Assessing the Regulation of Private Security across Europe

Abstract

The importance and expansion of the role of private security officers in policing have led many countries to introduce special legislation to govern them. Many industrialized countries have a long history of such measures. The structures and standards introduced, however, have varied significantly. In North America generally minimal standards have been mandated that centre on character. In many European countries, by contrast, standards have been comprehensive, sometimes including hundreds of hours of mandatory training. In England and Wales, however, it was only in 2001 that such legal intervention was finally introduced, and the system that has begun to unfold has caused much debate on its effectiveness. Significant sectors have been excluded, and comprehensive standards of regulation have been rejected for an approach barely above North American standards of governance. This paper will examine the emerging English system of legal control. It will compare some of its features with those of other European countries and produce a league table from this. Reference will also be made to North America and Australia. It will be argued that the system to be introduced for security guards in England and Wales falls below European norms and needs to be more demanding if the performance and accountability of the industry are to be enhanced and the industry is to play the expanding role in policing that many increasingly expect.

Occupational Culture in Policing Reviewed: A Comparison of Values in the Public and Private Police

“…Despite some indications of similar characteristics of police culture in non English-speaking parts of the world (e.g. Waddington, 1999), the emphasis is on several major differences in the mission of police organizations, the education of individual officers, stringency of regulation, and the dangerousness of the police job (Skolnick, 1975;Monjardet, 1994;Harrison, 1998;Button, 2007a). Hence, more research is needed in non Anglo-Saxon countries.…”

“…Kakalik and Wildhorn, 1971;Forst and Manning, 1999;Jones and Newburn, 1998;Van Outrive, 1998), but ethics or values have long been neglected as research topics. The limited literature that does exist in this field focuses on the regulation of the private security sector or of specific organizations (South, 1988;Stenning, 2000;Button, 2007a).…”

Towards a third phase of regulation:

“…30 The same is true for contract security; yet, contract security companies increasingly act as if they were part of the businesses they are contracted to provide services to. This has contributed to a blurring of the functions of the in-house security sector and the contract security sector.…”

The impact of the Private Security Industry Act 2001

“…In response to this criticism, it is important to emphasise that, logically speaking, this side-effect could be avoided only if the competency requirement was tailored to meet operating standards at the higher end of the industry. In theory, this could certainly be seen as a positive development, for increasing the number of mandatory training hours (currently 30) would no doubt enhance the quality of UK providers -and indeed would bring the SIA regime closer to the more comprehensive regulatory regimes across Europe, such as those in Spain (where there are 260 hours of mandatory training) and Sweden (where there are 217 hours of mandatory training) ( Button, 2007 ). Yet in practice it would have a harmful impact upon the lower end of the industry where companies might not be able to meet these higher standards and by extension might be pushed out of the marketplace -a scenario that increases the chances of regulatory capture in favour of larger companies ( Stigler, 1971 ).…”