Northern Territory government expands role of private prison guards for overcrowded watch houses

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Private security firm G4S will provide support to "watch house services" in the Northern Territory, an internal Department of Corrections memo has revealed. The email sent to Corrections staff yesterday, and obtained by the ABC, confirms the Corrections Commissioner has signed a work order with G4S to expand the company's duties.

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00:00Private prison officers will now work round-the-clock in the Northern Territory's courts, hospitals

00:07and police watch houses, according to internal communications from the Corrections Department.

00:12The memo says Corrections Commissioner Matthew Varley this week signed a second work order

00:17with private security firm G4S after first contracting the firm in March to ferry prisoners

00:24between Darwin prisons and Darwin's courts.

00:27The U.S. firm will now supervise prisoners in hospital and in police watch houses, which

00:32have for months been used as makeshift prison cells, as the NT prison system struggles to

00:37cope with record incarceration rates.

00:40The expanded duties for G4S officers was first flagged by the Corrections Minister Gerard

00:45Mailey in June, whose department says will free up prison officers inside the Northern

00:51Territory's prisons to focus on their critical duties.

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