Wackenhut
Encyclopedia
G4S Secure Solutions is a private security company
. It was founded as The Wackenhut Corporation in 1954, in Coral Gables, Florida
, by George Wackenhut
and three partners (all former FBI agents).
In 2002 the company was acquired for $570 million by Danish
corporation Group 4 Falck (itself then merged to form British
company G4S in 2004). In 2010, G4S Wackenhut changed its name to G4S Secure Solutions (USA) to reflect the new business model.
The G4S Americas Region headquarters is in Jupiter, Florida
.
. By 1964, he had contracts to guard the Kennedy Space Center
and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
's nuclear test site in Nevada
. The following year, he took his company public
.
In the mid-60s, Florida Governor Claude Kirk commissioned the Wackenhut Corporation to help fight a "war on organized crime", awarding the company a $500,000 contract. The commission lasted about a year but led to more than 80 criminal indictments, including many for local politicians and government employees. Following the murder of a British tourist at a rest stop in 1993, Florida contracted with Wackenhut to provide security at all state rest stops.
Like other security companies, G4S targets sectors: Energy, Utilities, and Chemical/Petrochemical, Financial Institutions, Government, Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities, Major Corporates, Industrials & Construction, Ports and Airports, Residential Communities, Retail and Commercial Real Estate, Transit Systems
Clients include: GSK and U.S. Customs and Border Protection
s and detention center
s for the burgeoning private prison
market. Wackenhut then became the nation's second largest for-profit prison operator.
In April 1999, the state of Louisiana took over the running of Wackenhut's 15-month-old juvenile prison after the U.S. Justice Department accused Wackenhut of subjecting its young inmates to "excessive abuse and neglect." U.S. journalist Gregory Palast commented on the case: "New Mexico's privately operated prisons are filled with America's impoverished, violent outcasts — and those are the guards." He catalogued lax background check
s before hiring guards, which led to several alleged cases of guards physically and sexually abusing inmates. In the U.S., Wackenhut has appeared in the federal courts
62 times since 1999, largely resulting from prisoners' claims of human rights
abuses. The company has been accused of trying to maximise profits in its private prisons at the expense of drug rehabilitation
, counselling and literacy programs. In 1995 Wackenhut was investigated for diverting $700,000 intended for drug treatment programs at a Texas prison.
The GEO Group
, Inc. now runs former Wackenhut facilities in 14 states, as well as in South Africa
and Australia. Some facilities, such as the Wackenhut Corrections Centers in New York, retain the Wackenhut name despite no longer having any open connection with the company.
In 2003, GEO Group changed from a corporate subsidy (WCC) into a fully independent company from Wackenhut.
sleeping while on duty. Beal had previously tried to notify supervisors at Wackenhut and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission
. Wackenhut was fired from its role guarding Peach Bottom and nine other nuclear plants.
In 1979, hotel clerk and Hope College
senior Janet Chandler was found dead in a snowbank along Interstate 196
near Holland, Michigan
. She had been raped. Initially treated as a robbery, the case remained unsolved until a group of Hope students produced a documentary that uncovered a sex and drugs party atmosphere at the hotel, which had been occupied by dozens of Wackenhut security guards (assigned to protect the facilities of local manufacturer Chemtron during a bitter strike). The documentary prompted a reopening of the case, and arrests of six security guards and a hotel supervisor who was Chandler's roommate. In November 2007, two individuals plead guilty to charges, and the remaining four then-guards were additionally found guilty of her murder.http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/02/national/main3446980.shtml
, particularly in the 1960s, were never substantiated, but Wackenhut, who was obsessive about high-tech security gadgets in his private life, did not discourage the suggestion. In 1991, a U.S. House of Representatives committee investigated charges that a Wackenhut executive, working for a consortium
of oil companies, illegally spied on a whistleblower
, former independent oil executive Chuck Hamel, exposing environmental damage caused by the Exxon Valdez oil spill
.
