Prison for Profit

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Prison for Profit | Femke van Velzen, Ilse van Velzen | South Africa | 2019 | 55 min

What happens when governmental and intricate care tasks like detention and rehabilitation are left to market forces and powerful international uncontrolled corporations take over.

In ‘Prison for Profit’, we follow investigative journalist Ruth Hopkins and the lives of former prisoners and prison warders from South Africa’s Mangaung private prison, which is run by the controversial private security firm G4S, a British multi-billion company active on a world-wide scale.

Leaked video footage filmed by prison guards shows the violent face of this notorious private prison from the inside. We expose how this very violent system of profit maximization at a company like G4S works, how this multinational operates this prison and what the far-reaching negative consequences are for society.