Hold G4S to account at Leeds University

This Wednesday (27th June), the managing director of G4S' Justice Services will be speaking at a conference at Leeds University (full timetable here) about the privatisation of justice and policing services. A representative from SERCO will also be at the event. We think it's time to ask some awkward questions...

We're planning to assemble outside the Liberty Building (University of Leeds Law School - see map) at 8.30am on Wednesday morning, just to make sure that the less favourable facts about G4S and SERCO are made known.

For a bit of contextualisation, see this recent Guardian article about G4S' chief predicting mass-privatisation of the police force within 5 years. Also, see Corporate Watch's brilliant annual report on G4S, and a pretty accurate Alternative Shareholders Report circulated by campaigners at G4S' recent AGM. We've also drafted a flyer for distribution outside the conference venue (any extra copies would be much appreciated!) Please circulate far and wide...

We need to make sure these multi-national security companies know that even though governments may not scrutinise their conduct, we will hold them to account for their actions. We do not want profiteering security contractors housing asylum seekers in the UK. We do not want private security guards masquerading as police officers. The state is not for sale. 

Mobilising Outrage

In another excellent article from John Grayson on Open Democracy, the processes of our no to G4S campaign are put in context:

How does a company with G4S’s reputation clean up on so many public privatising contracts now worth well over £1 billion a year in the UK alone? 

Firstly, it simply coopts, employs or buys former senior politicians, civil servants and diplomats to ‘advise’ and lobby for its contracts. The best known is former Home Secretary John (now Lord) Reid, a G4S board member. In recent months G4S has appointed to the new post of Director of Probation and Community Services David Griffiths, recently Deputy Director (justice policy) at the Ministry of Justice. 

In January Richard Northern joined G4S Risk Management as an adviser. He is “the former British Ambassador to Libya during the period leading up to and throughout the 2011 uprising”. According to G4S, he will be “pivotal in identifying, introducing and developing relationships with prospective clients and key Libyan decision-makers”.

(First published in Open Democracy on the 12th April, 2012)

First G4S, then Reliance...

"The poet, the artist, the sleuth - whoever sharpens our perception tends to be antisocial; rarely "well-adjusted," he cannot go along with currents or trends. A strange bond often exists among anti-social types in their power to see environments as they really are. This need to interfere, confront environments, with a certain anti-social power is manifest in the famous story, The Emperor's New Clothes. "Well-adjusted" courtiers, having vested interests, saw the emperor as beautifully appointed. The "anti-social" brat, unaccustomed to the old environment, clearly saw that the Emperor "ain't got nothin' on." The new environment was clearly visible to him."

 (Marshall McLuhan & Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the Massage, 1967)

Reliance Ltd, the company recently contracted to provide NASS accommodation in London and Wales (albeit in a new joint venture with Clearsprings Ltd to form Clearel Ltd), have been under the media spotlight this weekend. The Guardian's investigative journalism team published a series of articles that revealed a litany of abuse cases brought against the company since they took on the deportation and transportation contract that was lost by G4S in 2010. 

Deportees recorded instances of physical, emotional and psychological abuse, ranging from a general lack of respect to occurrences that bordered on simple assault. In the words of their own acting senior charter operation manager, Roy Stagg, "the company is dealing with something more cultural than isolated."

An internal memo leaked to the Guardian revealed the levels to which Reliance is aware of its own failings. The document simply states: 

"Is there actually a problem with our business? The consensus was: yes. Is this a company where women, ethnic minorities and those of diverse religions feel comfortable? Evidence would suggest: no."

This memo, circulated after the company was awarded the deportation and transportation contract, highlights a 'laddish' culture in which respect for other staff members, deportees and even management is critically low. The fact is that these working cultures do not appear out of nowhere. These practices clearly existed prior to the awarding of last years contract and this year's NASS accommodation contract, highlighting a certain 'decided ignorance' on behalf of the Home Office and UKBA. Referring back to Marshall McLuhan's quotation, "Well-adjusted" courtiers, having vested interests, saw the emperor as beautifully appointed."

The UKBA's response to these accusations of abuse, assault and mistreatment is hardly surprising: 

"In all but one of these cases, we have either received no complaint or have conducted a thorough investigation which has found allegations over the use of force were entirely without merit."

Yet, in a case followed by the Guardian's article, an individual who filed a case against Reliance for an alleged assault on a deportation flight back to Nepal had his injuries recorded at Yarl's Wood detention centre, after his flight was grounded. Here, we encounter another private security firm: Serco. Serco's medical team photographed wounds to the individual's wrist, forearms and neck, but the photographs were deemed insufficiently detailed to act as evidence.

Neither the UKBA or the Home Office want another Jimmy Mubenga case. The fact that their new contractors are racking up a similar record to their predecessors - G4S - doesn't seem to alter the government's rosy view of outsourcing critical aspects of the asylum process. Private companies easily evade accountability; remember that this memo was leaked, not published. Whilst the government and establishment continue to idolise the private sector, it takes the acts of "anti-social brats" to hold those appointed to account.

