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Prisoner escort services

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In 1992, we commenced services operating four of the existing eight contracts in England and Wales.  In 2004, the original contracts were re-evaluated.  Based on our very successful track record, we were selected to operate the services for two of the four new contract areas for the National Offender Management Service (NOMS).

We employ a large workforce and operate the largest purpose-built cellular vehicle fleet in the United Kingdom.  All vehicles are built by a specialist provider and to the exacting standards required by the customer, before being enhanced with bespoke additions designed by us that aid control and enhance security.

Our prisoner custody officers collect prisoners from local prisons and police stations each morning, and deliver them to magistrates, county and crown courts.  Demand is dynamic depending on the number of arrests by the police and the commitments of prisoners to prison by the courts. Movements can be, and are, extremely varied and can be from police stations to any court location in the country.  All these are on a virtual demand service with less than 24 hours’ notice.

We have two dedicated operational control centres.  Information from 305 prisons and police stations is received daily, and translated into an operational solution using state of the art scheduling software and relayed to our 16 vehicle bases as well as 150 permanently staffed courts.

Interprison Transfer Services (IPT)


We also hold the national contract for escorting prisoners between prisons, conducting 75,000 prisoner movements per annum.

We were successful in being awarded the inter-prison movement contract in 1999 and we have operated a very successful contract since then. Prisoner movements are undertaken to move prisoners from the local prisons, to ensure there is enough room for the prisoners from court.  In addition, movements are undertaken for family reasons or for specific courses, as well as transfers to lower security establishments as part of the sentence progression.

Our contract was successfully extended in April 2006, and it also undertakes movements outside England and Wales to the Isle of Man, Channel Islands and Northern Ireland.  These transfers also utilise planes, as well as the types of vehicles used for the prisoner escorting and court services contracts, and ferries are used for the establishments on the Isle of Wight.

G4S also manages a prisoner transporation service in Australia.

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  • For more information:

    Tel:  +44 (0)1386 858585
G4S UK