用“灵活用工”给暴力外包：私有监狱的成本套利 scamOutsourcing Violence via 'Flexibility': The Private Prison Cost-Arbitrage Scam
把监管囚犯这种高压、高风险的工作定义为“灵活的、基于任务的” (flexible, task-based)，这在叙事上是一个极其恶劣的 weaponization。Mitie 和 Sangfroid Group 试图通过重新定义“雇佣关系”来抹除雇主的责任。所谓的“灵活用工” (contingent workforce)，本质上是把原本属于制度的 structural violence 转移给个体——让员工在没有最低保障、没有稳定性、甚至没有基本安全承诺的情况下，去面对一个暴力等级高到监察员都要结伴而行的环境。
这是一场典型的成本套利 scam。私有监狱公司拿着政府每年 3300 万英镑的预算，却在人员短缺导致 350 个牢房空置时，选择用 zero-hours contracts 来填坑。他们不仅在剥削劳动力，更是在通过“外包”的方式，将直接暴力 (direct violence) 的风险在共谋链条中层层转嫁。Mitie 声称自己不提供零工合同，而是由 Sangfroid Group 提供，这种通过第三方公司构建的法律防火墙，正是为了在出现安全事故时，能够迅速通过“合同关系”将责任推给底层的临时工。
当政府在讨论释放囚犯以缓解压力时，私有资本却在尝试将“看守”这种专业职能 casualised。一个没有稳定身份、随时可能被解雇的临时工，在面对高度敌对的环境时，其主体性是被极度压缩的。这种表达的异化——将“专业监管”变为“临时任务”——最终会导致监狱内部暴力的进一步升级。因为在这样一个缺乏契约保障的结构里，没有任何人真正拥有维护秩序的动力，大家都在为了生存而进行最底层的博弈。
Defining the high-pressure, high-risk task of guarding prisoners as "flexible and task-based" is a vile weaponisation of narrative. Mitie and Sangfroid Group are attempting to erase employer accountability by redefining the nature of employment. This so-called "contingent workforce" is nothing more than the transfer of structural violence onto the individual—forcing workers into an environment where violence is so pervasive that monitors only feel safe in pairs, all while denying them minimum hours, stability, or basic security guarantees.
This is a classic cost-arbitrage scam. While receiving £33m annually from the government, the private operator responds to a staffing crisis and 350 empty cells by introducing zero-hours contracts. They are not just exploiting labour; they are shifting the risk of direct violence down the chain of complicity. Mitie’s claim that it doesn't offer these contracts—that Sangfroid Group does—is a textbook legal firewall designed to deflect responsibility onto precarious workers when the inevitable security failure occurs.
While the government debates early release to ease capacity, private capital is attempting to casualise a professional function. A temporary worker with no stable identity and no job security has their subjectivity crushed in a hostile environment. This alienation of expression—turning "professional custody" into a "temporary task"—will inevitably escalate internal violence. In a structure devoid of contractual protection, no one has a genuine incentive to maintain order; everyone is simply fighting a desperate existential war for survival.