Plural Policing: A Comparative Study

Plural Policing Policing is changing rapidly and radically. An increasingly complex array of public, private and munic...

Author: Trevor Jones | Tim Newburn

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Plural Policing

Policing is changing rapidly and radically. An increasingly complex array of public, private and municipal bodies – as well as public police forces – are now engaged in the provision of regulation and security. It is, therefore, widely recognized that policing has become increasingly ‘pluralized’ in many countries. This relates to three key developments across the globe: ● ●

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The huge expansion of the commercial security sector since the 1970s The increasing ‘market pressures’ and importation of business management techniques from the private sector, coupled with increasingly strict regimes of performance targets and monitoring placed on state police forces The emergence of new forms of patrol provision that can be distinguished both from commercial security and traditional state constabularies.

‘Plural policing’ is now a central issue within criminology and police studies throughout the world, and there is a growing body of research and theory concerned with its extent, nature and governance. To date, however, this work has been dominated by Anglo-American perspectives. This volume takes a detailed comparative look at the development of plural policing, and provides the most up-to-date work of reference for scholars in this field. Edited by two leading authorities on policing, and including individual contributions from internationally recognized experts in criminology and police studies, this is the first ever volume to focus on ‘plural policing’ internationally, and to draw together empirical evidence on its developments in a formal comparative framework. Trevor Jones is Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Cardiff, Wales. He has published widely in the areas of policing, community safety and comparative criminal justice policy-making. Tim Newburn is Professor of Criminology and Social Policy and Director of the Mannheim Centre for Criminology at the LSE, and President of the British Society of Criminology. He is the author/editor of 24 books, editor of the journal Criminal Justice, and Series Editor of Routledge’s new Key Ideas in Criminology series.

Plural Policing A comparative perspective

Edited by Trevor Jones and Tim Newburn

First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2006 Trevor Jones and Tim Newburn All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN10: 0-415-35510-9 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-415-35511-7 (pbk) ISBN10: 0-203-00179-6 (ebk) ISBN13: 078-0-415-35510-0 (hbk) ISBN13: 078-0-415-35511-7 (pbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-00179-0 (ebk)

Contents

List of illustrations List of contributors 1 Understanding plural policing

vi viii 1

TREVOR JONES AND TIM NEWBURN

2 The Netherlands

12

RONALD VAN STEDEN AND LEO HUBERTS

3 The United Kingdom

34

TREVOR JONES AND TIM NEWBURN

4 France

55

FRÉDÉRIC OCQUETEAU

5 Greece

77

GEORGIOS PAPANICOLAOU

6 The United States of America

98

PETER K. MANNING

7 Canada

126

GEORGE S. RIGAKOS AND CHERIE LEUNG

8 Brazil

139

JENNIFER WOOD AND NANCY CARDIA

9 Australia

169

TIM PRENZLER AND RICK SARRE

10 South Africa

190

CLIFFORD SHEARING AND JULIE BERG

11 Japan

222

NAOKO YOSHIDA AND FRANK LEISHMAN

Index

239

Illustrations

Figures 4.1

Comparison trends for public and private policing agents 1982–2001 4.2 Growth in numbers of security agents 1982–2001 5.1 Police expenditure as a percentage of state budget 1984–2004 7.1 Current and constant dollar spending on policing, Canada 1985–2002 7.2 The Corps of Commissionaires, Canada 1961–99 7.3 Public and private police per 100,000 population, Canada 1987–99 9.1 Percentages of female police officers and female recruits, 2003 9.2 Police officers, and guards and security officers, Australian census, 1986–2001 10.1 Number of active registered security officers in South Africa, 1997–2004 10.2 Security personnel in South Africa, 2004

64 67 91 129 132 136 173 175 204 209

Tables 2.1 2.2 2.3 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 5.1 6.1 8.1 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6

Employment in policing bodies in the Netherlands Views of police chiefs, mayors and public prosecutors on municipal security and safety policy Views of police chiefs, mayors and public prosecutors on the importance of different policing bodies Employment in private policing in the UK (2000) The UK security industry: employment and market size (2003) Changes in commercial and public policing employment 1951–2001 Employment of civilian staff and police officers in the British Transport Police 1998–2003 Growth in private security and private surveillance agents 1982–2001 Growth in state police officers 1982–2001 Growth of private security agents by employer type/ training contract Average age of private security employees Proportion of private security guard employment accounted for by women Private security employment by region 1982–2001 Educational qualification levels Public police and private security officers in Greece 1995–2003 Trends in public police employment 1964–2003 Extrajudicial killings in Brazil, 1980–2003 Australian police services, June 2003 Security providers, Australian census Security licences by jurisdiction, 2003 Composition of specialist agencies, 2003 Anti-corruption agencies Percentage change in numbers of police officers and crime reports since 1989 Number of private security companies and guards in Japan Number of guards employed per company The total number of police officers mobilized and total annual crowd size Number of crime reports since 1970 and number of private security companies and guards since 1975 Age profile of Tokyo Metropolitan Police officers (1 April 2003)

28 29 29 41 41 42 49 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 86 104 159 171 176 178 182 184 225 226 227 229 232 235

Contributors

Julie Berg is a Senior Researcher in the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Nancy Cardia is Vice-Co-ordinator of the Nucleo de Estudos da Violência (Centre for the Study of Violence), University of São Paulo, Brazil. Leo Huberts is Professor in the Department of Public Administration and Organizational Science, Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Trevor Jones is Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice in the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Wales, United Kingdom. Frank Leishman is Professor of Criminology at the Southampton Institute, England, United Kingdom. Cherie Leung is an MA candidate in the Department of Law, Carleton University, Canada. Peter K. Manning is Professor of Policing and Criminal Justice in the College of Criminal Justice, Northeastern University, Boston, USA. Tim Newburn is Professor of Criminology and Social Policy at the London School of Economics, England, United Kingdom. Frédéric Ocqueteau is Research Fellow in the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France. Georgios Papanicolaou is a Doctoral Student in the Centre for Law and Society, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom. Tim Prenzler is Associate Professor of Criminology at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. George S. Rigakos is Associate Professor in the Department of Law, Carleton University, Canada. Rick Sarre is Professor of Law and Criminal Justice in the School of Commerce at the University of South Australia, Australia.

Clifford Shearing is Professor in the Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet) in the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. Ronald van Steden is a Doctoral Student in the Department of Public Administration and Organizational Science, Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Jennifer Wood is Research Fellow in the Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet) in the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. Naoko Yoshida is a Doctoral Student in the Law Department in the University of Kyoto, Japan.

