CONTENTS

Australia

New Zealand

United Kingdom

United States

Corporate Watch

 

Two thousand UK jobs under threat

A scheme to privatise support services for 130 prisons  and Prison Service headquarters in England and Wales threatens 2,510 jobs. Those affected are 2,250 administrative and 260 information technology staff. If implemented, Project Quantum, as the Prison Service has labelled the scheme, will be the largest transfer of Prison Service jobs to the private sector so far.

 A draft prospectus for contracting out £150m worth of business services says that Prison Service headquarters buildings, parts of buildings and staff could be handed over to the private sector. The successful bidder (or bidders) for contracts would collect, analyse and distribute information about prisoners, including their possessions, finances and basic medical records. Prison Service finance, personnel and information technology services will also be privatised. Ten year contracts are being offered.

Around 100 companies have already expressed an interest in bidding, including the existing private prison operators as well as telecommunications and information technology specialists. The Prison Service hopes to cut  costs by 30 per cent, reduce ‘headcount’ and improve its information systems. The administration of prison medical services and prison shops may also be included in the package on offer but services to prisoners by uniformed staff and prison farms and industries are excluded for now.

Staff have not been consulted about the scheme. Trade unions are concerned about the  jobs but also fear that  privatising  essential  services will undermine security and control. They also say that a £9m telecommunications contract recently awarded to Racal sets a poor precedent. It will cost prisons £50,000 a year more for equipment too sophisticated for their needs. Funding the increased costs will mean cuts elsewhere in prison regimes.

 

AUSTRALIA

 

Damages won in Queensland

 A prison officer formerly employed by Australasian Correctional Management (Wackenhut) at the high security Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre at Wacol, near Brisbane, has been awarded A$257,000 in damages for post-traumatic stress disorder arising from incidents at the jail in 1992 and 1993. As a prison officer Lloyd Jarvis witnessed three attempted suicides, two by hanging and one where a prisoner had slashed his throat and wrists. Mr Jarvis complained to the court that he was not given information to assist him with practical problems he faced, in particular, attempted suicides. He was not offered counselling or other advice or assistance by the company after the incidents. He simply returned to his duties.

In July 1996, a District Court judge found that ACM had breached its duty of care by failing to take reasonable care for Mr Jarvis' safety. Justice Anthony Healy QC said that the way ACM ran the jail upset the prisoners to the extent that it exposed prison officers to unsafe working conditions. He also said that ACM had been aware there were potential problems which could affect prison officer safety and what was needed to deal with them. "They did not attempt to introduce a system which would have safeguarded [Jarvis] against the injury which he in fact suffered," said the judge. Mr Jarvis was employed at the jail from May 1992 to May 1993. His award is  the highest in Queensland for stress but it could yet be appealed.  

n The facility  opened in June 1992 and had a difficult early history: within a year ACM had to change its management team. Between November 1992 and October 1994 there were five deaths in custody, riots, fires, beatings and a pack rape. ACM has since implemented a suicide prevention programme at the prison.

Queensland evaluates

The coalition government has announced that no policy decisions about future prison privatisation will be taken until an independent cost-benefit and performance analysis has been made of private and state run prisons.

 

South Australia threatens

The state government has threatened that the management of Yatala Labor prison will be privatised unless cuts in staffing levels are accepted by the trade union. Both Yatala and the Adelaide Remand Centre had exceeded their budgets for the current financial year. The running costs of South Australia's first privatised jail, the Mount Gambier which is run by Group 4, are being used as the new benchmark for the state run jails. Earlier this year, a government review calculated that a new jail will have to be built in Adelaide within four years to cope with an increasing prisoner population. It is expected to have around 600 places and be privately built and run.

 

 

NEW ZEALAND

 

Setback in Auckland

None of the companies bidding for a contract to finance, design, build and run a proposed 275 place remand prison in Auckland have met the government's requirements. The tender has been withdrawn and will be re-let in two stages: first, design and build and then the management of the facility. The government hopes that the contract for the design and build phase will be signed by July 1997.

