Prison Privatisation Report International
No. 60,
January/February 2004
Published by
the Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU) University of
Greenwich, London, England.
www.psiru.org/justice
This publication is supported by a grant
from the Foundation Open Society Institute.
IN THIS ISSUE
AUSTRIA GERMANY DENMARK ISRAEL REPUBLIC OF IRELAND UNITED KINGDOM UNITED STATES THE GLOBAL MARKET
AUSTRIA
Building a prison in Romania
The government of Austria is planning to build a prison in Romania to hold Romanian nationals currently held in Austrian prisons. Although an accord with Romania has been reached no decision on public or private financing or operation of the prison has been made. Dr Michael Neider, director general of Austria’s prison service told PPRI that “discussions would be finished by late May so that building could begin before the summer.”
The idea came from Austria’s justice minister Dieter Boehmdorfer, a member of the far right Freedom Party that, along with the conservative Peoples Party, forms the coalition government. Opposition groups have called the plan xenophobic.
The government claims that it can cuts prison costs to one tenth by building and operating in Romania. Dr Neider also said that language barriers make it difficult to provide adequate work or education programmes to foreign nationals. Of the 8,000 prisoners in Austria’s prisons 3,200 are from other countries. Only 370 are Romanian.
An earlier proposal that the Austrian government should build prisons in Nigeria and Turkey was rejected on legal grounds. However, Dr Neider believes that building and operating prisons across borders could become a model for the European Union. He told PPRI that, so far, he has had talks with his counterparts in the Netherlands and the idea could be taken up by other governments including Bulgaria and Poland. The government of Italy is also currently in negotiations to send prisoners to Romania. The legal ramifications of these plans have yet to be ironed out.
Another semi-private prison
The state of Saxony-Anhalt is proposing to build a 650 bed semi-private prison in the village of Warmsdorf, 150 kilometres south west of Berlin. Some residents are concerned that if the plan goes ahead the prison will have a larger population than Warmsdorf’s current 500 inhabitants. It would also be built just 40 metres from the nearest house and would dominate the village. Another semi-private prison is due to be built in Germany at Hünfeld (see PPRI # 55, 47, 37 & 30).
Semi-private
under consideration
A new prison to be built in the east of Denmark could be privately built and operated semi-privately. Between 2004 and 2007 some Kr 80 million (approximately £8 million) will be spent on a planning and development process for a 250-bed prison. The construction period is scheduled to begin in 2008 with the prison completed and operational by 2010. Currently only the non-custodial services are being considered for private management. The GEO Group, Serco and ISS have publicly expressed an interest in the project.
A spokesperson told PPRI that the prison is a pilot project included as part of the government’s general foray into public private partnerships for new infrastructure. Denmark’s minister for economic and business affairs is reportedly basing his decision to commission a semi-private prison on the success of public private partnerships in the UK. However, there are no semi-private prisons in the UK.
Public
provision not an option
The first reading of a Bill to enable the private management of prisons is due to be completed by a parliamentary committee in early March 2004 (see PPRI #59, 56, 52, 45, 43 & 34). The Bill is modeled on legislation used in the UK.
The decision to privately finance, design, build and operate a new prison at Be’er Sheva has been foisted on the interior committee by the ministry of finance, which has refused to release public funds for a new prison. Neither the findings of independent research into the success or otherwise of private prisons nor whether cost savings will be realised have been taken into account. Apart from an article in the Harvard Law Review written by a policy analyst working for a pro-privatisation think tank (see PPRI #50) none of the research cited in a ministry of finance dossier presented to the interior committee unequivocally supported privatisation.
But at a meeting of the government’s interior committee on 12 January 2004, Dr Yuri Shtern said that, although his committee had been denied adequate access to research and the full financial details of the privatised option - including the cost of the privatisation process itself - he had to continue with privatisation. Dr Shtern also said the prison would only be a pilot project and that Israel would avoid the problems that have occurred in private prisons elsewhere in the world.
On 13 January the director of Israel’s prison service, Mr Haim Glick, told a public meeting in Ramat Gan that he had been given no choice but to pursue privatisation to solve the current overcrowding crisis in Israel’s (non-military) prisons. Despite the prison service needing 500 new beds immediately the private prison will not be ready until 2008.
Meanwhile, three consortia have been short listed as preferred bidder for the contract: Solel Boneh, Dankner Investments and Gepsa; Engel General Developers, Baran Group and Dominion Correctional Services; and Minrav, which was described in a government media release as “being in advanced negotiations with a US company that manages prisons”. The US company’s identity has still not been divulged.
