In an expansion of private prison staff responsibilities in the Northern Territory in Australia, Department of Corrections employees have heard the duties performed by private security firm G4S will be increased. In March, the NT government signed a six-month contract with G4S to manage the transfer of Darwin prisoners. G4S prison guards currently help to transfer inmates between prisons and the courts, as territory correctional staff face record prisoner numbers.
Despite a recruitment drive for 202 new corrections officers to be employed inside prisons this financial year, NT Corrections Minister Gerard Maley has previously acknowledged the prison population is growing and that the government needs to expand the workforce.
In an internal memo seen by the ABC, corrections staff were told Corrections Commissioner Matthew Varley had signed a work order to expand the duties carried out by private prison guards.
“As we shape this next phase, we are working closely with G4S to determine what a Northern Territory-based G4S staffing model could look like.” Corrections Minister Gerard Maley last month told the ABC that privatising the entire NT prison system was not on the government’s radar.
“There are private firms that run prisons in their entirety, that’s not our plan at all,” he said.
“Our plan is to make sure that we have highly trained officers behind the wire, and then independent contractors such as G4S doing the services outside that.”
