Abu Ghraib, Iraq
October 28, 2005 Macon Telegraph
Abu Ghraib means different things to different people. For the people of Iraq, it is where tens of thousands of family members died in Saddam Hussein's death house or were tortured under his regime. Around the world, it is the scene of the infamous prisoner abuse scandal that led to U.S. soldiers doing time for war crimes. For retired Macon firefighter John Wood, it is now home. Before beginning his role as a civilian firefighter working for Wackenhut Services LLC, Wood spent two weeks at Camp Victory near Baghdad, Iraq, to get acclimated to the heat. The prison-turned-military base is home now to some 5,000 detainees, U.S. soldiers and a multinational force that operates a combat supply hospital, Wood said. "It just blew me away," Wood said of his arrival at Abu Ghraib. "I didn't know what to expect, and when I got there, it was beyond my worst expectation."

Alexander Youth Services Center, Alexander, Arkansas
(AKA Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center)
January 26, 2008 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
The state's youth detention center near Alexander has been accredited for the first time by a national correctional association. But while officials expressed optimism that the center's beleaguered past was nearing an end, two days later they were explaining a Jan. 19 incident involving mistreatment of a teenager that resulted in the firing of three staff members. The private Virginia-based company, G4S, operates the 140-bed detention center under a contract with the state Youth Services Division. Officials said Wednesday the American Correctional Association inspected the quality of life, security, food service, medical care and educational programs in November at the Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center, and later accredited the facility. Center administrator Todd Speight said he viewed accreditation as a sign that the center was making progress. "I see this as turning a corner," Speight said. "We've got a long way to go, but we're making good progress." The previous contractor, Houston-based Cornell Companies Inc., was fired in late 2006. G4S has run the center for about a year. Previously known as the Alexander Youth Services Center or the Alexander Juvenile Correctional Facility, the center is the state's largest youth residential treatment facility. Two days after announcing the accreditation, officials said one staff member lost his job for using inappropriate physical force and two others were fired for trying to protect him. Speight said a male employee physically restrained a 17-year-old boy in a dormitory in a manner that was "completely inappropriate." He said two others were fired for misleading investigators because the original report attempted to conceal the nature of the scuffle. Speight, who did not disclose the employees' names, said he was disappointed by the firings, but stressed that center employees are hard workers who try to do their best. "These three did something inappropriate and were held accountable," he said. The Bryant Police Department and the Arkansas State Police are investigating. Scott Tanner, a state ombudsman for juvenile justice issues, said the teenager apparently suffered a sore ankle but his safety was not an issue. "This doesn't seem to be standard operating procedure, but something out of the ordinary," Tanner said. The center's history includes incidents of abuse, mismanagement and educational shortfalls. In 2003, the state and the U.S. Justice Department signed a court agreement to improve shortcomings in fire prevention, suicide prevention, religious policies and educational programs.

July 25, 2007 Arkansas News
The state is developing a plan to improve special education programs at an embattled state lockup for troubled youth, officials told lawmakers Tuesday. Special education at the Alexander Juvenile Correction Facility were found lacking in a report last month. "Yes, we intend to fix the problems out there," former state Rep. Steve Jones, now deputy director of the state Department of Human Services, told lawmakers at a meeting Tuesday. DHS oversees the Division of Youth Services, which runs the Alexander unit and other juvenile facilities in the state. During the meeting, legislators expressed concern with a June report by the state Department of Education, which found that DHS is not in compliance with several state and federal regulations regarding the Individuals with Disabilities Act. The report found procedures for the evaluation of specific learning disabilities were lacking at the Alexander facility, which houses some of the state's most violent youth offenders. Other problem areas included individualized education programs and, in some cases, children were advanced a grade even though DYS was not providing an appropriate education to them. Also, parents of the children were not being informed of their rights regarding special education programs. "Just because a kid is in jail doesn't mean they don't deserve a good education," said Sen. Kim Hendren, R-Gravette, upset with DYS. About 500 children a year stay at the 143-bed facility in Saline County. Marcia Harding, associate director of special education for the state Department of Education, told lawmakers DYS is supposed to present a correction action on how it plans to deal with some of the problem on Aug. 1. A plan to address the rest is due Sept. 15. The officials addressed a joint meeting of the Senate Committee on Children and Youth and the House Committee on Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative and Military Affairs. Also during the meeting, Hendren and other lawmakers said they did not understand why the special-needs education deficiencies identified in a study two years ago have still not been addressed. "Who is in charge of getting this mess fixed?" Hendren asked, saying he did not want to "beat this up time and time again." DHS Director John Selig agreed the problems should have been addressed, but he said a variety circumstances, including the firing of the facilities management, Cornell Cos. Inc., in November, and the hiring of G4S Youth Services in January, were partially to blame.

June 19, 2007 The Morning News
A new report identifying problems in the special education program at the former Alexander Youth Services Center -- some of which were previously identified in a 2005 study -- drew frustrated comments Monday from legislative panels that oversee the state's youth lockups. "It seems we're planning ourselves to death but we're not getting anything accomplished," said state Rep. Bobby Pierce, D-Sheridan, during a joint meeting of the House and Senate committees on children and youth. In a report released this month, the state Education Department cites about 50 practices at the facility, now known as the Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center, that don't comply with state and federal regulations under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The department has directed the Division of Youth Services to develop a plan of action for correcting the problems. Sen. Sue Madison, D-Fayetteville, said that on visits to the facility in Saline County she has been "extremely unimpressed" with the educational practices she saw, which she said seemed to consist of youths playing on a computer. "Do we have any way of determining if they're really learning something, or if we're just letting a computer baby-sit them?" she asked. The House chairwoman, Rep. Linda Chesterfield, D-Little Rock, said a lack of sufficient information gathering is one of the problems highlighted in the report. Chesterfield said scrutiny is needed for the educational services the state provides to all youth in custody, not only those in need of special education. Scott Tanner, ombudsman coordinator for the state Public Defender Commission, testified that the Division of Youth Services has had chronic problems with its education system at least since 2000, the year he became an ombudsman. Education services at the facility are provided by Group 4 Securicor, the private company that took over operation of the facility in January. The state fired the facility's previous operator, Cornell Companies, in November after a state investigation found evidence that psychotropic drugs may have been administered improperly to some youths as a restraint. The facility also was investigated in 2005, after 17-year-old Lakeisha Brown died from a blood clot in her lungs two days after complaining to staff that she felt ill. Cornell was ordered to revamp some of its policies as a result of that investigation. Madison asked Monday whether it would be more appropriate for the education of youth in custody to be undertaken by the state rather than a private company. Education Department attorney Scott Smith said he did not believe it would. Trying to incorporate students in custody into the state's public education system would require compliance with numerous state and federal mandates that currently are waived, he said. "The reason I ask is, there's something wrong with the picture in my mind when you have state agencies ..... firmly committed to a free public education, and then we turn around and hire a private company to deliver that," Madison said. "I just have a hard time thinking that that's a good idea." Steve Jones, a former state representative who recently became deputy director of the Department of Health and Human Services, told the committee the Division of Youth Services is working on a plan to correct the problems. Rep. Dawn Creekmore, D-Hensley, noted that the division developed a plan of action previously, after a 2005 report cited problems with the facility's educational system. "It's time to quit putting plans of action on paper and time to bring something to the table, take some action, physical action, for improvement. These children are still here, and we're just letting them down continuously, year after year after year," she said. "It is children that the state Department of Education is all about, and it is children that DYS is all about," Chesterfield said. "Somewhere the bureaucratic -- we're not going to use the alliterative -- the bureaucratic stuff, if you will, has got to be overcome for the children." Jones assured the committees the division would achieve real results.

April 21, 2007 AP
Two employees at the Alexander Juvenile Correctional Facility have been fired after allegations that they physically abused a 15-year-old girl, the lockup's administrator said. Todd Speight, facility administrator, said two employees were fired because of an incident involving the girl, but emphasized there are many more employees who are trying hard to be a positive influence on the youths. "Our philosophy is we will treat kids right. We truly believe we will turn Alexander around. Not a doubt," Speight said. "We understand there are going to be some negative things at a program that large but we are all about correcting those things with oversight and supervision." The girl, who had been at Alexander for about four months, called advocacy group Disability Rights Center in early April to report the abuse. The teen told the group's investigator that on March 25 she lost consciousness while she was restrained on the floor of her dorm, according to a report released by the Disability Rights Center. While the group was investigating, the girl's family called and reported that she had bruises on her body from another restraint on April 10. This is the fourth incident at Alexander investigated by the Disability Rights Center, which has released reports on the allegations of abuse to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "It's not just one bad thing that we can say, 'It happened but we fixed it,' and can go on," said Dana McClain, a senior attorney with Disability Rights Center. "It's an ongoing thing." The center is run by G4S Youth Services, which took over after the state fired the previous contractor, Cornell Cos. Inc. Cornell was fired after allegations that nurses inappropriately gave anti- psychotic medications to calm bad behavior. Julie Munsell, a spokeswoman for the state's Department of Human Services, said the agency is closely watching G4S' work at Alexander. "We want to send a very clear message that change is still going on out at Alexander, very positive change," Munsell said. "We've seen a change in the demeanor not only of the staff but also of the campus as a whole."

March 16, 2007 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Advocates investigating a claim of abuse by a teenager at the Alexander Juvenile Correctional Facility say employees failed to help the boy even as his screams could be heard behind a closed door in an office without a surveillance camera, according to a report released to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Thursday. In its eight-page report, the Disability Rights Center claims the 15- year-old boy was restrained on the ground for too long during an obscenity-laced encounter with staff members. The advocacy group released its report to the state and to G4S Youth Services, the company that runs the facility, and is calling for disciplinary action against some employees. G4S is investigating the incident with renewed vigor, said John Morgenthau, the company’s chief operating officer and vice president.

January 18, 2007 KATV
Lawmakers said Thursday they plan to study the future of the Alexander youth lockup--and whether they should continue using private companies to run the facility. The Joint Budget Committee reviewed a $4.9 million contract for G4S Youth Services of Virginia, which will take control of the Alexander juvenile facility beginning Sunday. John Selig, director of Department of Health and Human Services, told lawmakers he's confident the company will provide better management than Cornell Companies, which was fired last year for inappropriately injecting children with antipsychotic medications. State Senator Shane Broadway, a Democrat from Bryant, says he wants the Legislature to have more oversight of the youth facility. Broadway says he hopes there is further discussion on the future of the lockup.