The Israeli firms have made curious choices for their respective partners. Gepsa of France has no experience of operating prisons. It does, however, provide non-custodial services to some 14 prisons in France. US firm Dominion is better known as a prison developer than an operator.
If the enabling legislation is not passed and the government fails to implement private prison management, the three short listed bidders will be compensated to the tune of $100,000 each.
A second PFI prison?
The Israel Defence Force wants to transfer responsibility to the prison service for more than 3,500 Palestinian prisoners currently held in military prisons. In the meantime, the government has commissioned a feasibility study into the provision of a privately financed, designed, built and maintained military prison. It remains to be seen in what form this project proceeds.
The plot thickens
The government appears to be pushing ahead with privatisation (see PPRI #59 & 58). Enabling legislation has been passed and the tendering process for the prisoner escort service has begun. Two prisons have been closed with a view to changing their use and contracting out the management. The 150 year old Mountjoy prison in Dublin is to be closed and the prison service (IPS) has been asked to identify a greenfield site on the outskirts of the city so that a new prison can be built. When a site has been identified the IPS, in consultation with the government, will consider whether the state or a private developer should design and build the new facility. Although the government has not announced that the new prison will be privately run, in the current climate there is no guarantee that it will be publicly managed.
According to the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) the plan to close Loughan House and Shelton Abbey prisons and contract out the management of the facilities contradicts a commitment made in the Dáil by justice minister Michael McDowell. In October 2003 the minister told the Dáil, “I can state categorically that there is no plan in my department to privatise the prison service.” However, according to a government press release, Loughan House and Shelton Abbey will be replaced “with institutions on the same sites managed by entities independent of the Irish Prison Service who would run these centres as transition hostels for prisoners reaching the end of their sentences.” Two other prisons, The Curragh and Fort Mitchell are to close permanently.
Rick Lines, executive director of the IPRT said: “Since August, we have argued that minister McDowell is manufacturing a crisis within the prison service to push through an ideologically-driven pro-privatisation policy in the guise of a solution. These recent developments, and the suspiciously careful use of language being employed by the government in discussing its intentions vis-à-vis Loughan House and Shelton Abbey, have done nothing to alleviate that concern.”
IPRT requests under Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation for records of meetings between the government and private prison companies or consultants to discuss privatisation have failed to discover how the government’s plans have been developed. No records of any such meetings were divulged.
However, as far back as 7 and 8 February 2000, IPS officials met in England with representatives from Group 4 and Securicor to discuss prison escort services. Then, in March 2002 both companies made presentations to IPS officials “about the range of services they provide to the criminal justice system in the UK.”
This information was revealed on 19 February 2004 in an answer to a parliamentary question. Minister McDowell said that “the [2000] visits by the officials were not used to explore the contracting out of services ...[the purpose] was to examine how the Irish prison service could learn from other jurisdictions in dealing with the logistical task of transporting prisoners from prisons to courts and hospitals.” The minister’s explanation as to why no records of the meetings were released under the FOI request was that there were no written records. The 2002 presentation by Group 4 and Securicor was “purely an information gathering exercise. There was no follow up to this.”
Wackenhut/GEO interested
However, the FOI request did reveal that, following media reports of the government’s interest in privatisation, Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (as was) telephoned and wrote to Sean Aylward, director general of the IPS, on 11 November 2003. On 12 November 2003 Ron Champion, WCC’s vice president international services, also wrote to the minister, saying: “Should there be an occasion where you may be contemplating the advantages of Public Private Partnerships in corrections, WCC would welcome the opportunity to discuss with you and your staff our services in greater detail.” On 18 November 2003 the director general of the prison service replied to Mr Champion saying that “we will certainly keep your declaration of interest on file.”
Also on 18 November Mr Champion wrote again, this time to the minister’s appointments secretary: “ ... our company would appreciate the opportunity to meet with Minister McDowell at his earliest convenience. The purpose of the requested meeting would be twofold: 1) WCC to present its business credentials and discuss our experience as a world leader in the provision of secure prison management and prison escort services to governments; and 2) discuss how private companies have successfully assisted governments to introduce competition to the criminal justice system to enhance services and reduce costs.”
