G4S: the public face of private police

Companies like G4S are often described as the invisible authorities behind hundreds of our so called social services. The fact that a care home is run by A4E, a detention centre is managed by Serco or that your local police authority is a 'joint-venuture' with multi-national corporation G4S, is not advertised as such; it's only there when you go looking.

At least that's how it's been for years. Yet in the words of Claire Sambrook, writing brilliantly for Open Democracy, now 'Corporate Power stamps its brand on British Policing'; Lincolnshire police uniforms now find their epaulettes branded by the brazen red, white and black of the G4S logo. According to a BBC report, the uniforms are to be worn by 200 staff, including front counter staff at police stations. We're seeing a "strategic partnership" with G4S firmly in control.

On the first of April 2012, 540 civilian Lincolnshire police workers turned into employees of G4S, the largest security company in the UK. Alongside managing frontline counter service, G4S employees will run the crime management bureau, the central ticket office and collisions unit, the criminal justice unit, the resource management unit and firearms licensing. This is hardy the back-room presence that the government claimed private contractors would have within the police. Put succinctly by Sambrook:

As for the corporate statement, "There are no plans to introduce the dual logo elsewhere," it is a warning. It does not come from the government, or from a Minister speaking to Parliament. The sentence carries a huge, silent word at the end: "yet". 

Paul McKeever, chairman of the Police Federation, immdiately after acknowledging that changing the uniforms will have an adverse effect on the visual presence of warranted officers, made the following statement:

"G4S aren't doing anything wrong. They are doing what any private company would want to do, which is make profit and expand their organisation." 

I'm not sure whether I could ever agree with that.

And so it begins...

As Serco are set for their November takeover of asylum seekers' social housing in Scotland, it has already been reported that 100 asylum seekers living in Glasgow have been told to leave their homes by previous contract holder, Y People.

Y People, formally known as YMCA Glasgow, was previously responsible for housing dispersed asylum seekers to Glasgow who are awaiting decision from the UKBA. Losing the huge housing contract to Serco in March, Y People has been forced to serve certain residents with eviction notices as many of their rental contracts are set to run out in May. 

This is a process we can expect to see replicated across the country. As the multinational corporations move in, thousands of asylum seekers will only been seen as a form of collateral damage rather than at the centre of service provision. Previous contract holders, still managing certain contracts whilst handing others over to Serco, G4S or Reliance Security, will be left in a complex state of limbo. In the words of Joe Connelly, Y People's Chief Executive, "We [Y People] have a contract extension until November, but we don't know what that means."As support networks are dismantled to pave the way for the full privatisation of asylum seekers' social housing, it would be naive to think that there will be no tangible victim. In the words of Michael Collins, of the Anti-Deportation Campaign, things are simple: "These people will become homeless and destitute."  

Whilst the contracts have been awarded to G4S, Serco and Reliance, no safety nor dignity has been secured for the thousands of asylum seekers that are forced into precarious lives in the UK. As the notorious A4E are the preferred bidders for the Equality and Human Rights Commission's helpline, multinational security companies scrap over new policing contracts and VirginCare start to provide community health services in Surrey, the rights of vulnerable individuals are becoming increasingly tertiary to government ideology and economic jargon. Placing critical service provision at the whims of the commercial marketplace once again reaffirms the government's zeal for profit over people; the yields of privatisation over public service.