Uneasy Partners Against Crime: The Ambivalent Relationship Between the Police and the Private Security Industry in Mexico

Abstract

Legitimation is a fraught process for private security companies operating in Mexico and other countries in the Global South where the police have a poor reputation. Mexican private security companies have an ambivalent relationship with the police, which causes firms to engage in two seemingly contradictory practices. Companies attempt to gain legitimacy by aligning with the image of the police to earn a sense of "symbolic stateness" while simultaneously distancing themselves from Mexico's actual police forces so as to disassociate from the institution's poor reputation. Consequently, collaboration between public and private security is limited, despite official attempts by the Mexican state to foster positive contact between them. Overall, this study contributes to the growing literature on private security by providing novel insights into the strategies private security firms utilize to navigate within states possessing delegitimated security forces, and the resulting lucrative political economy landscape.

‘Arms for mobility’: policing partnerships and material exchanges in Nairobi, Kenya

“…A key focus has been on the interactions between the private security industry and the state police, and several studies have outlined the diversity of relationships that range from outright competition to fruitful collaboration (Jones and Newburn 1998, Hummer and Nalla 2003, Berg 2004, Minnaar 2005, Diphoorn and Berg 2014, Puck 2017). These studies have exemplified the numerous ways in which people and knowledge are shared or exchanged and how this shapes certain power structures.…”

“…Within the scholarly focus on policing, the dynamics and interactions between the private security industry and the state police has received ample attention. These studies outline the diversity of relationships that range from outright competition to fruitful collaboration and how such relationships are defined by the sharing or exchanging of certain services (see Jones and Newburn 1998, Hummer and Nalla 2003, Berg 2004, Minnaar 2005, Manzo 2009, Diphoorn and Berg 2014, Puck 2017). However, in-depth analyses on how certain materialities shape and define these partnerships are scarce.…”

‘Brothers in arms’? A police-paramilitary partnership in Karachi

“…'The suspects are frequently in the Rangers' custody, or the custody of intelligence agencies, before they are handed over to the police' (J-153, October 2015). This anecdote indicates that not only do paramilitary and police officers cooperate for public events such as processions, they are frequently 'uneasy partners in crime', to borrow from Puck's (2017) This is not just privy to select police officers, but also the paramilitary. 'Rangers can pick and choose when they want to cooperate with the police', explained a senior police officer, referring to the so-called 'Lyari Operation' carried out by the police in 2012 against gang members in one of Karachi's most turbulent neighbourhoods (Nabi 2012).…”

“…More recently, police public-private partnerships in non-Western settings are generating ethnographic interest (Kaker 2013, Diphoorn and Berg 2014, Diphoorn 2019, and enriching our understanding of plural policing in Africa, Asia and Latin America (e.g. Baker 2005Baker , 2009, Lee and Yun 2014, Pion-Berlin and Carreras 2017, Puck 2017, Shearing and Berg 2006, Sidaway et al 2014, Scarpello 2017.…”

‘Arms for mobility’: policing partnerships and material exchanges in Nairobi, Kenya

“…Within the scholarly focus on policing, the dynamics and interactions between the private security industry and the state police has received ample attention. These studies outline the diversity of relationships that range from outright competition to fruitful collaboration and how such relationships are defined by the sharing or exchanging of certain services (see Jones and Newburn 1998, Hummer and Nalla 2003, Berg 2004, Minnaar 2005, Manzo 2009, Diphoorn and Berg 2014, Puck 2017. However, in-depth analyses on how certain materialities shape and define these partnerships are scarce.…”