No. 42 August 2001 ISSN 1363-9552
Prison Privatisation Report International
Published in London by the Prison Reform Trust
IN THIS ISSUE
State not
responsible for detainees
A High Court judge has ruled
that, once the management of an immigration detention centre has been
contracted out, the government cannot be
held responsible for any wrongdoing suffered by a detainee at the hands of the
contractor.
The judge ruled that the state’s duty to ensure the
safety and well-being of detainees in an immigration detention centre was
delegated to the contractor along with other management and operational duties.
The judge also stated that this applied anywhere that
a person was detained under the immigration act, including a police station,
hospital, prison or remand centre or, in the case of a person under the age of
17, any place of safety.
There are concerns that, until challenged, the ruling
has implications for detainees and prisoners held in all privately run
facilities and transported by private escort companies.
The case substantiates the argument that
privatisation undermines public
accountability.
The case of John Quaquah
John Quaquah is a former detainee at Campsfield
House, Oxfordshire, an immigration detention centre operated by Group 4 (see PPRI # 22).
In August 1999 he issued legal proceedings against
Group 4 and the home secretary for England and Wales claiming damages for
malicious prosecution.
Mr Quaquah and eight other detainees had been
prosecuted in 1998 on charges arising from a disturbance at Campsfield House in
1997.
The prosecution of
the detainees was dependant upon evidence provided by Group 4 staff.
But Mr Quaquah and his co-defendants were acquitted of all charges.
Mr Quaquah then sued the government and the company
on the grounds that the original allegations against him were untrue and that
Group 4 staff had made the allegations dishonestly.
In a ruling handed down on 23 May 2001, the judge
dismissed Mr Quaquah’s claim against the home secretary but stated that action
against Group 4 was open to Mr Quaquah.
Mr Quaquah’s lawyers are considering the options.
Group 4 staff gave conflicting evidence
The prosecution of Mr Quaquah and eight other
detainees at Oxford Crown Court in June 1998 collapsed
after video surveillance
footage exposed the unreliability of the evidence of Group 4 officers (see PPRI # 22).
n None of the prosecution
witnesses were able to identify any of the defendants.
n Staff claimed that the defendants had conspired to incite a riot by circulating rumours that two detainees had been strangled. In court, a Group 4 supervisor, John Allen, denied that his staff had held anyone by the neck.
But video footage showed Mr Allen dragging a detainee by the neck, in front of
other detainees.
n Detainees were said to have
gone on the rampage, armed with batons, destroying property and throwing
missiles at staff.
Group 4 officer, Mo Stone, eventually admitted that
two officers had smashed telephones in the women’s section to prevent detainees
from contacting the outside world.
n Chris Barry, a detention
escort officer, claimed that one of the detainees had assaulted him causing to
fall unconscious. He also claimed that his shirt had been ripped and solvent
thrown over him.
Video footage showed the officer five minutes after
the alleged attack . He was on the roof, fit, healthy and with his uniform intact.
The prosecution eventually admitted defeat, saying
that “no prosecution properly conducted could or should invite a jury to
convict on the basis of this evidence.”
Refinancing under scrutiny
Governments
considering using the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) as a means of procuring
new prisons, courts and/or police complexes should be aware that, aside from
any other deficiencies associated with this strategy, poorly drafted contracts
allow companies to refinance loans to create windfalls for shareholders while
taxpayers continue to foot the bill.
In the UK, the case
of Group 4 and Carillion shareholders’ £10.7m windfall (see PPRI #36) has recently been the subject
of a radio programme and a House of Commons Select Committee hearing.
On 12 June 2001,
the BBC Radio 4 programme File on 4
investigated the use of the PFI for public services. Set out below is an
extract from the programme which dealt with how the consortium legally
exploited their contract for HMP Altcourse.
Reporter:
The chief inspector of prisons
calls the facilities and regime here in Fazakerley a jewel in the crown, the
best local prison he’s seen.