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Understanding plural policing Trevor Jones and Tim Newburn

It is now commonplace for criminologists to observe that there is much more to ‘policing’ than what (state) police forces do. This is the clear conclusion from recent work in the sociology of policing that has shifted the former exclusive preoccupation with the (public) police towards a broader concern with law enforcement, order maintenance and regulation carried out by a range of governmental, commercial and community bodies. The past decade has seen a growing recognition in academic and policy discourses of what has been termed the ‘pluralization’ of policing (Jones and Newburn 1998; Loader 2000). It is generally accepted that, in many countries, ‘policing’ is now both authorized and delivered by diverse networks of commercial bodies, voluntary and community groups, individual citizens, national and local governmental regulatory agencies, as well as the public police (Bayley and Shearing 2001; Crawford et al. 2005). More recently still, and as a result of the proliferation of policing providers and authorizers, commentators have begun to move away from the focus on ‘policing’ and to talk of ‘security networks’ (see, for example, Shearing 1996; Johnston 2000; Johnston and Shearing 2003) and, indeed, of the ‘commodification’ of security and policing. It is becoming more and more difficult to think of security provision primarily in terms of what the public police do (Loader 1997), and the terminology of ‘fragmented’ or ‘plural’ policing systems has become well established within criminology and police studies.

Cross-national comparative analysis of policing Despite the burgeoning academic interest in policing, there remains a relative dearth of rigorous international comparative research in this field (Brogden 1987; Mawby 1990). This reflects a broader lack of such research in criminology more generally, a subject which has remained ‘strikingly uncomparative’ (Downes 1992: 2). Although in some fields of study the basic tools of comparative research are relatively advanced – for example in economic analyses of growth, unemployment and labour markets – in criminology these tools remain relatively underdeveloped (Smith

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Trevor Jones and Tim Newburn

2004). This relates to a number of daunting problems that face comparative researchers interested in the field of criminology. One of the key constraints on international comparative work is the lack of comparable data (Hantrais 1995). Perhaps particularly in the arena of policing and criminal justice, official statistics and other data are strongly shaped by national conventions and local organizational cultures, and there is huge variation between countries both in terms of the extent and nature of what is available and the reliability of existing data. This has been recognized in previous attempts to provide comparative national data regarding employment in policing and commercial security (de Waard 1999). Furthermore, such problems can be compounded by a lack of common understanding of central concepts, and differing societal contexts within which the objects of study are located (Hantrais and Letablier 1996). At a more practical level, another key problem for comparative researchers concerns the obstacles presented by lack of language skills. This may well be a crucial explanation behind the relatively ethnocentric approach of much UK and US policing research to date, given the general lack of foreign language skills among Anglophone researchers. Despite these problems, the vital importance of cross-national comparative research is increasingly recognized within criminology. Comparative criminological research is essential in order better to understand similarities and differences within and between different jurisdictions, and to gain a deeper understanding of social reality in different national contexts. In particular, key current debates within criminology about international convergence and divergence in criminal justice and penal policy highlight the need for more detailed international comparison (Jones and Newburn 2005). There is an important body of work that sees criminal justice systems as stubbornly parochial and primarily shaped by national and sub-national influences (Melossi 2004; Tonry 2001, 2004). By contrast, recent years have seen highly influential work focusing on major transnational shifts influencing societal structures and cultural sensibilities as the key explanatory factors behind developments in penal policy (Garland 2001; Christie 2000). A key objective for international comparative research is to develop links between these two important bodies of work (Jones and Newburn 2005). As Smith argues, ‘the claims of … grand narratives can be tested and refined only by the detailed development of comparative research’ (2004: 13–14). There is another important reason why comparative research is important. A number of recent analyses of criminal justice and penal policy have implicitly downplayed the importance of politics, in terms of the importance of both the agency of political actors, and the key influences exerted by the nature of the political and legal institutions within which they operate (Jones and Newburn 2005). As Edwards and Hughes (2005: 261) note in their persuasive call for more comparative analysis,

Understanding plural policing

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the problem of political struggle, obscured by much criminological research whether in the pragmatic tradition of mainstream American criminology or the grand narrative claims of critical criminology, is central to any understanding of the formulation, implementation and outcomes of control strategies. In providing even an initial overview of the different structures and trajectories of policing systems that have developed within the context of contrasting national and local political and legal institutions, comparative research can begin to highlight the important contribution of political analysis in understanding how the policing landscape comes to be the way it is. Given the considerable problems faced by comparative researchers, the current volume has relatively modest aims. The main aim of this book was to deliver a detailed and comparative overview of the international development of ‘plural’ policing. It was hoped that a volume of this kind could summarize the latest empirical material to illustrate and inform current debates about trends in policing, and begin to map out a field of research for scholars internationally. As the chapters that follow demonstrate, the problems of the availability and reliability of comparative data sources remain. This has somewhat limited the possibilities for detailed comparative analysis between countries at this stage. However, we feel that the book has succeeded in providing a summary of the best available information for each country, and as something that can act as the basis for the future development of a more sophisticated comparative approach. In order to try to achieve a degree of standardization between chapters, contributors were asked (as far as data availability would allow) to follow a particular template. Not surprisingly, there was a degree of uncertainty about the precise meaning of ‘plural’ policing for authors whose first language was not English. The template thus outlined the kinds of policing developments in which we were interested, and which are outlined in more detail below. Each author was asked to provide a brief overview of the organization and structure of public policing in their countries, a summary of whatever data were available concerning the growth of commercial security, and a discussion (where relevant) of other forms of policing provision, including the activities of public regulatory and investigation agencies not part of established public police forces. The general definition of ‘policing’ that was adopted for the purposes of the book focused upon more formal manifestations of social control and regulation constituting socially recognized forms of policing. This follows a working definition that takes policing to be organized forms of order maintenance, peacekeeping, rule or law enforcement, crime investigation and prevention and other forms of investigation and associated information-brokering … undertaken by

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Trevor Jones and Tim Newburn individuals or organizations, where such activities are viewed by them and/or others as a central or key defining part of their purpose (Jones and Newburn 1998: 18–19)

Although this definition excludes a number of less formal types of surveillance and social control, it clearly includes the various formal ‘policing’ activities undertaken by commercial and other bodies, as well as more ‘community-led’ forms of security provision that form a central part of policing activities in countries such as Brazil and South Africa.

