Despite a series of high-profile scandals which effectively prevented it from obtaining any further contracts to run immigration detention centres or provide housing for asylum seekers, the multinational security company G4S continues to run criminal prisons in England and Wales and carry out electronic tagging of released prisoners in Scotland. The prisons which G4S now manages are riven with violence and neglect which the company is doing its best to cover up. A handful of prisoners are using legal challenge, protest and social media to expose G4S’ crimes against the population it is being paid to guard. NICKI JAMESON reports.
Originally established 120 years ago in Denmark, as part of what became the Falck company, following a long series of mergers and acquisitions, G4S was created in 2004, when Group 4 Falck (which had already taken over US firm Wackenhut) merged with Securicor. Whilst it retains an independent profile, G4S was itself taken over in 2021 by US company Allied Universal. Headquartered in London, G4S is now the world’s largest security company in terms of revenue, and the largest private employer in Europe and Africa. has operations in over 90 countries. Domestically, it currently holds the contracts to run Oakwood, Rye Hill and Five Wells prisons for adult men in England and Parc in Wales. Aside from Rye Hill, these are all large facilities, each housing 1,600-2,100 prisoners. G4S also continues to manage the Oakhill Secure Training Centre (STC), which houses imprisoned children, both male and female.
The company lurches from one scandal to another but overall is ‘too big to fail’, so simply changes focus when beset by any local crisis. In South Africa, since 2001 G4S has run the Mangaung Maximum Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein, the world’s second largest private prison. From 2008 onwards there have been repeated reports of mismanagement and extreme staff violence against prisoners, amounting to torture. After being exposed thoroughly in the 2019 documentary Prison for profit, as well as in an official report published the following year, which the government had attempted to bury, the company announced then that it would ‘upon expiry of [the] contract… discontinue all investment in correctional services in South Africa.’ With legal action currently in the courts following a prisoner being batonned and pepper-sprayed to death, it is unlikely that G4S will even make it to 2026 without the contract being terminated early by the South African government.
Until 2016 G4S ran the notorious Ofer prison in the Zionist-occupied West Bank, but was forced to pull out of this and other contracts to run prisons and supply military technology for checkpoints and illegal settlements, following sustained pressure from Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activists. However, it did not completely end its relationship with the Zionist state and continued to hold a stake in the consortium running Israel’s police academy. This in turn was challenged by BDS campaigners, resulting in a further retreat in 2023.
In Britain, there have been frequent scandals in G4S operations, including:
- 2010 – the death of Jimmy Mubenga, who was violently restrained by G4S personnel on a deportation flight to Angola.
- 2012 – the failure to deliver on its promise to provide sufficient security guards for the London Olympics, or to properly train and clothe those it did have in place.
- 2013/14 – both G4S and Securicor were found to have been overcharging the government for the electronic monitoring of released prisoners by including those who were back in prison, had absconded or had died.
- 2016 – the filming by the BBC Panorama programme of G4S guards mistreating child prisoners in the Medway STC.
- 2017 – further filming by Panorama of guards racially and physically abusing detainees at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre.
- 2018 – the taking back into government control of Birmingham prison, seven years after its privatisation and handing over to G4S, following repeated damning inspectorate reports and uprisings by desperate prisoners.
- 2019 – failure to retain its contract for asylum seeker housing, following multiple complaints and protests, together with scathing reporting from the National Audit Office over G4S’s neglect and racism against those provided with housing, plus the failure to provide any housing at all for others in the areas for which it was responsible.
Oakwood prison – unlawful use of x-ray body scans
On 13 March 2025, Vincent Horsfall took a successful judicial review against G4S Care and Justice Services Ltd, which resulted in his being paid £7,500 in damages for being unlawfully subject to X-ray body scanning (XRBS) while a prisoner at HMP Oakwood.
The blanket use of the potentially dangerous XRBS on groups of prisoners returning to their cells, after family visits, without any suspicion of individual misconduct, is counter to government policy but until this case, G4S managers simply ignored that, leading Oakwood to have the highest rate of scanning prisoners in the country. Large numbers of other prisoners are now expected to take civil actions against G4S.
Parc prison – deaths and cover-up
Seventeen people died at Parc prison in Bridgend during the course of 2024, eight during a four-month period, the highest number of deaths at any British prison. A report by the prisons’ inspectorate, published in April 2025 described ‘a serious deterioration in standards’, marking the prison as ‘poor for safety’ and ‘not sufficiently good’ for ‘respect’, ‘purposeful activity’ and ‘preparation for release’. In addition to the deaths, the report catalogued a 58% increase in self-harm since the previous inspection, with 1,962 incidents in the previous 12 months. During the same period 420 prisoners were formally segregated for up to 17 days, with another 276 unofficially confined to their cells pending disciplinary hearings, which often then did not actually take place. Food was poor, with Muslim prisoners in particular struggling to access an appropriate diet.
Following periods of imprisonment in Parc between 2016 and 2023, during which he witnessed repeated staff violence and neglect against prisoners, Zack Griffiths, along with other former prisoners and their families began campaigning publicly for G4S to lose its contract to run the prison. This did not go down well with G4S. In November 2024 Griffiths was convicted under a section of the Prison Act, which forbids transmitting or publishing material recorded in prison, for posting a video of a prison guard forcibly restraining a prisoner on the Facebook group ‘HMP Prisons Justice Group UK’. Despite such filming being exactly what undercover journalists for Panorama had done at Brook House and Medway STC, the court did not accept the argument that this action was in the public interest, and he was sentenced to serve 12 months imprisonment. In April 2025 Zack Griffiths was further recalled to prison for supposedly breaching the terms of his release licence and has now been told he may face prosecution under the Malicious Communications Act or the new Online Safety Act.
Prisons for profit
In December 2024, Prisons Minister James Timpson made it clear that the Labour government has no plans to strip G4S of its contract to run Parc.
While G4S is the biggest and most visible player in the British incarceration industry, it is far from alone in profiteering from imprisonment. Britain’s eight immigration removal centres are run by British-based multinational security companies Serco and Mitie. Serco operates five prisons, including Fosse Way in Leicestershire, which opened in 2023. Mitie has now moved into the criminal imprisonment market, after it was awarded a £329m contract to operate the newest prison in England, HMP Millsike, in Yorkshire. The British arm of French multinational Sodexo runs HMP Altcourse, which it took over from G4S in 2023, and five other prisons in England and Scotland.
In total there are 16 privately-run prisons in Britain, with approximately 16% of prisoners held in privatised facilities. This is the highest proportion in any European country. All these contractors have a vested interest in the criminal justice system continuing to provide them with lucrative contracts, and in silencing any voices which speak out about the ways in which their businesses operate.
