The G4S logo really is popping up all over the place — in your local supermarket, on your local street. And it’s all over the London Olympics, where 25,000 security people will be working under G4S control. The company’s bill for that lucrative contract - £300 million.The world’s biggest security company, G4S operates in 125 countries with 657,000 personnel. Its turnover has almost doubled since 2005, standing at £7.5bn in 2011, government contracts made up just 27% of G4S's total revenue in 2011.
The company now runs six prison institutions across England. The company has 17,000 former police officers on the books as part of its Policing Solutions database. The site works like a private police employment agency, offering former officers, usually on short-term contracts, to forces around the UK and often the world.The company also runs more than 500 police cells in Lancashire, south Wales and Staffordshire. In April it began work on a £200m contract in Lincolnshire where it will design, build and run a police station in a deal that has seen more than 575 public-sector police staff transfer to the company. The G4S logo will now appear on police uniforms if you happen live in the English county of Lincolnshire when it emerged that 200 staff had been issued with uniforms that bear the G4S logo alongside that of Lincolnshire police. In a £1.5bn deal being discussed by West Midlands and Surrey police, the list of policing activities up for grabs includes investigating crimes, detaining suspects, developing cases, responding to and investigating incidents, supporting victims and witnesses, managing high-risk individuals, managing intelligence, managing engagement with the public, as well as more traditional back-office functions such as managing forensics, providing legal services, managing the vehicle fleet, finance and human resources. 10 more other police forces are also considering outsourcing.
Mel Kelly, a journalist for the Open Democracy website, says it is already possible to construct a scenario where a crime is committed and at each stage it is G4S rather than the police who are involved. "It is quite conceivable now to have a violent crime where a scene of crime officer employed by G4S is dispatched, a forensic team employed by the company collects swabs dispatched to G4S forensics, a suspect is held in cells run by G4S and appears before a magistrate trained by the company. He is convicted and sent to a G4S prison. On probation he attends a G4S work programme wearing a G4S electronic tag. This is not a dystopian future but the reality as it is now."
Unite's national officer, Peter Allenson "This is not the back office – we are talking about the privatisation of core parts of the police service including crime investigation, forensics, 999 call-handling, custody and detention and a wide range of police services...This is not about making the police force more efficient – it is about transferring our crucial public services to the private sector, which has a totally different ethos and set of priorities. Privatisation has nothing to do with making our streets safer. It has everything to do with profit."
G4S, implicated in the death of the forcibly deported immigrant, Jimmy Mubenga, feared and distrusted by asylum seekers, is about to be awarded contracts to run asylum seeker housing throughout the North East, Yorkshire and Humberside.
G4S has been severely criticized for its operations in the occupied Palestinian territories and in prisons and detention centers in Israel, including those housing children and “administrative detainees” held without charge or trial. Palestinian organizations called for action against G4S for its role in Israeli prisons where Palestinian political prisoners from the occupied territories are held in contravention of international law.
John Reid — Labour Party hard man, former secretary of state for health and defence, and home secretary, out of government but still a serving MP, has been taking £50,000 a year from G4S, hosting ‘business breakfasts’, and talking up the scary threats and looming crises — cyber attacks, pandemics, global warming, energy shortages, mass migration — that spell nothing but business opportunities to G4S.
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