Repatriation is governed by the Repatriation of Prisoners Act 1984 (the 1984 Act). This allows for the repatriation of a prisoner to or from any country or territory outside of the British Islands, so long as there is an international arrangement in place with that country or territory. The 1984 Act provides the means to give effect to a transfer and treat a prisoner transferred to the UK as if their sentence had been imposed in the UK, or to give the authority for the removal of the prisoner and their sentence from the UK. Section 3(4) provides that once transferred into the UK, the sentence is treated as if it is a sentence that was imposed by a UK criminal court.
	The release provisions are applied to the balance of the sentence after transfer, i.e. the period left to be served on transfer, which is set out in the warrant. The Schedule to the 1984 Act’s main function is to apply Chapter 6 of Part 12 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (the 2003 Act) and Part 2 of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 (the 1997 Act) so that the England and Wales release provisions apply in the same way as for domestic sentences.
	The statutory release provisions setting out the release and recall arrangements for all prisoners subject to fixed-term sentences are contained in Chapter 6 of Part 12 of, and Schedule 20B to, the 2003 Act. The Secretary of State is required to release prisoners serving fixed-term sentences once they have served the requisite custodial period. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Requisite and Minimum Custodial Periods) Order 2024 modified the release point for standard determinate sentences imposed for certain offences from 50% to 40%. Murder was not one of the offences excluded in this Order so an offender repatriated from overseas serving a standard determinate sentence could have been released at 40% (no repatriated offenders serving sentences for murder were released at 40%). Murder was later excluded from the release point modification in the Home Detention Curfew and Requisite Minimum Custodial Periods (Amendment) Order 2024, which moved the release point back to 50%.
Legal background Part 2: Management of offenders after sentencing Repatriated prisoners