G4S stripped of contract to run youth prison
![G4S-run prisons have been under scrutiny since the BBC exposed staff appearing to use excessive force on children at the Medway centre in Kent, pictured [Image: Gareth Fuller/PA].](https://voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/160415G4SMedway.png)
G4S-run prisons have been under scrutiny since the BBC exposed staff appearing to use excessive force on children at the Medway centre in Kent, pictured [Image: Gareth Fuller/PA].
It seems that the Conservative Party has, at long last, had enough of bungling private security firm G4S and has started taking contracts away from it – starting with the scandal-hit Medway centre.
This is how the Daily Mirror reported the facts:
The Ministry of Justice is to take over the running of a scandal-hit youth prison, according to reports.
Medway Secure Training Centre in Rochester, Kent, was at the centre of claims that staff assaulted children.
The Government will start operating the facility – currently run by G4S – through the National Offender Management Service by the end of July, according to the BBC.
The MoJ has not confirmed the reports.
A spokesman for the department said: “Our priority will always be the safety and welfare of young people in custody – that is why the Justice Secretary set up an Independent Improvement Board to examine the running of Medway STC.
“This sits alongside a wider review of youth justice, led by Charlie Taylor. We are considering a range of options and will announce the next steps in due course.”
Source: 7 bits of bad news the Tories sneaked out while everyone was watching the election – Mirror Online
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The Tories will never admit that privatisation is failing, much less that it is failing across the board; to admit that would be to admit that their entire philosophy of “privatising everything is the best way to save the public money” is based on a fallacy – a fairytale castle built on shifting sands. And as much as the public is beginning to wake up to that fact as public servants like our teachers and NHS staff continue with strike after strike, the Tories will still insist that their strategy is working, even as their barn burns down around their ears.
Even if they were arrested for treason (lying repeatedly to Parliament) tomorrow and captial punishment were brought back just for them, Cameron and Osborne would continue to insist that they are right and infer that we are ungrateful peasants, even as their heads were placed on the proverbial chopping block. Because no-matter how often or thoroughly we expose their falsehoods, they honestly seem to believe that if they just keep repeating the same lies over and over, we will all eventually fall in-line and believe them.
The reality is, they know that there is real opposition to them now that Jeremy Corbyn is leading Labour – most of it, anyway – and gaining public support by the minute, and the realisation has probably set in that the public at large will have properly turned on them by the time of the next general election in 2020, assuming a snap election isn’t called in the meantime, which seems unlikely, but one can hope. I’d wager even Lynton Crosby couldn’t save them next time.
I agree Owen and I hope you’re proved right, I sincerely hope so.