It’s an early success for the private finance
initiative, which is now hailed as a model for other jails, and, by extension, other
parts of the public sector. If the
market can work such magic here, it’s argued, let’s set it loose to manage
other vital institutions, in particular schools and hospitals, whose reform was
the main promise of Labour’s victory.
But this enthusiasm has been somewhat dimmed by a
concern over the way the Fazakerley project has been financed. The prison contract is worth £247 million, to
be paid from public funds over 25 years.
For its part, the PFI consortium, led by Group 4, raised money to build and
now manage the prison by dipping into its own capital and finding financial
backers in the City. This was coordinated by one of the directors, David Banks.
David Banks:
This project was a pioneering
project, and at the outset we found a reluctance on the part of the financial
sector to invest in the project. It was
something new for them. The project
proved to be very successful. It opened
five months early, and the regime got established very quickly. The appetite of the financial markets
improved significantly throughout those early years.
Reporter:
And by good luck, this
happened at a time when interest rates generally were tumbling. David Banks was able to see the substantial
loans refinanced. Within two years of
the prison opening, it was, in effect, remortgaged over a longer period at a
fixed, lower rate, saving a total of £10.7 million. But payments to the PFI contractor from the
public purse continue to flow at the level set in the contract.
So the £10.7
million became a windfall. Whose money did you think that was?
David Banks:
We entered into some
discussions with the prison service. In
the line of the contract there were certain additional risks that were taken on
by the prison service as a result of the refinancing - in particular, the
increased tenor of the loan, the increased term of the loan. And we negotiated with the prison service to
share the benefits associated with that, and were able to return some money to
the prison service which wasn’t anticipated when the initial contract was
signed.
Reporter:
They had to twist your arm
quite a bit to get it up to a million, didn’t they?
David Banks:
We negotiated fairly hard,
and, yes, they had advisors and struck
quite a hard bargain, yes.
Reporter
And you didn’t shortchange the
public purse?
David Banks:
No, the public purse gained by
a million pounds over and above what it expected to achieve and over and above
what was anticipated at the time the contract was signed.
Reporter:
And you gained 9.7 million.
David Banks:
Yes, we did.
Reporter:
And that’s clearly the bulk of
the windfall.
David Banks:
Yes, it is the bulk of the
benefits that actually came out of refinancing, and, indeed, reflects the risks
that we took on board when we entered into the contract.
Reporter:
This kind of financial
manoeuvre is standard practice in commerce, but the prison service had
apparently failed to foresee it and had not specified in the Fazakerley
contract how any windfall should be shared.
In fact, even the deal to return £1 million carried strings. Not only did the prison service take on some
added risk itself, but the contractors were also forgiven half a million they
owed in penalty payments.
A report from the National Audit Office politely
implies that the civil service was caught napping. There was, it says, only marginal value for
money in the PFI contract to start with, a saving of one million out of 247
million; and now, this substantial windfall had gone almost wholly to the
private sector. Other companies, it
said, would find a strong incentive to follow suit.
To Peter Robinson, senior economist of the New Labour
think-tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, the Fazakerley case
stands as a warning of the vulnerability of the public sector in matching its
wits against commercial negotiators.
Peter Robinson:
The Fazakerley outcome does
give an impression to people that somehow the taxpayer has been ripped off in
some way. It would have been far
preferable had the public sector been able to construct a contract that made
sure that it could have had a share of these extra gains. And in practice, in the future, any public
authority that didn’t construct a contract that made sure it could get a share
of the gains, that public authority would be very negligent.
Reporter:
And if on that particular
contract the public felt fleeced, would the public be right?
Peter Robinson:
I think the public might be
right to be a little peeved with the prison service for not having designed a
better contract. But it’s important that
the criticism is made of the prison service rather than the company involved,
because the company itself was doing nothing wrong.
Reporter:
Well, when you say “a little
peeved,” it’s £9.7 million peeved.