January 11, 2007 Arkansas News Bureau
The state Department of Health and Human Services has agreed to enter into a short-term contract with a company to operate the troubled Alexander Juvenile Correctional Facility in Saline County, agency officials said Wednesday. The agency has signed a $4.5 million contract with G4S Youth Services in Richmond, Va., a division of the British-based Group 4 Securicor, for the company to operate the facility from Jan. 21 through June 30, DHHS spokeswoman Julie Munsell said. The contract is pending approval by the Department of Finance and Administration. At the end of the six-month period, the state will have the option of renewing the contract for an additional year, Munsell said. Munsell said no bids were taken because the agreement was reached under emergency procedures. The agency considered the situation an emergency because of safety and welfare concerns for the 143 youths at the facility, she said. The state fired Cornell Companies, the Pennsylvania-based company that previously ran the facility, in November after a state investigation indicated psychotropic drugs may have been administered improperly to some youths to restrain them. Munsell said Cornell is still at the site, but the state has been in charge since Nov. 3.

Arkansas Nuclear One, Arkansas
May 16, 2005 Courier News
After Friday’s negotiations between Arkansas Nuclear One security force representatives and Wackenhut Corp., there’s a good chance no strike will occur at the plant. According to Darrell Williams, president of the United Government Security Officers of America Local 23, the second meeting between the two parties was more productive than the first. However, the final decision on whether Friday’s revised contract will be accepted is up to the 79 unionized security guards. That decision will be made later this week when Williams and his negotiations committee present the new information. “I really think the new contract will be accepted,” Williams said. “We’ve done all we can do without going to even more drastic measures, so hopefully we will have a contract by the end of (this) week.” After the guards’ threat of a strike in mid-April with claims of low wages and poor benefits, Wackenhut, who has contracted with Entergy since 1991 to guard Arkansas’ only nuclear power plant, brought some new contract plans to the table.

Baxter Immigration Facility, Australia
June 5, 2005 The Advertiser
SECURITY guards have been moved on to the grounds of Glenside Mental Health Service to watch over nine Baxter detainees receiving treatment. The guards, employed by the Baxter Detention Centre operators, are costing an estimated $150,000 a month. Effectively, two guards have been assigned to each detainee. They operate out of a hired demountable hut which was recently delivered to the grounds of the hospital. State health officials have made it clear the guards are not welcome. Director of Mental Health, Learne Durrington, said she has approached the Immigration Department about the impact of the guards on other patients. "We're running a hospital here and it needs to be managed as a hospital," Ms Durrington said. "I've proposed that we get rid of the guards and replace them with our own staff who are better trained in mental health care." The Baxter guards are employees of Global Solutions Limited (GSL) subsidiary Group 4, the security company that has the contract to operate the Baxter Detention Centre. "We've taken additional troops from another part of our company," the spokesman, who did not wish to be named, said. "As a result we've got staff shortages and we're recruiting more people – mainly for our Baxter contract." One of the guards told a visitor to Glenside hospital the demountable was hired at a cost of $300 per day. Figures from the Miscellaneous Workers Union show the salary costs of the 54 daily eight-hour shifts to be more than $150,000 per month. A spokesman for the Glenside hospital confirmed two guards were allocated for each detainee. "That's 18 guards on three eight-hour shifts, making a total of 54 guards on a daily basis," he said. The increase in numbers of detainees needing mental health treatment has occurred subsequent to the Cornelia Rau case where an Australian resident suffering psychosis was wrongly detained in Baxter until her real identity was discovered in February this year. Health officials have confirmed that in the year prior to the Rau case only one person had been referred to Glenside, but now nine people were in treatment. Glenside hospital officials are still waiting for a response from the Commonwealth on the presence of the Group 4 guards. Meanwhile, the legal team assisting the Rau family's submission into the Palmer inquiry has questioned the timing of an internal Baxter memo about the identity of a detainee. A story in the Sunday Mail of November 21, 2004, described a missing woman as 168cm tall, 58kg, with dark blonde hair, brown eyes and a brown mole on her left cheek. It subsequently turned out to be Cornelia Rau. It's since been revealed that an internal memo dated November 24 raised the possibility a detainee was an Australian citizen. Legal representatives for the Rau family will ask the Palmer Inquiry to check if the memo was sparked by the article in the Sunday Mail.

February 9, 2005 The Age
The detention centre where mentally ill Australian Cornelia Rau was wrongly held was not visited by a psychiatrist for at least three months last year, documents filed in Adelaide's Federal Court suggest. South Australian Legal Services Commission lawyer Claire O'Connor claimed in documents that Group 4 Falck, the company that runs Australia's detention centres, and the Department of Immigration had breached their duty of care by failing to provide adequate psychiatric care for three mentally ill Iranian men at the Baxter detention centre. Outside the court, she said there were parallels with the Rau case. "Cornelia was sick and wasn't treated, my clients are sick and they are not being treated," Ms O'Connor said. "She is no different to people in there." In documents supporting her attempt to get urgent psychiatric treatment for the men, Ms O'Connor said the centre's suicide and self-harm unit did not employ a psychiatrist. "It is believed there has been no psychiatric visit . . . since about August 2004 and certainly none since November 2004," she said in an affidavit. Ms O'Connor said the problem of the lack of psychiatric care at Baxter was compounded by the fact that the centre itself was contributing to the poor mental health of detainees. She said psychiatrists visited Baxter infrequently and were forced to deal with a series of seriously ill people in a short time. "All they can do is medicate them, they just keep renewing the prescriptions," she said.

February 7, 2005 The Age
Only a full judicial and public inquiry would be sufficient to establish the facts about the detention of a mentally ill Australian woman, her sister said today. Cornelia Rau, a 39-year-old former flight attendant who was released from Baxter immigration detention centre last week after spending 10 months locked up, has caused a national debate over services for the mentally ill. Her sister, Christine Rau, said an inquiry independent of the government and open to public scrutiny was necessary to get to the bottom of the case. Adelaide public defender John Harley, who represents mentally ill people, said he had grave concerns for the fate of other people suffering mental health problems imprisoned by the immigration system. "This is not isolated at all," Mr Harley told ABC radio. "I was informed that (Ms Rau) was in solitary confinement and that involves her being under lights 24 hours a day (with) closed circuit television. "She was allowed out of her room six hours a day, but in some occasions it required four men in riot gear to remove her back into her cell," he said.

February 7, 2005 Herald Sun
THE Federal Government will hold an inquiry into the detention of a mentally ill Australian women at the Baxter centre for illegal immigrants. Prime Minister John Howard yesterday said it was regrettable Cornelia Rau was held in custody for three months in Baxter and before that six months in a Brisbane jail. "Obviously it's . . . a very regrettable incident," Mr Howard said. Ms Rau, a 39-year-old former Qantas flight attendant, was released from Baxter in South Australia on Friday. Australian Democrats leader Lyn Allison said the Government should not be trusted to investigate its own actions. "It is bad enough that Ms Rau was being held in an immigration detention centre," Senator Allison said. "But why did she spend six months in a women's prison before that? Senator Allison said state and federal governments had allowed prisons and detention centres to become "the new psychiatric asylums".

February 5, 2005 The Age
A family snapshot of Cornelia Rau, detained as a suspected illegal immigrant. A mentally ill Australian woman found by Aborigines in a remote Cape York township has been mistakenly held in immigration detention for nearly a year while her distressed family thought she was dead. Cornelia Rau, 39, who suffers from schizophrenia, was last seen in March after she escaped from the psychiatric unit of Sydney's Manly Hospital. The Immigration Department confirmed last night that Ms Rau, who was speaking German and some English, had been held in a Queensland women's prison until September when she was transferred to Baxter detention centre. Ms Rau's sister, Chris Rau, a Sydney journalist, read an article from The Age last Monday about a mystery German-speaking woman held at Baxter, known only as "Anna". Baxter authorities faxed her a photograph, which showed her missing sister. "We're just relieved that she is alive," Chris Rau said. They were also bewildered why the department could not establish her identity when police had her details. Ms Rau was first taken into detention in April. She had been staying near an Aboriginal camp at Coen, in far north Queensland. The Aborigines became concerned that she was sick and brought her into Cairns police. A spokesman for Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said the woman was handed over to the Department of Immigration by police in April 2004. She was held in a Queensland women's prison until September when she was transferred to Baxter. Greens senator Kerry Nettle last night called for an inquiry into "this staggering case of mismanagement and abuse". During her three months in Baxter, Ms Rau was kept in isolation for a week, then in a high- security unit locked in a room on her own for 18 hours a day, refugee advocate Pamela Curr said. She said her sister had "been through hell". "We don't know what the implications are going to be for her future condition or her treatment."

December 13, 2004 The Age
The immigration department today accused refugee advocates of inciting incidents within the Baxter detention centre by exaggerating reports of a detainee hunger strike. Refugee support group Rural Australians for Refugees (RAR) today said 27 Iranians within the South Australian centre were participating in the hunger strike, now into its second week. Among those were five men who had sewn their lips together and three who were staging a protest on the centre's gymnasium roof, RAR spokeswoman Kathy Verran said. She said those on the roof had been denied water since last night, after guards stopped other detainees bringing water to the men. Ms Verran said detainees had also reported the guards were bouncing balls against the ceiling of the gym, underneath the detainees, to prevent them from sleeping.

December 3, 2004 The Age
Four Sri Lankan men have been hospitalised after refusing food for up to 10 days in a hunger strike at South Australia's Baxter detention centre. Two of the men had also been admitted overnight earlier this week, she said.

December 1, 2004 The Age
Eleven Sri Lankan men at the Baxter detention centre have stepped up their hunger strike and are now refusing medication, a refugee advocate said today. The detainees were determined to continue their hunger strike until death, in a last bid to be granted refugee status in Australia, according to Rural Australians for Refugees spokeswoman Mira Wroblewski. Ms Wroblewski said other hunger strikers were angry that the pair, after their release, had been forced to walk from the detention centre medical facility to their compounds in pouring rain. "It (forcing them to walk in the rain) has just strengthened their resolve.

September 20, 2004 The Age
A hunger strike, a High Court action and a direct appeal to Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone are among last-ditch efforts to stop the forced return of asylum seekers to Sri Lanka. The man on hunger strike, who is 34 and was detained after his visa expired, was put into Baxter's management unit on Thursday and forcibly fed. He resumed his hunger strike on Saturday, Ms Wroblewski said. Eleven other Sri Lankans held at Baxter yesterday entered the fifth day of a peaceful sit-in at the compound.

August 20, 2004 The Age
A food sample from South Australia's Baxter detention centre will be presented to health authorities for inspection after detainees complained they had been served a meal crawling with maggots. The Immigration Department last week said one maggot had been found in food and an investigation was under way. South Australian Greens MP Kris Hanna said he would today present a sample of meat and rice to the state Environmental Health Department for examination. Mr Hanna said the food sample was smuggled out of Baxter following frustration among detainees about the situation. "According to reports in the centre, the food was crawling with live maggots," Mr Hanna said. Detainees at the Baxter centre last week upturned rubbish bins in protest after complaining about maggots in their food.