"The new environment was clearly visible to him."

First they came for the asylum seeker...

Again, we have to thank Jon Grayson for another brilliant article on the Institute for Race Relations' website. Published just before G4S won the government contracts for the provision of asylum seekers' social housing in Yorkshire and Humberside, Grayson puts the "asylum market" (G4S' words, not mine) in the important context of wider privatisation in the UK. 

Below is a short extract from Grayson's article:

"The UK is amongst the most intensively covered by private security with one private guard to every 170 people compared with one police employee to every 382 citizens -figures comparable to Hungary and Serbia. Germany on the other hand has much lighter private security with one private guard for every 484 citizens and one police employee for every 326 citizens. The private security business in the UK is worth £3.97 billion annually. Across Europe this is a very powerful lobby for privatising and marketising state functions. Just three companies have 46 per cent of the market in the UK. Just three companies have 56 per cent of the market across the EU. Published data from the EU does not directly name them but itwould be strange indeed if G4S and SERCO were not amongst them."

Please take a moment to read the whole article here.

According to Grayson, policies that affect asylum seekers have continually been used as trial-runs for wider policy-making. The government's obsession with making 'guinea pigs' out of asylum seekers is testament to the extent to which they have been dehumanised, demonised and deconstructed in the media. It seems like they've created a perfect scapegoat; with real lives and experiences obscured an obscene caricature, the asylum seeker is forced to be both invisible and grossly overexposed. When an individual is so heavily obstructed by layers of institutionalised prejudice and preconceptions, it is little wonder that much of the inflammatory press and political coverage goes unquestioned and almost unnoticed.

Our response to G4S' new asylum contracts // SYMAAG

Our group, the South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group (SYMAAG) was appalled that G4S has been awarded the contract to house people seeking asylum in Yorkshire and Humberside. They have no experience of providing housing (unless you count detention centres...) and their experience of dealing with asylum seekers is to detain, deport and abuse them. You'll know that 3 G4S employees are on bail facing manslaughter charges relating to the death of Jimmy Mubenga in 2010. The company as a whole is also waiting to see if it will face corporate manslaughter charges. As one local Zimbabwean asylum seeker put it "I don't want a prison guard as my landlord". Many asylum seekers regard G4S winnig the contract as tantamount to house arrest. One company now houses them, transports them and detains them. With G4S providing security at Baghdad Airport, they could even meet them at the other end...Changing the name from "G4S" to "G4S Care and Justice Services" doesn't change these facts.

Although the contract was signed 3 weeks late and only by the Acting Regional UK Borders Agency Director, we were not surprised they have been awarded £millions of public money. There appeared to us to be a high level of collusion between G4S and Yorkshire and Humberside regional UKBA long before the contract was signed. For example the COMPASS/UKBA Transition Team were in close contact with G4S before even the "due diligence" procedure had finished, whereas the COMPASS transition Team were - by definition - tasked with overseeing the transition from existing to G4S-run accomodation. On first-name terms at meetings. More than once, in meetings with G4S managers, they used the past tense to describe them winning the contract. Apart from possible legal challenges to way the contract has been awarded - what risk assessments were done? are children's rights to be safeguarded? - the widespread campaign against privatising asylum housing will now focus its energies on monitoring the standard of housing provided by a company which has stated "Our primary concern is to ensure a return for our shareholders" (Steven Small, Regional Borders and Immigration G4S director in a meeting with SYMAAG and UKBA on 24/2/12). We would like to see asylum seeker tenants federations - linked to established ones - which can ensure that those people who complain about housing standards are taken seriously and not victimised.

We regard the COMPASS Corporate Partner FAQ document (attached) as completely inadequate (and extremely defensive). Despite COMPASS "aiming", "desiring", "looking to" ensure that:

• G4S-provided housing will be more than substandard
• That disruption to children's education will be minimised
• that the sole criteria of re-housing will not be low cost

It is clear that they have no power to enforce any of these stated aims. In fact, 800 human beings face being uprooted in our region, disrupting lives, education, health provision and community integration. The FAQ document talks about complaints mechanisms but in a meeting with COMPASS and G4S management, both agencies made it clear that they regarded anonymised complaints as akin to anecdotes. The fact that they cannot understand why an asylum seeker might want to anonymise their complaint speaks volumes about their utter lack of understanding of the people they aim to house.

Finally, part of the reason that our campaign against G4S in Yorkshire has gained so much momentum is that many people realise their bid to manage asylum housing is a stepping stone to the more lucrative social housing market. Privatisation isn't popular in Yorkshire but solidarity with the underdog is. Evicting and dealing with asylum tenants (who have no tenants rights) is a useful trial run for managing tenants in social housing in future. Like we've always said: "first they come for the asylum seeker..."

Dehumanising, not dignified: SERCO's training manuals for detention centre guards

Today, Australian investigative journalists released Serco's 400-page induction training documents for their employees working in Australia's detention centres. Dated in 2009/10, this training manual takes on a strictly prison style technique in its explicit instructions on how to control detainees.