Peter Robinson:
The amount of money that was made from the refinancing deal sounds like a great deal, and so, yes, one can see why the taxpayer might feel rather peeved about this. But the blame lies with the prison service for not having designed a better contract.
Commons Committee report
On 4 July 2001 the House of Commons Select Committee
on Public Accounts published its report on the refinancing of the Fazakerley
(HMP Altcourse) PFI prison contract.
Amongst the committee’s conclusions was that Fazakerley Prison
Services Ltd (FPSL, Group 4/Carillion)
shareholders greatly improved returns and decreased their risk, whereas the
prison service obtained no more than compensation for taking on increased risk.
The Committee also noted that “the profile of these
cashflows concerned us as it appears that, under the new financing
arrangements, the shareholder returns go down quite sharply after 2012, just
when operating costs are beginning to rise and at the same time as the increase
to the prison service’s termination liabilities is at a maximum.
There is also the prospect of further debt payments
after 2015 because the debt repayment period has been extended. This could give
an incentive to FPSL to under-perform so that the prison service might wish to
terminate the contract at a time when it would face maximum financial risk from
so doing.”
House of Commons Select Committee on Public Accounts, Thirteenth Report, Session 2000-2001.
Bonus for Bridgend shareholders
Bridgend Custodial Services Ltd
declared a £1.62m dividend for its shareholders in the financial year ended 30
September 2000.
This is the first for the consortium that financed, designed, built and operates HM Prison Parc at Bridgend in Wales (see PPRI # 38, 34, 30,29, 23, and 21-18).
Revenues for the
year were £23.9m (£22.6m in 1999). Operating profit was £10.1m and the company
also earned £0.5m in interest.
But after paying £10m in interest on its bank loans
and other debt, it made a pre tax profit of £0.6m (£1.7m in 1999).
Wackenhut’s UK winnings
Wackenhut Corrections Corporation, which has a 50 per
cent interest in the UK based Premier Custodial Group, made profits after tax
of $8.98m from revenues of $139.1m from its UK operations in the financial year
ended 31 December 2000.
The company gained $0.6m from the sale of
approximately one half of the company’s loans to overseas affiliates according
to its annual report for the financial year ended 31 December 2000. This
compares to a gain of $2.6m in 1999.
n Premier Custodial Group has
refinanced its debt for Hassockfield Secure Training Centre (see PPRI # 40). The amount that the company
made has not yet been disclosed.
n HMP Dovegate in
Staffordshire, North West England, is the latest Premier Custodial Group prison
to open in the UK. It has 600 minimum security beds for adult males and a 200 bed therapeutic community facility.
From prisons to schools
Companies involved in the finance, design, construction
and operation of prisons and immigration detention centres in the UK are
expanding their horizons to take advantage of the government’s plan for more
private sector involvement in the education system.
n Group 4 is involved in
Ensign, a joint venture with the Tribal Group. Ensign bids for contracts to
intervene in poorly performing local authorities. It has a subsidiary, PPI,
which inspects schools on behalf of education watchdog Ofsted.
The Guardian,
26 June 2001, reported that Ensign withdrew its bid for the education contract
in the London Borough of Waltham Forest after allegedly offering payments of
£5,000 if the bid was successful to two consultants working for PPI which had been hired to provide
management support to Waltham Forest. An internal council audit concluded that
the payments could have been seen as ‘irregular’. Tribal refuted any claim of
impropriety.
n Serco is Wackenhut’s joint
venture partner in Premier Custodial Group. Through its acquisition of QAA, the
company now has consultancy contracts with Walsall and Bradford authorities.
n WS Atkins is a joint venture
partner with Securicor in Bridgend prison in Wales. It has a £140m, five year
contract to run most of the London Borough of Southwark’s education authority.
CCG
spans the world
The prison service’s Contracts and Competition Group
(CCG) oversees the development and operation of private prisons in England and
Wales. Its brief also includes disseminating information.