 

 

UNITED KINGDOM

Group 4's  domination

With the announcement in July 1996 that the company had won preferred bidder status for two new contracts, Group 4, a subsidiary of Netherlands Antilles-registered Group 4 Securitas NV, continued its domination of  privatised prison services in England and Wales. In addition to managing two prisons, Group 4 companies are involved in: a finance, design, build and manage contract for another prison; running three prisoner escort contracts; and managing two immigration detention centres. Group 4's Rebound ecd Ltd is likely to be awarded two 15 year contracts to finance, design, build and run secure training centres for 12-14 year old offenders.  

Its closest rival in the UK is the Wackenhut/Serco joint venture Premier Prison Services Ltd, which now has two prison contracts and two prisoner escort contracts. Wackenhut UK Ltd now also runs an immigration detention centre at Gatwick airport. The other major player is Securicor which has one prison contract, runs one regional prisoner escort service and two electronic tagging schemes.

n Group 4's Rebound ecd Ltd has no connection with Rebound Inc. of Denver, Colorado, a US company providing private education and other services to young offenders.

 

 

Problems at Buckley Hall

Group 4 has experienced difficulties with its second prison management contract, at Buckley Hall prison in Rochdale, north west England. The prison, which opened in December 1994, has come under fire from the local member of parliament who has called for a public inquiry following a spate of security lapses. In June 1996, the Home Office-appointed Board of Visitors at the prison published its annual report for the year ended 31 December 1995. While noting that the staff were dedicated, setting themselves a high standard and rarely falling short of it and that the health needs of prisoners were met in a competent manner, the Board raised a number of concerns.  These included:

n prisoner custody officers felt there should be more staff;

n staff complained that management failed to communicate its views and intentions in a satisfactory manner and unit managers had left PCOs in the units without anyone being put in charge;

n staff felt that their efforts and hard work had not been adequately recognised;

n the role of unit supervisor, whereby one staff member works alone with up to 50 prisoners on a unit was stressful;

n there were times when prisoners had felt that answers to their problems were not communicated properly;

n a lot more effort was required with regard to grievance procedures both on the formal and informal applications made to the management;

n a lack of protective clothing left prisoners with no alternative but to work in  kitchen and dining areas in their own clothes which sustained damage. Insufficient gratia payments were offered;

n the standard of food (sub-contracted to ARAMARK) at various times had declined and the needs of prisoners on approved medical or religious diets had caused  discontent.

The Board concluded however, that "a lot of work and effort have gone into this first year ... there is still a long way ahead before it can be accepted that the prison is working smoothly and efficiently ... we have every confidence in the ability of the staff ... to introduce and uphold a more active regime, without sacrificing their caring and concerned approach - an approach which has held up to scrutiny and comparison between some other establishments."

The Prison Reform Trust’s report ‘Buckley Hall:The first eighteen months’ is available, price £4.50.

 

 

UNITED STATES

Big in New Mexico

Building firm Brown & Root of Houston, Texas is constructing the largest private prison in the world to date and Wackenhut Corrections Corp. will run it. The state of New Mexico has awarded the companies contracts to finance, design, build and run a 2,200 place prison at Hobbs and a 1,200 place prison at Santa Rosa. Wackenhut won the contracts with a proposal for considerably fewer employees than other bidders. The original request for proposals called for companies to provide college teachers and weightlifting facilities. Now the state corrections department has decided that college courses will not be available at the prisons as it believes that high school diplomas are enough to make a prisoner "sufficiently marketable to maintain a job". Weightlifting equipment will also not be provided as the state governor argues that prison should not be "a health club." The governor is claiming that the two private prisons will be 60 per cent cheaper than the state's own jails.

 

Esmor changes name

Esmor Corrections Corporation, the Florida-based company which made private corrections history in July 1995 with what Federal officials called the “worst disturbance ever” at a privately run immigration centre in New Jersey, changed its name on 28 July 1996 to Correctional Services Corporation. The INS, which was also criticised for poor oversight of the facility, cancelled Esmor's contract. But the company recouped $6.2m by selling it on to Corrections Corporation of America.  CSC still runs another INS facility in Seattle and 12 other facilities in New York, Texas, Arizona and Florida. Since the problems at New Jersey , the company has examined all its operations to reduce the possibility of any future incidents. According to the company, an ethics and compliance officer has been appointed to “continually instil our principles” to all employees as  “the commitment to excellence is something which has become ingrained in our operating philosophy.”

