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Global security? Did you know about G4S ? - Christer Forslund - 02-02-2012

(From Wikipedia)
Quote:G4S plc (formerly Group 4 Securicor) (LSE: GFS, OMX: G4S) is a global security services company headquartered in Crawley, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest security company measured by revenues and has operations in more than 125 countries.[SUP][2][/SUP][SUP][3][/SUP] With over 630,000 employees, it is the world's second-largest private sector employer (after Wal-Mart Stores).[SUP][2][/SUP][SUP][4][/SUP]

G4S has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and it is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It has a secondary listing on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange.


Cecilia Verdinelli is writing (G-P, 30 Jan. 2012, http://www.gp.se/kulturnoje/1.843010-cecilia-verdinelli-staterna-stympar-sig) about the, for every day more common, "sell out" of what used to be common societal or communal services to private companies. States cut off their own fingers in order to get a privately run helping hand.

She viewed especially the security company G4S, working under the slogan "Securing our world". In Europe you probably have seen their money transport vans. They have recently started the function to check bus and tram tickets in our local city.

But G4S according to her, also, for example, delivers bodyguards in Iraq and foster homes in England, prison services in Israel and its occupied areas. They take care of a juvenile deliquents home in Belgium and security in the Bagdad airport. The company has even started taking over certain police work in Linconshire.

Cecilia Verdinelli imagines a young palestinian, who after a demonstration finds himself in a G4S-prison in Israel. Somehow he gets out of there, and after a while finds himself in Sweden looking for a brighter future. But he hasn't paid his tram fare properly when checked by the G4S personnel. According to EU-rules, he will be sent to Britain, which happend to be the "first" country in Europe where he was seeking asylum. He is taken into custody by other G4S personnel in the refuge accomodation, until his deportation under supervision of still another group of G4S employees. This story is fictive, but plausible.

Global companies like this one have a real potential to act in a totalitarian way. They operate on a higher intelligence level than the single State that hired them. G4S certainly is in the private security business - maybe they so far are stopping short of sending out mercenaries, but borders are thin - they are involved in "training services". And G4S owns the Wackenhut Corporation...

Global security? Did you know about G4S ? - Magda Hassan - 20-07-2012

London 2012: G4S encouraged to keep staff wages low


By Tim DonovanPolitical Editor, BBC London

G4S were contracted to supply 10,400 security guards during the Games
[URL="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18898646#story_continues_1"]
[/URL]
Olympic organisers instructed G4S to pay security guards less than the wages that officials had publicly declared were being offered, the firm says.
Most security guards are being paid a basic wage of £8.50 an hour to work at the Games venues.
It is below the rate of "approximately £10 an hour" which the government and Locog told MPs was being paid to attract recruits.
Locog said pay and retention rates started at more than £9 an hour.
The pressure to keep down wages has emerged as another factor which may have prevented G4S from meeting its contractual obligation to supply 10,400 security guards for the Games, leading to 3,500 extra armed forces personnel being drafted in.
Enhanced contract
More military personnel may yet be needed.
G4S says the basic rate - being paid to about half the security workforce - was decided by Locog when a new enhanced contract was signed last December.
A spokesman said: "The minimum rate of pay was £8.50 an hour and rises on a scale from there depending on the role's seniority and whether specialist skills are required."
A company source has told the BBC that it was "imposed" on the company and there was no scope to deviate from it.
Locog's chief executive Paul Deighton told MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) last December that security guards would be paid at the market rate of between £9 and £12 an hour.
Serious questions
In March this year Jonathan Stephens, Permanent Secretary at the Department for Culture Media and Sport and the official in overall charge of the £9.3bn Olympic budget, gave updated figures to the committee.
In written evidence he said: "With regards labour costs, budgeted hourly pay rates have been jointly developed between Locog and G4S following extensive market research and discussion.
"Pay starts at approximately £10 per hour, to which have been added associated costs such as NI [national insurance] and holiday pay, with supervisory or specialist staff being paid at a higher rate."


