Origin of Private Security Services



Private security personnel play a large and growing role within public social life, having achieved a prominent role in U.S. policing with a very short timescale. The last 20 years have been marked by increasing demands by the U.S. public and corporate for greater security, in a climate declining faith in the police's ability to prevent crime, and the government promotion of the virtues of privatization and individual responsibility. These trends in thinking and policy have contributed to a growing dispersal of formal social controls, in which the dominance of the state policing has declined, and the presence of profit making and voluntary policing bodies has grown in parallel ? a phenomenon that is described as the ?segmentation of control?. The effect of such change is that increasingly, as we go about our daily routines, we visit areas and use facilities that are policed not by the police, but by alternative public, private and voluntary agencies. Each of these agencies thrives because of distinctive knowledge and services they offer, and because each of their contributions is important to the overall provision of a ?security quilt? for the population.

Need for Private Security Services

Once largely hidden from public view, the private security industry has gained a particular prominence among these alternative policing agencies. This has occurred to such an extent in U.S. that the government is now in the process of regulating the industry countrywide, aligning itself with the other American countries, as well as European countries. The Expansion of mass private property ? large tracts of property controlled by corporate interests, upbringing of large shopping complexes, and large public transport of leisure installation increased the need of private security services. Teams of private security officers are now commonly found patrolling facilities such as shopping mall, leisure parks, and transportation terminals, which rely commercially on free access by the public to enter and purchase goods and services, and may also be found in the other large developments such as business parks, hospitals, educational establishments and housing estates.

Market for Private Security Services

The market for private security services has grown in response to the needs of mass private property owners, who have typically sought to exercise their territories by employing security staff. In common law countries the law bestows on property owners the right to decide who may enter and remain on their land. Private security officers acting on their behalf are empowered to uphold conditions of access to the land, and to exclude any visitors who breach these conditions. As public social life increasingly fall within privately controlled spaces, policed by security officers operating ?not in the public interest? but in the interests of their employers or corporate clients, it becomes subject to a style of policing that is likely to differ markedly from state policing in its objectives, core functions and methods of operation.

Entities Involved in Private Security Service

By exploring the respective roles and requirements of ?security client? or ?end user? of security services, the security company as the service provider, and the security officer as an agent of policing from the core security product being sold, a detailed picture of organization and functions of private security may be provided, while also connecting with broader themes in theory and policy in relation to formal social control. These include the social needs and insecurities in accordance with the commercial objectives if their employers and why private security is becoming part of private security quilt or web of provision, in place of a system of social control that has been dominated for about 150 years by the police.

Services Provided by Private Security Services

The contract security industry encompasses a multitude of services, and may be divided into two main areas ? the provision of ?manned? or staffed services, and the security hardware sector. The former includes the provision of guards and mobile patrols, private investigators, store detectives, door supervisors (bouncers), body guards and mercenaries, as well as services such as consultative work, private custodial services and the transport of cash. The manufacture, supply and installation of alarms, surveillance devices, and locks and safes are example of the work of security hardware industry. All market sectors are using private security services. They are having industry's clientele, including governments, commercial and industrial enterprises and private citizens.