A British facility management, consultancy, and product management company that operates private prisons and immigration jails in the UK.
MITIE Group PLC, headquartered in London, is a facilities management company that provides engineering, energy, security, cleaning, custody, landscaping, waste management, and other services to the public and private sectors.
Mitie is the largest provider of immigration detention services for the British government, responsible for managing over 50% of its immigration jails. In 2023, Mitie’s “Care & Custody” division, which includes its immigration jails, generated £411 ($527) million in revenue, accounting for 10% of its overall revenue.
As part of its immigration jailing operations, Mitie manages the Dungavel and Heathrow (consisting of Colnbrook and Harmondsworth) immigration removal centers (IRCs). Together, these IRCs hold some 1,300 immigrants. In 2021, Mitie was awarded a contract to manage the Dungavel and Derwentside IRCs on behalf of the Home Office, the agency responsible for immigration enforcement. (As of 2024, Mitie no longer operates or provides any services to the Derwentside IRC.) The company has operated the Heathrow IRC—”the largest of its kind in Europe”—since 2014. Until 2018, Mitie also managed the Campsfield House IRC, a 257-bed immigration jail that was closed by the Home Office in 2019 following years of problems, including complaints about conditions and riots.
Miti also provides the U.K. government with deportation flights. In 2017, the company was awarded a 10-year contract with the Home Office worth an estimated £525 ($674) million for immigration detention services, including the “escorting [of] immigration detainees, both within the U.K. and overseas, on removal flights to detainees’ home countries.” In addition, the contract includes the management of several airport holding rooms, reporting centers, and two short-term holding facilities.
Mitie’s immigration jails have been the subject of numerous complaints and allegations of human rights abuses. In 2015, a report published by the U.K.’s Chief Inspector of Prisons documented poor conditions at the company’s Harmondsworth IRC, which detains asylum seekers, individuals who have overstayed their visas, and non-British nationals who have completed jail terms in the U.K. The report detailed dirty and run-down accommodation, unsanitary conditions, overcrowded and poorly ventilated rooms, and inadequate medical care. Eighteen individuals were held for over a year in violation of Home Office regulations, which state that detention in immigration jails should be used sparingly and for the shortest possible period.
In April 2024, Mitie was awarded a 10-year, £329 ($422) million contract to operate HMP Millsike, a new, 1,500-bed prison in Yorkshire, England, that is due to open in 2025. This is Mitie’s first U.K. prison management contract, making it the fourth private prison operator in the U.K., along with G4S, Serco, and Sodexo. The company also provides cleaning, catering, and other facilities management services to other U.K. prisons, including HMP Brixton and HMP Isis, two London-area prisons.
In 2017, Mitie was the target of a divestment campaign led by students at Durham University, demanding that the university end its £5 million ($6.6 million) contract with Mitie, which provides Durham with cleaning, landscaping, and total security management. The campaign cited reports of overcrowding, poor sanitation, hunger strikes, little to no pay, and detainee suicide in Mitie’s immigration detention centers. In May 2018, Durham University renewed its contract with Mitie, including it in its operational plans for the following fiscal year.