Harmondsworth prison: who profits?
one of no borders | 15.04.2008 17:36 | Anti-racism | Migration
Sodexo founder Pierre Bellon, a very good friend of Sarkozi, wants to increase the use of detention Europe wide.
Monsieur Bellon is one of the forces below the election of Sarkozi as the French president, having given generous financial backing to his electoral campaign. As reward, Sarkozi made Bellon president of the French commission on selective immigration policies (managed migration). The most remarkable suggestion Bellon has so far made is that the average duration of immigration detention in Europe should be expanded to 18 months. Who profits?
From Kalyx and Sodexo websites: (the bits between brackets are mine)
Kalyx (formerly UK Detention Services) currently runs Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre ( = deportation prison ) near Heathrow Airport under contract to the Border and Immigration Agency.
It is a closed facility ( = prison) which provides accommodation, healthcare, education and recreational activities (of appalling quality) for up to 259 detained men (used to be over 500 before the centre was part destroyed during riots last year) who are awaiting removal from the UK (often to danger and possible death. However to say they are awaiting removal is very incorrect and misleading, as more detainees are released than deported. The detention is totally arbitrary and people can be detained at any stage of the asylum process).
Kalyx manage three prisons in England: HMP Bronzefield, HMP Forest Bank and HMP Peterborough. They are due to open another prison, HMP Addiewell in Scotland in December.
HMP Bronzefield - Female prison, Ashford, Middlesex
HMP Forest Bank - Male prison and Young Offenders Institute, Salford, Manchester
HMP Peterborough - Male and Female prison, Peterborough
HMP Addiewell - Male prison, West Lothian, Scotland
Kalyx is part of Sodexo (formerly Sodexho)
Sodexo Healthcare is one of the largest providers of outsourced services to the NHS, private hospitals, care homes and specialist needs centres throughout the country.
Sodexo Pass is also the UK's leading supplier for the Home Office asylum seeker voucher scheme since 1999.
The company's activities in private prisons and in schools have given rise to considerable controversy at over sixty US colleges and institutions. There have been several boycotts of Sodexo including at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London at the American University in Washington D.C., and at Université Laval in Quebec City, at Binghamton University in New York, and Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. The boycott at the American University was in protest of several of Sodexo's business relationships and practices: its partnerships with the US Military, its business with prisons, low pay, and poor working conditions.
See also:
http://noborders.org.uk/Articles/DetentionProfiteers)
one of no borders