November 1, 2004 BBC
An investigation is being carried out at a Warwickshire prison after two inmates finished a rooftop protest. The men came down from the roof of a shed at Rye Hill prison near Rugby at just after 9.30pm on Saturday evening.  It is not clear what the demonstration at the jail, which is run by Global Solutions Ltd, was about.

Inmates of Baxter immigration detention centre took control of a compound yesterday morning and barricaded themselves in. About 50 guards in riot gear surrounded the compound and forced open the door. A spokesman for the Immigration Department confirmed that there had been a disturbance at Baxter. (The Age, March 18, 2004)

Bicester Detention Center, Oxford, UK
June 11, 2008 Mail on Sunday
The Home Office squandered £29million of taxpayers' money on a flagship giant asylum centre which was never built - including hiring in a 'financial advisor' who charged almost £16,000 a month. A scathing report from MPs exposes a catalogue of costly blunders and lambasts the failing department for a 'startling absence of common sense' in one of its most embarrassing fiascos of recent years. Seven years after officials started working on the ambitious plans to house thousands of asylum seekers on a former RAF station at Bicester, Oxfordshire, the site remains empty and derelict with 'no benefit' to the taxpayer. Vast sums were paid to consultants, private advisors and contractors and when ministers pulled the plug on the entire project in 2005 they were forced to hand over millions more in cancellation fees. Officials failed to understand how fierce local opposition and legal challenges would drag out the process, and made no attempt to plan for future uses of the site or the risk that other immigration policy changes would scupper the scheme. Last night the Home Office claimed the disaster had led to an 'overall positive impact for the public' because officials had learned important lessons. Former Home Secretary David Blunkett announced the scheme in 2001, as part of a strategy to speed up and streamline the creaking asylum system by housing applicants in a series of huge accommodation centres across the country. Thousands were to be placed in the first centre at an isolated site outside Bicester, but crucially it would not be secure and the immigrants would be free to come and go as they pleased. The plans brought a storm of protests, not only from local residents but also from refugee support groups who claimed leaving so many asylum seekers to languish at a remote site, far from any local community, was a disastrous plan. Planning inspectors rejected the plans, but John Prescott used his powers to overturn their decision, further infuriating locals. Finally ministers realised in 2005 that the centre was unnecessary and unworkable, but not before almost £30million of public money had been wasted. The PAC report reveals how the Home Office hired a Financial advisor at a cost of £15,743 per month, and a procurement advisor who was paid £15,559 per month, because no civil servants were judged to have the right expertise. The pair, who have not been named, were paid more than £1.1million for less than three years work, on top of £6.3million paid out to consultants. MPs complained that the Home Office was unable to show whether the highly paid consultants 'added value'. Private contractors Global Solutions Limited were paid £7.6 for design work, but claimed almost £8million in termination fees when the Bicester scheme was axed. PAC chairman Edward Leigh said the project 'embodied lack of foresight, poor business planning and a startling absence of common sense.' He said the scheme was 'always going to provoke opposition in the local community' but the Home Office took no account of that, or of objections from refugee groups, and made no effort to make contact with local interest groups or MPs to discuss objections. Nor did the department realise - until it was too late - that a decline in the number of asylum seekers and some success in speeding up the system meant the centre was increasingly pointless. Last month the Home Office announced plans to build a secure immigration detention centre on the Bicester site, although it will not be open until 2012 at the earliest and will require planning permission. Shadow Immigration Minister, Damian Green, attacked the Bicester debacle as 'a symptom of long-term incompetence by immigration ministers, who failed to notice that asylum numbers were dropping just when they were planning this new centre. 'Their latest plan is to turn the derelict site into a detention centre. I hope they have done their homework better this time.' A Home Office spokesperson said: 'At the time, we believed accommodation centres to be the right decision but as circumstances changed and the project was delayed, we reviewed that decision. 'Our experience with this project has taught us some important lessons, and this, along with the other improvements put in place, has led to an overall positive impact for the public.'

November 8, 2007 The Guardian
A Home Office decision to abandon plans for an asylum accommodation centre near Oxford because of local opposition cost it £28m, including "termination payments" of £7.9m to the private contractor, Whitehall's spending watchdog reveals today. The National Audit Office says that some of the problems faced in trying to open Bicester accommodation centre could have been foreseen - and money saved - if the Home Office had worked in a "more coordinated and joined-up way". The report also discloses that despite a four-year battle by local residents against the project, it is still being considered whether the site can be used as a detention centre for failed asylum seekers who face deportation. The plan to set up a 10-strong network of purpose-built accommodation centres holding 3,000 asylum seekers was announced by the then home secretary, David Blunkett, at a time when asylum applications were at a record high, as part of a plan to disperse them from London and the south-east of England. Bicester was earmarked as one of the first but it met fierce local opposition and planning permission was not secured until November 2004. By then, the number of asylum seekers coming to Britain had halved. The Home Office accounting officer advised that it was no longer economically viable and the project was cancelled in June 2005. The NAO inquiry found that £33m had been spent in total on the accommodation centres, including £28m on Bicester alone. The report reveals that the successful bid by GSL, formerly Group 4, for the contract to build the 750-bed centre for £59.9m was nearly £25m cheaper than the bid from rival private security company UKDS. After the project was cancelled GSL was handed "termination payments" of £7.9m. It had already been paid £7.6m for design work. Edward Leigh, the chairman of the Commons public accounts committee, said that £28m had been spent on "the asylum centre that never was". Mr Leigh said: "The Home Office drove ahead with a project to build a network of asylum accommodation centres without an eye on what was happening to the numbers of those seeking asylum in the UK.

US Border Patrol
June 4, 2008 San Diego Union-Tribune
Two Border Patrol contract workers were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to shuttle illegal immigrants from San Diego to Los Angeles for $2,500 apiece instead of returning them to Mexico. Christopher Saint Lucero and Manley Lamont Smith work for Wackenhut Corp., which holds a Border Patrol contract to escort illegal immigrants to Mexico after they are captured by agents in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. According to court documents, Saint Lucero told a colleague that he had been involved in about 10 smuggling attempts. The men were arrested Sunday after Saint Lucero allegedly escorted a group of illegal immigrants from the Border Patrol's Chula Vista station to the border in Tijuana. According to a statement of probable cause, Mexican authorities refused to admit two who identified themselves as Salvadorans. One was an undercover agent. Authorities say Saint Lucero then brokered the deal to get the two men to Los Angeles. Smith allegedly met them at the Border Patrol station in his Wackenhut jeep and offered to hide them. Saint Lucero and Smith were expected to make an initial court appearance today, said Debra Hartman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego. The charge against them, conspiracy to transport illegal immigrants, is a felony.

June 3, 2008 AP
A Border Patrol contractor says 2 of its employees have been arrested for investigation of releasing illegal immigrants from federal custody. Wackenhut Corp. says the employees were arrested Sunday in the San Diego area and are in jail facing felony charges. For about two years, Wackenhut has held a contract to return illegal immigrants to Mexico after they are captured by Border Patrol agents. A senior vice president, Marc Shapiro, told The Associated Press Tuesday that this is the first time Wackenhut employees have been arrested for allegedly releasing immigrants. He said his company has returned more 1 million illegal immigrants to Mexico. Shapiro declined to name the suspects. A Border Patrol spokesman had no immediate comment.

Coquelles Detention Centre, Coquelles, France
April 6, 2006 Gulf Daily News
Holding cells used by British immigration officials at a French freight terminal were so crowded and filthy that staff called them "the dog kennels," a prison watchdog said yesterday. Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers also said staff were unsure whether they could stop a detainee from fighting, trying to escape, or committing suicide because they did not know whether English or French law applied. Her report concerned the centres at Calais seaport and the Channel tunnel freight and tourist terminals at Coquelles, which were set up on French soil under an international treaty to hold detainees seeking entry to Britain. Accommodation at Coquelles freight terminal was described by staff as the "dog kennels," Owers said. The six 13 feet by 10 feet cells at Coquelles freight terminal featured hole-in-the-ground toilets and on busy days one cell could be used to hold six people. Furnishing, ventilation and heating were all inadequate, her report added. Records suggested average detention time was seven and a half hours, with the maximum nearly 12 hours. The chief inspector made 49 recommendations for improvement, including one that an independent monitoring board should have regular access. Figures for May to July last year showed 661 detainees had been through Calais Seaport detention centre, 11 of whom were children. The average period of detention was four hours, although the longest was 17. In all, 17 per cent were given permission to enter Britain. At the third centre at Coquelles tourist terminal, average detention time was three hours but the maximum recorded was nearly 16 hours. None of the facilities, run by private firm Group 4 Securicor, could appropriately separate men, women and children. The chief inspector also published a report on detention facilities at Heathrow airport, including the Queen's Building, which handles the greatest number of forced removals from Britain. People could be detained there for up to 36 hours, the report said. Owers complimented the staff's approach to welfare of detainees but called the system inhumane. "Some of those we observed in detention had been dealt with as though they were parcels, not people, and parcels whose contents and destination were sometimes incorrect," Owers said.

Cree Incorporated, Durham, North Carolina
October 19, 2005 News Observer
An early-morning immigration sweep at Cree Inc. resulted in the arrest of 36 undocumented workers Tuesday. Most of the people arrested were employed by a contractor to Cree, which makes semiconductors. The bust was the first at a high-tech company since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement began focusing on facilities that the government considers strategic or sensitive. All but 10 of those arrested were employed by a maintenance and cafeteria services subcontractor, GCA Services Group of West Conshohocken, Pa. Also, in early February, ICE arrested a Kenyan man working at Cree as a security guard. He was employed by Wackenhut, another Cree contractor.

Cypress Creek Juvenile Detention Center, Lecanto, Florida
January 4, 2007 St Petersburg Times
A helicopter hovered above. Canine officers tracked through the woods. Checkpoints were in place. And dozens of sheriff's deputies swarmed the area near the Cypress Creek juvenile detention facility. Wednesday afternoon, the word was out: Two teenage inmates escaped from the maximum-security prison. Except they didn't. After an hour and a half of searching, the two missing inmates were found hiding - in the detention facility's compound. Kendall Wayne Wilbanks, 15, of Leesburg and Gavin Alexander Eskdale, 17, of Kathleen in Polk County, picked a lock to gain access to the roof area of the woodworking shop, a separate building from the main facility inside the security fence. The inmates were in the shop for an 11 a.m. class. But they were missing when the class ended and a head count took place at 12:06 p.m., the Citrus County Sheriff's Office said. A massive manhunt began, but deputies soon turned their attention back inside the facility after a check of the perimeter showed no breach of the fence.

