in the number of people we are supporting overseas and in the number of new cases;
• an increase in cases in Europe (particularly in Spain) as opposed to the countries where we traditionally see larger numbers, such as Australia and the USA;
• an increase in the number of women we are supporting in prison, who currently make up almost 8% of our overseas service users;
• a decrease in the numbers of deportations, particularly from Australia and the USA;
• data on the number of repatriations and transfers back to the UK, which worryingly are the lowest we have seen since we began recording them.

One of our objectives is to ensure that all British citizens in prisons around the world are aware of what we do and are able to access our support. It is challenging to have accurate data, but based on a snapshot in time, UK government consular officers are providing assistance to around 1,800 British nationals in detention, so we can estimate that based on Prisoners Abroad supporting 1,156 individuals last year, around 64% are registered with Prisoners Abroad.

We continue to work closely with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to look at the numbers of people that are receiving consular assistance, so that we can better understand our reach and address areas of concern.

This second edition of the Cheal report has built on what we learnt from doing it for the first time last year, and we will continue to look at how we can improve future editions, so please do let us know if you have any feedback, comments or suggestions.

To read the 2023-2024 Cheal report in full please download it here and get in touch if you have any enquiries.

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