Parc racism report
The inability of the prison service and the management of Parc prison to stamp out racism at the Securicor-run facility between 1998 and 2000 has been documented by the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) in a report on racism in the prison service. The CRE’s investigation also included publicly run Brixton and Feltham prisons. Parc was initially inspected in February 2001and revisited in October 2001.
The CRE’s findings on Parc included:
* “... there was often little sign of a pro-active approach on the part of staff toward stopping racist behaviour.” For example, the CRE found a report on a black prisoner dated 11 March 2000 noting that he had applied for a transfer to a different jail: ‘He states that he is being driven to boiling point. That he can’t go to visits without racial abuse being shouted at him from A Block.’ The CRE also noted that the recommendations in the report contained no reference to dealing with the abuse. Instead, staff sought to get the black prisoner out of there.
* One member of staff said “the problem was we had no control at the time and that’s where we failed.”
* Racist graffiti was “ a persistent problem”.
* Regarding the use of racist films the CRE found that neither staff nor management sought “advice at [prison service] area or headquarters level.”
* One ethnic minority staff member who complained of racist treatment by a prisoner told the CRE that “it was a daily occurrence that people would call out names to me. They would just have a go at me and you can’t do anything about it. I actually told the manager and he told me it was probably the way I see the situation and that, if I found it difficult, I should find another job.”
* “Prison management accepted the likelihood of assault on prisoners on racial grounds ... and the prison would not have adequate staff available on landings to deal with trouble as it arose, making the prison an unsafe place for certain prisoners.”
* “That areas of the prison were not safe seemed to be taken for granted at Parc.”
* “Officers at ... Parc involved in investigating incidents and complaints did not receive proper training. No-one there involved ... appears to have had any such training until the beginning of 2001. One officer ... requested training but was refused on the grounds that their rank was too low.”
* “During our revisit in October 2001, the director told us there was ‘little or no evidence’ of racist graffiti. However a black prisoner told us of graffiti in the toilets of the amenity block ... saying it had been there for a week. We saw the graffiti for ourselves and informed the director. A follow up investigation required by the director was conducted in a highly unsatisfactory way.”
* When the CRE returned to Parc in October 2001 they also found that “the emphasis was on stopping expressions of racism rather than tackling the root of the problem in any systematic way.”
In a statement following the report’s publication in December 2003, Parc’s director of custody and rehabilitation said: “Today, Parc is a healthy and safe prison and we are firmly committed to maintaining positive race relations so that all prisoners and staff feel free from discrimination.”
Parc
opened in 1997 and has had a troubled history (see PPRI #56, 48, 44-42, 38, 34, 30, 29, 23 & 21-18).
Racial Equality in Prisons: A formal Investigation by the Commission for Racial Equality into HM Prison Service of England and Wales, Part 2, December 2003. www.cre.gov.uk.
Ashfield improves, but...
Ashfield prison and young offenders institution in south west England was described in February 2003 by the then director general of the prison service as “the worst” in England and Wales (see PPRI # 57, 53 & 47). However, by September 2003 the chief inspector of prisons found that the facility had improved.
But at the time of the inspection Serco-owned Premier was running the prison with a population of just 200 juveniles and 83 young adults and the chief inspector has recommended that the maximum should be 320 rather than the 400 that the prison is supposed to hold. She warned that, despite the improvements “neither the youth justice board nor the commissioner of correctional services should take this report as a green light to fill Ashfield to capacity with under-18s.” According to the chief inspector, any significant increase would be “fraught with risk”.
The
chief inspector also noted that “many of our recommendations [from the previous
inspection] had formed the basis for this significant improvement.” She added:
“but this report also comes with a strong caveat ... these improvements were
recent and still developing. Much work was needed to build on them,
particularly as the staff remained relatively young and inexperienced and staff
turnover, while slowing down, was still fairly high. No-one involved in
overseeing, resourcing or monitoring Ashfield should imagine that the task is
complete and support withdrawn.”
Report on A Full Announced Inspection of HM Prison/Young Offender Institution Ashfield, 22-26 September 2003, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, November 2003. www.homeoffice.gov.uk/justice/prisons/inspprisons/inspectionreports/a.html
Concerns about
private prisoner escort service
Before the Republic of Ireland prison service privatises its prisoner escort service based on the model used in England and Wales (see above) it might be worth taking a closer look at what goes on. In her recently published annual report the chief inspector of prisons for England and Wales, Anne Owers, said that court and escort problems and late arrivals in prison can compromise both safety and respect. “Local prisons often reported problems with late arrivals,” she noted.