Understanding pluralization There are a number of changes that might reasonably be located under the heading of ‘pluralization’, but three developments in particular lie behind this term. First, a key focus in many countries has been the increasing size and pervasiveness of the commercial security sector. The proliferation of commercial security has both involved the spread of new technologies, such as closed-circuit television (CCTV), and also the incursion of the private sector into areas of activity more usually associated with public policing. Recent examples include the enforcement of parking and traffic regulations, the transport and guarding of prisoners and, most important of all at a symbolic level, the patrolling of public streets. Second, there has been the growing ‘commodification’ of public policing. Loader (1999) summarizes these changes under three headings: ‘managerialism’ (becoming more ‘business-like’), ‘consumerism’ (the re-presentation of public policing as a ‘service’ and of the public as ‘consumers’), and ‘promotionalism’ (the increasingly professional promotion of the ‘product’). Relatedly, from the 1980s onwards we have seen successive waves of ‘civilianization’ and the beginning of discussions about possibilities of privatization. In addition, many countries have seen the emergence of forms of policing provision that can be distinguished both from commercial security and from traditional state constabularies. Key examples include the recent introduction of ‘community support officers’ and ‘neighbourhood wardens’ in the UK, the establishment of local municipal police organizations in France, and the introduction of police auxiliaries (politiesurveillanten) and ‘city guards’ (stadswachten) in the Netherlands. Finally, criminologists in some countries have come to pay increasing attention to the activities of a range of governmental regulatory and investigatory agencies undertaking important ‘policing’ tasks. The number and nature of activities of such agencies differ between countries. As Manning demonstrates, there is a relative plethora of such bodies in the USA, for important reasons relating to the unique features of US political and jurisdictional structures. These kinds of bodies also form an important part of the policing patchwork in the UK and the Netherlands. Although it would be mistaken to consider these bodies as fundamentally


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new (Jones and Newburn 2002), they are undoubtedly a significant element within the broader notion of ‘plural policing’ that is the concern of this book. These developments are affecting the vast majority of ‘western’ societies but, predictably, they are doing so in different ways and at differing speeds depending on the nature of the social, political and cultural circumstances in which they are taking place. To date, the literature has been dominated by research and writing from North America. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that there has been a significant element of ethnocentrism in writing in this field; too often it has been assumed that trends identified in the United States, or in Canada, are simply being (or are likely to be) replicated in Europe and Australasia (Jones and Newburn 2002). One of the core purposes of this volume therefore is to take a detailed and comparative look at the development of plural policing in order to provide an important update of, and corrective to, much extant writing in this field. Our primary focus in this volume, therefore, is simply to explore how what we understand as ‘plural policing’, broadly defined, is emerging and developing in a fairly broad range of jurisdictions. The next important question then is which jurisdictions? A book of this nature can only hope to incorporate a relatively modest number of nations. What we have sought to do within the confines of a normal-sized volume is to provide an illustrative range of examples of plural policing from different continents and from societies with very varying policing histories. The United States, Canada and the United Kingdom are represented as they are undoubtedly the three nations where the bulk of extant work in the area of private and plural policing has been undertaken and which has dominated much of the criminological theorizing and research in this area. In addition to the UK, there are contributions on France, the Netherlands and on Greece which provide contrasting pictures of plural policing developments in Europe. Outside North America and Europe, there are also chapters exploring plural policing in Africa (South Africa), Asia (Japan), Australasia (Australia) and South America (Brazil). No doubt there are other jurisdictions that might have been added that would have allowed a slightly different perspective to emerge but, in our view, the selection here gives the most up-to-date and broadly comparative view of plural policing developments available. The approach taken in the individual contributions is primarily descriptive rather than analytical and explanatory (though individual contributions seek to locate developments within their particular political and cultural contexts). The intention behind the volume is not to seek to take forward and develop any one particular argument about or theory of policing or to begin to reorient policing studies. Rather, the volume aims to provide an indication of the ways in which plural policing is unfolding in similar or contrasting ways in different jurisdictions. Now it might be suggested that the next logical step is to use this as a jumping-off point for

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broader theorizing about how and why policing is developing internationally. We agree that this would be an important and timely project and, indeed, may well be something we engage in at another time. It is precisely the purpose of this volume that it at least provides empirical data and broad descriptive analysis of developments in individual jurisdictions that would enable such work to be taken forward.

Why has policing pluralized? The first point we must make is that there has always been a fairly broad array of policing ‘providers’ in most jurisdictions. Despite talk of public monopolies and the like most jurisdictions have generally housed a variety of policing bodies. Nevertheless, there have clearly been some significant changes taking place in recent times – even if the extent of such changes is sometimes contested (Bayley and Shearing 1996; Jones and Newburn 2002). Commercial security is generally becoming more visible. In a great many societies the number of security guards and other officials has expanded massively. Similarly, the physical accoutrements of commercial security – alarms, closed-circuit television and so on – have also proliferated (though again this varies very greatly). Indeed, so extensive has commercial security become in some societies that it appears to have significantly outstripped the public police in its size and the finances that underpin it. Not only has commercial security grown substantially, but in a number of jurisdictions there is increasing use of a variety of alternative civilian forms of policing such as wardens, community guards and the like. Why are such changes taking place? There are a number of possibilities. One is simply that there are increasing constraints on public police expenditure and that, as a consequence, other forms of provision have expanded to fill the gap that the police are unable to fill themselves. A second is that there has been some form of deliberate transfer of functions from the public to the private sector – in effect, a process of privatization of some public police functions to private security. A third is that the changes we are witnessing in policing somehow reflect other structural changes, for example in the nature of urban space. In this scenario the changing nature of the spaces being ‘policed’ effectively creates opportunities for, or even requires, the spread of private forms of crime control and order maintenance. Finally, there is the related, but broader, possibility that broader shifts in the structure and nature of ‘late modern’ societies have created a set of circumstances in which plural policing proliferates. It is not the intention of the contributions to this volume that we should seek answers to this complicated question. That would require a further, undoubtedly longer, book. Nevertheless, in what follows, some general trends can be identified. First, whilst it is not possible to argue that there has been some simple shift toward commercial security as a result of public fiscal constraints, it is nonetheless clear that in most jurisdictions the demands on