The chairman of the PAC Margaret Hodge MP said it raised "serious questions" about Locog's management of the contract.
Mr Stephens told MPs that G4S had been "incentivised to identify savings opportunities in labour costs", implying the company would keep more for itself if it kept wage costs down.
But the G4S source said there had been "no incentive" because the rate was fixed.
"The rate was imposed on us. We are just the agents and did not decide the pay structure," said the source.
Bonus payments
The security contract entitled G4S to a small amount for every employee paid the £8.50 basic hourly rate.
Last week, in an attempt to sign up and retain staff, the company offered bonus payments of between 50p and £1 an hour for those who stayed in their jobs until the end of the Games.
A spokesman for Locog said: "The combined pay and retention rate starts at over £9 per hour.
"The more senior the role, the higher the rate."
G4S has blamed its failure to deliver enough security staff on problems with the "scheduling", communication and training workloads.
[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18898646#story_continues_3][/url]
But it is likely the rate of pay may also have had an impact, as people considered a range of alternative casual job opportunities, especially in the retail and hospitality sectors, which have become available during the Olympics.
The source said: "We discussed whether if we paid more it would increase our chances of attracting more people.
"But we didn't complain and we accepted the rate."
Ms Hodge said she would be demanding to see the security contract when the PAC reconvenes in September.
She questioned why security staff, some of the poorest people in London, were being paid apparently less than the market rate and not what the committee had been told.
She said it could not be justified when the money G4S said it needed for managing the contract - including spending on office, administrative staff, training and uniforms - had risen from £10m to £125m.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18898646

Global security? Did you know about G4S ? - Peter Lemkin - 20-07-2012

The original Olympic Games - long ago - were devised as a way of stopping a war and having the opposing sides instead compete, rather than kill. Modern games are highly militarized again - even if the athletes are not. That such security is needed is absurd. That the biggest security contractor in the World was awarded the contract itself is suspicious; but that they are looking to make top dollar and pay bottom wages should surprise no one. Sadly, the Olympics now are all about making money for large corporations and their client states and politicians - the athletics are only the side show. In London and the UK there have been arrests and legal threats on i.e. florists who make flower arrangements with the five rings [but didn't pay the licensing fees for this]....its not about athletics or competitive spirit; its about big money and monopolies.

Global security? Did you know about G4S ? - Magda Hassan - 24-07-2012

London Olympics security firm G4S helps Israel abuse Palestinian children in solitary confinement

Submitted by Adri Nieuwhof on Sun, 07/22/2012 - 16:32
G4S, the firm at the center of the debacle over security for the London 2012 Olympics, is helping Israel secure facilities where Palestinian children are imprisoned and severly abused.
Defence for Children-Palestine (DCI-Palestine) has released an urgent appeal to end the practice of holding Palestinian children from the West Bank in solitary confinement in facilities in Israel. The organization has documented 53 such cases since 2008.
The children have been held in solitary confinement mainly in Al Jalame and Petah Tikva interrogation centers. The security systems for Al Jalame detention facilities were provided by G4S Israel, according to a March 2011 report on the firm by Who Profits.
G4S Israel is a subsidiary of British-Danish security firm G4S and it is deeply involved in Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories, as well as in Israeli prisons and detention centers.
Meanwhile, G4S has lost its credibility because its incapacity to deliver on the contract to secure the London Olympics. The UK government stepped in and mobilized 3,500 military personnel to fill in the gap. Nick Bukcles, G4S's CEO, was interrogated by members of parliament about the failure of his company. Buckles admitted that G4S's reputation is in tatters.






