Private policing

Question 1

Three dimensions of the ‘publicness’ and ‘privateness’ of policing:

Answer 1

1. Access - private vs public place - way they are policed is very different, access to activities e.g. concert vs protest
   2. Agency
   3. Interest - narrow interests, paid by particular people to do particular things

Question 2

Private security as liquid security:

Answer 2

Formal policing and CJS as a solid state technology

Question 3

Private security industry more segmented:

Answer 3

a unique form of customised justice, explicitly tailored to the needs and interests of the playing client, and remote, therefore, from the larger moral project, tied to the public interest and the production of criminal convictions ‘

Liquid security as ‘ seeping through the cracks of formal/public policing ‘ - e.g ring camera’s

Completely different operation logic - lost reduction and risk management - profit management

Question 4

The ‘place’ of private security: G4S global security presence

Answer 4

Linked to our theories of decentralising state provision of security

Private policing delivered in many symbolic and subtle ways

Private security outnumbers the police

Question 5

The public police ‘privatised’

Answer 5

Levels of privatisation of public police roles further blurs public-private distinction

Four point model:

- Default transfer - ring doorbell camera taking over some aspects
- Accommodation/co-operation - 
- Legislation Contract - other organisations paying them to do certain aspects

Question 6

Issues of privatising public police:

Answer 6

Framing the privatisation of public policing in UK:

Load shedding
Contracting out
Fees and charging

Question 7

Private security industry in UK

Answer 7

Estimating size very difficult due to changing demands for security/market conditions

Estimated at 395,000 licensed security personnel

Ever increasing role and size of PSI personnel in society

Question 8

Regulating the PSI:

Answer 8

Sheer size of PSI necessitates its regulation:

Private security industry act 2001

Sets oit licensing and checks, overseen by security industry authority

Question 9

Issues around the PSI

Answer 9

Private security industry as a ‘precarious buisness’

’ policing ‘ delievered on principles of cost, not quality or public good

Private security a ‘grudge purchase’

Can potentially attract criminality

Question 10

Night-time economy & private policing:

Answer 10

Vast range of factors to be ‘policed’ in and around licensed premises:

’ these adverese features of the physical enviroment may variously fuse crime opportunities with a wide variety of enviromental stressors which irritate, furstarte or otherwise provoke customers particulary those who are intoxicated

Question 11

Counter logic of the night time economy consumer

Answer 11

Safety and security usually precondition of commercial success

NTE predicated upon a less-than-stable and unpredictable environments where risks perceived as ‘normal’:

‘the new night time high street is much more than a physical entity, it is a special kind of place or behaviour
setting…a time-space environment in which a standing pattern of behaviour occurs that is largely unique to that setting…Night life in our towns and cities is focused primarily around high street areas which function as
destinations for those seeking time out, not only from their daily routines, but also from their ordinary states of
Consciousness

Question 12

Back to the future? Mass private property & Hybrid space policing:

Answer 12

Hybrid space the new battle ground for policing provision

These ‘fortified fragments’ of society managed through private rules

Sorting
Consensus
Embedded
Instrumental order

Private security as fuelling the new policing ‘feudalism’ of the 21st century

Question 13

Overall

Answer 13

• Reductions in police capacity - criminologically the environment has changed
  • Does the job of the police more effectivanly
  • Operation of the private industry is very different - for profit over police
  • Lower standards, accountability, minimum hours
  • Use examples - pressures facing police - increase of cheaper versions of the police