August 21, 2006 Miami Herald
Just after 4 a.m. on Oct. 13, youth-camp guard Josephus Johnson heard a ''gurgling'' sound coming from a dorm room. He found 17-year-old Willie Durden cold, limp and without a pulse. Twenty minutes and two exams later, an officer at the Cypress Creek Juvenile Offender Correctional Center finally started CPR. Why the wait? ''Some of these kids will play pranks,'' Johnson told an investigator with the state Department of Juvenile Justice, according to records provided to The Miami Herald this week. The inspector ``asked Johnson how someone could get his or her heart to stop beating to accomplish such a prank.'' Durden, a Jacksonville teen described as a ''model inmate'' who dreamed of being a youth counselor himself, was pronounced dead on arrival at Citrus Memorial Hospital at 5:10 a.m. He was to receive a football scholarship to a Christian school in Jacksonville following his release. He became the sixth Florida child to die in DJJ custody since 2000. Two other children have died since then, including Martin Lee Anderson, who died Jan. 6 at a Bay County boot camp. Durden is among several youths who died after guards or nurses dismissed their condition as the false cries of a faker or malingerer -- and the cases raise serious questions about the quality of care children in state custody receive. "This is another tragic example of the state's inability to guarantee the health and safety of children in its care,'' said Roy Miller, who heads the Children's Campaign, a Tallahassee-based advocacy group. ``Parents and judges and law enforcement people need to ask the tough question: Are children in state custody safe? ''These are not isolated incidents. They are recurring, and it's shameful,'' Miller added. Asked Nancy Hamilton, who oversees a St. Petersburg drug treatment program and is president of the state Juvenile Justice Association: ``How do you hire for common sense? This is a key issue . . . Would you wait 20 minutes if this were your child? Or would you be on your phone?'' The head of Cypress Creek, Joseph Hasselbach, declined to discuss the case, citing a DJJ requirement that agencies that contract with the state government not speak to reporters.

March 17, 2006 Florida Times-Union
It took five months for the state to release the autopsy report Thursday for a Jacksonville teen who died in juvenile facility, drawing concern from some lawmakers especially after another boy's taped beating death in January. According to the autopsy, Willie Durden, who died Oct. 13 at the Cypress Creek Juvenile Offender Corrections Center in Citrus County, had an enlarged heart. But the report took several months to surface even after blood tests came back negative for drugs. Durden, 17, was the third young black male in three years to die in a state detention center. The Legislature's black caucus has been waiting for Durden's report since before Panama City teen Martin Lee Anderson died in January at a Panhandle boot camp where staff are accused of contributing to his death. The report on Durden shows the autopsy exam was performed the day of his death and toxicology results came back in November, but only in the last few days has the report quietly appeared on Northeast Florida lawmakers' desks.

Czech Republic
March 25, 2008 Ceskenoviny
Czech police arrested last week an accomplice of Frantisek Prochazka, who is suspected of having stolen half a billion crowns in cash from a security agency last December, Prague City State Attorney's Office spokeswoman Stepanka Zenklova told today. "The detained person has been put into custody and we will provide no more information so that not to endanger further investigation," Zenklova said. She said the alleged accomplice was in custody and faced charges of robbery in conspiracy. A special police team is looking for Prochazka on whom an international arrest warrant has been issued. The company afflicted is the G4S Cash Services, a subsidiary of the supranational security agency Group 4 Securitas that specialises in transport of money. Prochazka worked as a security guard there. The robbery took place on December 1, 2007, on Saturday morning. According to the police, Prochazka and his accomplice who was also employed with the G4S agency as a driver loaded the bags with the cash Prochazka stole from the company's safe in a van resembling an office vehicle that was used for transportation of money. While the accomplice drove the vehicle away Prochazka remained at his workplace. Police declined to say whether the driver was the person whom they detained last week. According to central Bohemian police spokeswoman Sona Budska, police today also detained three men from the Pribram area who are suspected of robbing security agencies' armoured vehicles. They face up to 12 years in prison for the combined theft of more than 12 million crowns. According to available information, two of the vehicles robbed by the suspected perpetrators belonged to G4S. Budska told that she had no information on a possible connection between the two cases of robbery.

December 10, 2007 Czech Happenings
The state attorney in charge of the case of Frantisek Prochazka, former employee of G4S security agency, whom the police suspect of stealing 560 million crowns from the agency, has proposed to issue an international arrest warrant for him, Stepanka Zenklova from the Prague State Attorney's Office told CTK today. "The state attorney has proposed to issue a warrant for the arrest of Prochazka in the Czech Republic, a European arrest warrant and a warrant for his arrest on the international level," Zenklova said. The Prague 3 District Court will now decide on issuing the warrants. So far, only a preliminary consent for Prochazka's detention has been issued. However, after the police officially accused him on Thursday the state attorney could propose issuing the arrest warrants, Zenklova said. Previous information by some media that a European arrest warrant for Prochazka has already been issued has not thus been confirmed. Prochazka has been accused of theft. He will face up to 12 years in prison if apprehended and found guilty. The "theft of the century," probably unprecedented in Czech history, occurred in the G4S agency's premises in Prague last Saturday. Prochazka's car, driven by an unknown accomplice, arrived at the complex, took the stolen sum from Prochazka and drove it away. Prochazka, who worked in the agency as a guard and is armed, disappeared later and he is still escaping from the police.

December 5, 2007 The Prague Post
Police are searching for a security agency employee who took a record 560 million Kč ($31.2 million) from his company’s Prague 3 office Dec. 1 in what officials are calling the “robbery of the century.” According to Prague city police spokeswoman Iva Knolová, “Police would welcome any information about the suspect, and have launched a statewide search.” The man, 33-year-old František Procházka, an employee of multinational security agency G4S Cash Services, has short brown hair, is of medium height and may be carrying a weapon, according to Knolová. While stealing the money, Procházka may have had an accomplice, the Czech News Agency (ČTK) reported, citing a source close to the investigation. “The suspect used an opportune moment to enter the company’s safe room,” the source says. “He took the cash, put it in bags and had it driven to an unknown place by his accomplice.” The perpetrators used a company vehicle typically used to transport clients’ money to drive away with the stolen cash, giving them more time before G4S staff was able to uncover the heist, the online news server Aktualne.cz reported. The company, a subsidiary of international security and cash transport agency Group 4 Securitas, is offering a 2 million euro reward to anyone who helps catch the perpetrators. The stolen sum is equivalent to G4S’s annual turnover, according to a statement of the company’s local branch. In an effort to map Procházka’s route, police have asked the public to provide them with any information about the getaway vehicle, a white Volkswagen utility vehicle with a 1L74973 license plate and a sticker with the company’s logo. “The suspect used this vehicle and was driving it at the time the robbery occurred,” Knolová says. The vehicle was found abandoned on Kandrtova street in Prague 8 late on the evening of Dec. 2. “It’s possible that an eyewitness noticed the suspect manipulating the vehicle in an abnormal manner,” Knolová says. Police are also looking for information regarding a gray metallic Volkswagen Passat with a 1L81115 license plate, which the suspect may have used after disposing of the getaway car. If caught, Procházka could face up to two years in prison, Knolová says.

Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC
March 6, 2006 USA Today
The guards have taken their concerns to Congress, describing inadequate training, failed security tests and slow or confused reactions to bomb and biological threats. For instance, when an envelope with suspicious powder was opened last fall at Homeland Security Department headquarters, guards said they watched in amazement as superiors carried it by the office of Secretary Michael Chertoff, took it outside and then shook it outside Chertoff's window without evacuating people nearby. The scare, caused by white powder that proved to be harmless, "stands as one glaring example" of the agency's security problems, said Derrick Daniels, one of the first guards to respond to the incident. "I had never previously been given training ... describing how to respond to a possible chemical attack," Daniels told The Associated Press. "I wouldn't feel safe nowhere on this compound as an officer." Daniels was employed until last fall by Wackenhut Services Inc., the private security firm that guards Homeland's headquarters in a residential area of Washington. The company has been criticized previously for its work at nuclear facilities and transporting nuclear weapons. Homeland Security officials say they have little control over Wackenhut's training of guards but plan to improve that with a new contract. The company defends its performance, saying the suspicious powder incident was overblown because the mail had already been irradiated. Two senators who fielded complaints from several Wackenhut employees are asking Homeland's internal watchdog, the inspector general, to investigate. "If the allegations brought forward by the whistle-blowers are correct, they represent both a security threat and a waste of taxpayer dollars," Democratic Sens. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Ron Wyden of Oregon wrote. "It would be ironic, to say the least, if DHS were unable to secure its own headquarters." Daniels left Wackenhut and now works security for another company at another federal building. He is among 14 current and former Wackenhut employees — mostly guards — who were interviewed by The Associated Press or submitted written statements to Congress that were obtained by AP. A litany of problems were listed by the guards, whose pay ranges from $15.60 to $23 an hour based on their position and level of security clearance. Among their examples of lax security: •They have no training in responding to attacks with weapons of mass destruction; •Chemical-sniffing dogs have been replaced with ineffective equipment that falsely indicates the presence of explosives. •Vehicle entrances to Homeland Security's complex are lightly guarded; •Guards with radios have trouble hearing each other, or have no radios, no batons and no pepper spray, leaving them with few options beyond lethal force with their handguns. Over the last two years, the Energy Department inspector general concluded that Wackenhut guards had thwarted simulated terrorist attacks at a nuclear lab only after they were tipped off to the test; and that guards also had improperly handled the transport of nuclear and conventional weapons. Homeland Security is based at a gated, former Navy campus in a college neighborhood — several miles from the heavily trafficked streets that house the FBI, Capitol, Treasury Department and White House. Homeland Security spokesman Brian Doyle said Wackenhut guards are still operating under a contract signed with the Navy, and the agency has little control over their training. A soon-to-be-implemented replacement contract will impose new requirements on security guards, he said. Daniels, the former guard who responded to the white powder incident, said the area where the powder was found wasn't evacuated for more than an hour. Available biohazard face shields went unused. Daniels said that after the envelope was taken outside, and the order finally given to evacuate the potentially infected area, employees had already gone to lunch and had to be rounded up and quarantined. Former guard Bryan Adams recognized his inadequate training one day last August, when an employee reported a suspicious bag in the parking lot. "I didn't have a clue about what to do," he said. Adams said he closed the vehicle checkpoint with a cone, walked over to the bag and called superiors. Nobody cordoned off the area. Eventually, someone called a federal bomb squad, which arrived more than an hour after the discovery. "If the bag had, in fact, contained the explosive device that was anticipated, the bomb could have detonated several times over in the hour that the bag sat there," Adams said. The bag, it turned out, contained gym clothes. Some guards who continue to work at Homeland, who would speak only on condition of anonymity because of fear of losing their jobs, said they knew of two instances in which individuals without identification got into the sensitive complex. Another described how guards flunked a test by the Secret Service, which sent vehicles into the compound with dummy government identification tags hanging from inside mirrors. Guards cleared such vehicles through on two occasions, this guard said, and one officer even copied down the false information without realizing it was supposed to match information on the employee's government badge. Marixa Farrar, a former guard, said two guards always should have been stationed inside the main building where Chertoff had his office, but she often was on duty alone. One day last fall a fire alarm rang. As employees walked by Farrar, they asked if this was a fire or a test. "There were no radios, so I couldn't figure out if it was a serious alarm," she said. There was no fire.

