Increasing Fragmentation of Policing and the Rise of the Private Security Industry - Essay Example

Increasing Fragmentation of Policing And The Rise Of The Private Security Industry In the past, citizens have looked to public policing as an entity of the government for providing safety and security. In recent times, this diverse cultural belief cannot longer be sustained, as the policing provision is experiencing dramatic change in many democratic countries. The monopolistic systems of policing have paved the way to pluralised systems, largely fragmented across networks of security governance (McCrie, 2006). This interconnection of the policing function is understood as a broad process of social change linked with numerous areas of influences, which gives rise to private security. This include the rising crimes rate, fiscal crisis, mass private property, commodification of security, post modernity and the increase in demands by citizens’ protection (Shearing and Stenning, 1983; Reiner, 1992; Les Johnston 2003; Drakeford, 1992, Wood and Shearing, 2007). These scholars attempt to bring together different theoretical frameworks to explain the transformation of policing from an economic context, where supply and demand are shaping and expanding the private security markets. However, it is contended that, policing division of labour is also driven by political context (Walker, 2006, Lister 2010). In these views, government determines how security services should be delivered for the common good of the people. This widespread recognition of government legitimacy is deeply rooted in the commercialisation and privatisation of policing activity. Garland (1996) describes this phenomenon as responsibilization plans, which individuals and organisations outside the formal policing agencies are participating in security services. In addition, the increasing recruitment of retired police officers by private security actors are political strategies, to makes it appears as the representative of public policing for their business operations. Against these backdrops, the rise of private security becomes more important and aligned its operations with the government to provide protective services in public places. Thus, fragmentation of policing and the growth of private security industry are guided by market paradigm. Nevertheless, the relationships are becoming more complex and blurring in policing accountability and functions. This essay examines what is policing, its concept in the eyes of Britain, what is meant by fragmentation of policing. In doing so, it explores the impacts of public policing and the rise of private security industry in economic and political contexts. It then seeks to test the validity of each perspective to establish which explanation is more persuasive than the other and why? The essay concludes by arguing that both economic and political context, shape contemporary policing structures and how the public and private policing can be controlled in the future. Johnston, (1999) described the term ‘policing’ as a ‘social function’ and the word ‘police’ is referred as agents. Furthermore he stated that policing is basically a form of social control, This term social control with respect to policing is further explained by Cohen, (cited in Innes, 2004a, Johnston, 1999) as an organised response to deviant behaviour. In Great Britain there has been a strong association between people and policing by the tactics and style that has been employed and is regarded as policing by consent. This concept is markedly different from the term “Law enforcement” i.e. the concept that is more prevailing in United States of America, where a conflict and collision can be observed between people and police. This tends to create a distance between police and who have been policed and thus a chaotic environment can clearly be sensed. On the other hand Brits tempt to merge both these pillars of society i.e. people and police and supports the prevailed common idea that a police is a representative of state and is not more than a citizen in a uniform (Loader, 1997). This symbolism has assisted in creating British national identity. The image of British police through the emblem of British Bobby in well disciplines uniform also depicts the ideal citizenship and well regimented environment of law and order in United Kingdom (Reiner, 1992). Policing fragmentation is a term used for dividing and sub-dividing policing system by either allocating them different brigades or classifying them in public and private sector policing. In recent years there has been an increasing agreement among researchers over the profound changes that have taken place in policing system of Western Industrial societies. A number of authors have highlighted such developments like private security expansion (Shearing and Stenning 1987, Loader 2000, Drakeford, 1992), the increasing importance of transnational policing organization and practice (Reiner 1992), a transformation in management practices and organization of public police force (Kennedy 1995), use of new technology and its impact on policing and crime control (Maguire 2007) etc. These changes have started a revolution era in the history of policing. Here in this essay policing fragmentation will be taken as the classification of policing system into public and private security taskforce. There are many factors that influenced police fragmentation and cause increase in private security agencies. Some argue that its government who has to be blamed for not keeping the pace with the public sensitivity over increased threat of crimes with each passing day (Johnson 1992 b). Some consider that the individualization of society has grave effects on security and feelings of safety i.e. a shift has been observed from the concept of ccollective security to individual insecurity, where trust is been replaced by mistrust and neighbors have turned into others (Loader and Walker, 2007). According to some critics the shift towards the management of crime as the “de facto political priority for policing” has transferred much of the responsibility for crime minimization and prevention on the people themselves thus providing them a sense of their own security has resulted into a spillover in the field of security creating a state-sponsored plurality of policing provision (Innes, 2004b). Still some more says that it may be a lack of community and social capital that