The awful joke about this…
Serco guard coached inmates on fight technique – Minister
Revelations that a Serco prison officer instructed inmates on fighting technique show management of the privately-run Mt Eden prison was “completely shambolic”, Labour says.“Just when we thought that it couldn’t get any more crazy, it did,” Labour’s Corrections spokesman Kelvin Davis said, after new details of why an officer was suspended were revealed.
During question time today, Corrections Minister Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga said media reports on the weekend that the officer had fought an inmate were incorrect.
Mr Lotu-Iiga said footage of the incident was taken on June 23, and he was advised of it on August 6.
“I haven’t seen the footage but I have been advised that it shows a prison guard, on CCTV footage, approaching a group of prisoners who were sparring,” Mr Lotu-Iiga said, to laughter from the opposition benches.
“Sparring is a banned activity, and Serco were shown the footage on August 6. Serco have suspended the staff member while the investigation proceeds.”
…is that the guard may have been coaching inmates on fight techniques for their own protection. Of course the guard could have been training the prisoners because they bet on the prisoner fight clubs.
This sick joke of privatising prisons is as much a warped experiment as charter schools and state house privatisation, but because it doesn’t impact the middle classes it is allowed to continue to mutate and cause more negative impacts.
Good on you NZ.
Self defence is very good training & discipline particularly in prison where there are some nasty little fellows.
self defence in prison because of ‘some nasty little fellows’
The guard who was showing the prisoners fighting techniques
this is not in his job description
but might be to his advantage if he is a betting man.
I wonder if Bridgecorp ex boss rod petricevic got his
‘self defence training’ while awaiting his trial in serco Mt Eden prison
Highly unlikely IMO as he would be the Caligula of the blood sports in the arena called Remand.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11502629
The mis-Corrections Minister is a utter bloody joke in the minds of us sane people and should be given the flick pronto before he becomes
the minister of police or defence or social development FFS
Kelvin Davis don’t give up please; take them to the wire!
Unfortunately fighting isn’t new in prison its the survival of the fittest jungle rules and especially in the Auckland region prisons and other areas in the King Country run by govt back in the 70s and 80s even early 90s there was corruption it was just hard to prove it existed because the tech was not around but now the tech is there some of that corruption is getting exposed. Inmates have feelings to and get scared like everyone else and would no doubt will use technology of what the prison system is really about and expose the real criminals that use humans as a commodity for profit.
There have always been members of the Corrections workforce who engage in corrupt practices with inmates, it is just like the police there are always some bad apples in the box.
Yes that is true of the past Jack
but it does not mean it has to stay that way.
Prisons are full of all sorts of humans from bad, sad, mad
and the very misguided’
Not all prisoners are evil scum of this earth.
It is time to make a change and if we treat prisoners more like human beings, then maybe they will respond and become more human.
Serco are accountable for all the troubles that come out of Mt Eden and Wiri as they have the ultimate control over what happens in these prisons.
If they lie and fudge their stats to Corrections,
who will uncover this?
ray, sam, john or just go back to those in power sayin,
“Oh well its like that in public prisons and its been like that for years”
Time for a change ray, sam and john
Pull ya socks up boys and get on to it.
NZ is watching how you deal with this.
On the TV news this evening (Aug 28) I saw the British head honcho of Serco, Rupert Soames. Aha, that surname rings a bell, I thought, so I looked him up. He’s from a wealthy, privileged, ‘born-to-rule’ family and his older brother Nicholas is a lifelong buddy of Prince Charles.
And now I feel a limerick coming on:
How pleasant to be Mr Soames,
Whose mates live in such stately homes,
A bunk in a cell wouldn’t suit him too well,
So it’s first class wherever he roams.
The thing is, if SERCO was running a legitimate coaching programme for inmates, it would have been part of their rehabilitation programme. SERCO would have proudly presented it as part of their contract with the Crown.
It wasn’t.
It was only discovered after someone blew the whistle.
Speaks volumes, eh?
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