The Panorama programme shown on the BBC last night made me cry. An undercover reporter filmed G4S staff at Medway secure training centre (STC) using violent and dangerous restraints on distraught children. One boy had injured himself by cutting his arm and staff piled in to restrain him, then left him in a cell crying, despite knowing that the boy’s mother had recently died and he was grieving. G4S employees boasted not only about harming children but also falsifying records so the company was not fined for losing control.
The Howard League tried to stop STCs being introduced back in 1995 by completing a judicial review that at least succeeded in forcing the government to include some measures of child protection in the rules. As it turns out, this was not enough.
G4S currently runs the three STCs in England and Wales holding more than 200 children, aged 12 to 17, but has had its contract to run one of them, Rainsbrook, removed. MTCNovo will take over that jail in May despite it being the US company criticised by a federal judge as running a jail that was a “horror as should be unrealised anywhere in the civilised world”.
These STCs were originally set up in the UK to deal with the increase in younger and more vulnerable children being sent to custody as a result of Labour’s detention and training orders. They are not part of the prison estate but are still jails – and are flawed and failed institutions, based on flawed and failed sentencing. The building design is claustrophobic, the jails are too big. Children should not be held there.
So what needs to be done? Michael Gove, the justice secretary, has put in place a review of the youth justice system, led by Charlie Taylor. I met him late last year to recommend closing STCs. Fortunately in the UK there are but a handful of children whose crimes are so serious and dangerous that they require custody. They could be detained in the safe and successful local authority secure units, which are small and intensively staffed by qualified teachers, social workers and other professionals.
What is clear is that the 50 children being detained at G4S Medway should be moved immediately. Instead, they should be either held in local authority units, or in a few cases may be better cared for in a residential setting provided by the NHS. Those about to be released could go home early.
Furthermore, G4S should never be given another contract to care for children in custody. A review of G4S homes in the community holding children in care should be undertaken by the Department for Education, to make sure that they are properly run and the children are safe. If there are any doubts, the children should be removed.
G4S has been paid £140,000 per year per child held in Medway. I think we should get our money back. If you, or I, buy faulty goods we can get a refund. So, with public money for public services, the public should get its money back if the company fails to deliver the appropriate service. As the Howard League’s evidence is that abuse and excessively high levels of reoffending have been a problem since the opening of Medway in April 1998 (two months after which there was a riot), I suggest it could be millions that should be repaid.
I hope the police investigation will not just look at “a few bad apples” but at management and corporate responsibility and possible criminality. The police must act swiftly to ensure the evidence is gathered.
I have today written to the Serious Fraud Office asking it to launch an investigation into evidence in the Panorama programme suggesting systematic corporate fraud was perpetrated to avoid incurring fines. No one wants to see children being beaten up by burly adults in uniform. Medway cannot stay open, it is a scar on our nation.
