I never eat or drink anything made by prisoners. In the 90's whilst working as the cleaning officer I had the misfortune with the catering officer to walk in a preproom in the kitchens as a trusted kitchen ordrely was knocking one out in the gravy. Always sandwiches for me

Serco staff are still out there.

I currently work as a COM in a London private prison and having worked 10 yrs in the public sector, I actually don't see a lot of difference. The place runs well and has had a very good HMP report. If it's politics you don't like in the private sector, then get your tin hat on because it's non stop ...

Am 55 and still working the landings. No issues with age apart from the young ones calling me grandad. Keep general fitness up and you will be fine.

The intresting statement from the defence in the first post was "concerns over his mental health ". Currently working as an officer on a Prison 18 cell health care unit. I have never seen more than 2 physical health prisoners at any one time. The rest if not all the cells are full of mental health u...

I would imagine that most officers have been approached to bring items in. It starts with the conditioning, possibly of getting to frendly. My experience has been asked to provide coffee, this is the start. My reaction was to tell him straight away that he had overstepped the mark, put in a S.I.R an...

Gross negligence, could be falsifying an ACCTS document, not doing the checks recommend by the assesser or case manager. Not a good idea to skip checks on a vulnerable person.

Not that many moons ago it was rear to find a Prison Officer who had not been in the militery. Then in about 1996 they stopped recruitment from the military as they were seen as being to diciplined. There lay the problem. Away went the discipline, in came the Lack of disciplined officers. No pride i...

Worked on VP wing, as stated above they can be hard going. You have to have your wits about you due to the manipulation. Worst part was sitting in on the sex offenders courses, however I don't know if that still happens. The other drain is you get more ACCTS then the London Appolo.

Possible lapse in security me thinks, unless they were waiting on the off chance he might turn up at some point in time, how did they find out place and time of the apointment? .

Problem with education in prisons is that it tends to be a tick box exercise, bums on seats. Lack of reading and writing skills are high throughout the prison population, so unless they are long term, decent qualifications would be hard to achieve.

I have heard that since the trouble at Birmingham, Private Prisons are looking at providing batons to PCO. Is there a reason why they have not got them to start with?