G4S mercenaries get British taxpayers’ millions

This is a music video by British punk band Crass, of their song Securicor (another name for G4S corporation). Lyrics are here.

From weekly Socialist Worker in Britain:

6.57pm Tue 27 Nov 2012

£93 million a year for firm of bunglers with bloody hands

The Tories are handing millions to some of the country’s least favourite private contractors.

A new report into government spending on the criminal justice system shows that one of the biggest beneficiaries has been G4S.

The firm is best known for bungling the security operation at the Olympics.

G4S got £93 million in the first year of the coalition government to run services for the UK Border Agency.

Yet G4S has been widely criticised for their treatment of failed asylum seekers during deportations and the conditions in the detention centres they run.

Jimmy Mubenga died in 2010 as three G4S private security guards were forcibly deporting him to Angola. He appeared to have died of asphyxiation. The three guards were arrested but never charged.

Out of the £170 million the Tories spent on contractors, four security giants—Serco, G4S Care and Justice Services, and the GEO Group—accounted for 90 percent of it.

Serco and G4S have raked in huge chunks of the half a billion budget for electronic tagging, court to prison escort services and prisons and detention centres.

In just these two areas these two companies grabbed over 55 percent of the government budget. Serco’s global business is already worth over £4 billion and is set to benefit from NHS privatisation. Let’s hope they look after patients better than they did Jimmy Mubenga.

Related articles

• Sexual abuse, illegal deportation of refugee women by British Serco mercenaries

• Serco and G4S making a killing by British outsourcing craze (antonyloewenstein.com)
• Protesters mark Mubenga death (morningstaronline.co.uk)
• G4S ‘corners market on detention’ (independent.co.uk)
• G4S’s Olympics Punishment Could Be a Buying Opportunity (fool.com)
• Wiri prison contract may be reviewed by future Labour govt (nzherald.co.nz)
• Serco Awarded $68 Million U.S. Navy Production and Engineering Services Contract (virtual-strategy.com)
• G4S loses prison privileges after Olympic staff debacle (thetimes.co.uk)
• G4S loses contract to run East Yorkshire’s Wolds prison (independent.co.uk)
• G4S in the running to take control of privatised probation (independent.co.uk)