In particular, inspections of facilities for juveniles revealed “...the inadequacy of escort arrangements for children and young people ... we found evidence of excessive journey times and lengthy waiting periods in court. At Feltham [a publicly run young offenders institution in west London] we analysed 67 prisoner escort records: this revealed that over half the young people had waited over six hours, in court cells or vans, between the conclusion of their court case and their arrival in Feltham, and one in 10 had spent over four hours in escort vans. As a result, many arrived late ...” While referring to these practices as “unacceptable” she also noted “the failure to provide comfort breaks during those journeys to the extent that young people are reduced to urinating in property bags. We had evidence of this at five of the seven establishments subject to full inspections. At Onley [publicly run], this degrading treatment was amplified by the fact that the contractors required the young people to clean the vans before leaving them.”
Annual Report of HM Inspectorate of Prisons for England and Wales 2002/2003, published January 2004. www.homeoffice.gov.uk/justice/prisons/inspprisons/annual.html
New escort service contracts
The restructuring of the prison escort and custody service for England and Wales from eight regions to four and the re-tendering of contracts has resulted in Serco-owned Premier Custodial Group Ltd being chosen as preferred bidder to deliver the service for London and South East England. Subject to satisfactory negotiations being completed the seven year contract worth over £300 million will start on 29 August 2004. With the award of this contract Premier claims that it will have some 25 per cent of the UK market. The contract for London is currently operated by Securicor.
Meanwhile, Reliance Secure Task Management Ltd has been appointed preferred bidder to operate the contract for South Wales and the West of England. The region is two and a half times larger than the area the company has covered for the last seven years. The company expects to triple the revenues it currently receives from this contract.
Profits and dividends
Companies are cashing in from the increasing privatisation of the UK’s criminal justice system. According to the most recent accounts filed, Bridgend Custodial Services Ltd, the Securicor subsidiary that runs Parc prison, paid a dividend of £2.43 million for the year ended 30 September 2002 (£2.28 million in 2001). Pre-tax profit was £3.4 million (£2.1 million in 2001) on turnover of £26.4 million.
Premier Custodial Group
(then still owned by Wackenhut and Serco) made a pre-tax profit of £9.98
million on turnover of £127.45 million for the year ended 31 December
2002. A £2.11 million dividend was paid
to shareholders in June 2002 (£4 million in 2001).
UK Detention Services Ltd (UKDS) made a pre-tax profit of £2.27 million on turnover of £26.5 million for the year ended 31 August 2002 and the company proposed a dividend of £1.68 million. The company’s operations were Forest Bank prison and Harmondsworth immigration detention centre. Turnover included £13.6 million for Forest Bank and £12.18 million for Harmondsworth. UKDS directors’ emoluments - including pension contributions - for the year were £437,550. UKDS is owned by Sodexho of France.
Peterborough Prison Management Ltd’s (PPML) business is the finance, design, construction and management of the new prison in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, for which UKDS will be the operator. The contract was signed in February 2003 and the prison is due to open in 2005. The company’s accounts for the period ended 31 March 2003 show that PPML did not trade, there was no income and expenditure and no profit or loss. However, the accounts show that The Royal Bank of Scotland Plc is financing the project to the tune of £10.87 million and has received £1.35 million in advisory fees. Both UKDS and Interserve Investments Plc received £250,000 for advisory services. PPML’s immediate parent company is Peterborough Prison Management Holdings Ltd which, in turn, is owned equally by Sodexho Investment Services Ltd, Interserve PFI Holdings Ltd and Royal Bank Project investments Ltd.
Reliance Secure Task Management Ltd, part of Reliance Security Group plc, “developed substantially on all fronts” in the year ended 25 April 2003. The company’s chairman, Sir Neville Purvis, also stated that the company “is now a leading provider of outsourced business processes in the criminal justice sector ... playing a substantial role in the provision of ‘near to core’ support services to the police, the prison, the probation services and the courts.” The company’s pre-tax profit rose by 122% to £1.82 million for the year (£819,000 in 2002) while turnover increased by 80% to £33.89 million (£18.68 million in 2002). The company was formerly known as Reliance Custodial Services Ltd
According to its annual report for the year ended 31 December 2002 Group 4 Falck Global Solutions Ltd’s (GSL) pre-tax profits from UK operations included:
* Fazakerley Prison Services Ltd - £2.5m (Altcourse prison)
* Onley Prison Services Ltd - £0.4m (Rye Hill prison)
* ECD Cookham Wood Ltd £0.5m (Medway Secure Training Centre)
* ECD (Onley) Ltd - £0.2m (Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre)
Scotland: calls for prison takeover
“The quicker this contract is terminated and the prison brought into the public sector the better.” This was Scottish Nationalist MSP Alex Neil’s comment to the Evening Times following the publication of a report on Premier Prisons-run Kilmarnock prison by Scotland’s chief inspector of prisons (see PPRI # 56, 55, 52, 51, 49-47, 44, 43, 40, 37 & 36).