DuPont Laboratories, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
April 30, 2008 Philadelphia Daily News
A former postal employee serving a year's probation for stealing bars of gold from an express-mail package was jailed yesterday for three months for violating his probation. Edward Henderson, 22, of Dover Street near W. York Street, ran afoul of the feds after he told his probation officer he had been fired from his job as a security guard for Wackenhut Security. Todd Schaffer, the probation officer, testified at a hearing yesterday that Henderson found a SIM card for a cell phone in a storage locker at DuPont Laboratories and used it for several months in his own cell phone. A SIM card is a tiny data card that stores account information. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joan Burnes said Henderson used the SIM card between May and August 2007, ringing up charges of almost $1,750 to call his girlfriend and family members. Henderson was charged in Common Pleas Court last August with theft by unlawful taking and with receiving stolen property. Those charges are still pending. A condition of Henderson's probation was that he not commit any federal or state crimes. U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy Rice was not pleased. Last May, Rice sentenced Henderson to a year's probation for stealing 15 bars of .9999 fine gold from an express-mail package, valued by authorities at about $11,850. Burnes said Rice had given Henderson an opportunity last year to set himself straight but he blew it. Burnes asked that the judge jail Henderson for three months. Henderson admitted he had "done a foolish thing" but said he hadn't deliberately violated his probation. Defense attorney Maranna Meehan said she thought three months in jail was a "bit excessive." "I'm asking for a second opportunity for [him]," she said, adding that Henderson was supporting his mother and his 3-year-old son. But this time, Rice was not so understanding. "I had confidence in you, I gave you a chance," he told Henderson. "You made a promise to me and you broke it." The judge was just getting warmed up. "You just don't get it. I think you just thought you could get away with it because you're wearing a uniform," Rice said, his voice rising a few decibels. Rice also ordered Henderson to make restitution of $1,750 to DuPont Labs. Rice ordered Henderson to be taken into custody immediately.

El Cajon Boulevard, San Diego, California
April 3, 2007 Union-Tribune
A City Heights man accused of using his security guard badge to lure victims and then rape them was sentenced yesterday to 12 years in prison. Robert James Purdy, 42, pleaded guilty in San Diego Superior Court to rape under color of authority and kidnapping charges involving two teenage girls. He agreed to the 12-year prison term in February under the terms of a plea bargain. Purdy was accused of a dozen felonies corresponding to three attacks in September and November in Normal Heights, Southcrest and North Park. Prosecutors said Purdy, a Wackenhut security employee, got the girls into his car by showing his badge and then demanded sex. He was arrested at his home on Nov. 9.

February 1, 2007 10 NEWS
A security guard who used his badge to lure young girls into his car and then forced them to have sex pleaded guilty Thursday to two counts of rape under the color of authority and one count of kidnapping. Under the plea deal, Robert James Purdy, 42, will receive a 12-year prison sentence. He must also register as a sex offender and has agreed to give up all property seized by police, including his Ford Escort, according to prosecutors. The defendant, who will be formally sentenced on April 2 by Judge Stephanie Sontag, would have faced more than 40 years behind bars if convicted of a dozen felony charges, including sodomy and false imprisonment by violence. Purdy, of City Heights, pleaded guilty to raping two 15-year-old girls last Nov. 7 and Nov. 8. One of the victims was moved from one location to another, according to the plea agreement. Deputy District Attorney Evan Kirvin said Purdy was an employee of Wackenhut Corp. when he used his badge to lure the victims into his car. The victims were in an area known for prostitution when they were victimized, but it was not established that either actually worked as prostitutes, Kirvin said. Purdy was tracked down and arrested after an officer recalled putting a citation on a vehicle that fit the description given by one of the victims.

November 21, 2006 North County Times
A City Heights man accused of using his position as a security guard to lure young girls into his car, where he allegedly forced them into sex, pleaded not guilty today to 12 felony counts, including rape and kidnapping. Deputy District Attorney Evan Kirvin said Robert James Purdy, 41, is charged with raping two girls under the age of 16 on Nov. 7 and Nov. 8. Kirvin said there may be additional alleged victims, which could lead to more charges. Anyone who thinks they may have been victimized by Purdy should call San Diego police, the prosecutor said. Judge David Szumowski set bail at $500,000 and scheduled a readiness conference for Jan. 11. Purdy, a Wackenhut Corp. employee, allegedly used his security guard's badge to persuade women and girls to get into his car, where he forced them into sex acts. The alleged victims "were in areas known for prostitution when they were victimized," San Diego police public information officer Monica Munoz said. Kirvin, who would not comment on whether the alleged victims were prostitutes, said at least one girl was moved from one location to another. The defendant was tracked down and arrested Nov. 9 after an officer recalled putting a citation on a vehicle that fit the description given by one of the alleged victims. As charged, Purdy faces more than 17 years in prison if convicted.

November 11, 2006 KFMB
A suspected serial rapist is behind bars Saturday morning, being held on $325,000 bail. Police have identified the suspect as Robert James Purdy. Authorities say the 41-year-old man is a security guard who works for Wackenhut Security Services. He’s a man who officers say used his badge and his fake cop talk to target women working the streets along El Cajon Boulevard. Investigators tell News 8 that so far they know of four rape victims. All are prostitutes and two are minors.

Florida Department of Corrections, Tallahassee, Florida
September 30, 2005 St. Petersburg Times
Over dinner in midtown Manhattan, Florida Corrections Secretary James Crosby met in July with two executives of a company seeking a multimillion-dollar contract with his agency. Crosby paid his own tab and said no state business was discussed. State bidding rules prohibit vendors and agency staffers from discussing pending contracts, except through official channels. The company, G4S Justice Services, later won a three-year contract to monitor sex offenders in half the state, including Pinellas and Hillsborough. It won because it submitted the lowest price. More bad news surfaced Thursday. --Under criticism from legislators, prison officials reversed course and decided not to hire four companies to expand privatization of health care at South Florida prisons. Instead, prison officials will redo the bids and hire one company to provide medical, dental, mental health and pharmacy services, a deal worth more than $100-million. Because of complex bid regulations, hiring four companies invited a legal challenge, opponents said. --A high-ranking prison health care official, John Burke, quit his $95,000-a-year job amid questions about his past ties to a company that has a prison contract to package medicine for inmates. In his resignation letter, Burke cited "continued turmoil" over his past work for TYA Pharmaceuticals of Tallahassee and another company, MHM Services of Vienna, Va. Both companies were expected to seek parts of the inmate health care program. "I have done nothing improper, unethical or illegal during my tenure now or before," Burke wrote Wednesday. Burke listed his past ties to TYA and MHM on a financial disclosure form filed with the state Commission on Ethics, but prison officials say he never disclosed it to them. G4S sales director Leo Carson, who was at the dinner with the company's top executive, Fiona Walters, said it was the kind of casual get-together that occurs frequently at all professional conferences. "It was very impromptu, very informal and very much in a conference atmosphere," Carson said. "The first thing out of our mouths was, "We want to avoid this topic, for the obvious reason. Agreed? Agreed."' Carson said it would have been rude to snub Crosby, and that the dinner was "115 percent above board." He said Crosby paid his own tab. Crosby previously acknowledged having gone to concerts and sporting events with Don Yaeger, a Tallahassee lobbyist for vendors seeking contracts in the prisons. But as with the New York dinner, Crosby said he always paid his own way.

September 8, 2005 St Petersburg Times
In a surprise twist to Florida's fast-growing sex offender tracking system, a Texas firm tentatively hired to help run the program has quit. The withdrawal by Satellite Tracking of People of Houston came after more than two weeks of field tests of its new one-piece ankle bracelet, known as BluTag. A contract with the state Department of Corrections was contingent on successful testing of the global positioning system devices. The state declined to say whether problems arose in the tests. STOP declined to comment. STOP's vice president for business development, Greg Utterback, sent the state a terse letter Tuesday stating only that the company "is requesting to withdraw from contract consideration." STOP's chief executive, Steve Logan, declined to comment. STOP was one of two companies that submitted low bids to expand electronic tracking of sex offenders under the Jessica Lunsford Act, which includes a three-year, $3.9-million project to track up to 1,200 offenders. The law, which took effect one week ago, was passed in memory of the 9-year-old Homosassa girl who was abducted and killed in February. Angry at the bid language, STOP filed a protest in July and briefly brought the program to a halt. After the state removed the words STOP did not like, the company dropped its protest and made the lowest bid of seven firms. The Corrections Department split the state into two regions, north and south. STOP was the low bidder for the northern half, including Pasco, Hernando and Citrus, the county that was home to Jessica Lunsford and to John Couey, a 46-year-old sex offender charged with her death. G4S Justice Services, a subsidiary of London's Group 4 Securicor, has been hired to provide tracking in the southern half, which includes Pinellas and Hillsborough counties.

Florida Legislature, Tallahassee, Florida
May 7, 2008 Palm Beach Post
The chief of staff in training for de facto Senate President Jeff Atwater is officially off the payroll, Atwater said Wednesday. Millionaire "Budd" Kneip of Palm Beach Gardens earned a $7,000-a-month salary from the state for one month and two days to learn the ins and outs of the legislature, which was dealing with a $5 billion budget deficit. Kneip was the founder and owner of the Oasis Group, a division of Wackenhut Corp. He has no legislative experience but has run campaigns, including the one for Palm Beach County's 2004 half-penny sales tax increase to build schools. Normally, the chief of staff assumes his position when the Senate president is appointed in the fall. Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, is being challenged in his reelection bid by Skip Campbell, D-Tamarac, who formerly served in the Senate with him. Florida Democrats on Tuesday formally requested public records about Kneip's hiring and asked Atwater use his campaign account to reimburse the state for Kneip's salary. "Floridians are hurting, Sen. Atwater, but your campaign coffers are not," Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen Thurman said in a letter to Atwater on Tuesday. "We were going out spending money foolishly when we don't have the money to spend," Campbell said. "Let's be honest about it. There is no chief of staff until you become senate president." Before Thurman's letter became public, Atwater said he had arranged in the final days of the legislative session for Kneip to go off the payroll. The session ended Friday. "Budd's assistance during session was invaluable. ... He has returned home to continue developing a transition plan; I look forward to Budd coming back to the Senate this fall," Atwater said. Thurman's demands were a way to help Campbell, Atwater said Wednesday. "This is a chairman trying to insert herself into a local race with no information," he said.

