PRISONS should not be “run for profit,” POA national chairman Mark Fairhurst said today after the government announced that it was placing a prison contract under public control.

The Ministry of Justice said that HM Prison and Probation Service has agreed terms with Sodexo for HMP Lowdham Grange following the company’s failure to run the site.

Speaking to the Morning Star at the prison officers’ union conference in Eastbourne, Mr Fairhurst said: “Sodexo has only been operating for a few months before we have to take back control.