Group 4 to Pull Out of Prisons and Immigration Detention?

After buying the U.S. based multinational Wackenhut Corporation last year, Group 4 Falck AS was to be the biggest private prison and refugee detention provider in the UK, and have a significant share worldwide. But at the beginning of the month it announced plans to sell its 57% share of Wackenhut Corrections Corp.(Wackenhut's detention arm), which Group 4 acquired along with the parent company.

Group 4 Falck spokesperson Nels Petersen told The Associated Press :
'Our interest is in guarding and alarm services, not in running prisons and asylum centres.'

Group 4’s press release went on to say the company wants to concentrate on its 'core business', but given all the trouble it went through to get the purchase cleared by the Competition Commission this would seem to be the business-world equivalent of a politician saying they 'want to spend more time with my family'. So what is really going on?

A close look at some of the prison and immigration institutions that Group 4 are involved with may provide some answers.

Yarl's Wood Detention centre in Bedfordshire half-burnt to the ground last year, at a cost of around £50m. Group 4, like the responsible company it is, has denied liability. We are unable to into much more detail on this particular example, as there is a criminal trial taking place of 13 refugees who were formerly detained there. For more information about the Yarl's Wood trial email sady_campaign@yahoo.co.uk or call 07786 517379
However, we can mention the fact that following a disturbance at Oxfordshire's Campsfield House Immigration Detention Centre in 1997, 9 detainees were charged with riot. The case spectacularly collapsed, as Group 4's evidence was deemed 'unreliable'. Several Group 4 employees were found to have lied about whether they recognised individual detainees, and the fact Group 4 staff, not detainees, had deliberately caused some of the damage. See www.closecampsfield.org.uk/background/trial.html for more details.

Probably the most notorious refugee centre in the world, Woomera in the Australian outback, was owned by a subsidiary of Wackenhut Corrections. It has recently closed, after becoming infamous for the dreadful conditions under which whole refugee families have been incarcerated. There had been dozens of suicides and self-mutilations, as well as several escapes, including a mass breakout aided by dozens of activists. www.cathnews.com/news/303/76.php

Ashfield Young Offenders Institution, near Bristol, is owned by Premier Prisons, another subsidiary of Wackenhut Corrections. It had the honour, in a Prison Inspectors' report released in Feburary this year, of being called the 'worst jail in Britain'. The Youth Justice Board subsequently removed the majority of prisoners from the institution.

Wackenhut Corrections is also the second biggest private prison provider in the USA. Its prisons have been the source of many complaints, including at a Youth Correctional Facility in Jena, Texas, where there were reports of staff paying inmates to fight each other and laughing at those who tried to commit suicide.

A picture is beginning to emerge. Speculatively, we may wonder whether, despite the financial rewards that Group 4 and other private security firms hope to reap, the negative publicity that comes along with running such institutions on the cheap is now affecting Group 4’s 'core business'. Whether this provides a answer to their sudden selling of Wackenhut Corrections we’re not sure. But prison reformers and refugee campaigners will certainly hope that Group 4 will soon have nothing to do with prisoners or refugees.