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public policing bodies have increased hugely over the past half century. In part this is because of what appear to be generally rising crime rates. In addition, in many societies there has also apparently been a growing and more generalised sense of insecurity in recent decades. Indeed, arguably no realistic expansion of public police resources in recent times would have been likely to meet the demands that have increasingly come to be made on policing. A second important trend affecting many, though not all, of the jurisdictions covered in this volume has been the neo-liberalization of social policy and, more particularly, the attraction of privatization as a means of restricting public spending and refashioning the shape and functioning of the state. Interestingly however, even in the UK – arguably the nation at the forefront of the privatization movement (Feigenbaum et al. 1999) – direct privatization of public functions can only account for a very modest element of the changes identified here. Although the period of expansion of commercial security in the UK coincided with a drive towards privatization and contracting out by central and local government, direct privatization of policing itself was responsible for only a small proportion of the growth of employment in this sector. Similarly, as Prenzler and Sarre illustrate, public policing in Australia has been largely insulated from either outsourcing or commercialization of functions. In countries such as France and Greece, the more limited expansion of commercial security can be linked directly to deliberate policies of the government that reflect a more cautious approach within these countries’ respective political cultures towards the privatization of what is perceived as one of the core state functions. South Africa, however, is something of a contrast in this regard. Although the South African state did not engage in a process of direct privatization of public policing functions, Shearing and Berg argue that the Apartheid regime in the 1970s and 1980s consciously used and stimulated the private security sector as a means of protecting its interests in a situation of heightened political conflict. Again, in contrast to the proliferation of private security in liberal democracies, the spread of commercial policing bodies in Brazil has been directly linked to the very particular and dramatic nature of crime and insecurity in its major urban centres. Not directly stimulated by central government, private security has expanded in significant and novel ways (car-armouring for example) as a result, Wood and Cardia argue, of entrepreneurialism and a search for self-protection under conditions of heightened insecurity. A more fundamental potential explanation for the increasing complexity of contemporary policing was offered in the 1980s by sociologists Shearing and Stenning (1987), then based in Canada. They argued that the expansion of commercial policing in North America was related to the growth of shopping centres, leisure and educational complexes, hospitals and private residential developments such as gated communities – all privately owned and privately policed. Increasingly, in late modern societies, our public life takes place in these areas – what Shearing and Stenning

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termed ‘mass private property’. In this sense, the ‘natural domain’ of the police is shrinking, and that of commercial policing is expanding. About 30 years ago we tended to live in traditional public street-facing houses, shop in town centres, spend our leisure time in public parks and open spaces. Over recent years, we have increasingly tended to live, work, play and shop in privatized environments; areas that are generally protected by private police/security. This argument is intuitively attractive and it clearly identifies an important explanatory element within the growth of commercial policing – especially as Manning shows in relation to the US and Rigakos and Leung also acknowledge in Canada. At a broader level still, a number of writers have observed a range of social developments that gathered pace in the latter part of the twentieth century that have contributed to a generalized sense of ‘ontological insecurity’. Increasingly, social life is shaped by and organized around perceptions of ‘risk’. Such developments include: labour market restructuring and the virtual disappearance of secure lifetime employment; growing social and spatial mobility that has weakened the individual’s ties with local places; the decline of participation in intermediate level institutions such as trade unions, local shops, churches, community groups and clubs; growing economic inequality and social polarization that leads to a heightened sense of (and fear of) the ‘other’. Whereas people used to see themselves primarily as members of one or more groups, increasingly people are defining their life goals in terms of individual personal development and fulfilment. The increased privatism and individualism of social life has clearly expanded opportunities for many people in a host of ways. But it has also eroded traditional bases of trust and stability, and individuals have increasingly become ‘disembedded’ and insecure. It is argued that these processes have contributed significantly to the growing demands for commercial policing. A related argument concerns the notion of ‘commodification’ – the tendency for the expansionist dynamic of capitalism to recast ‘goods’ that were previously viewed as arising naturally out of collective social life as ‘commodities’ that can be bought or sold by individuals in the market place. This, it is argued, has been particularly visible in the field of security, which is increasingly packaged and marketed to consumers by a burgeoning commercial security industry (Loader 1997). Ironically, this process is self-perpetuating. The more we see uniformed security guards, the more we hide from others behind security fences and ever more sophisticated alarm systems, the more afraid and insecure we are. It is like scratching an itch that simply gets worse.

Why is pluralization important? Should we be concerned about such changes? Why are the changes that appear to be affecting policing important? There are a number of responses to such questions. First, and as we observed at the outset, we are witnessing


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some important changes to the nature and shape of public policing. For David Bayley and Clifford Shearing (1996, 2001) such changes represent a watershed in the evolution of our systems of crime control and law enforcement. As we have argued elsewhere (Newburn 2003), notwithstanding disagreements over how such changes should be interpreted, Bayley and Shearing’s arguments provide us with a hugely important frame of reference for thinking about the future of policing. At the heart of this lies the fracturing of the idea of a state monopoly on policing. The growing visibility of private security, the increasing responsibilization of citizens and communities, and the growing corporatization of public policing bodies all complicate both the perception and the reality of policing. However, and as the individual contributions to this volume make clear, it is vitally important not to overstate the degree of similarity in the changes taking place cross-nationally. Not only do individual nation states have very different histories of policing, so, no doubt, do they have different futures. That is not to say that there are not important similarities. All the jurisdictions included in this volume, though varying considerably, are witnessing growing pluralization of their policing structures. These trends are being played out in different ways in different places and this, again, is another reason for studying, and comparing, the process of change in policing. Although broad, structural forces can be identified which cross national boundaries and affect policing and other systems internationally, it remains the case that ‘local political cultures’ (Newburn and Sparks 2004) play a crucially important role both in mediating and moulding particular developments. Part of the rationale for this volume therefore lies in the recognition that cultural context is vital – systems are changing in different ways in different places. Put in a different way, it is possible to identify both convergence and divergence in contemporary developments in policing, just as it is in other areas of criminal justice and penal policy. In this, as in other areas, there is a tension between work that focuses on the broad sweep of change, seeking to provide generalizable theories and accounts of change, and work which takes a more particular, often empirical, approach to contemporary developments. Both approaches are important. The former provides frameworks for identifying and understanding trends. The latter, and the primary approach taken in this volume, provides rich empirical data allowing broader theories to be revised and refined. The final reason that we should be concerned about pluralization is an ethical and normative one. As with all social change, questions inevitably arise as to how such changes are assessed and whether, crudely, they are perceived to be socially harmful or beneficial. Many commentators have raised considerable concerns over privatization and pluralization in the crime control arena (Loader 2000; Ryan and Ward 1989). To the extent that the changes taking place appear to be the product of broad, globalizing forces, it often feels as if change is all but inevitable and unstoppable. It is in this context that empirical studies of local political cultures become all the more

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important. The variation that is apparent in the chapters that follow should very quickly give the lie to the idea that we are all inevitably headed in one particular direction. Broadly speaking, we repeat, there may be commonalities. However, what is clear from looking in detail at particular societies is that there are also countervailing trends and sites of political and social resistance. For those interested in thinking about how the future(s) of policing might be moulded in particular directions such detail is, we think, of huge value.