April 12, 2008 Palm Beach Post
Sen. Jeff Atwater has hired an aide who will get on-the-job training before he becomes Senate president chief of staff, and Atwater's campaign opponent is criticizing the expenditure. Robert "Budd" Kneip is a Palm Beach Gardens businessman with no legislative experience. He founded The Oasis Group, an outsourcing division of Wackenhut Corp. Kneip, who is earning $7,000 a month, needed to come on board early to get the feel of how the legislature runs and how government budgets are developed and negotiated before his new boss officially takes over, Atwater said. Normally the chief of staff is appointed after the legislative leader assumes his role in the fall. Atwater is being challenged for reelection in November by Democrat Skip Campbell, a trial lawyer who formerly served in the Senate alongside Atwater. Campbell criticized Kneip's salary at a time when lawmakers are slashing about $5 billion from the state budget because of plummeting tax collections. "How can we be hiring somebody for on the job training at 7K a month when we're cutting education, food for the poor, Medicaid treatment for the mentally ill? This is one of the most hypocritical actions I've seen in government," Campbell said. Kneip has sat on the advisory boards for Florida Atlantic University and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, and served as chairman of the Palm Beach County Task Force on Business Development. In the latter role, he successfully pushed a 2004 referendum for a half-penny sales tax hike to pay for building schools to comply with the constitutional amendment limiting class sizes. Kneip's know-how at implementing state policy at the local level and business acumen are why he's right for the job, said Atwater, a North Palm Beach Republican. "He doesn't have the experience in this process," Atwater said. "To have him be able to watch how this works is going to help me as we think about structure, the design, the flow and process of work."

Gambia, Africa
November 28, 2005 Daily Observer
The two staff members of Wackenhut security firm, who were implicated in the aborted groundnut theft at the Gambia Agricultural Marketing Company Ltd (Gamco) a few months ago, were on Thursday arraigned before Magistrate Mboto of the Banjul Magistrates' Court on a two-count charge of conspiracy to commit felony and stealing.

Global Solutions Limited
January 30, 2008 Oldham-Chronicle
SECURITY guards were left red-faced after their prison van got stuck in a town centre car park. Global Solutions Limited (GSL) is employed by the Prison Service to transfer prisoners safely between court and jail. But the driver caused a bit of a stir when the van became jammed in the former Co-op car park at the back of Mecca Bingo on King Street. Police went to investigate but found the prisoners had already been dropped off at Oldham Magistrates’ Court. A police spokesman said: “The driver said he had read the height restriction notice but thought the van would be able to clear it.” The driver and his colleague then freed the van by letting air out of the tyres.

January 29, 2008 News.Com.AU
THE West Australian desert town of Warburton was in mourning yesterday over the death in custody of its former Aboriginal community chairman, who was arrested on Australia Day for allegedly drink-driving. Ian Ward, a 46-year-old father of five and one of the last nomads born in the Gibson Desert, died the following day after collapsing in the back of a security van during a 915km journey to jail in the goldfields city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Major Crime Squad detectives are investigating. Mr Ward was being driven by contractors for the Department of Corrective Services, who noticed he had collapsed as they neared their destination. Mr Ward's nephew Andrew Johns said his large family was gathering in Warburton to remember a man who lobbied for his people's native title rights. "We are very sad today," Mr Johns said. The family understands Mr Ward died of a heart attack in hot conditions in the back of the van. "It is a long way to go and very hot," he said. Police had stopped Mr Ward last Saturday at 9.30pm in his remote home town of Warburton, about 1500km northwest of Perth in the traditional Ngaanyatjarra lands between the Gibson and Victoria deserts. He was charged with one count of drink-driving and taken to the lockup in Warburton. Mr Ward was driven 570km to the courthouse in Laverton, where he appeared on Sunday morning and was remanded in custody. Police say he was being transported to the nearest jail - the Eastern Goldfields Regional Prison 352km away - when he collapsed. Mr Ward was being transported by Global Solutions Ltd, having been picked up in Laverton at 11.40am, police say. He was being taken in the rear of the GSL security van. As the van neared Kalgoorlie, he was found to have collapsed. He was conveyed to Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital, where he died a short time later.

November 29, 2007 The Telegraph
Group4Securicor is in talks to buy Global Solutions, a company it used to own, for around £350m. Earlier this year, private equity firm Cognetas appointed investment bank UBS to carry out a strategic review of Global Solutions, which runs a number of Britain's prisons and detention centres. However, the credit crunch forced Cognetas to put the review of Global Solutions on hold. Since then, the company has received a number of approaches, including one from Group4Securicor. Cognetas bought Global Solutions, which also manages hospitals, schools and tourist offices, from Danish security firm Group 4 Falk for about £200m three years ago. Group4Securicor is now understood to be carrying out due diligence on the business. However, it is not the only company bidding. Sources said US group GEO and several private equity firms have also made approaches for the company. Global Solutions has previously come under the spotlight for the way it runs its prisons and detention centres, following the Government's privatisation of the sector. Earlier this year, there was a Panorama investigation by an undercover BBC reporter, who worked as a custody officer, in one of Global Solutions' prisons at Rye Hill. None of the parties involved would comment.

MANCHESTER'S new £30m court is at the centre of a new storm after dozens of prisoners were hours late arriving from their cells.  Furious lawyers sat around for up to three hours yesterday waiting for their clients to arrive from police stations, including Bootle Street less than a mile away.  GSL, the private security firm that ferries prisoners to the court, blamed "logistical problems" and has apologised to court authorities.  It is the latest in a string of problems at the court since it opened in May.   Around 40 people were due to be moved from holding cells in Manchester to the court before 10am yesterday, in time for morning hearings.  Less than half were delivered on time and more were dropped off at 11am and 11.45am. Lawyers were still waiting for at least eight clients at 12.30pm. GSL, part of Group 4, said the final transfer was made at 12.45pm.  Court bosses have already threatened to fine GSL for previous failures to get prisoners into court on time.  (Manchester Online, August 31, 2004)

Group 4/Securicor (AKA Wackenhut), UK
June 18, 2008 NBC6
Miami-Dade County said it is poised to make good on its promise to fire Wackenhut Security from its massive contract on Metrorail trains unless it repays taxpayers millions of dollars. NBC6 has obtained internal county memos that confirm that Miami-Dade County is asking other security firms to submit bids to replace Wackenhut on Metrorail trains and other facilities. The county said Wackenhut's only hope of not getting fired is if it returns up to $6 million in taxpayer dollars. The Metrorail and Metromover systems are guarded by Wackenhut Security in a lucrative no-bid contract. The county said it is getting ready to replace Wackenhut, cutting short the existing contract unless Wackenhut makes amends. "It's very troubling," said Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez. In May, Alvarez threatened to fire Wackenhut. On Tuesday, it was clear that was no idle threat. "We are prepared to cancel all contracts with the Wackenhut corporation and demand that we get the money that's owed to us," Alvarez said. The county said Wackenhut scheduled guards to work partial shifts while billing taxpayers for a full shift and sometimes billing taxpayers for a post that had no guards at all, NBC6's Jeff Burnside reported. The allegations were the same as those contained in an NBC6 investigation called "A Question Of Security." The amount in question is up to $6 million. An independent audit claimed it was much more. One problem is that any company that replaces Wackenhut might need to hire some of Wackenhut's guards because of the size of the contract. In an internal memo, Wackenhut called that, "underhanded … tactics by third-party instigators." A labor union urged county commissioners Tuesday to improve working conditions in any new contract. Wackenhut had no response on Tuesday, Burnside reported. Previously, the company has disputed the allegations.

May 9, 2008 Miami-Herald
The Wackenhut Corp. overbilled Miami-Dade County as much as $6 million over three years for phantom security guards at county transit stations, according to a long-awaited audit released Thursday. County auditor Cathy Jackson -- who reviewed a sample of the bills -- found that Wackenhut, one of the country's largest security firms, routinely charged the county for empty guard posts at Metrorail stations and along bus routes, and relied on inaccurate and falsified records to try to cover up the overbilling. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez has given Wackenhut 90 days to repay the county or rebut the audit findings or he will cancel the company's no-bid contract, along with a separate Wackenhut contract for guards at a juvenile detention center. Jackson said Wackenhut should also pay the county an additional $233,000 for violating the terms of its contract. Wackenhut's billing is also being examined by public-corruption detectives with the Miami-Dade Police Department. 'There is no disputing that [Miami-Dade Transit] was billed for hours not worked by Wackenhut security officers, which is a very serious offense,'' County Manager George Burgess wrote in a memo to Alvarez. Wackenhut, however, does dispute the audit. The company says Jackson used unreliable records to determine that posts were uncovered, and ignored other records that could prove guards were on duty. FIGURES DISPUTED -- While Wackenhut says it will reimburse the county for any ''substantiated billing errors,'' the company says Jackson's conclusion of $6 million in overbilling from 2002 to 2005 is an exaggerated estimate based on a small sample. ''If you start with a false premise, you end up with a false conclusion,'' said Bruce Rubin, a company spokesman. ``We respectfully but forcefully disagree with the auditor's methodology.'' Jackson based her estimate on a review of 505 billing records -- only .25 percent of the bills submitted in the three years studied -- which found $14,722 in questionable charges. She also found $83,665 in suspicious charges, but these were not included in her sample for estimation purposes. Wackenhut has been providing security for Miami-Dade Transit since 1989, and the contract has been awarded without bidding since 1994. The current contract, which pays Wackenhut as much as $17 million a year, is set to expire in November 2009. The security company, based in Palm Beach Gardens, has also spent the past three years fending off an unusual lawsuit brought by a former guard at the county's Juvenile Assessment Center, who accused her former employer of padding its bill to the county. The former guard's attorney, H. Mark Vieth, has said he believes the overbilling could be as much as $3.6 million a year. He has compiled sworn statements from ex-guards who said they struggled to fill unmanned posts, submitted false records and received pay for hours they didn't work. Jackson ''found exactly what we've been telling the county for a while now,'' Vieth said. ''I could have practically written that report for her. The only difference, really, is that we're auditing 100 percent of the bills and she's found this much fraud'' based on a far smaller sample. Wackenhut has denied wrongdoing in the suit and has challenged Vieth to provide proof of specific instances of overbilling. Vieth has enlisted a team of investigators and bookkeepers to sort through Wackenhut bills, sign-in sheets, log books and other records to prove his case, which is not yet scheduled for trial. If he wins the case -- brought under the county's False Claims Act -- his client will receive 25 percent of any damages and the county will receive 75 percent. REFUSED TO TESTIFY -- Yet the lawsuit has put Vieth at odds with the county. Last month he sought a contempt of court order against Jackson after she refused to testify about the audit before it was completed. Vieth plans to call her again for a deposition next week. The audit was costly to Wackenhut even before its release. The company had been selected by county staffers to win another $4.8 million county security contract -- before county commissioners, worried about the audit findings, decided Tuesday to scrap the bids and start over. In her audit, Jackson said Wackenhut constantly shifted guards around to cover unguarded posts, pulling in supervisors or patrols from the bus routes, but the county was billed as though all these jobs were filled. In some cases, log books at Metrorail stations contained no notes to prove a guard was there, the audit found. In other cases, the logs and other records showed guards in two different locations at the same time. Records showed that one armed guard was on duty for 34 ½ hours in a row -- violating a rule capping guards at 13 ½ hours in a 24-hour period and ''leaving in question the ability of armed employees to remain alert and responsive,'' the audit said. Wackenhut officials said the log books were never intended to be used for timekeeping, and said the absence of notes in the books do not prove a guard wasn't on duty.