In February 2010 the issue was resolved. Miami-Dade County commissioners approved a $7.5 million settlement agreement with Wackenhut Corp. to resolve the dispute. As part of the deal, Wackenhut can bid on future contracts and the county won’t use this case against it when considering Wackenhut’s bids.
Google
G4S Wackenhut staff can be seen working for Google in a video produced by Google and distributed by the Official Google Enterprise Blog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1SCZzgfdTBo
Private security company
A private security company is a for-profit enterprise, sometimes a corporation or a limited liability partnership, which provides armed and unarmed security services and expertise to private and public clients. Private security companies are defined by the U.S...
. It was founded as The Wackenhut Corporation in 1954, in Coral Gables, Florida
Coral Gables, Florida
Coral Gables is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, southwest of Downtown Miami, in the United States. The city is home to the University of Miami....
, by George Wackenhut
George Wackenhut
George Russell Wackenhut was the founder of the Wackenhut private security corporation. The son of William and Francis Wackenhut, he grew up in Upper Darby, outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1937. He was inducted into the school's Wall of Fame in...
and three partners (all former FBI agents).
In 2002 the company was acquired for $570 million by Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
corporation Group 4 Falck (itself then merged to form British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
company G4S in 2004). In 2010, G4S Wackenhut changed its name to G4S Secure Solutions (USA) to reflect the new business model.
The G4S Americas Region headquarters is in Jupiter, Florida
Jupiter, Florida
Jupiter is a town located in Palm Beach County, Florida. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 39,328. The estimate population for 2009 is 50,606. As of 2006, the population had grown to 50,028, according to the University of Florida, Bureau of Economic and Business Research....
.
Background
After early struggles (including a fistfight between George Wackenhut and one of his partners), Wackenhut took sole control of his company in 1958 then, naming it after himself. Working throughout the day in his office, he sometimes continued nightly as a security guardSecurity guard
A security guard is a person who is paid to protect property, assets, or people. Security guards are usually privately and formally employed personnel...
. By 1964, he had contracts to guard the Kennedy Space Center
Kennedy Space Center
The John F. Kennedy Space Center is the NASA installation that has been the launch site for every United States human space flight since 1968. Although such flights are currently on hiatus, KSC continues to manage and operate unmanned rocket launch facilities for America's civilian space program...
and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
United States Atomic Energy Commission
The United States Atomic Energy Commission was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S...
's nuclear test site in Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
. The following year, he took his company public
Initial public offering
An initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...
.
In the mid-60s, Florida Governor Claude Kirk commissioned the Wackenhut Corporation to help fight a "war on organized crime", awarding the company a $500,000 contract. The commission lasted about a year but led to more than 80 criminal indictments, including many for local politicians and government employees. Following the murder of a British tourist at a rest stop in 1993, Florida contracted with Wackenhut to provide security at all state rest stops.
Security Services | Security Company
Services by security companies typically include: permanent guarding service, security officers, manned security, disaster response, emergency services, control room monitoring, armed security, unarmed security, special event security, security patrols, reception/concierge service, access control, emergency medical technicians (EMT) service, ambassador service.Like other security companies, G4S targets sectors: Energy, Utilities, and Chemical/Petrochemical, Financial Institutions, Government, Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities, Major Corporates, Industrials & Construction, Ports and Airports, Residential Communities, Retail and Commercial Real Estate, Transit Systems
Clients include: GSK and U.S. Customs and Border Protection
G4S Acquisitions in the U.S.
AMAG Technology, Touchcom Inc., Adesta, and Nuclear Security Services Corp. (NSSC)Wackenhut Corrections Becomes GEO Group (2003)
Having expanded into providing food services for U.S. prisons in the 1960s, Wackenhut in 1984 launched a subsidiary to design and manage jailPrison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
s and detention center
Detention center
A detention center or a detention centre is any location used for detention. Specifically, it can mean:*A jail or prison*A structure for immigration detention*An internment camp or concentration camp...
s for the burgeoning private prison
Private prison
A private prison, jail, or detention center is a place in which individuals are physically confined or interned by a third party that is contracted by a government agency...
market. Wackenhut then became the nation's second largest for-profit prison operator.