further worsens the situation (Niemann, 1998) while others argue that it’s the game initiated by the private security services providers who by creating image of threat and by media who by selling the fear over the general public can augment their business. This argument is weighed less when the facts are quoted that indicates an actual rise in crimes rate from 1960s-1980s (Kennedy 1995). Some are of the that the negative image of public police that has been portrayed in the eyes of public also contributed in lessening their value like the charges of corruption, neglection of victims, intensified zeal etc (Forst and Manning 1999). All these factors amalgamated with the clear understanding of the limitations of public police accounts and government budgets ultimately cause an apparent acceptance to the legitimacy of private security industry (Morley and Fong 1995). The interaction between a citizen and a constable and the mode of communication of policing is greatly affected by the mindsets of an average citizen who wants to see police safeguarding them and enjoying respect from people of nation in return. This has evoked a sense of identity in common people (Loader, 1997). The question arises is the impact on hearts and minds of citizens due to such an enormous increase in private sector of policing. One possible answer may be presented in Dupont (2004) point of view, in which he states that being too much status and symbol constant can affect the perception of general public and thus it creates a liable window for fresh actors, particularly in the case when the common citizen is more expected to come across a private security agent than across a public police officer in his daily routine. Crawford et al (2005) recommends that 43% of private police officer’s time is utilized in streets as compared to only 17% which is utilized by a public police officer. This ultimately increases level of trust of general public on private police officers who feel safer and secure for a social gathering or engaging themselves with the community. Hence people have started showing their confidence on private security agencies as well. A more evident and visible role that has been taken up by the private sector as compared to its counterpart public policing in the lives of nation supports strongly the phenomenon of pluralism (Shearing and Stenning, 1983). The idea of Weber (1948) draws a divergent between public and private sector by use of term “Utilizing legitimate physical force”. This centralize concept is the basis of distinction between the duties and responsibilities of a public and private policing. The ability to enforce a law if obligatory is the sole role of public police while the private policing remain confined to the observance of these laws and enjoys no greater authority than an average member of state (Stenning, 2000). So a private security agent is literally a citizen in uniform (Loader, 1997). So, mind set of general public towards a private police officer would never be a man in uniform beating someone or making effort for implementation of laws of state but only protecting its client or customer. This is also obvious that at the time of incidences of violence and brutality, people will refer to a public policing over the private security providers. There is a difference in the aims and objectives of private and public security agencies as well. All of us are well aware of the fact that policing is as a social good, and the ultimate authority to make laws lies in the hands of state whereas other organizations and representatives such as police stations and policemen are employed only for the implementation of that authority through maintaining law and order in the state (Loader and Walker, 2001). This leads us to the point of differentiation in the aims and objectives of private security agencies that are different from those of state and public policing. Private security objective is only to protect his own client who is paying heavy bills for the purpose of safe guarding. This objective of private security agencies has created a wider image of public policing which has now not only has to work on law enforcement and conflict resolution through justice and courts made for this purpose but also to gain the trust of general public by defending those who don’t have enough money to hire private security to defend themselves (Messenger, 2008). The increase in the private security industry occurs in the later part of the twentieth century and has corresponded to an era in which the state and nation both were at their weakest. It was after the 9/11 incident in USA that spreads the feeling of insecurity and uncertainty among the public and it was the same time when the state could not provide sufficient public policing for security of the general public. It was the time when Waddington (2004) quoted that as compared to 30-40 public police officers at public places in day time, there were 1000s of private security agents to protect them outside bars at night. This increased exposure also imparts positive impacts on people minds. Thus, although the public policing still preserves the affection and respect from general public, they have started realizing this fact that the public policing are not the sole providers of security and safety. Evidence of the revolution of private security industry can be seen when investigating the relative incidence of the private security sector, taken from the total number of individuals that has been employed in it. George and Button (2000) approximate that there are 217,000 private security officers employed in UK. Jones and Newburn (1998) increases this figure and states that these private security personnel are more than 333, 700 with almost 140,000 of them serving in a proper uniform. This indicates that there are around two private agents for every single public police officer (Button, 2002). Such huge demand of private security agents apart from causing thousands of job opportunities are also giving profitable financial turn over which Crawford (2003) estimated to be 1,678 million pounds in 2001. Rise in Private Security Industry in Economic and Political Context: As we have discussed a prominent shift in the insight of private security industry in developed countries of the world, here we will focus on two main perspectives for discussing the fragmentation and privatization of policing, “The Economic Context” and “The