Although the CCG does not market its expertise abroad, the contacts it has with foreign prison ministers and officials are a useful barometer of international interest in prison privatisation.
In the last year or so there has been contact with
representatives from Australia (Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland),
Bolivia, Canada (Ontario), Chile, France, Germany (Bavaria), Hong Kong, Israel,
Italy, Netherlands, Poland and the
Republic of Ireland.
The CCG has also been heavily involved in the development of the two private prisons in South Africa, particularly in the training of contract monitors.
Global push for private finance
Flaws in the use of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI/public private partnerships) are increasingly coming to light in the UK. But banks, consultants and companies with a vested interest in securing public sector contracts and/or advising governments to privatise are participating in a global push to promote the PFI.
So far, prisons in the UK, Australia and South Africa
have been procured in this way. The UK
also has PFI schemes for courts and police stations. Australia has one
PFI court scheme so far. Argentina is including prisons in its PFI programme.
As an indication of the African market’s importance,
last December Cape Town hosted a Public Private Partnerships/Private Finance
Initiative global summit.
At the Cape Town summit, South Africa’s minister of
finance Trevor Manuel said: “... if we are to reduce our dependence on debt as
a source of finance for public sector capital formation, we have to engage
formally and contractually with private sector partners or investors.”
Missing from his analysis however, was that a
contract to pay a consortium every month for 25 years is nothing if it is not a
debt.
Meanwhile,
next September, at Windhoek,
Group 4 will be capitalising on its first prison contract in South
Africa and negotiations in Lesotho by making a presentation at the CESCA
conference of heads of correctional services from southern, central and eastern
Africa.
Cashing in
Last June in London, the £1,500 per head three day
event Debt & Equity Financing for PPP/PFI Projects was billed as ‘the only event this year that will provide
... the latest developments, opinions and trends in this market.’
Robin Herzberg, concessions director of construction
firm Carillion gave a presentation on the controversial refinancing of HMP
Altcourse (see page 2).
Other presenters included Bank of America, UBS
Warburg, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Deutsche Bank and the European Investment
Bank as well as speakers from the UK’s official independent financial watchdog,
the National Audit Office.
On 15 August 2001, via a video link from London, the
head of the Contracts and Competition Group of the prison service for England
and Wales, David Kent, will tell a
conference in Melbourne how the UK
prison system is an example of a successful PPP that has improved the quality
and cost effectiveness of public services and ‘delivers a complete solution.’
The event
‘Public Private Partnerships: moving from policy to practice to profit’
is designed to ‘safeguard your investment and increase profitability’.
It will cost A$3,738.90 to attend the conference and
workshops.
Meanwhile, Peter Ryan, head of private finance policy
and projects at the UK Treasury’s office of government commerce will explain
how elements of the UK model could translate to the Australian context.
The event’s Gold Sponsor is KPMG whose head of PFI, Dr Timothy Stone, will be providing ‘expert commentary’ on the key to successful PPPs.
Middle East
In September Dubai will be hosting a three day event
where, the brochure boasts, ‘for the
first time, the world’s foremost PPP experts are gathering in the Middle East
to focus on the Middle East!’
The supporting partners include Partnerships UK
(PUK), Trade Partners UK, and International Financial Services London (IFSL).
Adrian Montague, deputy chairman of PUK and senior
international advisor to Société Générale
states that the event will be ‘an unparalleled source of hard information
on PPPs in the Middle East in the energy, environmental, transport, social
infrastructure, defence and accommodation sectors’ and will provide the
opportunity ‘to spend three days face-to-face with over 150 decision makers
involved in Middle East infrastructure and public service development.’
Bank of America’s Darren Rickards will be talking about prisons.
Another global summit
KPMG’s Dr Timothy Stone pops up again in Dublin on 10
October at the snappily titled 2nd Annual Public-Private Partnerships/Private
Finance Initiative Global Summit (The Global Government-Industry Forum on
International Developments in PPP & PFI).