References Bayley, D. and Shearing, C. (1996) ‘The future of policing’, Law and Society Review, 30: 3, pp. 583–606. Bayley, D. and Shearing, C. (2001) The New Structure of Policing: Conceptualization and Research Agenda, Washington DC: National Institute of Justice. Brogden, M. (1987) ‘The emergence of the police: The colonial dimension’, British Journal of Criminology, 27: 1, pp. 4–14. Christie, N. (2000) Crime Control as Industry (Third Edition), London: Routledge. Crawford, A., Lister, S., Blackburn, S. and Burnett, J. (2005) Plural Policing: The Mixed Economy of Visible Patrols in England and Wales, Bristol: Policy Press. De Waard, J. (1999) ‘The private security industry in international perspective’, European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 7: 2, pp. 143–74. Downes, D. (1992) Contrasts in Tolerance, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edwards, A. and Hughes, G. (2005) ‘Editorial’, Theoretical Criminology, 9: 3, pp. 259–63. Feigenbaum, H., Henig, J. and Hamnett, C. (1999) Shrinking the State: The Political Underpinnings of Privatization, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garland, D. (2001) The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hantrais, L. (1995) ‘Comparative research methods’, Social Research Update, Issue 13, Guildford: University of Surrey. Hantrais, L. and Letablier, M.-T. (1996) Families and Family Policies in Europe, London: Longman. Johnston, L. (2000) Policing Britain: Risk, Security and Governance, Harlow: Longman. Johnston, L. and Shearing, C. (2003) The Governance of Security, London: Routledge. Jones, T. and Newburn, T. (1998) Private Security and Public Policing, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jones, T. and Newburn, T. (2002) ‘The transformation of policing? Understanding current trends in policing systems’, British Journal of Criminology, 42: 1, pp. 129–46.


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Jones, T. and Newburn, T. (2005) ‘Comparative criminal justice policy-making in the United States and the United Kingdom: The case of private prisons’, British Journal of Criminology, 45: 1, pp. 58–80. Loader, I. (1997) ‘Private security and the demand for protection in contemporary Britain’, Policing and Society, 7, pp. 143–62. Loader, I. (1999) ‘Consumer culture and the commodification of policing and security’, Sociology, 33: 2, pp. 373–92. Loader, I. (2000) ‘Plural policing and democratic governance’, Social and Legal Studies, 9: 3, pp. 323–45. Mawby, R. I. (1990) Comparative Policing Issues: The British and American Experience in International Perspective, London: Unwin Hyman. Melossi, D. (2004) ‘The cultural embeddedness of social control: Reflections on the comparison of Italian and North-American cultures concerning punishment’, in T. Newburn and R. Sparks (eds) Criminal Justice and Political Cultures, Cullompton: Willan. Newburn, T. (2003) ‘The future of policing’, in T. Newburn (ed.) Handbook of Policing, Cullompton: Willan. Newburn, T. and Sparks, R. (2004) ‘Criminal justice and political cultures’, in T. Newburn and R. Sparks (eds) Criminal Justice and Political Cultures: National and International Dimensions of Crime Control, Cullompton: Willan. Ryan, M. and Ward, T. (1989) Privatization and the Penal System: The American Experience and the Debate in Britain, Milton: Open University Press. Shearing, C. (1996) ‘Public and private policing’, in W. Saulsbury, J. Mott and T. Newburn (eds) Themes in Contemporary Policing, London: Police Foundation/Policy Studies Institute. Shearing, C. and Stenning, P. (eds.) (1987) Private Policing, Beverley Hills, CA: Sage. Smith, D. J. (2004) ‘Editorial: Criminology and the wider Europe’, European Journal of Criminology, 1:1, pp. 5–15. Tonry, M. (2001) ‘Symbol, substance and severity in Western penal policies’, Punishment and Society, 3:4, pp. 517–36. Tonry, M. (2004) Thinking About Crime: Sense and Sensibility in American Penal Culture, New York: Oxford University Press.

2

The Netherlands Ronald van Steden and Leo Huberts

This chapter outlines the contemporary policing landscape in the Netherlands. The first section considers the traditional state-organized police. It focuses on issues of organization, accountability, trends and recent reforms. The second section outlines the history, size, nature and regulatory systems of the Dutch private security industry. As in other countries, this industry has undergone rapid growth over the last two decades. The third section explores municipal policing and focuses on local authority patrol forces, neighbourhood watches and municipal regulatory agencies. The fourth section presents an overview of special police forces, intelligence services and national regulatory and investigative bodies. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the relations between different policing forms.

A brief overview of state policing1 The police organization The Netherlands is a small country, covering 41,528 square kilometres, with a population of 16 million. This makes it one of the most densely populated unitary states in the world, with over 450 inhabitants per square kilometre. Its territory is divided into 12 provinces and about 500 municipalities (Andeweg and Irwin 2002: 1). The Netherlands is part of the European Union, with a multi-ethnic population and a highly developed welfare state. Mutual respect, tolerance and compromise have been values traditionally associated with Dutch society and politics, which has inevitably influenced the sphere of policing (Wintle 1996). It has been argued that policing in the Netherlands contains a ‘strong social element’, based on a civic culture of harmony and consensus (Punch et al. 2002: 65). For many decades, public policing in the Netherlands has been highly localized and fragmented. Following the defeat of Napoleon in 1813, the centralized French public administration was replaced by a system in which every Dutch town came under the authority of a centrally appointed mayor (or burgomaster) and his aldermen. The 1851 Municipalities Act

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(Gemeentewet) enabled municipalities to establish local police forces (Gemeentepolitie) under the dual control of mayors and public prosecutors (see below). Rural areas and smaller villages were policed by a national state police force (Rijkspolitie). The Royal Military Police (Koninklijke Marechaussee) was set up in 1814 to function as a nationwide operating force carrying out both military and civil policing tasks (Jones 1995: 44). As early as the nineteenth century, concerns were raised about the ineffectiveness of the Dutch police system. Despite such concerns, no real change occurred during the twentieth century. With the exception of the German occupation from 1940 to 1945, when the Dutch police was integrated into one national force, the localized system remained. The 1957 Police Act (derived from the 1945 Police Degree) reconfirmed the existing decentralized police model of 148 municipal police forces and a Rijkspolitie for the countryside and municipalities with populations of fewer than 10,000 inhabitants (ibid: 44–45). During the two decades following this Act there were periodic proposals for police reform, but none came to fruition. However, the need for changes became increasingly pressing during the 1980s, given growing political concerns about police effectiveness. As a result, the government decided to create a more rational police administration that integrated the 148 municipal forces into 25 regional forces (ibid.: 71–72). The 1993 Police Act confirmed this model. At present, the 25 police regions vary in size depending on population density and crime levels. The largest police force is ‘Amsterdam-Amstelland’ (over 5,000 officers), whereas ‘Gooi- en Vechtstreek’ is the smallest police force (550 officers). Most regions are subdivided into districts, which usually contain basic units or police departments. Primary police work involves order maintenance and assistance to the public, but all forces have additional divisions, such as criminal investigation teams, drug units, migrant traffic units, juvenile squads, riot squads and intelligence services. At the national level, the National Police Agency (Korps Landelijke Politiediensten (KLPD)) and the Royal Military Police (Koninklijke Marechaussee (KMAR)) are responsible for the maintenance of public order. These bodies carry out specialized duties that we shall discuss in greater detail later. Municipalities continue to have a statutory responsibility for formulating local safety and security programmes. Basic policing units operate at the heart of society and ‘seek to cement their relationship with the public by such means as neighbourhood or community policing’ (Ministry of the Interior 2003: 14). Sworn police officers have jurisdiction in the whole of Dutch territory, but as a practice they work in neighbourhood teams. The police are vested with statutory powers such as arrest, seizure, custody and body search. Officers may use force in the exercise of these tasks and carry a baton, pepper spray, handcuffs and a handgun. In terms of staff numbers, compared to other EU countries, the Dutch police force remained fairly small for many years (Van Dijk and de Waard 2001: 15). Data provided by the Ministry of the Interior, however, suggest

