For over a year, there has been a major shortage of prison guards in Police Area North, after a new company won the tender and took over the operation.
The police union is critical of the long-term problem that they believe is wearing on their staff – and are now worried about what the summer will be like.
A year ago, the company Securus took over the operation of the prisons in the North police region. There are currently six prisons in the area that are open 24 hours a day, and in addition there are 23 smaller prisons that can be opened if necessary.
After winning the contract, Securus has had difficulty manning the prisons in the north. This has led to unnecessarily long transports for the police and also that the police have had to act as prison guards themselves.
– I am worried because I think that colleagues around the region will be allowed to be in prison and not out on the street or doing other activities that are of benefit to the citizens, says Jens Melinder, regional coordinating chief security officer at the Police Association.
– It will naturally be a strain. A work environment problem. The distances mean that we sit and drive a lot with those who are deprived of their freedom to get to the prisons. Regardless of the time of day, we will ride these miles, in rain and blizzard, says Jens Melinder.
Difficult to recruit
According to the company Securus, the problem is due to the fact that the former prison guards chose not to change companies when they took over the procurement, but continued in the former company but with other tasks than being a prison guard.
– We can only regret that it has become like this during the first year under the agreement. When we went into this, we thought we’d bring in close to a hundred of the previous vendor’s employees, which is customary, but it ended up being close to zero instead. This created a need for recruitment and training that was greater than what we had planned for. It has taken time, but now we are in a better position than a year ago, says Salomon Bekele, Securus spokesperson.