 

Revolving door

In July 1996, Charles Jones, formerly first vice-president of a Dallas investment banking firm,  joined Wackenhut Corrections Corp. as vice president for business development. He will  be  useful as he assisted the states of Texas, Florida and Virginia in developing and implementing their strategies for privatised corrections.

n In June, the state of Virginia awarded Wackenhut a contract to design, construct and manage a 1,000 place prison in Charlotte County.

Going global

 According to Prudential Securities Inc. the private management of prisons, jails, detention centres and ultimately the full spectrum of corrections services could be “a worldwide movement.” The analysts believe that contacts with Wackenhut Corrections Corp. and visits to Wackenhut-run facilities  by  representatives from Panama, Mexico and Argentina “translates into a still unquantifiable but apparently huge potential global market for prison management services.”

 

 

CORPORATE WATCH

 

Youth Services International

    Private provision of services for young offenders is a growing business in the US, and as one corrections industry analyst reported recently "crime can pay". As a result, the analyst suggested that the most experienced and best capitalised companies involved in the "schoolhouse to jailhouse" spectrum will win the largest percentage of future business.  Youth Services International (YSI) Inc. is one of the fastest growing companies in the US. Mr Timothy Cole resigned as chairman of the board of Wackenhut Corrections Corp. on 3 August 1996 in order to join YSI.

The company was started in 1991 by Jim Hindman, an acknowledged former child delinquent. By the 1970s, at the age of 35, he was a millionaire running a chain of private nursing homes. He then made - and lost - another fortune by starting Jiffy Lube, the famous American 'quick oil change' franchise. He sold this in 1989 after the company had defaulted on loans of more than $69 million, but Hindman himself still came out with $2 million.  His next venture materialised when he realised the potential from juvenile crime figures in the US and the amount of money spent on youth rehabilitation programmes - about $3 billion a year at federal, state and municipal levels.

YSI now manages or operates 19 residential and community based programmes, including boot camps, in 12 states. It was a failed bidder for New Brunswick's Miramichi young offenders facility in 1995. It is expanding by acquiring companies with existing contracts and in June 1996 YSI acquired Three Springs Inc, which runs outdoor adventure programmes and residential treatment centres for over 500 young people. It also has joint ventures with non-profit agencies which provide "greater program contribution margins".  

In Maryland, the company runs two contracts for the state: the Victor Cullen Academy in Frederick County and Charles H. Hickey Jnr. school in Baltimore County. At the latter, a facility for hard core delinquents, the company ran into trouble after it took over a contract worth $49 million a year for the first three years of a five year contract. YSI was accused by teachers and other former staff of cutting corners on schooling, job training and supplies. The company claimed, however, that it put a stop to escapes and kept recidivism rates down to about 20 per cent in an atmosphere referred to as a 'positive peer culture'.

On 5 June 1995 seven juveniles escaped from YSI's care while they were being driven by bus across the 300 acre Charles Hickey School campus to church. The escapees threw pepper in the face of the bus driver and three youth counsellors. Some of the 41 other juveniles had to be treated for minor injuries after the bus crashed.  It was the second escape from YSI custody. The first took place in July 1994 during the first week of the company's contract.  YSI won the contract after the previous contractor, Rebound Corp of Denver, Colorado, was fired from its three year $50 million a year contract for allowing too many escapes.

In November 1994 a school counsellor was raped by an inmate at the school's sex offender unit after she had been left alone with the young man.  Under the terms of the contract, staff should not have been left alone with a known sex offender. The school's operating guideline stated that an inmate should be locked in his room until a second staff member was present.  At the time of the incident the company only had four staff members supervising the sex offenders; the contract stipulated five. As a result of the incident, the company fired the unit's senior staff member and promised in house and independent reviews of security procedures.

In 1995, YSI commissioned a survey of 863 out of over 1,400 former students; 86 per cent felt that, one year after leaving, YSI's programmes had been beneficial and 87 per cent had stayed out of the courts.