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that there has been a substantial growth in employment over the last ten years. The total strength of the Dutch police is estimated to have increased from 37,645 fte2 in 1994 to over 52,000 fte (this comprises around 53,000 staff3) in 2004 of whom 70% are executive police officers and 30% are support personnel in administrative and technical positions. Roughly 85 per cent of these employees serve on a full-time basis. It is estimated that women account for 18 per cent of all police officers in the Netherlands (Ministry of the Interior 2003: 8). In 1990 the police launched a new form of police patrol rank – the ‘police patroller’ (politiesurveillant). This is the lowest rank within the Dutch police forces and such officers are appointed to undertake support for fully fledged police officers in terms of public patrol, surveillance and reassurance. Police patrollers are equipped with handcuffs and a baton, but have no gun (unlike regular police officers). They undertake a nine-month training programme within the police organization, combining classroom learning with practical skills (Hauber et al. 1996: 200–201). About 2,000 police volunteers (comparable with ‘special constables’ in Britain) support the work of professional police officers. They support beat officers by undertaking similar ‘low-level’ policing tasks to those carried out by police patrollers. These staff are also employed on a range of administrative tasks, and in some cases, go on to be appointed as regular police officers. With the permission of the force manager, they can be given investigative competencies and have legitimate powers to use force if necessary (Ministry of the Interior 2003: 21–22). Accountability and control of the police The Dutch police organization is subjected to a dual system of control. A crucial distinction in the 1993 Police Act is the division of responsibilities between issues of finance and personnel (administration) and actual police action (authority). At the national level, the Minister of the Interior takes responsibility for funding and organizational matters of police regions. The Minister of Justice, on the other hand, is also involved because of his responsibility for the work of public prosecutors (see below). In essence, this system separates various powers over the police between different branches in order to guarantee democratic governance. The oversight and management of the police is delegated to 25 regional boards (regionale colleges) consisting of the mayors of all the municipalities within the force area. The mayor of the largest municipality in each force area is the ‘chief regional manager’ (korpsbeheerder) of a regional board. He participates with the regional chief constable and chief public prosecutor in a system of ‘triangular consultation and decision-making’ (driehoeksoverleg). They meet with all mayors in the region and establish policy on the distribution of finance, personnel, vehicles and buildings. Once general decisions are made, mayors, police chiefs and public prosecutors implement policies at the municipal level.

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A central objective of the reorganization was to combine the close relationship between police officers and citizens with integrated units at the regional level to tackle serious crime (Jones 1995: 69). However, in an important sense, the mechanisms of democratic accountability have been weakened, because elected municipal councillors now have only a very indirect influence over the regional boards (ibid.: 94–95). Yet, direct elected control over policing has never existed in the Netherlands. As noted above, the main external influence over police organizations, the mayors, are appointed by central government rather than elected locally. Instead of developing formal mechanisms of democratic control at the regional level, then, the overall objective of the reorganization was to bring ‘the police closer to the people’ and improve co-ordination between different agencies (ibid.: 96). As such, Dutch policing continues to emphasize the importance of ‘community oriented’ approaches. Regional boards have proved to be problematic institutions in the Dutch political–administrative system (Muller 2002). Even though the law only permits regional boards to decide on police organization and finance, their actions also directly influence policing policy. The separation between ‘administration’ and ‘authority’ is vague and difficult to maintain in practice. This ambiguity about the division of responsibilities has stimulated a concentration of powers within the regional boards. At the same time, proper supervision over these boards is limited. Despite the fact that mayors are accountable in theory to elected local councils, councillors can exert little control in practice over regional decision-making. They can only apply indirect influence via their respective mayors (who sit on the regional board), which suggests that regional boards have a fairly autonomous position within the police administration. Thus, in terms of accountability, it could be argued that the Dutch police administration suffers from a structural ‘democratic deficit’. In addition, it is argued that police forces have retained considerable autonomy in setting policy priorities locally. However, each mayor can still direct local police commanders in matters concerning public order. Public prosecutors have responsibility for the criminal investigation function of the police, and can take a proactive role in supervising and directing major investigations. In addition to these structures, a number of other institutions play a part in monitoring the police. The Police Internal Investigation Department (Rijksrecherche) deals with internal affairs and is meant to guarantee the integrity of police work. It works independently of the regular police organization and is responsible to the Ministry of Justice. In addition, each regional force has an independent commission to investigate citizens’ complaints against the police. The National Ombudsman also has responsibility for investigating complaints about the behaviour of police officers. Ombudsdman investigations result in a published judgement and report, and can provide advice to the police organization about better working methods. Other relevant bodies include the National Data Protection

