If there wasn’t enough incentive to not go to prison, now comes this startling footage of prisoners engaged in a brutal fight club. Somehow inmates at the Mount Eden Correctional Facility (MECF) in New Zealand were not only able to organize a cutthroat fight club, but also recorded the brawls and then uploaded them to YouTube. Guess they’re not familiar with the first rule of Fight Club.
The videos show men, many of which are Black Power gang members, beating the shit out of each other while their fellow jailbirds gather around to cheer and root them on.
Authorities identified the prison by the prisoners’ clothes that had the words “SERCO MECF.” Serco is a British outsourcing company that employs 120,000 people in 30 countries and provides transportation, traffic control, aviation, military weapons, schools, detention centers and prisons.
In 2011, Serco signed a ten-year $300 million NZD ($196 million USD) contract to manage Mount Eden. However in the three years since the contract, Mount Eden has recorded more prisoner assaults than any other prison in New Zealand prison.
The violent videos have sparked national outrage in New Zealand, and now even Prime Minster John Key is getting involved. There will be a government-lead investigation into the fight club and contraband such as drugs, alcohol and cell phones. In this year alone, 27 mobile phones and 22 SIM cards have been confiscated at the facility. The first part of the review is expected on August 28, while the second is due on September 30.
Serco has been temporarily stripped of overseeing New Zealand’s largest prison following the leak of the horrific videos. Ray Smith, chief executive of New Zealand’s Department of Corrections, said Serco’s personnel would remain at the prison, but a government management team would take over running the prison.
Serco’s Asia-Pacific director of operations, Scott McNairn, released a statement the company was fully cooperating with the government’s investigation, as well as conducting its own.
“Along with senior colleagues, I have been in regular contact with Department of Corrections management. We have provided them with a clear action plan to demonstrate that our operational response will be robust, systematic and sustained.
We do not underestimate the challenge of operating this prison. We hold 976 of the country’s most difficult and challenging individuals. As an inner city remand prison, we manage tens of thousands of prisoner movements every year.
Preventing violence, attempts to smuggle contraband and other criminal activity inside the prison walls is a daily reality. Our managers and staff work incredibly hard to manage these challenges. There is always more that we can do, and we are getting on with it.”
Serco faces the possibility of being hit with a substantial fine or have their lucrative contract terminated.