The
event is sponsored by KPMG, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Investec Bank,
engineering and support services group WS Atkins, management and construction
consultancy Gleeds, Ireland’s leading law firm A& L Goodbody and the Bank
of Ireland.
It is supported by PUK, the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships and the International Project Finance Association.
Keynote speakers will include Ireland’s prime
minister Bertie Ahern and Paul Boateng, now the UK’s financial secretary and formerly prisons
minister. According to a treasury
spokesperson, Mr Boateng’s contribution is likely to draw upon his positive
experiences at the home office.
There will be presentations by ministers and other
government officials from 17 countries covering topics such as: how to bridge
the gap between public and private sectors; innovative financing structures;
the challenges for construction; and developments in international assistance.
Italy, the Baltics and beyond
September also sees the 2nd Annual Public Private Partnerships in Italy event - this time at the Jolly Hotel Villa Carpegna, Rome.
This
will include presentations from the Royal Bank
of Scotland, Mediocredito Centrale, European Investment Bank, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Allen & Overy,
Serco, Babcock and Brown, Partnerships UK and others.
Consultants Ernst & Young, law firm Masons (who
were advisers on the private prison project in South Africa), Svenska Hamdelsbanken, DePfa Bank, the
European Investment Bank and Sodexho Defence Services UK will be amongst the
presenters at another event in Stockholm in October.
‘If the principle of PPP is to be successful in
achieving public goals, the objective of the governments must be combined with
the efficiency and profit motive of the private sector ...’ is the enticement
to attend Public Private Partnerships in Scandinavia and the Baltics.
Back in the UK, October also sees a joint initiative
from Partnerships UK and the treasury’s office of government commerce. The one
day conference ‘Delivering Successful PPPs’ is aimed at a dialogue with the
public and private sectors and their advisers about likely developments.
One company, SMI Group, publisher of PFI Intelligence Bulletin, will also be
holding conferences later in the year on PPPs in Ireland, Germany, the
Mediterranean and emerging markets.
Carter’s view
Meanwhile, at the International Corrections and
Prisons Association for the Advancement of Professional Corrections (ICPA)
conference in October, one of the key topics to be examined will be ‘the
emerging partnerships between criminal justice organisations and the private
sector.’
The ICPA’s programme committee includes Stephen Carter
of Carter Goble Associates Inc (see PPRI
# 34). Referring to prison privatisation in Prison Review International, July 2001, Stephen Carter states: “No
other single initiative in prison operation will impact correctional
architecture in the next decade, as many
jurisdictions that are not committing to the private management of prisons will
be closely influenced by the capital and cost savings that are reported by
private firms. Therefore, future government-developed prisons and jails are
likely to be highly influenced by the building approaches introduced by private
prison operators.
Of major interest internationally will be the process
that government employs to solicit private solutions. If the operational and design response is left
entirely to the private firms, a wide range of design approaches can be
anticipated that may be difficult to compare ... over the coming years there
will be no end to the boom in prison construction. In many nations, with the
possible exception of Canada and several Scandinavian countries, the current
focus is on building new institutions.
While the combined volume of prison construction by all other nations in one year will probably never match the USA’s, the hope is that the positive and negative lessons learned from the most active decade of prison construction in history will be readily transferable throughout the world.”
CCA stock up but $1 bn in debt
CCA reported a net loss of $14.6m for the six months
ended 30 June 2001. Its revenues were $245.7m.
Despite closing two loss-making facilities at
Youngstown, Ohio and Tallahatchie, Mississippi, CCA has 66,000 beds in 71 facilities in the US and
Puerto Rico.
n Following the deaths of two prisoners, six prisoner assaults and a riot that left one officer with six stitches in April 2001, the State of Hawaii sent auditors to inspect CCA’s Florence Correctional Facility in Arizona.
They concluded that it was “a prison in turmoil”.
