UK: Private "control and restraint"?
01 May 1995
The announcement that Group 4 Security is to set up a riot squad to deal with disorder in immigration detention centres came just a week before the start of the Joy Gardner trial. Detention orderlies currently earning ?4 per hour are among Group 4 personnel will be able to earn an extra 50 pence per hour forming "tactical units" to respond rapidly to outbreaks of disorder. They will undergo training in control and restraint techniques and use of shields and possibly batons, according to a Group 4 spokesman. Immigrant, refugee and human rights groups reacted with alarm, pointing to the complete lack of safeguards to prevent unaccountable racist brutality. Observers point to the poor vetting which could allow the inadvertent recruitment of violent racists and neo-nazis and to the basic nature of the training, as well as to the inherent immorality of allowing companies to make profit from the control and restraint of immigration prisoners and asylum-seekers.
Guardian 10.5.95