The International Prisoner Transfer Program began in 1977 when our government negotiated the first in a series of treaties to permit the transfer of prisoners from countries in which they had been convicted of crimes to their home countries. The program is designed to relieve some of the special hardships that fall upon offenders incarcerated far from home, and to facilitate the rehabilitation of these offenders.
Prisoners may be transferred to and from those countries with which the United States has a treaty. (Participating countries are listed on this site). While all prisoner transfer treaties are negotiated principally by the United States Department of State, the program itself is administered by the United States Department of Justice.
Not all prisoners from countries with whom the United States has signed a prisoner transfer treaty are eligible for transfer. Similarly, not all U.S. citizens serving time in counties with whom the United States has signed a prisoner transfer treaty are eligible for transfer back to the United States. It is also important to remember that sentences imposed in the United States or abroad may not represent the actual time inmates must serve once they are transferred back to their home countries.
International prisoner transfer lawyers represented numerous foreign and American inmates throughout the years and has successfully gained their return to their home countries.
Treaty transfers of foreign-born prisoners are favored because it is a legal conclusion by the U. S. that rehabilitation is promoted when the prisoner is close to his family and native culture. Prisoner treaty transfers promote such rehabilitation and that is why the U. S. has spent extraordinary efforts to develop a comprehensive set of bilateral and multilateral Prisoner Transfer Treaties through which the treaty transfers are facilitated
The international prisoner transfers attorney is an important part of the process of extradition of prisoners from one country to another. If a person commits a crime in another country where they are not a citizen, the government where they are a citizen will often negotiate for the other country to ship the prisoner back to their home country to face a trial and conviction on their own soil. When this decision is made, the prisoner is assigned an attorney to make sure the rules of the extradition process are followed. This is essential in upholding relations between the two countries.
California Strongly supports the concept of transferring foreign national inmates, especially if it will enhance their rehabilitation and successful re-entry to society. To obtain further information about the transfer treaty program, please read the International Prisoner Transfer Treaty Program information brochure in English or Spanish,
Factors that affect the transfer eligibility of foreign citizen inmates include the circumstances of their crime, the policies of other nations, the lack of treaty between the United States (U.S.) and their country of nationality, or the eligibility requirements of international treaties (the first of which is that inmates must willingly volunteer to be considered for transfer).