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| 10.10.2012 | 7 months ago
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G4S got a bit of bashing during the London Olympics, forcing them to donate to the armed forces (the start of a good relationship, huh?). But it remains a security giant that is reminiscent of those dystopian futures we’re used to seeing in SF.
It’s big:
The first thing you need to know about G4S is that it’s enormous. It has 657,000 employees – more than the population of Glasgow – and is the world’s second-largest private employer, after the American retail giant WalMart. It’s also booming, with profits up 39 per cent in 2011.
It deals in questionable business:
G4S operates prisons and asylum centres across the UK, and will be moving into policing as more and more public services are cut.
Outside the UK, G4S operates in 125 different countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel, where its paid agents operate checkpoints and provide security at jails for Palestinian prisoners, including child detainees.
And I suspect that Asia, in particular China, where every little mall or condo has security (but rarely needs it), will give us the next megacorp to outshine G4S in general evilness.
