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Private Security Ethics

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Private Security Ethics D.3.3. ‘A report on the ethical issues raised by the increasing role of private security professionals in security analysis and provision’ Deliverable submitted December 2009 (M21) in fulfillment of requirements of the FP7 Project, Converging and Conflicting Ethical Values in the Internal/External Security Continuum in Europe (INEX) International Peace PO Box 9229 Grønland T: +47 22 54 77 00 www.inexproject.eu Research Institute, Oslo NO-0134 Oslo, Norway F: +47 22 54 77 01 ‘A report on the ethical issues raised by the increasing role of private security professionals in security analysis and provision’ Date of Submission: December 2009 Responsible Researchers: Jelle van Buuren Supervisor Prof. Dr. Monica den Boer Department of Governance Studies VU University Amsterdam 2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction 3 2. Private Policing – facts and figures 3 3. Explaining the growth of private security 7 3.1 New, newer, newest? 7 3.2 The capacity of the state 9 3.3 Crisis of capitalism 10 3.4 Managerialism 11 3.5 Responsibilization 11 3.6 Risk Society 12 3.7 Secondary social control 12 3.8 Changes in property relations 13 3.9 New surveillance technologies 14 3.10 Spread of consumer culture 16 3.11 Internationalisation 17 4. Nodal security 18 4.1 Competition or cooperation 19 4.2 Hollowing out of the state 23 5. Private policing – blessing or curse? 27 5.1 Rich-poor 30 5.2 Accountability 32 5.3 Regulation 34 5.4 Insecurity as a commodity 38 5.5 Private Justice 40 5.6 Security as a public good 44 6. Values inside private security 49 6.1 Police perception 50 6.2 Public perception 52 6.3 Sectoral perception 53 6.4 Codes of ethics 55 6.5 Organizational and personal values 57 6.6 Private and public temptations 59 7. Conclusion 60 References 66 3 1. Introduction Private security is on the rise. Although difficulties emerge in exactly estimating the precise amount of private security in the total range of security, the available figures all point into the same direction. Private security has moved lately to a more central stage in science, after years of academic neglect. Traditionally, private security was symbolized by the Private Eye as reflected in American movies: a cynical, though male, breaking laws and norms while holding a bottle of whisky in one hand and a blonde femme fatale in the other hand. However, this Hollywood image of private investigators seems to be outdated. Private security nowadays covers a conglomerate of companies active in all possible fields of security. In this literature review, we will look into the dimension, size and functions of private security as reflected in the academic forum. Further, we will look into scientific discussions concerning explanations for the rise in private security, the functions of private security, the relationship with the state, the relationship between public and private security and the possible societal and political ramifications of private security. After examining the scientific knowledge on the organizational and personal values dominant in the private security sector, we will look at the possible ethical dilemmas embedded in the rise in private security. We will end with some conclusions regarding the current scientific knowledge on private security and possible avenues for further exploration of the ethical challenges to private security. Throughout this literature review we will understand private security companies as ‘commercial enterprises using public or private funds to engage in tasks where the principal component is a security of regulatory function’ (Sarre and Prenzler 2005: 4). 2. Private policing – facts and figures Measuring the size of private security is problematic. First, the industry is not a clear defined homogenous group, but rather a ‘multitude of industries, large and small, all related to the provision of security services, investigations, crime prevention, order maintenance and security design’ (Van Steden and Sarre 2007: 226). The industry flows into a large variety of markets, making accurate classification and counting very difficult. Further, the quality of available official statistical sources varies considerably from country to country. Besides that, most private firms are not to keen to advertise their earning and personnel numbers. The first major study of private security was published by De Waard (1999). De Waard estimated that there were 592,050 security personnel in Europe in a population of 369 million. So there were 160 security personnel per 100.000 population; for the public police the number was 375 per 100.000. However, large variations in personnel