DCI-Palestine documents the cases of 19 boys held solitary confinement

In its urgent appeal, DCI-Palestine has documented the cases of 19 boys who were held in solitary confinement by Israel. The boys were aged between 15 and 17 years. DCI-Palestine writes:
In most cases the children are arrested from their homes in the occupied West Bank by Israeli soldiers in the middle of the night. After being tied and blindfolded, the children are transferred to an interrogation centre inside Israel, most commonly to the Al Jalame facility, near Haifa. The children report being held in solitary confinement at these facilities for an average of 10 days. Whilst detained in these facilities, the children are questioned by ISA interrogators and are generally denied access to their parents and a lawyer. No education is provided to children at these facilities.
The children taken to Al Jalame describe being held in solitary confinement in a small cell (commonly referred to as "Cell 36") measuring approximately 2x3 metres. The children report either sleeping on a concrete bed, on the floor, or on a thin mattress which is often described as "dirty" and "foul smelling." Meals are passed to the children through a flap in the door, thus depriving them of human contact. The walls of these cells are reported to be grey in colour with sharp protrusions which are painful to lean against. There are no windows and the only source of illumination comes from a dim yellow light that is reported to be kept on 24 hours-a-day. Some children complain of suffering pain behind their eyes and adverse psychological effects after being detained in these cells.
It appears from the testimonies provided by the children that the dominant purpose for detaining them in these conditions is to break their spirit in order to extract a confession. Many children report being kept in solitary confinement between lengthy interrogation sessions in which prohibited techniques are frequently used, such as excessive shackling of the legs and hands, as well as position abuse, physical violence and threatening behaviour. Most children detained and questioned in these facilities end up providing a confession, which in some cases, is written in Hebrew. Once the children confess, they are prosecuted in a military court and transferred to a regular prison.
DCI-Palestine recommends to send urgent appeals to members of parliament and Israeli embassies in your country. DCI suggest to call in your appeal for an immediate end to the practice of solitary confinement of children, and that Israel should amend its laws to prohibit the practice. In addition, every detention facility, including Al Jalame, must be opened up to unbiased external inspection.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/adri-nieuwhof/london-olympics-security-firm-g4s-helps-israel-abuse-palestinian-children

Global security? Did you know about G4S ? - David Guyatt - 28-10-2013

I know what you're thinking.

What kind of international company would engage in forced injections and elector-shocks of prison inmates in this day and age?

Well, G4S does.

Quote:G4S-run prison in South Africa investigated over abuse claims

Jail operated by UK security firm allegedly used forced injections and electric shock treatment to subdue inmates