Hawaii pays CCA $20m a year to hold some 1,100
prisoners. It has 550 at Florence.
The auditors found that a gang called the United
Samoan Organization was essentially running the prison and that gang members
were: having sex with female Immigration and Naturalisation Service detainees;
using drugs and making an alcoholic drink called ‘swipe’; and that “there
appears to be widespread drug introduction into the facility by (FCC) staff
members.”
Despite being assured by CCA in April that there was
limited gang activity in the prison, the audit team found that many prisoners
and employees were living in fear of the 100 gang members.
CCA has since brought in a new warden who claims to
be making improvements.
Wackenhut keeps growing
Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (WCC), the second
largest operator in the US domestic market and the largest outside of the US,
has reported that revenues for the second quarter of 2001 increased 5.9 per
cent to $141.7m compared with the same period in 2000. Revenues for the half
year were $276.7m compared with $264.4m for 2000.
WCC states that it has contracts/awards to manage
56,000 correctional, detention and mental health facilities representing nearly
39,000 beds in North America, Europe, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand.
WCC also provides prisoner transportation, electronic monitoring and health
care services.
n WCC has declined to continue
with what it considers unprofitable prison contracts in Arkansas and Delaware
County, Philadelphia, leaving state and county
authorities to take over the facilities.
Wackenhut guards can shoot
New state legislation will allow Wackenhut
Corrections Corporation (WCC) staff at Rivers Correctional Institution in
Hertford County, North Carolina, to use deadly force to catch prisoners who try
to escape (see PPRI #36 and 32).
The
county sheriff will be the lead law officer of
any pursuit and capture operation. In the event of an escape Wackenhut will
also be required to immediately call the sheriff and the department of
corrections. Local law enforcement agencies
and the state also will be reimbursed for costs if they help with a pursuit from
the company’s facility.
Wackenhut will have to hold liability insurance for
several million dollars in the event of a lawsuit arising from a shooting.
Banking on prisons
As well as a number of foreign banks, American banks
that have recently financed private prison companies in the US include: AmSouth
Bank, Bank of America, Bank One Oklahoma (subsidiary of Bank One Corp.),
Comerica Bank, Bank First American National Bank, Union Firstar Bank (subsidiary of U.S.
Bancorp), Fleet Capital Corp.
(subsidiary of Fleet Boston Financial Corp.), Guaranty Federal Bank, Hibernia
National Bank, Mercantile Bank, PNC Bank, SouthTrust Bank, Summit Bank (subsidiary of FleetBoston
Financial), SunTrust Bank and Union Planters Bank.
Seventy-eight against
Some 78 organisations across the US are concerned
with issues related to prison privatisation according to research carried out
for Mother Jones magazine.
The magazine’s Debt
to Society website lists the organisations and provides a wealth of other
data on incarceration in the US.
For details see: http://www.motherjones.com/prisons
CSC staff in whistleblower action
A Florida Circuit Court judge has awarded $14,000
damages to a former employee of the Polk City Youth Development Center which was run by
Correctional Services Corporation (CSC) between 1996 and 2000 (see PPRI #36, 30, 26, 24, 21, 14 and 3).
Detrice Lippett was one of seven former employees who
claimed they were fired by CSC after
reporting to state officials that, ahead of a state inspection. CSC
supervisors had forced them to forge signatures and replace and backdate
missing paperwork from files about juveniles.
The case, which
was filed in April 2000, was brought under Florida’s whistleblower
legislation which protects employees who are asked to do something unethical or
unlawful and who then report the activity to the state.
Ms Lippett was fired in August 1999 when she would
not alter her case files. She appealed against the decision and, at that
time, reported to CSC’s corporate office
that she had been asked to falsify documents. She was rehired but then fired
again in January 2000.
In the August 2001 decision, the judge ruled that the
company’s action represented retaliation.
Tender deadline passes
Tenders were due in by the 30 May 2001 for the 20
year contract worth $20m to design, construct and manage a new 1,200 bed prison known as the Centro
Penitenciaro de Pococi.
