Prison firm made £11m in year Ofsted raised alarm about safety at youth jail

theguardian.com:

A private prison company that ran an “inadequate” youth jail made £11m in the same year inspectors raised serious safety concerns about the welfare of children, some of whom were locked up alone for more than 23 hours a day.

Soaring profits, described as “tragic” by Labour, were disclosed in accounts filed by the US-owned Management & Training Corporation (MTC), which was awarded a £50m contract from the Ministry of Justice in 2016 to run the Rainsbrook secure training centre in Warwickshire.

Profits jumped from less than £1m to £11m in 2020, the year before its contract with the MoJ was terminated 17 months early after a string of damning reports by Ofsted inspectors.

MTC said most of its profit came from its probation services in London and Thames Valley, not Rainsbrook. It said staffing levels had been more than adequate at the centre.

The accounts for its UK operations, which were filed at Companies House this week, also showed the company had since switched to running “migrant quarantine hotels”, using staff redeployed from Rainsbrook, after it was approached by the Home Office and asked to help deliver the services.

These quarantine hotels house adult asylum seekers who have arrived in the UK by small boats, when the short-term holding facilities meant to accommodate them are full up.

Conditions at Rainsbrook, near Rugby, sparked “serious concerns” among Ofsted inspectors, after it emerged children at young as 15 were being locked up for more than 23 hours a day with “no justifiable rationale” during the coronavirus pandemic.

All children were removed from Rainsbrook in June 2021, after subsequent inspections raised further safety issues, including the carrying of weapons and warnings from staff and children that someone