Ken Clarke privatises Birmingham Prison amid union fury

not sure if this is in the right topic but here is a snippet of the story from the bbc

[Birmingham Prison is to become the first jail in the UK to be privatised, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has said.

The decision to award security firm G4S the contract to run the 1,400-inmate jail came after firms competed over the running of four prisons in England.

The Prison Officers' Association called the decision "disgraceful" and has not ruled out taking industrial action.

Mr Clarke told MPs the "military are involved" in contingency plans should prison officers stage a strike.

/ex]

link- www.bbc.co.uk...

what do people think about this happening in the uk. i know many of the americans on this site often complain about their private prisons so is this bad news for the uk?

Privatization is only good when you do not rely on the government for funding each year, They will try to run the prison at the lowest possible cost to maximize profit but ultimately fail and require bail out after bail out by the government, meaning it will cost more to the tax payer. Prisoners will probably suffer, nevermind.

I think this is a very bad idea, We have already seen in the US instances of judges taking bribes to imprison people.

But another thing is this, The war on drugs could never be conceded (And by that i mean a change in how we deal with people who have drug problems ie Treatment instead of incarceration, as well as any legalisation of certain drugs) because that would see a decrease in profits for these private institutions.

I am very concerned at this development. The prison service should not be in the hands of private companies who's sole purpose is to create profit. More in mates more profit. Lock up more people to make some more money. It's sick

the comments so far kind of agree with what i was thinking on this. i know we are low on prisons in the uk but we are a lot more sensible with our sentencing than some states in the US are but could this change if private companys start building prisons as they forsee a profit in them?

hmm, think about this approach to the subject. america has more people in jail per individual than any other nation-state. my thoughts are because of privatization of our jails. now U.K. has its first privatization going on, watch your statistics and see if more people are in jail. my guess would be yes. no one wins when big corporations control our planet, look at the bp disaster and the ongoing japanes disaster with its nuclear plants.

Originally posted by lewman
what do people think about this happening in the uk. i know many of the americans on this site often complain about their private prisons so is this bad news for the uk?

This is just the start Capitolists are going to destroy all we have. The private jails are a horrible thing to do since they started doing that here our jails have become full of innocent people in the name of profit. Stop it now I wish we could it's too late for us the corporate elete control every aspect of America now they will take over the rest of the world if there allowed. We as the people of this planet need to stand up to the elete that include all royal families and kick them to the curb it's the greed and power hungry who have taken over for the last 5000 yrs need to die all of them.

They will privatize them all soon enough , then come looking for people like you and me .