May 2, 2008 Edinburgh Evening News
TWO security guards who stole £10,000 of bank notes while on a collection run have been jailed for six months. Group 4 Security workers Gary Docherty, 41, and Hugh Drummond, 47, each helped themselves to a £5000 bundle of £20 notes when a bag burst in their van. Staff at the Royal Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh immediately realised there was something wrong when the pair delivered a case which should have contained £50,000 with only £40,000 in it. Police were called in after they found notes in Drummond's rucksack and the officers recovered the rest from Docherty. They previously pleaded guilty to stealing £10,000 on March 28 this year – Docherty's birthday – and were sentenced today. The pair had been collecting cash in plastic cases from branches of the bank when one of the cases burst at Bruntsfield Place. They continued with their run, arriving at the RBS cash collection centre in The Gyle, where the theft was discovered. Solicitor Andy Gilbertson said Docherty, of Clermiston Drive, had worked for the firm for 14 years before he carried out the "spontaneous" crime and had lost his job as a result. He said Docherty had been suffering stress. "It wasn't a matter of if this crime would be detected but a matter of when," Mr Gilbertson added, appealing for a community service order instead of custody. Solicitor Nigel Bruce said Drummond, of Victoria Road, Harthill, Lanarkshire, had spent seven years with the firm, before the "moment of madness".

April 12, 2008 Palm Beach Post
Sen. Jeff Atwater has hired an aide who will get on-the-job training before he becomes Senate president chief of staff, and Atwater's campaign opponent is criticizing the expenditure. Robert "Budd" Kneip is a Palm Beach Gardens businessman with no legislative experience. He founded The Oasis Group, an outsourcing division of Wackenhut Corp. Kneip, who is earning $7,000 a month, needed to come on board early to get the feel of how the legislature runs and how government budgets are developed and negotiated before his new boss officially takes over, Atwater said. Normally the chief of staff is appointed after the legislative leader assumes his role in the fall. Atwater is being challenged for reelection in November by Democrat Skip Campbell, a trial lawyer who formerly served in the Senate alongside Atwater. Campbell criticized Kneip's salary at a time when lawmakers are slashing about $5 billion from the state budget because of plummeting tax collections. "How can we be hiring somebody for on the job training at 7K a month when we're cutting education, food for the poor, Medicaid treatment for the mentally ill? This is one of the most hypocritical actions I've seen in government," Campbell said. Kneip has sat on the advisory boards for Florida Atlantic University and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, and served as chairman of the Palm Beach County Task Force on Business Development. In the latter role, he successfully pushed a 2004 referendum for a half-penny sales tax hike to pay for building schools to comply with the constitutional amendment limiting class sizes. Kneip's know-how at implementing state policy at the local level and business acumen are why he's right for the job, said Atwater, a North Palm Beach Republican. "He doesn't have the experience in this process," Atwater said. "To have him be able to watch how this works is going to help me as we think about structure, the design, the flow and process of work."

March 13, 2008 The Age
A NIGERIAN man who twice resorted to drinking his urine during a nightmarish seven-hour transfer to Baxter detention centre without food or water will be given $20,000 compensation. Four others who endured the trip in the back of the van with him will also be compensated after the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission found they had been subjected to "degrading treatment". The five detainees, whose plight was revealed in The Age, were taken from Maribyrnong in Melbourne to Baxter on September 17, 2004 by guards from GSL, the company that runs Australia's detention centres. A report by commission president John von Doussa found the van did not stop for any breaks in the seven hours from Melbourne to Mildura, breaching the detainees' human rights. The report said the drivers ignored signs that the detainees needed toilet stops, having watched them urinate on closed-circuit camera, and disregarded their banging on the walls. Nigerian man Austin Okoye, 26, suffered the "additional indignity" of twice drinking his urine to relieve his "excessive thirst", the report said. GSL guards were also accused of using excessive force in removing 53-year-old Vietnamese detainee Huong Hai Nguyen from his dormitory at Maribyrnong for the trip. The Immigration Department initially denied Mr Nguyen's allegations. But the department referred the case to the commission after receiving a second complaint from Mr Okoye. In July 2005, Immigration Department secretary Andrew Metcalfe said GSL would be fined $500,000 after the independent report substantiated most of the allegations. Yesterday Mr Metcalfe said GSL would also pay the compensation. "These people were mistreated and they deserve to be compensated," he said. The report said Mr Okoye and Mr Nguyen should get $20,000 each, and the others $15,000. GSL spokesman Tim Hall said the company did not accept the claims about Mr Okoye being forced to drink his urine. But he said GSL endorsed the rest of the report and the Commonwealth would be fully indemnified. The report urged the Government to locate the victims as soon as possible (three of them, including Mr Nguyen and Mr Okoye, have been deported) to provide them with their compensation and a formal apology.

February 22, 2008 The Green Left
A February 22 meeting between Western Australian prisons minister Margaret Quirk, Aboriginal Legal Service chief executive Dennis Eggington and WA Deaths in Custody Watch Committee chairperson Marc Newhouse resulted in some ministerial promises of reforms following the the death in custody of an Aboriginal elder on January 27. The elder, from the desert town of Warburton, died after collapsing in the back of a prison van while being transported for four hours in 43oC heat to a jail in the outback city of Kalgoorlie. He had been arrested on January 26 for alleged drink-driving while visiting relatives in the remote town of Laverton, 352 kilometres north of Kalgoorie. The van was driven and staffed by employees of Global Solutions Ltd, an Anglo-French prison management company, which the WA government has contracted to transport prisoners. Professor Richard Harding, the WA government’s inspector of custodial services, told the news media on January 29 that he was not surprised at the Warburton elder’s death, given the state of the prisoner transport fleet. He said that the “government-owned vans are continually breaking down, leaving prisoners stranded in searingly hot conditions in remote areas”. Among other things, Quirk has agreed to overhaul procedures followed when a prisoner is transported. New procedures, to be in place by March 14, will include a health assessment and provision of water and food.

February 4, 2008 News.com.AU
THE contractor that transported an Aboriginal leader who died in custody last weekend has previously been criticised for the treatment of detainees. Government contractor Global Solutions Limited has been accused of the humiliation and sensory deprivation of detainees, who were forced to urinate in their cramped compartments, inadequate provision of food and fluids and the prank strip search of a prisoner. The death of Ian Ward in the sealed compartment of a "bloody hot" van last Sunday as the outside temperature climbed to 43C has prompted an unprecedented attack on the Carpenter Government by the Inspector of Custodial Services, who said the state's chronically deficient prisoner transport system would probably not be tolerated if 95 per cent of prisoners were white, instead of up to 95 per cent of them being Aboriginal. Anger is growing in the desert community of Warburton in WA's Ngaanyatjarra lands over the death of Mr Ward, who collapsed in what may have been an unairconditioned or inadequately airconditioned rear compartment while being transported 352km by GSL. The van transporting Mr Ward left the town of Laverton about midday for Eastern Goldfields Regional Prison to be remanded in custody on a drink-driving charge when he vomited on himself and fell unconscious. His body was wheeled into Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital at 4.30pm on Sunday after the two GSL guards in the van found he had collapsed in the back. Witness Jodie Aurisch said a female GSL guard told an emergency department doctor: "It is bloody hot in the back of the van". GSL and its $70 million prison transport contract with the Carpenter Government are likely to be examined as part of a coronial inquest into Mr Ward's death in custody. It will not be the first time the company faces scrutiny. In 2005, GSL was fined almost $500,000 over mistreatment of immigration detainees. In 2006, GSL was fined a reported $200,000 after guards at Port Phillip Prison in Victoria jokingly strip searched a prisoner as part of a prank called "Sausagegate". A federal government report into GSL's transfer of five detainees from Maribyrnong Detention Centre in Melbourne to Baxter Immigration Facility in South Australia over two days in 2004 found the officers involved had not been adequately trained and treated the detainees inhumanely. In his report into the incident for the Howard government, investigator Keith Hamburger found the van used was unsafe and inhumane and that the detainees had been denied access to toilet facilities, forcing them to urinate in their compartments. The officers were also found to have ignored appeals for assistance from detainees in distress. Melbourne legal advocate Chandarev Singh said GSL had shown "a pattern of lethal indifference". GSL's director of public affairs, Tim Hall, said Mr Singh's "inaccurate and unpleasant personal views" did not warrant comment.

February 1, 2008 The Western Australian
Police yesterday refused to reveal the results of a post-mortem examination on the body of an Aboriginal elder who died after he collapsed in custody while being taken to Kalgoorlie in the back of a van. It is understood police received the results yesterday. Warburton Aboriginal elder Ian Ward collapsed in the back of a Global Solutions Limited van on Sunday after a four-hour trip from Laverton to Kalgoorlie and died a short time later at Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital. The 46-year-old, who was being transferred to face a charge of drinkdriving, was found unconscious in the back of the van in the middle of the afternoon when temperatures outside exceeded 40 degrees. It is understood the van’s air-conditioning broke down the previous week and had to be replaced. The van is part of a fleet owned by the State Government but managed by the private prison management company. The State Government’s controversial deal with Global Solutions Limited, the group responsible for prisoner transport, could be tested, depending on the outcome of the investigation into Mr Ward’s death. Opposition Leader Troy Buswell said the death in custody raised serious concerns over the State Government’s “gifting” of the contract to GSL. GSL was controversially awarded the $70 million prisoner transport, court custody and security services contract last year when the company bought out the previous contractor Australian Integrated Management Service. Letters obtained under Freedom of Information laws revealed the Inspector for Custodial Services, Richard Harding, told Corrective Services Minister Margaret Quirk in April that the plan for GSL to take over the contract was unwise and risky. Despite his advice, Cabinet not only approved the takeover of the AIMS contract by GSL last July, but days later it extended the deal by three years without any public tender process. “Depending on the outcome of the investigation by police and the coroner, the State Government needs to be examining every aspect of the contract and take action against GSL if and when it is appropriate,” Mr Buswell said. Ms Quirk said issues surrounding Mr Ward’s death, including the contract with GSL, was a matter for the police investigation and the coronial inquest and it was not appropriate to speculate.