Study period
The Governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, is asking
the private sector to draw up plans to build and operate additional police
cells in order to alleviate overcrowding in police detention facilities (see PPRI #9)
He told a news conference recently that he would draw
on the example of private prison management in the UK. He also noted that some
Japanese companies are already involved in this market.
Visiting Australia
Following a recent visit which took in two private
prisons in the UK, officials from Thailand’s Department of Corrections are
visiting Australia.
Thailand is apparently considering privatisation in order to increase efficiency
and solve the problem of staff shortages (see PPRI # 40).
A very profitable
continent
Sydney-based Australasian Correctional Management
(ACM), which operates in Australia and New Zealand, had revenues of A$191m for
the financial year ended 31 December 2000 according to recent accounts filed
with Australia’s Securities and Investment Commission.
This was an increase of A$89m over the previous year.
Profits after tax were A$14.75m compared to A$7.5m in
1999 and A$4.1m in 1998.
Compensated resident days in Australian facilities
increased to 1.8m from 1.1m in 1999 primarily due to higher compensated
resident days at the immigration detention facilities.
Average facility
occupancy in Australian facilities increased to 99.1 per cent in 2000 from 96.6
per cent in 1999.
In 2000, Australia’s Department of Immigration and
Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) contributed 11 per cent of the consolidated
revenues of ACM’s American parent, Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (WCC).
DIMA contributed six per cent and four per cent in
1999 and 1998 respectively.
According to the company, ACM’s contract to manage the Auckland Central
Remand Prison in New Zealand has the potential to generate revenues of
approximately US$58m over five years.
More detention problems for
Australasian Correctional Management’s (ACM)
operations at immigration detention centres continue to attract controversy
(see PPRI # 41-36).
A detainee at ACM-run Villawood Detention Centre in
New South Wales committed suicide by hanging soon after his transfer to the
facility on 26 July.
This followed two incidents earlier in July when 46
detainees escaped.
The first 23 escaped through a network of drains
under the facility. Three days later, another 23 cut through three security
fences. The company faces financial
penalties for allowing these escapes.
These latest escapes prompted the federal government
to commission an independent inquiry into security and the way in which the
company operates Villawood. ACM has run the centre since 1997, during which
time there have been several other escapes.
n On 9 June 2001, 650 detainees
broke out of ACM’s Port Hedland and Curtin detention centres in Western and
South Australia respectively.
n Staff at Port Hedland
detention centre have resorted to paying for their own training after claiming
that ACM’s training was inadequate. One of the staff told the West Australian, 19 July 2001, that:
“our lives are threatened because we have minimal and inadequate riot
disturbance control training.”
n The Australian Workers Union (AWU), which represents some of the ACM staff, has filed a series of complaints with the Industrial Relations Commission.
The union is alleging that ACM
failed to recruit appropriate staff, provide a safe workplace and give
appropriate training.
The AWU has also alleged that, during a riot on 11
May at Port Hedland,ACM refused to allow police in to the centre as it would
have risked a fine if external sources were allowed to help quell the riot.
n Eight detainees are suing the
government and ACM for damages arising from an alleged attack by ACM staff
during a disturbance at Villawood on 27 April 2001.
They also allege being denied medical attention.
A seven minute video which recorded the start of the
alleged attack and then showed the detainees battered and bruised was played to
the federal court in Sydney on 2 August 2001.
The detainees’ barrister stated that the video
“conveniently points to the floor” when the ACM officers, dressed in riot gear,
charged the unarmed group of detainees.
n The Council for Civil
Liberties has joined in the call from faith and community organisations for
immigration detention centres to be closed. They argue that detainees should be
electronically tagged instead.
n The Australian Labor Party
has stated that it will take detention centre management into public control if
it wins the next federal election.
