Latest editorial
“ROTTEN to the core” was the verdict of Frances Crook, head of the world’s oldest penal reform charity, who was left in tears yesterday after watching a BBC Panorama investigation into child abuse at a privately run borstal youth jail.
Ms Cook, the Howard League chief executive for 20 years, said that what was shown going on at Medway Secure Training Centre was “one of the most upsetting things” she had ever seen and demanded immediate action to shut it down.
Security firm G4S runs the institution in Rochester, Kent, which holds 56 children aged 12 to 17, most of them boys.
Holding office in local government is a poisoned chalice for a party that bases its electoral appeal around issues where it has no power whatsoever, argues NICK WRIGHT
Working in a high-risk sector, prison officers’ calls for proper PPE must be heeded – and the POA will be fighting to ensure effective protection at work is delivered, writes MARK FAIRHURST