numbers existed between countries. De Waard indicated that public police still outnumbered security personnel in the European Union by a rough estimate of 2:1. The situation in 1999 can be summarized as follows (De Waard 1999: 155): 4 Graphic 1: Absolute and relative number of private security personnel and police personnel in the EU 1999 Country Population Private Private Police Police per (× 1.000) personnel personnel per personnel 100.000 Total 100.000 Total inhabitants inhabitants Austria 7.992 6.000 75 29.000 362 Belgium 10.085 11.200 109 34.712 344 Britain 58.191 160.000 275 185.156 318 Denmark 5.189 10.000 193 12.230 236 Finland 5.066 3.500 69 11.816 233 France 57.667 70.000 121 227.008 394 Germany 81.187 176.000 217 260.132 320 Greece 10.368 2.000 19 39.335 379 Ireland 3.563 5.150 143 10.829 304 Italy 57.057 43.200 76 278.640 488 Luxembourg 398 800 201 1.100 276 Netherlands 15.287 20.200 132 39.216 256 Portugal 9.864 15.000 152 43.459 440 Spain 39.143 53.000 135 186.547 477 Sweden 8.713 16.000 184 27.000 310 Total EU 369.770 592.050 160 1.386.180 375 The most recent figures (CoESS 2008) are from 2008 and are shown in Graphic 2: Graphic 2: Absolute and relative number of private security personnel and police personnel in the EU 2008 Country Population Private Private Police Police per (× 1000) personnel personnel per personnel 100.000 Total 100.000 Total inhabitants inhabitants Austria 8.210 6.790 83 27.111 333 Belgium 10.414 18.321 176 37.008 356 Britain 61.112 150.000 251 164.154 275 Denmark 5.500 5.250 97 10.483 194 Finland 5.250 6.000 115 8.247 158 France 64.057 117.000 188 235.792 379 Germany 82.329 170.000 206 246.756 299 Greece 10.737 25.000 226 50.171 454 Ireland 4.203 20.000 484 12.209 303 Italy 58.126 55.000 95 325.632 582 Luxembourg 491 2.200 484 1.352 297 Netherlands 16.715 30.000 185 35.996 221 Portugal 10.707 28.000 267 47.949 458 Spain 40.525 89.449 211 200.886 474 Sweden 9.059 10.000 111 16.891 188 Total EU 456.288 43.542 237 66.059 360 Hungary 9.905 80.000 791 29.561 292 Poland 38.428 200.000 524 100.770 264 Slovakia 5.463 20.839 387 14.079 262 Estonia 1.299 4.900 363 3.520 261 Lithuania 3.555 10.000 290 11.526 334 Czech 10.211 28.101 275 47.232 463 5 Republic Slovenia 2.005 4.500 225 7.618 382 Latvia 2.231 5.000 216 9.902 427 Cyprus 796 1.500 205 4.903 671 Malta 405 700 175 1.775 444 As the graphics show, despite the growth in private security, there is still much divergence between European countries. For instance, In Poland, the ratio of private forces is twice as high as public forces. In the United Kingdom, there are almost equal numbers of private and public agents. In Germany, France and Spain there are about half as many private agents as public agents. Italy has both the largest police force in Europe and highly marginalized private forces. European countries therefore can be placed in four major categories if we compare public forces and private agents quantatively: 1. Countries having more private agents than public officers: Poland, Hungary, Ireland, Slovakia, Estonia and Luxembourg 2. Countries having more or less identical numbers of private agents and public officers: The United Kingdom, The Netherlands and Lithuania 3. Countries having half as many private agents as public officers: Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, The Czech Republic, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Greece, Latvia, Slovenia and Finland 4. Countries having a marginal private workforce compared to public workforces: Italy, Austria, Cyprus and Malta 1 As said before, the private security industry is not a clear defined homogenous group, but rather a ‘multitude of industries’, large and small, all somehow related to the provision of security services. It typically includes the work of security guards, corporate security and loss prevention personnel, alarm and surveillance specialists, private investigators, armoured vehicle personnel, manufacturers of security equipment, locksmiths, security consultants and engineers, and people involved in a variety of related roles from private forensic laboratory scientists to guard dog trainers and drug testing specialists (Forst 2000: 22). So we can find one-man agencies, mirroring the stereotype representation of the Private Eye , as well as large private security companies as Group4Securicor, currently operating in 115 countries, employing over 530.000 people and ranking as one of the London Stock Exchange’s 100 largest corporations; its turnover has been reported as 9 billion US dollar (Abrahamsen and Williams 2009: 3). Further, private intelligence is on the rise. Currently a large number of companies offer intelligence services and some of them have acquired considerable influence.
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