Serco locks up contract for Aussie prison

A British firm will hold the keys to Australia’s largest prison after outsourcing behemoth Serco won a £1.6 billion jail contract in the country.

The FTSE 250 business is still known for prisoner scandal in this country, after Serco charged the Government to “tag” criminals who were actually dead or didn’t even exist, and in 2015 lost a contract to run one of New Zealand’s largest jails after reports that inmates filmed “fight club” videos in their cells.

But when the 1700-capacity New Grafton Correctional Centre in New South Wales, Australia, opens in 2020, Serco guards will be in charge. The jail will hold maximum-security beds for 1000 men and 300 women, and will also house 400 minimum security inmates.

Serco currently operates six prisons in the UK, three in Australia — as well as a detention where riots broke out in 2015 after the death of an asylum-seeker who had escaped — and one in New Zealand.

Serco Australia’s chief executive, Mark Irwin, claimed it will “shape the pathway of every inmate in our care to give them the best chance at becoming responsible citizens again … in a humane and decent setting”.

Serco’s shares ticked up almost 2% in response, to 117.7p.