ACM lets another prisoner go
Australasian Correctional Management (ACM) mistakenly
allowed a prisoner to walk free from Melbourne Custody Centre in Victoria in
July even though he was due to serve a further custodial sentence.
The company stated that the release occurred due to
‘an error in the interpretation of various warrants.’
The custody officer concerned was suspended while the
company launched an investigation into security issues.
Victoria police fined ACM A$5,000 for breach of contract after a similar incident occurred in April 2001 when a sex-offender was mistakenly released even though he had pointed out the error to the company.
Take AIMS ... fire
A prisoner transport van belonging to Australasian Integrated Management Services (AIMS, owned by Sodexho of France) was stolen from a Perth garage on 30 June 2001. Radio equipment used to monitor the transportation of prisoners was stripped from the A$130,000 Mercedes before the van had its corporate logos removed and set alight.
Police are concerned that the radio equipment could
be used in attempted escapes or other security breaches.
AIMS has a contract with the Government of Western Australia to transport prisoners between courts, prisons and custody centres (see PPRI # 38).
Turnaround at women’s prison
Attempted suicides and drug offences have dropped by
75 per cent since the Metropolitan Women’s Correctional Centre (MWCC) was taken
back into public operation in September 2001 and ownership in October (see PPRI
# 38, 37 and 35).
According to the Brimbank
Leader, 10 July 2001, government figures for the period ended April 2001
show that assault rates have also declined. Only 4.34 per cent of prisoners
tested positive for drugs compared to 16 per cent in the previous year.
The government has changed the name of the
facility to the Dame Phyllis Frost
Centre and increased staffing levels, security and support services. Lockdowns have been reduced and there have
been fewer cell fires.
There has been one suicide since the takeover.
Rape at Port Phillip
A female trans-gender prisoner was raped by three
other prisoners at the Group 4-run Port Phillip Prison for men in Victoria (see
PPRI # 37-34, 28-20 and 26-15).
Despite magistrates recommending that the prisoner be
kept apart from males, the prisoner was detained in Port Phillip’s special
needs unit where the assault occurred in July. The matter has been referred to
the state’s attorney general.
Two
hundred papers
Some 350 people from around the world attended the
15th Annual Conference of the ANZ Society of Criminology held in Melbourne
earlier this year.
The theme of the conference was Criminology in the
21st Century: Public Good or Private Interest?
Abstracts of the 200 papers that were presented at the conference can be
found on the internet at:
http://www.conferences.unimelb.edu.au/anzsoc/abstracts.pdf
First private prison opens
South Africa’s first privately financed, designed,
built and operated prison opened on 2 July 2001 at Bloemfontein (see PPRI # 38, 36, 34, 30, 23, 20, etc).
The Manguang prison cost R328m ($41m) and the Group
4-led consortium of five companies can expect to recoup its construction costs
within 15 years or sooner.
The government
has guaranteed there will be 100 per cent occupancy of the 2,928 bed facility.
The contract is for 25 years and the initial cost to the government is $10 per
prisoner per day.
On 31 July 2001, Newsday
in South Africa covered the opening with a feature mentioning that, due to the
malfunctioning of electronic doors, the
prison’s director, Wessel van Niekerk, “found himself trapped in a cell with 64
of South Africa’s most dangerous criminals. The moment passed without incident
but unwittingly proved what van Niekerk says is the point of a new type of
prison ... where wardens deal with hardened criminals using nothing for
protection other than a two- way radio.”
n The country’s second private
prison, financed, designed, built and operated by a consortium led by Wackenhut
Corrections Corporation is due to open in the Northern Province by February
2002.
n The winter 2001 issue of the
South African journal Crime &
Conflict includes two articles about the development of private prisons in
South Africa. Contracting Corrections: Future Prospects for a Developing
Country by Julie Berg; and Correcting Contracts: Another Look at Prison
Privatisation by KC Goyer.
Details of
Crime & Conflict from: Robin Palmer, Email: palmer@nu.ac.za