In April 1999, the state of Louisiana took over the running of Wackenhut's 15-month-old juvenile prison after the U.S. Justice Department accused Wackenhut of subjecting its young inmates to "excessive abuse and neglect." U.S. journalist Gregory Palast commented on the case: "New Mexico's privately operated prisons are filled with America's impoverished, violent outcasts — and those are the guards." He catalogued lax background check
Background check
A background check or background investigation is the process of looking up and compiling criminal records, commercial records and financial records of an individual....
s before hiring guards, which led to several alleged cases of guards physically and sexually abusing inmates. In the U.S., Wackenhut has appeared in the federal courts
United States federal courts
The United States federal courts make up the judiciary branch of federal government of the United States organized under the United States Constitution and laws of the federal government.-Categories:...
62 times since 1999, largely resulting from prisoners' claims of human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
abuses. The company has been accused of trying to maximise profits in its private prisons at the expense of drug rehabilitation
Drug rehabilitation
Drug rehabilitation is a term for the processes of medical or psychotherapeutic treatment, for dependency on psychoactive substances such as alcohol, prescription drugs, and so-called street drugs such as cocaine, heroin or amphetamines...
, counselling and literacy programs. In 1995 Wackenhut was investigated for diverting $700,000 intended for drug treatment programs at a Texas prison.
The GEO Group
GEO Group
The GEO Group, Inc. is a company headquartered in One Park Place, Boca Raton, Florida. GEO is a multi-national provider of governmental services specializing in the management of correctional, detention and mental health and residential treatment in North America, Australia, South Africa and the...
, Inc. now runs former Wackenhut facilities in 14 states, as well as in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
and Australia. Some facilities, such as the Wackenhut Corrections Centers in New York, retain the Wackenhut name despite no longer having any open connection with the company.
In 2003, GEO Group changed from a corporate subsidy (WCC) into a fully independent company from Wackenhut.
Nuclear Services at Peach Bottom (2008)
The Wackenhut Corporation provided armed security services for many nuclear power plants. In September 2007, former employee Kerry Beal and Paul A. Kennedy videotaped fellow security guards at the Peach Bottom Nuclear Generating StationPeach Bottom Nuclear Generating Station
Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, a nuclear power plant, is located southeast of Harrisburg in Peach Bottom Township, York County, Pennsylvania, on the Susquehanna River on the Maryland border....
sleeping while on duty. Beal had previously tried to notify supervisors at Wackenhut and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is an independent agency of the United States government that was established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 from the United States Atomic Energy Commission, and was first opened January 19, 1975...
. Wackenhut was fired from its role guarding Peach Bottom and nine other nuclear plants.
Murder of Janet Chandler (1979)
In 1979, hotel clerk and Hope College
Hope College
Hope College is a medium-sized , private, residential liberal arts college located in downtown Holland, Michigan, a few miles from Lake Michigan. It was opened in 1851 as the Pioneer School by Dutch immigrants four years after the community was first settled...
senior Janet Chandler was found dead in a snowbank along Interstate 196
Interstate 196
Interstate 196 is a long freeway spur route in the US state of Michigan linking Grand Rapids, Holland, South Haven, and Benton Harbor. I-196 is known as the Gerald R. Ford Freeway, or simply the Ford Freeway, in Kent, Ottawa, and Allegan Counties, after the 38th President of the United States,...
near Holland, Michigan
Holland, Michigan
Holland is a city in the western region of the Lower Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated near the eastern shore of Lake Michigan on Lake Macatawa, which is fed by the Macatawa River ....