Link to video: G4S prison in South Africa 'torturing inmates'A South African prison run by the British security company G4S is under investigation for allegedly using forced injections and electric shock treatment to subdue inmates.
Prisoners, warders and health care workers said that involuntary medication was regularly practised at the Mangaung Correctional Centre near Bloemfontein. G4S denies any acts of assault or torture.
The revelations come just weeks after the South African government took over operations from G4S after finding it had "lost effective control over the prison" in the wake of a series of stabbings, riots, strikes and a hostage taking.
The latest allegations follow a year-long investigation by the Wits Justice Project (WJP) part of the journalism department of the University of Witwatersrand which uncovered damning video evidence apparently showing forced medication. A staff member at the prison hospital, who did not wish to be named, alleged that inmates were injected with Clopixol Depot, Risperdal, Etomine and Modecate. These anti-psychotic drugs can cause memory loss, muscle rigidity, strokes and other serious, potentially life-threatening side effects.
A video shot on 24 May by the prison's emergency security team (EST), which is legally required to film all its actions, shows inmate Bheki Dlamini being injected involuntarily. "I am not a donkey," Dlamini protests loudly, yelling: "No, no, no," while five men grab him, twist his arms behind his back and drag him to a room where they wrestle him on a bed and a nurse is called.
The staff member said Dlamini's medical files do not indicate he is psychotic or schizophrenic. Egon Oswald, a human rights lawyer representing Dlamini, said: "He told me that he got into an argument with a warder about the prison food and the EST was called."
Fourteen recently dismissed EST members, who spoke to the WJP on condition of anonymity, said they would restrain inmates so they could be forcibly medicated up to five times a week.
The EST members said they had no idea what the inmates were injected with. They claimed that inmates with psychiatric problems or who were being difficult or aggressive received the involuntary treatment.
Inmates also alleged that they were subjected to electric shocks by prison officials. Former inmate Thabo Godfrey Botsane was held in a single cell for four months in 2009. He claims the security team visited him one day because a cell in his unit had been set alight. "They stripped me naked, poured water over me, electroshocked and kicked me. They left me naked and bleeding on the floor. A guy from the prison intelligence unit not a nurse came back and he injected me in my buttocks."
Former warders Pule Moholo, Dehlazwa Mdi and Themba Tom worked in a block at the prison with single cells, known as Broadway. All three say they remember the sound of inmates screaming. Tom said: "There was a sound-proof room called the 'dark room'. EST members would bring inmates there, strip them naked, pour water over them and electroshock them. We would try not to hear the crying and screaming. It was awful." G4S denies the room's existence.
A former G4S employee, who did not wish to be named, said electric shields were necessary because he and his colleagues were hopelessly outnumbered by dangerous prisoners. "We use them sometimes because we are understaffed and we are expected to bring out the results and also to install fear on the inmates," he told the BBC. "We went overboard, so to say: sometimes you go and shock them individually in a segregation unit just to make sure they could be afraid of us."
"The management was very happy with the results and with some of the incidents if it was during the week then the official was there at the centre and they would respond with us and we do these things with them, in their presence," he said.
He admitted using an electric shield on inmates to make them talk. "Yeah, we stripped them naked and we throw with water so the electricity can work nicely … Again and again. Up until he tell you what you want to hear, even if he will lie, but if he can tells you what I want to hear. He can tell the truth but if that's not the truth that I want, I will shock him until he tells the truth that I want even if it's a lie."
Asked by the BBC interviewer if using electroshocking to get answers from prisoners constitutes torture, the EST member replied: "Yes in a simple way … Yes it was common practice."
British law firm Leigh Day which recently secured compensation for Kenyan victims tortured by British colonial forces has been instructed to investigate the claims against G4S in the UK.
Mangaung Correctional Centre is the second largest private prison in the world, and 81% of shares are owned by G4S Care and Justice, one of G4S's three operating companies.
Sapna Malik, partner at Leigh Day, said: "The allegations raised are shocking in the extreme and require urgent and thorough investigation. If proved to be true, prompt restitution, accountability and lessons learned must follow."
Egon Oswald added: "We have signed affidavits of five inmates who allege that they have been injected and we think more will come forward. My firm is collaborating with Leigh Day to litigate their claims."
Forced medication is subject to stringent rules in South Africa. The head of a health institution can decide to treat a patient involuntarily if two clinicians have assessed the patient and if a family member, guardian or if they are unavailable, a health worker has approved. Involuntary medication is then only permissible if the patient is a danger to himself or others and if he is incapable of making an informed decision.
South Africa's correction services minister, Sibusiso Ndebele, said an investigation would be launched into the allegations, saying he viewed them "in a very serious light".
"We will leave no stone unturned in this investigation, in order to ensure that those implicated in such inhumane acts face the consequences of their actions," he said on Friday.
G4S denied any acts of assault or torture, either by means of electroshocking or medical substances, against inmates. "G4S has a zero tolerance policy against the use of undue or excessive force," it said. "Inmates have unrestricted and confidential access to the DCS controller, employees from the office of the inspecting judge, the director, healthcare personnel and psychologists, with whom they can log complaints and raise concerns. Should any laws have been broken, DCS would have strongly acted against G4S."
Andy Baker, the president of G4S Africa, denied any abuse had taken place and said inmates were given injections if they required medication "for their own good".
"It is important to note that the G4S people do make the decision to medicate, the medical staff do not work for G4S, they are a completely independent entity," he told the BBC.
G4S was awarded a 25-year contract in 2000 for the construction, maintenance and running of the jail. The DCS will hand back the prison if and when G4S can prove its ability to run it again.