Political Context”. Economic context It is the difference in changing laws of supply and demand in private secu­rity industries. As a result of extensive research in this domain, the private security agencies were found to be more like economics jugglers who are only focused on taking advantage of market financial variations for their own benefit. It was in the middle of 20th century when these private security agencies tend to rise in strong countries. This was the time when the increase demand of security personals was fulfilled by making more hirings in public policing (Ayling et al., 2009; Braithwaite, 2000), and there remained just a small need for private policing. However it was in 1970-80s when certain cracks were observed in this monopolistic system and fiscal stress occurs in many developed states which cause a decrease in investments in public sectors due to depletion of resources and neoliberal mindsets of government persons. This decreases the hirings of public policing causes a vacuum which was ultimately filled by the private policing agencies. This theory has been named as vacuum theory (Jones and Newburn, 1998). Contrary to this argument is Braithwaite (2000) concept, who says that although same argues about fiscal crisis between 1970 and 1990, but the number of public police officers in Britain and the United States devastatingly increased by 35 and 64 per cent respectively. This occurred mainly due to the fact that increase in spending on the public police did not actually manage to keep pace with domestic security demand, so that increase rapidly from 1970s onwards. As a consequence, a supply deficit was still left that could have been exploited by the private security agencies, but the deficit was caused by escalating demands for within state security rather than by dwindling state’s investment share in public policing Another argument in the opposition of vacuum theory states that it’s not the fiscal crisis that put the public policing to “sale” but the increased demand of private security that has emerged as a result commodification. These developed societies have growing materialization trend and are becoming more status oriented. Many highly developed countries have increased craving of security fetishism i.e they have increasing desire to ameliorate and induce subjective feelings of insecurity within themselves. Factors that are exacerbating these self provoked thoughts may be change in patterns of crimes, Increase in concept of neoliberal world, more advancement in security technology i.e. launching of new security products and services (Jones and Newburn 2006, Neocleous, 2008, Zedner, 2003). This greed and crave can be self upholding, i.e. the more the number of public or private security agents that move, the more the reminder is sent to the citizens that they are insecure and thus the more this luster become to safeguard oneself. (Zedner, 2003). Lastly, Increase in crime rates in many advanced countries also stimulates a demand provision of private security (Gurr, 1977; Maguire, 2007). Reiner (1992) argued that not only the number but also the patterns of crime in many of these countries, which are becoming more complex and complicated by the combination of certain nationality, class, gender, identity, religious and social relations, makes it difficult for monolithic public institutions like police alone to combat criminal activity. These financial fluctuations that swing between need and supply have a profound effect on private security providers. However, this is not the end of story; researches have concluded that not only economic but political context too has played its role in the upbringing of these private security agencies. Political context Political context comprises of some deep rooted political norms that revolves around the idea that citizen’s security must be provided exclusively by the state itself and must be completely liberated from any chances of commercialization. Researches that are conducted in this respect are more inclined towards constructing a scenario in which the private security providers are not more that a political performer who is finding its way to give lawful and justifiable status to their affairs. The researchers look for historical associations between public and private personnels and draws conclusion with respect to current relationships. Numerous private security providers are doing such activities that cannot be done without a solid political support like the introduction of recruiting ranks like moon­lighting and the hiring of ex-public police and military officers so that with the help of these representations, common people can be befooled. In United States and some more countries, moonlighting is particularly frequent. Sklansky (1999) supported this notation by saying that almost half of US police personnels are re-employed by the private safety companies in one way or the other. Stewart (1985) further strength the argument by stating that several metropolis even permit such ex-officers to be dressed in their uniforms with their badges and guns. The reason they put in for this is that increase in presence of police in an area will be both in the best interest of public and private agencies. These type of vague policies tend to smudge the boundaries that exist between public and private policing and the given benefit is enjoyed by the private security providers only, as it bestow upon a representation of a state like authority which is nothing but a trick of these private secu­rity actors (Yoshida, 1999). Some researchers argue that apart from these symbolic misrepresentations, the private agencies are also officially trying to utilize statutory regulations to develop legally grounded relations with state institutions. Like in Britain, a powerful collaboration of private security agency has been lobbing in favour of a regulation for almost forty years, before this institutional organization finally codified in the form of Private Security Industry Act 2001 (Lister, 2010). Similar cases were strongly reported in other geologically assorted settings like France and Australia (Ocqueteau, 1993; Prenzler and Sarre, 1998, 2006). So the political context of public security agencies also gives shape to the activities of private security agencies to a greater extent. From a new political economy viewpoint, this political context strongly amalgamates with the economic context described