UK prisons ‘drastically deteriorated’ after maintenance was privatised, says report

22 comments

1. I’m shocked. Shocked I tell you.

   It’s almost like allowing shareholders to make a profit from a public service was a bad idea that had failed every single time before.

2. I’m now convinced the only people left in Britain who still support privatisation are the investor class and the politicians they fund.

3. I’m very much of the opinion that no part of justice system, be that courts, prisons or policing should be allowed to be in private hands.

   There should be no financial incentive involved in the enforcement of Law and Order. Otherwise we end up with a situation like america where private companies lobby for people to jailed for petty crimes far better dealt with in better ways.

   There was this famous example in America a few years ago where Judges received kickbacks for sending children to young offenders institutions. The even used trickery to get those kids to waive their rights to legal representation.

   [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal)

   It invites corruption, and the opportunity for that should not exist when peoples liberty is at stake.

4. I’m all for privatising things in general, but how can privatised prisons ever work? How do prisons compete with each other?

5. Another tories time bomb. Hospitals, schools, prisons? Whats next? I expect more sectors to be failing all the while thinking of the bloody cheeck tories have to even say labour’s going to destroy the country… its already bad and you did that. Pockets filled I guess.

6. Well blow me down. Is that why Birmingham prison has been taken back FROM G4S, had it’s corpse defibrillated and then HANDED BACK to G4S, TWICE.

7. Making money on crime.

   Yes. Making. Money. On. Crime.

   & you wonder why “it’s getting worse”

8. You can’t really blame the private sector for a contract that basically says “do nothing, here’s no money to do it with”.

   People arguing against private sector involvement seem to be under the impression that the government would be able to do more with no budget than the private sector would. They can’t even specify the contract properly, how do you expect them to do the actual work?

   You’ll note that none of these companies are being sued for breach of contract, what does that tell you? That they weren’t properly contracted to do the work this article is complaining about.

   The issue is that we have no money to spend on criminals (or anything else for that matter), not that the private sector is any better or worse at running services.

9. As long as the exterior walls keep’em in, it’s fine.

10. The shareholders have to be paid!

    Don’t ever forget the shareholders

11. TRICKLE DOWN

    TRICKLE DOW

    TRICKLE DO

    TRICKLE D

    TRICKLE

    TRICKL

    TRICK

12. Duh. Privatisation of public services should not be allowed

13. Took tax payers money, repaired the absolute minimum and pocketed the rest

14. So fine. We did the experiment, it didn’t work, can we go back?

    For some reason, no.

15. This isn’t great to be honest, but maintenance seems like something that a thoughtful prison governer could use prisoners for. They get to learn skills and have real use outside so aids rehabilitation, and costs are lowered as you cover materials and some sort of kitty for when the prisoner completes their sentence. Lifers could have the money go to their commisary account.

16. Well duh.

    Privatisation *always* makes a service worse, because the owner now has the incentive to reduce costs and take the money in profit instead, whereas a public sector organisation has a mandate to give a shit about the public and people don’t personally profit from running it down.

    In a free market with competition, you can avoid this because the customer can choose not to buy services from a private company that is terrible. But when it’s franchised services and the people who have to deal with the service aren’t the people making the procurement decision, that doesn’t work.

    Sometimes economic rightists will go on about “cutting waste”. But “wasted” money is paying people to do jobs, which is good for the economy anyway, and often jobs that “don’t need doing” are the ones that make the service nice to use.

17. Who they employing CBRE ? Lol

    I work in a bunch of telecom sites who contract the maintenance to CBRE and the only thing there maintenance engineers do is drive to site and sit in the van all day.

18. It`s always the same. I just find it staggering how expensive getting anything done in the UK is. This article is around prisons, but it could be about social care, the immigration system, schools, the train network.

    Everything in the UK is outsourced with the lie it is in the public`s interest. It isn`t. Costs go up, quality goes down, until the government is forced to step in and plug some financial black hole. Who benefits? Business holders and share holders, certainly not the public.

    I`m not saying everything should be nationalised, but outsourcing everything is just laziness and it gives public bodies deniability when things go wrong.

19. A con told me years ago “coming to prison is a hazard of my career”.
    It’s a training ground for idiots and has been deteriorating for years due to lack of investment and sticking plaster mentality.

20. Enshittification continues until services improve.

    The people responsible for making these “contracts” possible, should be in prison. Preferably state run…

21. What a fucking surprise. Seriously what a surprise.

22. Once again the profit motive proves to favour decline.

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