January 31, 2008 News.Com.AU
PRISONER transport contractors for the WA government were warned about the "parlous state" of their fleet well before an Aboriginal elder died in a prison van. Ian Ward, 46, of Warburton in the Goldfields, died during a Global Solutions Ltd transfer from Laverton to Kalgoorlie in hot conditions on January 27. It is unclear if the airconditioning was off, or faulty. Drivers of the van took Mr Ward, who had been picked up for drink driving on Australia Day, to Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital after they found him collapsed. He died a short time later. WA Custodial Services Inspector Richard Harding wrote to GSL last year outlining six concerns, including 'GSL's capacity to cope with the logistical challenge of running a transport service across such huge distances as are involved with Western Australia''. "The parlous state'' of the government-owned fleet upon which GSL would have to rely was among Mr Harding's concerns. GSL is contracted by the WA government to provide prisoner transport services and by the federal government to run immigration detention camps and transport immigration detainees and prisoners. Project SafeCom spokesman Jack Smit said there had been other transportation issues under the watch of GSL, formerly US-owned but bought last month by European security consortium Group 4 Securitas. "This is an ongoing issue partly because it's an out-of-Australia company ... you no longer have people employed who are directly responsible, by contract, to the minister,'' Mr Smit said. A 2005 federal government inquiry found GSL failed to provide medical assessments and treatments for injured detainees who were being transferred to the Baxter detention centre in South Australia from Maribyrnong in 2004. The probe found the van used to transport detainees was "unsafe and inhumane'' with airconditioning design faults. The five were sent an apology and compensated by the immigration department. WA major crime squad detectives are investigating the latest death amid calls from human rights groups for an independent investigation. WA Deaths in Custody watch committee spokesman Marc Newhouse said Mr Ward's death should not have happened. "Clearly the government has already been warned about the state of that fleet, which is government-owned,'' Mr Newhouse said.

January 22, 2008 St Petersburg Times
If you’re guarding a nuclear power plant, your gun better work. That’s the message federal regulators sent Tuesday to Florida Power & Light. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposed a $208,000 fine for four security violations at the utility’s Turkey Point nuclear plant, including security workers who deliberately broke the firing pins on their weapons. The violations occurred in 2004 and 2005, according to the commission. The commission, a federal agency that oversees the safety of the U.S. nuclear industry, also faulted the Juno Beach utility for failing to promptly report the violations. Three of the four employees involved worked for Wackenhut, and none of the four work at the plant now, said FP&L spokeswoman April Schilpp. Wackenhut still provides security, and the utility has improved training, she said. The utility has 30 days to appeal the fine, but has no plans to, she said. “The NRC confirms that at no time was plant security compromised,” Schilpp said. “That’s the important thing.”

January 9, 2008 NBC TV6
The CEO of Wackenhut Security, a South Florida company that has been surrounded by controversy, is stepping down. A representative with the company declined to say why Gary Sanders made the decision to quit pending a formal announcement on Wednesday. The change at the top came at a time when Wackenhut Security was facing mounting criticism in various cities, including some in South Florida where its Miami-Dade County operation is the target of a criminal probe. The county audit, which was detailed in an NBC 6 investigation of Wackenhut billing practices, is examining whether Wackenhut overcharged taxpayers millions of dollars. Sanders had been with Wackenhut for more than 25 years.

December 18, 2007 Yahoo Business Wire
Cognetas, an independent mid-market pan-European private equity firm specialising in complex deals, today announces the sale of Global Solutions (GSL) for £355 million to G4S. The sale, subject to EU merger clearance and South African competition commission clearance, is expected to complete in 2008. GSL is a leading provider of outsourced support services to public authorities and corporate organisations worldwide. Services are typically provided under long-term contracts (5 to 30 years) either directly to the end customer or through joint ventures and Public Private Partnerships with government and corporates. GSL has operations in the UK, South Africa and Australia. Its service offering covers three areas: Custodial services, including prison management, escorting, immigration, custody and training; Public Services, for example healthcare, education and Local Authority services; and Business services, comprising utilities, office accommodation and other managed services. Cognetas backed the original MBO of GSL in 2004 in a £207 million (€309 million) transaction. At the time, Cognetas underwrote equity and debt to facilitate certainty for the vendor with an initial commitment of £105 million (€158 million) on behalf of Cognetas Fund I. This was reduced within two months to £54 million (€81 million) by introducing senior debt. The balance of the funding was provided by Englefield Capital on behalf of the Englefield Funds. Since then Cognetas has supported management in the implementation of a growth plan that has seen revenues increase from £291 million in 2004 to over £400 million in 2007 through organic growth, in fill acquisition and expansion of services in its sectors over three continents with the number of staff employed increasing by over 25% to more than 9,500. Nigel McConnell, Managing Partner of Cognetas commented: “We are delighted to be associated with the success of GSL over the past three years and we are pleased to see that the dynamic management team has built the business into a worldwide quality provider of outsourced services. We leave the business on extremely sound and robust grounds which will help sustain its continued growth. I am confident that being part of a larger global business like G4S will take this business forward to a new level and I wish them well”.

December 10, 2007 NBC TV6
Miami-Dade and federal investigators raided the headquarters Friday night of one of the county's largest government contractors. NBC 6 was the first to report in May that Wackenhut Security is under a criminal investigation for overbilling taxpayers millions of dollars, money for work on transit and the downtown juvenile center. NBC 6 camera's filmed public corruption investigators and police removing boxes filled with documents from Wackenhut's Miami-Dade headquarters on Blue Lagoon Drive. Investigators were there for several hours and were being assisted by top Wackenhut executives. Wackenhut has repeatedly declined to be interviewed, but said in a statement that the company was cooperating with authorities. "The Wackenhut Corporation ('Wackenhut') continues to cooperate with Miami-Dade County ('MDC'), and voluntarily provided MDC additional records and documents yesterday to assist and facilitate MDC’s investigation and audit of Wackenhut’s performance under its security contract with the Miami Dade Transit Authority," said Drew Levine, president of the Security Services Division. "Wackenhut is proud of its service and performance under its contracts with Miami-Dade County and is very confident that after a thorough investigation the County will conclude that Wackenhut acted properly and performed its responsibilities under the contract in a highly professional and responsible manner." The company has previously denied overbilling taxpayers. Miami-Dade County is nearing completion of an audit of Wackenhut's billing practices. The preliminary audit found serious discrepancies.

November 29, 2007 The Telegraph
Group4Securicor is in talks to buy Global Solutions, a company it used to own, for around £350m. Earlier this year, private equity firm Cognetas appointed investment bank UBS to carry out a strategic review of Global Solutions, which runs a number of Britain's prisons and detention centres. However, the credit crunch forced Cognetas to put the review of Global Solutions on hold. Since then, the company has received a number of approaches, including one from Group4Securicor. Cognetas bought Global Solutions, which also manages hospitals, schools and tourist offices, from Danish security firm Group 4 Falk for about £200m three years ago. Group4Securicor is now understood to be carrying out due diligence on the business. However, it is not the only company bidding. Sources said US group GEO and several private equity firms have also made approaches for the company. Global Solutions has previously come under the spotlight for the way it runs its prisons and detention centres, following the Government's privatisation of the sector. Earlier this year, there was a Panorama investigation by an undercover BBC reporter, who worked as a custody officer, in one of Global Solutions' prisons at Rye Hill. None of the parties involved would comment.

November 20, 2007 This Is Hampshire
A SECURITY firm employee who was heavily in debt stole £25,000 following an extraordinary blunder by two colleagues, a court heard. The cash had been collected from the London Road branch of Nat West in Southampton - and left overnight at the depot. The following day, Paul Dean spotted the bag and stole it, dropping it off at home before continuing with his deliveries. Police carried out a major investigation during which Dean and a co-driver were suspended from their jobs with Group 4 Securicor. Seven months after the theft last November, they executed a warrant at Dean's home and recovered more than £10,000. Some of the proceeds had been spent on a large slim line television, Mr Anderson added. Southampton Crown Court heard the two men who had left the cash behind were fired and Dean's colleague, though exonerated, had resigned. Dean, 51, of Maclean Road, Bournemouth, admitted theft and was jailed for 12 months. In mitigation, Christopher Gair said Dean lost his wife in a road accident in 1994 and had debts of £24,000. A month before the theft, he had been given two county court judgments against him. "In a moment of madness he took advantage of the money left there," said Mr Gair.

November 1, 2007 This Is Leicestershire
An "inside man" involved in a plot to steal £1 million from a Securicor van has been jailed for four years. Ex-soldier Neil Colbourne, from Hinckley, worked for the firm in the lead-up to the robbery bid, which would have involved kidnapping a driver's wife. He was among six gang members who were jailed in connection with the case. A court heard how the plan involved two kidnappers seizing a driver's wife at her home in Swanscombe, Kent, and holding her hostage while others raided her husband's security van at gunpoint. But the plan to target a depot in Dartford, Kent, was foiled when a seventh member of the gang, brothel keeper Vincent Calleja, turned himself in to police. Police swooped on the gang's headquarters the night before the heist last June and found two guns and ammunition, balaclavas, and cable ties. They also found keys to a stolen Renault Espace. Four of the men were found guilty on June 29 of conspiracy to rob and were sentenced on Monday at Guildford Crown Court. Ashley O'Driscoll (21), from Eaton Grove, in Mitcham, Surrey, Billy French (22), from Steers Mead, Mitcham, and Michael Cloherty (41), of no fixed address, were each sentenced to 15 years. The father of Billy French, unemployed Clive Tedder (42), from Spencer Roady, Mitcham, received 18 years. Colbourne, now 34, who had an address in Hinckley and Orpington, Kent, had worked as a guard for Group 4 Securicor and was sentenced to four years, while 33-year-old Wayne McKenna-Bruce, from Chislehurst, Kent, was sentenced to three years in prison. The pair's conspiracy to steal pleas were accepted after a court heard they had not known about the full scale of the plot. The seventh member, Vincent Calleja (45), from Tadworth, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to rob and seven unrelated human trafficking and prostitution charges, and is to be sentenced.

November 1, 2007 PR News
The Wackenhut Corporation ("Wackenhut" or "the Company") toda