Public policing has been known to have a monopoly on policing until the increased trend of private policing in the United States. Private policing, while emerging as a new industry, is not a new phenomenon and predates the existence of public police as witnessed today (Wilson 1994). Public and private policing have many similarities, as well as differences and the distinction between public and private police are often blurred. Private police look and behave like public police and describing their function often involves a comparison of the activities and responsibilities of the two. Despite the differences, public and private police tend to mirror each other to a certain extent (Nalla & Newman, 1990).
The increase of private policing has been in response to many changes in society such as the increase of “mass private property” (Shearing and Stenning, 1983) in the form of large shopping complexes, cinemas, large retail stores and large compound style housing estates or gated communities. These require constant surveillance for the safety of shoppers and residents. In fact, adequate security has become one of those value-added extras that attract customers and residents. Technological advances, such as high-tech video surveillance cameras, computers, mobile phones, and satellites have increased the need an increase of security personnel for monitoring, investigating and analyzing. Private policing has been described in many different aspects such as, policing activity of crime prevention; detection and apprehension carried out by private organizations or agents for commercial purpose. It is described to include those people who work for a security company or are employed by an individual or firm to carry out security work, crowd control or private investigations. Private policing is provided by a private individual or organization, rather than by a public body or the state like public policing is.
Private police are seen to be concerned with the protection of personal and corporate interest while public police represent the interests of the public and seek to enforce the regulations of the judicial system. The police are “persons with a special legal status employed by governments to preserve the peace” (Shearing, Farnell & Stenning, 1980,) Private policing, in comparison to public policing, has been described as passive policing as to active policing, or as proactive and preventative rather than reactive: where public police generally react to the crime, private police through surveillance and presentation are seen to prevent crime (Wilson 1994) Private policing targets private crime and is in the business of protecting private and corporate interests. I am going to compare the roles and responsibilities of private and public policing and share the similarities and differences and touch on the importance of both aspects of policing.
Private policing can serve as many different roles in our community. The major components of private security are alarm systems, security guards and investigative services. The increase of security systems installed in cars, homes and businesses have said to be the deep-rooted needs to feel secure and to feel that their lives and property which are personally valued are protected, and that offenders can be identified and also obtained. Security has been considered to be a commodity, to be bought and sold in the market place. The value of such a commodity reflects not only material criteria but also an inner human dimension of personal fear and feelings”. (South 1988) Many individuals that are in the public eye also hire private security as bodyguards to protect themselves, along with their valuables. The increase of mass private property such as privately owned shopping malls has increased the need for store security guards for loss prevention.
Security guards are on the front line of public interaction and contact in private security. Security guards are used in shopping malls, factories, airports and many other venues that need to be monitored. Crowd control has been part of the private policing roles at functions such as concerts, sporting events, school and religious events. Private investigators are also among the private policing sector is one with the least amount of public contact. Private investigators are hired by individuals or businesses for a certain purpose and work mostly behind the scenes or undercover doing surveillance. Security guards, surveillance, monitors and investigators are among the few that make up private policing. Public policing is known to society as the police who protect our communities and arrest those individuals who commit crime. Public policing has the role to maintain law and order, preserve peace and prevent crime. Public police are employed by governments and paid for by tax dollars and grants.
Comparing Private and Public Policing
Although public and private providers perform the same tasks, they employ distinctive practices. Public policing has always been known as the front line in protecting our society and one of their major assets is the public’s accountability. Studies have shown that to some people, a uniformed policeman can transmit a feeling of respect and security and through that, he might even be crime-preventive just by being seen. Although the public police’s credibility and respect has been and continues to be tested, they still have more respect than most individuals employed in private policing, such as security. Security guards are often referred to as “rent-a- cops” or those who were unable to obtain jobs in the public policing field. The role of public policing is governing both the future and the past: preventing crime and rendering justice with respect to past crimes. Its favored strategy is deterrence based on punishment because punishment promises both to prevent crime and to exact a cost for misdeeds already done. (Bayley & Shearing, 2001) Public policing must provide a full range of police services to the public.
The ability of private security providers to pick and choose the task s and duties that they perform is one of the major advantages that private policing has over public policing. Private security regulates entry, limits participation, and excludes on the basis of presumption signs of bad behavior. Some examples would be securing gated communities by checking for residency or employment; dress (T-shirts, bare feet) in businesses that require appropriate attire; and behavior (obscene language, loud radios, roller blades, skateboards, ect….) This is also referred to as “profiling”, which the public police has accused of many times. Unlike the public police, private police are not hampered by their regulatory actions by probable cause. Private policing usually operates behind the traditional and legal boundaries where the public police cannot lawfully cross unless by invitation or probable cause. This leads to the private policing sector having a “broader enterprise than public policing, with a wider range of functions.” (South, 1988, p.4)
Another major benefit with the private providers of security is their flexibility. They can, and will, perform most tasks they get paid to do. Their customers can demand a lot from them, since they are directly answerable to the paying clients and their needs. The private entrepreneurs are also forced to ‘do right’ by the market. If they fail, they will lose their money. Public police do not have the negotiation factor and are paid on salary, no matter how they perform or how efficient they are in performing their duties. Many have said that private policing is for the rich and public policing is for the poor. This could be effectively argued based on the fact that private policing is not designed to consider the general good for society, like public policing. Private policing is primarily protecting the interests of their paying clients and focuses more on “loss prevention”, rather than “crime prevention”. Private policing has been scrutinized and concern has expressed that private security can be overly intrusive, less than scrupulous in its adherence to self-imposed guidelines and, on occasion, the law, and threatening to civil liberties.
This could be a direct effect of poor standards, low pay, poor training, lack of good background checks and also strong competition among private security companies. Many criminologists have examined these factors effecting private policing and believe that the key to the problem lies with the issue of the accountability and regulation of the private security sector. Legitimacy is a problem among private policing because there are few, if any, statutes or laws that gives the private security industry governmentally granted rights or powers. Although public policing does have higher standards, they are not regulated and accreditation is voluntary. Many police officers, both working and retired, take jobs in the private security sector for extra income. Obviously, poor training and lack of experience cannot pertain to these individuals, however it has been argued that by hiring these experienced individuals at a higher pay, decreases the pay and funds for training to those without experience.
Conclusion
Public and private policing are major components in the criminal justice field. It would be impossible for our communities to feel secure without the combination of both forces. The focus has been on public and private policing to effectively interact and cooperate with each other. Understanding the importance of one another’s responsibilities and roles could lead to a great partnership. Throughout recent years, some law enforcement agencies have come to realize how to benefit from private policing. Las Vegas uses private security as surveillance in the many hotels and casinos and police are called in for arrests. Surveillance through video cameras have been successful when police have had to follow a suspect into a hotel or casino and by communicating with security, they are able to catch the suspect. This is just one of the many examples that private and public police can effectively work together.