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Authority (College Bescherming Persoonsgegevens) and the Dutch Court of Audit (Algemene Rekenkamer). The first organization makes sure that personal data are carefully processed, whereas the latter institution encompasses annual assessments of the police’s performance and financial management (Den Boer 2002: 432–437). In addition to these institutional mechanisms of accountability, the Dutch police are subject to regular public satisfaction surveys that are independently published. The Dutch Police Monitor 20034 shows that citizens are critical about the work of beat officers. This research indicates that ‘people feel safer than before’, but most people don’t think that the ‘police are doing a better job’ compared to earlier research (B&A Groep and Intomart 2003: 8–9). Although 53 per cent of the respondents report that they are ‘(very) satisfied’ with the overall police performance in their neighbourhood, this number has dropped by 9 per cent over the last ten years (ibid.: 79). Despite the increases in police personnel, people complain that the visibility of officers is too low (admittedly, the latest evaluation is slightly better than previous measurements) and that they do not act vigorously enough. At the same time, the public’s demand for safety and security is higher than ever before (Boutellier 2004). Recent reforms of the police Politicians have responded to this critique and, predictably, have supported moves towards a more crime control oriented approach to policing within a rigorous performance framework. Similar to Loader’s (1999: 375) observations in Britain, the Dutch government has made efforts to ‘reconfigure the internal organization of the police (its auditing system, reward structures and the like) so as to make them more “business-like”’. As outlined in the national government’s report Towards a Safer Society (Ministry of Justice and Ministry of the Interior 2002), the overall objectives are crime fighting and stronger maintenance of public norms and values. According to the New Public Management philosophy, the police should be ‘mission-driven’ and ‘result-oriented’ (Osborne and Gaebler 1992: 110, 140–141), with powerful incentives for competitive policing and stricter performance measurement. Most recently, regional convenants have been signed in the form of results-based agreements. Under these arrangements the Dutch police should ‘produce’ more fines and hand over more criminals to the Public Prosecution Service (Openbaar Ministerie). These convenants, moreover, contain targets to improve the accessibility of officers and, with that, public satisfaction ratings of the police. All results are evaluated and serve as a basis for more ‘efficient’ and ‘effective’ goal achievement. Simultaneously, the government acknowledges inhabitants of neighbourhoods to be active and responsible associates in maintaining liveable environments. A hallmark is the report A Changing Police (Projectgroep Organisatie Structuren 1977). This brought about a fundamental change in

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Dutch policing. It stressed the importance of community-oriented approaches and ‘social’ rather than ‘legal’ working methods. The aim was to establish better contacts with citizens and build mutual trust between the police and public. Improvements in relationships with citizens should thus lead to an improved legitimacy of the police (Punch et al. 2002: 65–67). In the early 1990s a new step was taken in community policing strategies with the establishment of public–private partnerships. The 1985 report Society and Crime (Tweede Kamer 1984/1985) gave the initial push to this structural preventive and pro-active approach. It promoted a more general sharing of the task of crime prevention and provision of public safety between a range of governmental and non-governmental agencies. Eight years later, this trend was further confirmed when the government promoted the concept of ‘integral safety’. Central to ‘integral safety’ was official acknowledgement of the interdependence of local government and civil society, and the fact that a variety of state and non-state organizations are involved in the maintenance of a peaceful and orderly society (Wever 2000). According to the Ministry of the Interior (2003: 8): [i]n many places the police are working to produce a local safety and security policy, but security is not a matter exclusively for the police. The police need partners and are therefore looking for ways of establishing worthwhile collaboration, for example through community policing, by which many police forces aim to establish closer contacts with local people. Within this paradigm community officers fulfil a pivotal role in local neighbourhoods. They are ‘the face of the police’ responsible for gaining fruitful information from the public and providing a vital link with key partner agencies such as schools (Punch et al. 2002: 67–69). A related development is the ‘outsourcing’ of police tasks to private security companies. In 1992, the Board of Chief Superintendents of Police (Raad van Hoofdcommissarissen) and the Dutch Association of Private Security Organizations (Vereniging van Particuliere Beveiligingsorganisaties)5 signed a co-operation agreement. Still, however, public–private partnerships between the police and manned guarding services are hedged with caveats. Most of the normative and ideological debates concern the issue of private surveillance in the public sphere (Van Dijk and De Waard 2001: 6). Despite strong political opposition, commercial security patrols are increasingly visible in busy city centres and in residential areas. There are even signs of conferring a special judicial status upon private officials (i.e. agents who are not employed by security firms).6 An example is the parking assistant, who is sworn in to supplement the work of traffic wardens. They are empowered to impose fines on people for violations of specific traffic laws. Recently, commercial security workers have also been permitted to assist custodial supervisors in prisons and asylum seekers’ centres. This boils

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down to the government transferring some of its ‘peripheral functions’ to private organizations. Additionally, it is a major political question whether police services can be sold to generate income from private sources. The policing of major football matches, for example, is extremely costly and this leads to debates about who, ultimately, should provide the necessary funding. Despite these debates, the Dutch police are still not allowed to charge clubs for their presence within and outside the football ground during major matches. In addition, in some countries, the police can bid for extra funding from private sponsors and commercial corporations are able to offer equipment such as patrol cars or computers to police departments (Johnston 1992: 65–70). At present however, the Dutch government remains cautious about such proposals. The official political standpoint is still that police officers have a crucial responsibility for protecting all Dutch citizens. Their services should not be influenced by private financial interests, which could lead to a violation of this principle.

Commercial security7 History Dutch commercial policing in its contemporary form can be traced back to the early twentieth century. In 1902 Isaac Beuth established commercial night watches in Amsterdam (Verhoog et al. 2002: 13). Beuth’s enterprise with bicycle-riding uniformed guards concentrated on the protection of neighbourhoods, warehouses and offices. At about the same time, private companies began to employ their own ‘in-house’ security personnel. In 1905, as the Dutch mining industry expanded rapidly, the Mining Police was founded in the southern province of Limburg. This semi-private organization had certain police powers, and some employees were allowed to carry guns and handcuffs. Current research shows that the Mining Police played a major role in regulating and disciplining workers. As Hoogenboom (1991: 93) argues: [t]he Mining Police seemed to be a force that virtually controlled every aspect of the miner’s life. The Mining Police supervised the mines and the housing complexes: surveillance was present at all the time. But the social control did not limit itself to a mere guarding of mines. Especially the vast amount of investigations into criminal offences, violations of company of company rules and ‘moral offences’ indicate that the presence of the Mining Police must have had a great impact on the lives of miners. During the 1930s, the Dutch security industry entered a difficult episode of its history. This period of economic depression and social unrest saw the