The chief inspector carried out a follow-up inspection to his predecessor’s visit and critical report in 2002. While stating that this report “should not be seen as an attempt to inspect the whole life of the prison” he said a key issue was that “staff turnover continues to be very high compared to SPS [Scottish prison service], having increased since the last inspection report to a rate of 18.6% (from 14%) per annum. Nursing continues to be a particular area of concern.”
“Both staff and prisoners indicated that it was not unusual for wing staff to leave the wing ... with two staff per wing this can mean there may only be one member of staff left, and it is not unusual for both members of staff to be out ... there can be occasions when prisoners have no direct officer supervision.” He noted that: “staff and prisoners also raised the issue of newly trained staff being deployed to wing duties on completion of training and being left to their own devices.”
Since the last full inspection there was “a decrease in fear of prisoner-on-prisoner violence” and that “it may be too early to say with clarity, but there are signs the poor provision for programmes for addressing offending behaviour is becoming better.” However, “the area of the prison which is perhaps least effective is the provision made for remand prisoners.” Other concerns include:
* the listener scheme is not working well;
* there appears to be a higher number of prescriptions for anti-psychotic drugs than one would expect;
* there is a gap in mental health care provision;
* the patchy nature of sentence management means that fully integrated plans are not being made and followed;
* most of the work available to prisoners is manual and repetitive ... it does little to enhance the possibility of obtaining skills and qualifications.
Meanwhile, shadow justice minister Nicola Sturgeon said that “Kilmarnock remains a troubled prison blighted by drugs and violence. Despite this, the Executive seems determined to build more private prisons styled on Kilmarnock. They are trapped in their dogmatic insistence on privatisation and need to give up their Tory agenda if they are ever to truly improve Scotland’s prisons.”
HM Inspectorate of Prisons, HMP Kilmarnock, Inspection:13-14 August 2003, Scottish Executive.
* A fatal accident inquiry has been ordered into the death of prisoner Stewart Williams who died in hospital after being transferred from the prison on 23 January 2004.
* The Sheriff has still not published his findings of the fatal accident inquiry at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court following into the death of prisoner James Barclay at Kilmarnock prison in January 2003 (see PPRI # 56, 55, 52, 51 & 49-47).
No to a private prison
Residents do not want a 700-bed prison to be built near Addiewell, West Lothian in Scotland. “The majority of villagers here don’t want a prison, whether it’s run by the private sector, the Scottish Prison Service or Martians,” said Bart Smit of the Stop the Prison Campaign. “But the small percentage who grudgingly accept we should get a prison will be against it if it’s going to be private. They think it’s morally reprehensible that a private company should make money out of people’s misery,” he told the Scotsman in January.
The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) is planning two new prisons, at least one of which will be private (see PPRI # 56, 55, 52, 51, 49-47, 44, 43, 40, 37 & 36). The public sector will be allowed to bid for one contract but only if they can put together what the SPS calls “an effective package.”
Bush budget
boosts private sector
President Bush’s 2005 federal budget halts the construction of new prisons by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and provides funding for 4,500 additional contract beds. As the budget document states: “BOP’s total prison population increased by 10 per cent between 2002 and 2003 but its contract population remained largely static. The 2005 request is intended to help reverse this trend. The 2005 budget places a moratorium on new prison construction while promoting more aggressive BOP contracting with state, local and private sector providers.”
In addition the Budget urges the department of justice to examine the use of “up to $150 million” in prior year balances to contract out housing for low and minimum security prisoners. The BOP currently holds over 174,000 prisoners of which nearly 27,000 are in contract beds.