SERCO, the multinational security company contracted to run Australia's detention centres, have a $1 billion contract with the Gillard Government, running 9 different asylum outputs. They also already run two detention centres in the UK, Yarl's Wood and Colnbrook. And to no surprise, they are the preferred bidders - alongside G4S and Reliance Security - for the new asylum housing contracts across the UK. The North West and Northern Ireland can look forward to SERCO providing accommodation for asylum seekers in the imminent further.

The release of SERCO's 2009/10 training manual, allegedly after refusing to release similar documents on multiple occasions, reinforces existing concerns about the capacity for private security companies to provide dignified and respectful services for asylum seekers in detention, deportation or temporary accommodation. Much of the document focuses on key "control and restraint" techniques, recommending using a tactic of "pain" to defend, subdue and control asylum seekers. In a frighteningly dehumanising sentence, employees are advised to "subdue the subject using reasonable force so that he/she is no longer in the assailant category [...] If justified, necessary force is to be used to bring the subject to cooperative subject status whereupon they respond favourably to verbalisation."

Continuing to describe countless different 'defence' techniques, their "control and restraint" tactics sound more like excessive force. Employees are taught to use pressure points, batons and physical restraint to cause "high level of pain and mental stunning" in order to coerce the detainee into submission. Void of any compassionate or reconciliatory language, SERCO's training manual hardly brings "service to life."

Aside from dubious restraint techniques, SERCO's training guide reinforces many other unsavoury tactics. Elsewhere in the document, SERCO describe their use of a "Detention Discipline" interview as something that "appears to be very similar to the one that many parents adopt in responding to the actions of a son or a daughter who appears to have behaved unacceptably." According to SERCO, asylum seekers are to be reprimanded like unruly children. SERCO released a statement this afternoon, declaring that "We are committed to treating the people in our care with dignity and respect, and to keeping all those we are responsible for from coming to any sort of harm." Can they honestly claim that treating asylum seekers as children and submitting them to high levels of pain as a coercion technique provides dignity, respect and care for detainees in their centres?

Furthermore, SERCO advise that the use of force should only be undertaken by male guards. Whilst male employees are told to be "tough, strong, in the lead, in control and not back down and give as good as you get, show no weakness, win if you can, never mind the cost", female guards are told to be "gentle, follow, be compassionate, put others before herself, to share, not to argue and not to get angry." This level of gender stereotyping and categorisation is frightening.

Chris Bowen, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship in Australia, released a statement this afternoon, claiming that this SERCO manual is outdated and no longer in use. Reiterating comments made by SERCO's spokesperson, Chris Bowen trundled out the familiar phrases of "defensive actions", "last resort" and "dignity and respect." Regardless of whether the training manual has been superseded by a new edition, these guidelines were in place in 2010, only two years ago. Even last year, a freedom of information request revealed that the government's official contract with SERCO allowed for guards to be hired with no experience, or only with nightclub bouncer training. This training document is hardly a single blip in SERCO's record.

This is another failure of government "outsourcing." It is time to tackle the government-endorsed "asylum market" and remind the authorities of the human lives they are putting at risk in favour of "cost-effective solutions." Private companies, focusing on profit rather than people, are hardly the perfect candidates to provide care, dignity and safety for those seeking sanctuary across the globe.

March 1st Demonstration Success

Protesting outside Vulcan House, regional HQ of the UK Borders Agency on February 15th

On March 1st, spring sun warmed the 80 protestors gathered outside Sheffield Town Hall to say "No to G4S managing asylum housing". We were a mixed bunch: asylum seekers and refugees from all over the world; asylum rights campaigners from all over Yorkshire and the Midlands; trade unionists opposed to the privatisation of public services; campaigners for migrant women's rights, activists from Palestine (already familiar with G4S for their role in backing the Israeli security forces).

This was the second regional demonstration held in Sheffield against G4S prison guards being given public money to manage the housing of asylum seekers.

Passers-by were mostly keen to take leaflets: there's a lot of understanding in Sheffield about who asylum seekers are and why they come here; there's even more understanding that the privatisation of public services benefits nobody except big corporations like G4S. Some people stopped to listen to the speakers and share their own stories of reduced wages and impossible jobs due to privatisation. A statement was read out from Mafungasei Maikokera, a Zimbabwean refugee who had been charged with assault on G4S! Of course, the charges were dropped and the actual violence came from G4S: "when G4S are at it, it is like a boxing match" she told us.

Apart from a couple of police (one of whom quietly voiced his concerns that G4S were trying to privatise the police force) we stewarded ourselves and marched to the UK Borders Agency where we held another rally in full view - and earshot - of the workers there (some of them supporters of our campaign).

Everybody who wanted to speak got a chance: from a few words of support from people who had travelled from other towns and cities to rousing stuff from SYMAAG's John Grayson, ending with "brothers and sisters, we can beat them!" 6 days after the contract between UKBA and G4S was due to be signed, it is still blank. Every enquiry to UKBA about why this is the case receives a different answer. But the fact remains, G4S and UKBA were mistaken to think that nobody cares about asylum seekers' housing or privatisation.