. She had been raped. Initially treated as a robbery, the case remained unsolved until a group of Hope students produced a documentary that uncovered a sex and drugs party atmosphere at the hotel, which had been occupied by dozens of Wackenhut security guards (assigned to protect the facilities of local manufacturer Chemtron during a bitter strike). The documentary prompted a reopening of the case, and arrests of six security guards and a hotel supervisor who was Chandler's roommate. In November 2007, two individuals plead guilty to charges, and the remaining four then-guards were additionally found guilty of her murder.http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/02/national/main3446980.shtml
Rumors About Wackenhut and the CIA
Frequent rumors that his company was in the employ of the Central Intelligence AgencyCentral Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
, particularly in the 1960s, were never substantiated, but Wackenhut, who was obsessive about high-tech security gadgets in his private life, did not discourage the suggestion. In 1991, a U.S. House of Representatives committee investigated charges that a Wackenhut executive, working for a consortium
Consortium
A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal....
of oil companies, illegally spied on a whistleblower
Whistleblower
A whistleblower is a person who tells the public or someone in authority about alleged dishonest or illegal activities occurring in a government department, a public or private organization, or a company...
, former independent oil executive Chuck Hamel, exposing environmental damage caused by the Exxon Valdez oil spill
Exxon Valdez oil spill
The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989, when the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef and spilled of crude oil. It is considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused...
.
Wackenhut and Miami-Dade
A dispute between Wackenhut and Miami-Dade Transit arose from allegations made by a former employee, who claimed that G4S Wackenhut over-billed Miami-Dade County for work not performed. As a result of the allegations of that lawsuit, the County ordered an audit of the contract in 2005. That audit was completed in 2009 and came up with an amount of estimated overbillings. In response, G4S Wackenhut filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging, among other things, that the audit’s findings were erroneous.In February 2010 the issue was resolved. Miami-Dade County commissioners approved a $7.5 million settlement agreement with Wackenhut Corp. to resolve the dispute. As part of the deal, Wackenhut can bid on future contracts and the county won’t use this case against it when considering Wackenhut’s bids.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1SCZzgfdTBo
See also
- G4S
- G4S Technology
- Private security companiesPrivate security companiesPrivate security companies can refer to:* companies that employ security guards* Private military companies* Private security company...
- WSI
- GEO GroupGEO GroupThe GEO Group, Inc. is a company headquartered in One Park Place, Boca Raton, Florida. GEO is a multi-national provider of governmental services specializing in the management of correctional, detention and mental health and residential treatment in North America, Australia, South Africa and the...
- Correctional Services CorporationCorrectional Services CorporationCorrectional Services Corporation , originally Esmor Correctional Corporation, was founded by James F. Slattery in 1987. It is located in Sarasota, Florida, USA, and traded on the NASDAQ...
- Private prisonPrivate prisonA private prison, jail, or detention center is a place in which individuals are physically confined or interned by a third party that is contracted by a government agency...
Further reading
- G4S Wackenhut rebrands as G4S
- G4S Wackenhut pursues a bold new business strategy
- Minahan, John. The Quiet American: A Biography of George R. Wackenhut. International Publishing Group (September 1994) ISBN 0-9639395-0-5
- Palast, Greg (2002). The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Truth About Corporate Cons, Globalization and High-Finance FraudstersThe Best Democracy Money Can BuyThe Best Democracy Money Can Buy is a 2002 book written by investigative journalist Greg Palast. It is about corporate corruption, global capitalism, environmental destruction, third world exploitation, freedom of speech and political corruption, and the United States presidential election of 2000...
. Pluto Press. ISBN 0-7453-1846-0. - Obituary of George Wackenhut from Blog of Death
- Obituary of George Wackenhut from the Washington Post
- Wackenhut: Prisons, profits and golf umbrellas
- Video of Sleeping Guards Shakes Nuclear Industry
- Wackenhut security officer dies 'heroically' at Holocaust Museum
- U.S. Mission acknowledges the heroic actions of G4S Wackenhut personnel in Pakistan
- Wackenhut planning new corporate headquarters in Jupiter
- G4S Wackenhut President Drew Levine Interviewed By Government Security News
- G4S wins £85m multinational security contract