Riots, drug taking, prisoner abuse: private prisons are costing this country billions of pounds, all for what? The system is on its knees, and the public have had enough.

This government’s zeal for public-private partnerships has meant vital public services -- including prisons -- have been outsourced into private hands. But letting companies like scandal-hit G4S and Serco manage our prison systems has been a wholesale disaster.

Do we really trust such sensitive services to be run by these unaccountable corporations for profit?

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is already under huge pressure to reform our crisis-ridden prison system. Now is the perfect time for SumOfUs members like you to say this is too important: we don’t want these services in private hands.

Liz Truss - end prisons for profit!

Britain has 15 privately run prison facilities, with contracts shared between G4S, Serco and Sodexo. With companies cutting corners to maximise their profits, prison standards are sinking:

- In 2015 G4S lost a contract to run Raintree youth prison after it was graded “inadequate” in a report by inspectors. Ofsted -- the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills -- said some staff were on drugs while on duty and behaved “extremely inappropriately” with young people, causing distress and humiliation.

- Conditions at Serco-run Doncaster prison were so poor that inspectors reported mice, cockroaches, missing window panes and exposed wires at the facility.

- An investigation by BBC Panorama showed that rates of violence and drug abuse at a Sodexo prison had increased under their watch.

Unfortunately, I could go on. Responsibility for our prison services ultimately falls on Justice Secretary Liz Truss. Let’s tell her that we’re tired of the chronic mismanagement of our prison systems. Privatisation is not the answer.

Things are slowly changing. After the electronic tagging scandal that engulfed both Serco and G4S, plans to privatise three prisons in South Yorkshire were abandoned, while a new prison in Wrexham has been handed over to the public sector after MPs raised concerns.

There is an appetite for change: if enough SumOfUs members -- members like you and me -- voice our dissatisfaction to the MoJ we can show them that the public are crying out for some much needed reform of our prisons.

We’re tired of the private-sector mismanagement of our prison systems - it’s time for reform. Sign the petition to Liz Truss: get private profits out of our prisons.

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