G4S bought out the disgraced US security company Wackenhut in 2002, and then in 2008, it acquired ArmorGroup International - another security company that had some black marks against its name. It's Group Consultant is the odious (imo) John Reid, former British Home Secretary under Tony Blair.

So it has some relevant history you might say...

Global security? Did you know about G4S ? - David Guyatt - 09-11-2013

More disturbing insights int the real power of G4S

Quote:G4S set to expand contract despite freeze on government work

Private security firm to expand capacity at immigration removal centres while being investigated by Serious Fraud Office

[Image: A-wing-in-Brook-House-imm-009.jpg]A wing in Brook House immigration removal centre, where G4S intends to expand capacity. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

The Home Office is drawing up plans to scale up a G4S-run immigration contract despite a government-wide freeze on new dealings with the company while it is being investigated for allegedly defrauding the Ministry of Justice.
According to information obtained by the Guardian, the private security firm is preparing to expand capacity by 30% at one of the two immigration removal centres it runs on behalf of the Home Office, even though it is facing a formal investigation by the Serious Fraud Office for claims it overcharged the government in electronic tagging contracts.
Labour said it was bizarre and wrong that the company was being rewarded with bigger contracts while it was under investigation.
Brook House removal centre, near Gatwick, holds people due for deportation from the UK, and currently has space for 426 male detainees. Last month, while hosting a reception for outside contractors, the centre's director, Ben Saunders, said the company intended to increase this by 60 and then another 70 places over "the earliest possible timeframe".
On Monday, the Serious Fraud Office launched a formal criminal investigation into G4S after the justice minister, Chris Grayling, revealed in the summer that its staff had been billing the Ministry of Justice for tracking the movements of offenders who had gone abroad, been returned to jail or even died.
Grayling promised that G4S would not be awarded any new contracts by his department until investigations into G4S billing practices had been completed.
The Cabinet Office confirmed this pledge was binding across all government departments and was itself auditing several other G4S contracts.
Grayling said he had no direct evidence of dishonesty. G4S said its internal investigation had found no evidence of fraud and the security multinational was co-operating with the SFO investigation.
Last month, the head of UK and Irish operations for G4S , Richard Morris, resigned in a move understood to help patch relations between the company and the government.




Global security? Did you know about G4S ? - Magda Hassan - 09-11-2013

A disgusting corporation involved in human trafficking for want of a better word. Paid per warm body they can warehouse. It is completely wrong that they should be in charge of a church fete let alone the lives of human beings when they are a proven criminal entity. Don't they have a mercenary branch of business too? I vaguely recall they bought out the interests that were Sandline or Executive Outcomes.

Global security? Did you know about G4S ? - Magda Hassan - 11-11-2013

Three G4S immigration centre officials involved in forgery, says judge

'Shocking' actions of removal centre staff in asylum seeker's case are referred to Director of Public Prosecutions


G4S has been barred from government contracts while claims of overcharging are investigated. Photograph: David Jones/PA