All systems
GEO
The GEO Group Inc. (formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corporation) increased its revenue for 2003 to $617 million from $569 million in 2002. Average occupancy rates increased to 100% from 97% in 2002. It made an after-tax gain of some $32.7 million from the sale of its joint venture operations in the UK for $80.7 million in the third quarter of 2003. Other write-offs included the $1.2 million cost of refinancing its former senior credit facility and $1.8 million for transition costs related to handing over its immigration detention centre contract in Australia (see PPRI # 57-55, 52, 51, 49, 46-44 & 42-36).
CCA’s happy
stockholders
Corrections Corporation of America doubled its net income available to common stockholders for the financial quarter ended 31 December 2003. Some $24.5 million was generated compared to $12.2 million for the same quarter of 2002. For the year ended 31 December 2003 net income available to common stock holders was $126.5 million. Average compensated occupancy for continuing operations improved to 92.9% cent from 89.1 % in 2002. Facility operating margins increased to 25.7 % from 23.3 % in 2002.
The company is the largest in the US, operating 64 facilities, 38 of which are company owned. The total design capacity of its facilities is 65,000 beds.
Group 4 merges with Securicor : GEO to buy GSL?
Ownership of the world’s private corrections industry is taking another twist. Denmark-based Group 4 Falck is merging with British firm Securicor. Both are multinational security service corporations.
In 2002 Group 4 bought the US security firm The Wackenhut Corporation which owned 57 per cent of Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (WCC). In 2003 WCC bought back Group 4’s stake and sold its 50 per cent stake in UK firm Premier Custodial Group to Serco (see PPRI # 57-55, 50, 49, 47 & 44).
Although the new company, to be known as Group 4 Securicor plc, will run Securicor’s existing corrections business, Group 4's own correctional services operations including prisons in the UK, Australia and South Africa; immigration detention centres in the UK and Australia; prisoner escort services in the UK; and other public service contracts operated by the Global Solutions (GSL) division are being sold off ahead of the merger. Group 4's concern is that a merger of the two companies’ corrections businesses would fall foul of the British government’s competition commission.
While Serco has announced it is not interested in buying GSL, it is no surprise that The GEO Group has made an offer. However, analysts consider it a low bid at £200 million ($365 million). The former Wackenhut company still operates prisons in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa and is keen to get back into the UK market. As Jim Macdonald of Chicago based First Analysis Securities said in August 2003, “They plan to acquire something. We know they want to go back to the UK,” (see PPRI #57).
Securicor operates one prison in Wales and is in the process of developing an 80 bed secure training centre for children in England. It also has prisoner escort, electronic monitoring and police custody contracts. In the US, Securicor subsidiaries operate juvenile facilities and electronic monitoring services. Its Cognisa subsidiary’s mission is “to become a leading provider of security and transportation solutions in the North American market.”
Promoting Public Private Partnerships
The promotion of privately financed infrastructure continues apace. With the EC due to be enlarged in May 2004 a number of international conferences aimed at expanding the private criminal justice sector are being organised by SMi in the coming months (see PPRI #54).
In Berlin, part of the ‘Private Finance & PPP/PFI in Germany’ conference will discuss opportunities for private finance in the prison service as well as how to avoid problems with EU procurement rules in PPP contracts. London will be the venue for ‘Private Finance in the Criminal Justice System’ a conference that will focus on prisons, courts and police services, including case studies from the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary and South Africa. Attendees will also hear an international market update and how to overcome legal issues relating to the use of PPP for prisons, particularly the barriers to PPP prisons in many European countries. In Budapest ‘Private Finance in the new EU Member States’ will also discuss prisons.
ICPA and partnerships
The need to establish strong and constructive public/private partnerships was a key theme that came out of the recent conference of the International Corrections and Prisons Association for the Advancement of Professional Corrections (ICPA, see PPRI # 48).
A panel discussion on the issue was put together by ICPA board member Stephen Carter of Carter Goble Lee (CGL, see PPRI # 48). CGL has a 30 year record of involvement in corrections in the US and has also had a hand in private prisons in the UK, Australia and South Africa. The company recently carried out a privatisation feasibility analysis for the government of Peru. Group 4 recently sold its interest in CGL.
The ICPA conference sponsors included CGL, Group 4, Securicor, UK Detention Services Ltd, Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (as was), CM Security group Inc, Elmo Tech Ltd and CAYA Management Consulting International Inc.
ENDS
Prison Privatisation
Report International
Public Services
International Research Unit (PSIRU)
Business School,
University of Greenwich
Park Row, London SE10
9LS, England
Internet:
www.psiru.org/justice
Email: Stephen Nathan, stephennathan@compuserve.com