above. The legal philosophy of supply and demand in the public security sectors are deeply embedded in norms thus explaining how the security is ought to be delivered. Current researchers faces dilemma in criminology by not evaluating the relationships between political and economical context. This highlights the need to make association between both these strong factors that are contributing towards increase vulnerability towards privatization of policing. This can be done by a two step process. first, by exploring extent to which these two theoretical frameworks can be utilized to con­tribute towards the agenda, thereby taking advantage of the previous conceptual work already done in this field and second, by expanding these frameworks in order to construct the new political economy of private security. (White 2011) Nodal governance and anchored pluralism: Two hypothetical frameworks that have strongly dominated the reading of private security industry are the nodal governance model and anchored pluralism model. They have broadened the basic concept of privatization of policing by focusing both the state and the non-state actors in emerging democracies and thus present room for future progress. These frameworks have explicates the relationship between political and eco­nomic context of public security, also serving to shape the conduct of private security actors. Nodal governance The nodal governance model gains its importance in the mid 90s as the foremost clear attempt to broaden the perception and the progression towards more pluralized private security industries. The presenters of this nodal governance theory are Johnston and Wood, Shearing (Les Johnston, 2003; Shearing and Wood, 2003; 2007). Many others have also contributed toward the development of this concept and have shapen it in a number of innovative directions and divergents (Dupont, 2004; Kempa and Singh, 2008). Nodal governance is concerned with first of all ‘mapping’ the pluralized security providers that are present in a centralized geological spaces or these are termed as ‘nodes’ and then effectively working on the relationships of these in a broad security networks. For drawing nodal maps, certain keys are used like knowledge, institutions, mentalities, practices, and resources (Pierre and Peters, 2000; Peters, 1998; Smith, 1993, 1999, Wood, 2006; Wood and Shearing, 2007). These must not be placed in public security locations at the expense of private agencies, Instead the con­stitution of each node must be placed as an ‘empirically open question’ with no predetermined dispositions towards the either side of the balance i..e public or private sphere. So, When citizens move between different nodal planes during their everyday lives, from industrial complexes, shopping malls and gated communities to city centres, airports, and national border points, they will encounter a diversity of security regimes which are categorized by both public and private institutions, practices, knowledge, mentalities and resources (Button, 2007, Kempa et al., 2004; Shearing and Stenning, 1987; Steden, 2007) So, Nodal governance accommodates both the economic and political context. However, in case of analys­ing the dynamics of private security, this model may be used with a tendency to focus more on the economic context than that of political context. According to these theorists, the problem with this model at such state centric analyses is that ‘it may attempt to grasp what is happening from the time what is being superseded’ (Shearing and Wood, 2003: 418) i.e. it seeks to interpret the present and future with the help of prism of the past. Thus it can be utilized to conceptualize the post-monopoly era of security provision. This model is more effective towards capturing many of the more radical trends in the contemporary security sector. So while this does not preclude the analysis of political context, its framing suggests the reason why no systematic analysis of the context has yet been advanced within the literature of nodal governance. Anchored pluralism The anchored pluralism has been based on the work of Loader and Walker (2001, 2007) and has come out as the most important substitute to the nodal gover­nance model. Anchored pluralism model actually focuses on the interpretation of the changing nature of the current security representation. This made a very noteworthy contribution towards the scheme of fragmenting and atomization of dynamics of the private security industries. This model focuses more on the political context of private security industry rather than the economical context, and even in political context more focus is laid on the mode in which these contributors are made empowered by the shifting laws of supply and demand rather than stressing on the inter-subjective political norms. This model does not exclude the economical context analysis, but the way the model is normatively enclosed may incline more towards illuminating why no methodical investigation of demand and need has yet been accompanied along with the literature. These highlight the need of investigating clearly on both the agendas i.e. economical and political context to define fully the motives behind the private security industries. The after effects that will be challenged in the future must also be addressed. Thus it creates a need of mapping out certain research questions that will be helpful in studying the political and economical influence in a private security agency. Some of the key questions that must be emphasized that abridge the confusion are, the factors that have made private security so prominent, relationship between private security industries with the state, their association and connection with the public good, and the future prospects of these security provisions (White 2011) Conclusion: So evolution in industrialization and globalization issues has also changed one’s perspective of being secure and has increased one’s insecurity and uncertainty. This leads to fragmentation of policing and public police has been replaced thoroughly by their private counterparts. the factors which have contributed towards this shift may be fiscal crises, altering concept from society to individualization, lacking on behalf of government, vacuum theory, materialization, commodification, postmodernism and the introduction of innovative technology in criminology. 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