G4S has launched an internal investigation after a judge referred a number of its employees for prosecution for forgery and contempt of court in a "truly shocking" case of what he called disgraceful behaviour.
In the high court, Mr Justice Mostyn said three employees from G4Srunning Brook House immigration removal centre in Gatwick, East Sussex, had been involved in forging a document and contempt of court after giving witness statements during an immigration appeal involving allegations of torture at the hands of a foreign government.
In an excoriating judgment which has been referred the attorney general and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Mostyn said G4S employees Tamara Burns, Marilyn Bennett and Matthew Newman were involved in "corruptly redacting" an official certificate, an action which helped bolster the case against an immigrant who was being deported from the UK.
Last week the Guardian revealed the Home Office is in discussions with G4S to expand Brook House by 30% despite a freeze on new government contracts for the multinational security company while it is investigated by the Serious Fraud Office for allegations of criminally overcharging taxpayers.
T​he asylum seeker, who is not allowed to be named for legal reasons, claimed he had been tortured and beaten with a heated metal rod on arrival at his country of origin after UK officials refused to remove paperwork from his luggage which identified him with anti-government organisations there.
​Mostyn found that after his room at Brook House was cleared of belongings, a certificate was drawn up by officials making reference to "various paperwork".
But during court proceedings, centre staff submitted a second "doctored" certificate, which scrubbed all mention of the paperwork.
"The conduct of the secretary of state's agents in falsifying the room clearance certificate is corrupt and truly shocking," Justice Mostyn said in his judgment Thursday.
"The original clean certificate was only produced by the secretary of state following a request made by the claimant's solicitors after the doctored certificate has been produced in evidence as exhibits to the witness statements of Tamara Burns, Marilyn Bennett and Matthew Newman," said ​Mostyn.
The three officials behaved disgracefully, the judge said, adding: "When agents of the state falsify documents it undermines, if not fatally then certainly very seriously, the trust of the people in the operation of the rule of law.
"It makes no difference if, as here, the agents are private contractors to whom the secretary of state has outsourced her powers. Corruption by state officials is insidious and corrosive and it is the duty of the authorities where it is found to root it out ruthlessly."
Mostyn referred his findings of forgery and providing false witness testimony to the DPP and the attorney general. However, he added that his "finding as to the turpitude of the agents of the secretary of state" did not detract from the "lack of credibility of the claimant", and he dismissed the appeal.
G4S said one employee was no longer with the company and the remaining two had been suspended with immediate effect. "The allegations made in respect of the conduct of our employees are extremely serious, and we have launched an immediate internal investigation," a G4S official said.
"Due to the nature of these allegations, we have suspended the two personnel concerned with immediate effect, pending the outcome of the investigation.
"We will, of course, co-operate fully with any inquiries the appropriate authorities may pursue in connection with this case."
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/10/g4s-officials-accused-forgery

Global security? Did you know about G4S ? - David Guyatt - 11-11-2013

Magda Hassan Wrote:A disgusting corporation involved in human trafficking for want of a better word. Paid per warm body they can warehouse. It is completely wrong that they should be in charge of a church fete let alone the lives of human beings when they are a proven criminal entity. Don't they have a mercenary branch of business too? I vaguely recall they bought out the interests that were Sandline or Executive Outcomes.

Yes, they have it all - the world's largest security company measured by revenue. They bought out Wackenhut, which was a pretty foul outfit to begin with, then ArmorCorporation International back in 2008. It was the Armor purchase that came with such a shoddy history, as it was originally known as GSL, Defence Systems Limited, which was part of the "Palace Group" (see image below).

From Wki:

Quote:

History[edit]

ArmorGroup began operations in 1981 as Defence Systems Limited (DSL), a company founded "to provide protective security services principally to multinational oil and gas companies."[SUP][6][/SUP] The publicly traded Armor Holdings, Inc., a business principally involved in the manufacture of armored vehicles and law enforcement equipment, acquired DSL in 1997. Some of the current senior management team carried out a Management Buyout of the company in November 2003, backed by Granville Baird Capital Partners and Barclays Bank. ArmorGroup was listed on the main list of the London Stock Exchange in December 2004.[SUP][6][/SUP]
In 2007, it posted a US$9.2 million profit, reporting $295 million turnover for that year.[SUP][2][/SUP] On March 20, 2008, the company announced that its Board had recommended a £43.6 million cash offer for the company by G4S plc.[SUP][2][/SUP] The acquisition completed on 29 April 2008. G4S has basically retired the "ArmorGroup" name although ArmorGroup North America, Inc. ("AGNA") is still in existence (see below).

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