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emergence of violent fascist organizations which provided the impetus for firmer state regulation of security agencies. In 1936, the Dutch government implemented the Paramilitary Organizations Act (Wet op de Weerkorpsen) which laid down a framework of regulation for all private security organizations. During the Second World War, the Netherlands was occupied by Nazi Germany, though there is little information about the work of private security firms during these years. Whilst recent publications have documented collaboration between Dutch police officers and German security agencies (Sicherheitsdiensten) (e.g. Meershoek 1999), there are no detailed historical studies on private security organizations under the Nazi regime. After World War II the position of Dutch private security firms changed dramatically. In particular, during the last 20 years policing tasks have been increasingly carried out by a kaleidoscope of commercial organizations. This diversification of the security business makes it hard to make clear statements about the shape and size of the industry. Different definitions sometimes exclude certain private security segments and this could make a huge difference to estimates of actual workforces. A related problem is the quality of empirical sources. Information about the commercial industry is hard to obtain and the few available data are often not very reliable (Jones and Newburn 1995). What data there are, however, have strongly suggested that commercial security appears to have grown significantly in the Netherlands in recent years. Functions, size and scale of private security As indicated above, it is not easy to give a clear definition of ‘private’ or ‘commercial’ security. As George and Button (2000: 15) have noted, ‘the term “private security industry” is a generic term used to describe an amalgam of distinct industries and professions bound together by a number of functions’. This section explores five different sectors within the broader remit of ‘commercial security’: (1) manned guarding, (2) central alarm respondents, (3) armoured couriers, (4) technical equipment services and (5) private investigators. Manned guarding Most of the personnel employed by the private security industry work as contract security guards. Since the 1980s this sector has grown steadily. Particularly in the period after 1995, a lot of new firms were established (Stigter 2000: 19). From 1981 to 2003, estimates of security guard employment increased from 4,350 to about 27,000 (Donkers 2004: 7–8; De Waard 1999: 149–152). Currently, the total number of firms is estimated at 840 with a total turnover of A1.08 billion during the year 2003 (Donkers 2004: 5). Although large multinational companies such as Securitas and Group 4 Securicor dominate the market, the vast majority of Dutch security companies

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are very small. The majority of guards are male, with women accounting for approximately 20 per cent of the sector. One third of these workers have a part-time contract of 32 hours or less per week (Stigter 2000: 10–11). Personnel turnover is extremely high. In 2003, the industry replaced almost 25 per cent of all its guards with new employees (Donkers 2004: 7). A postal questionnaire survey of 92 security firms was recently conducted with the aim of exploring the more detailed characteristics of manned guarding services (Van Steden 2004). The sample was based on the membership of the Dutch Association of Private Security Organizations (VPB). Only 13 companies returned the questionnaire. However, these companies represent 68 per cent of the market’s turnover and 64 per cent of the security guards employed in the Netherlands. The study, therefore, provides some useful insights into the guarding sector. The survey indicates that most personnel (67 per cent) are employed as static and mobile guards. Further categories represent custodial and immigrant detention services (8 per cent), receptionists (7 per cent) and shop supervisors (6 per cent). Companies also provide some specialist tasks such as aviation and harbour security, event security, personal protection and covert security. When taken together, the sample of security firms protects around 54,000 sites in the Netherlands. Over 80 per cent of these sites are office buildings, industrial complexes, government buildings, shops and shopping centres. Other objects that should be taken into account include private houses, schools, universities, hotels, bars, discotheques, airports, seaports, prisons, leisure parks, and football stadia. Not surprisingly, most (66%) of the customers are private companies that operate in the industrial, services and transport sectors. However, the Dutch government (including the criminal justice system) and non-profit organizations (e.g. schools, universities and residents’ associations) are also important clients of commercial security companies. Large corporations tend to employ their own in-house security staff. There has been a growing emphasis upon the training of security guards in recent years. The Basic Diploma for Security Employees (Beveiliger 2) is obligatory for all private guards. This involves completion of a maximum 12-month training programme that covers both theoretical and practical aspects of security work. Some larger security companies offer extra courses on specific security functions and first aid. An exception to this rule is the stewarding sector. Stewards at sport events only require a very limited training, which is provided by the Royal Dutch Football Association (Koninklijke Nederlandse Voetbal Bond). Central alarm respondents Most major security companies offer alarm-monitoring services. Some central alarm respondents have, however, an independent status within the security market. There are around 30 control centres with 600 employees in

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the Netherlands. They monitor approximately 400,000 connected subscribers. Control centres detected almost 3 million alarms over 2001 of which 95 per cent turned out to be false (Tenge et al. 2003: 32–33).8 As a result, the government and private alarm respondents entered into an agreement that should reduce unnecessary demands on police officers. Armoured couriers The armoured courier sector is really a subdivision of manned guarding services. Only a small number of companies are involved in this business, due to strict regulations and the high investment required. Currently there are about six companies operating in the Netherlands, employing 2,800 people. Some foreign firms are licensed to use their vehicles in the German and Belgium border regions (Tenge et al. 2003: 33). Armoured couriers carry out a range of different tasks, but the most well known activities are the transportation of valuables and the maintenance of Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs). Technical equipment services Technical equipment services are an often overlooked, although very important, segment of the private security market. Drawing on information from UNETO-VNI,9 this sector has been estimated to consist of 335 companies, divided into 205 small (1–9 employees, fte) and 130 big (10 employees or more, fte) companies in the Netherlands. The employment figures in technical equipment services comprise at least 6,500 people. In 2004, the annual market was worth over 810 million. Given its breadth of products, this sector is very hard to define. However, most manufacturers offer intruder alarms, CCTV systems, access control systems and fire protection systems. A noticeable trend is that technical equipment services are increasingly offered in conjunction with manned guarding services (Van de Graaff and Pleijster 2004: 15–24). Trade associations for both sectors have lately joined in the Union of Private Security Organizations (VvBO). Private investigators Private investigators form a very distinct sector within the security industry. The first Dutch detective agencies were founded in the 1940s. During this period, the sector included primarily one-man businesses that made their money from undertaking surveillance of unfaithful spouses (evidence of adultery was compulsory for a divorce), missing persons enquiries and collection services. This ‘first generation’ of detective agencies was followed by a ‘second generation’ of better equipped organizations during the 1980s. Second generation agencies were much more attuned to the business community and, apart from their conventional investigations, private detectives

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began to undertake consultancy work on security requirements of private companies. In this period, the numbers of former police officers employed in the private investigation sector increased, and this sparked a further expansion of the sector. During the last ten years, third and fourth generation agencies have entered the market, employing specialists in complex financial investigations (Hoogenboom 1999: 553–554). These types of organizations are fairly large and operate both in the Netherlands and abroad to support clients with a range of fraud investigation and related services. It is difficult to estimate exactly how big the private investigation sector is in the Netherlands. Some small detective agencies are not registered with the authorities, whereas others refuse to send in an obligatory annual report to the Ministry of Justice. Despite these problems, researchers have suggested that there are approximately 300 companies active in the industry, employing about 600 private detectives. Half of these personnel have a fulltime job, and the other half are employed on a part-time or temporary basis (Tenge et al. 2003: 34). Apart from traditional detective agencies, the private investigation sector consists of business information bureaus, insurance law and claim experts and forensic accountants (Klerks et al. 2001: 30–36). Business information bureaus gather data from companies all over the world. Their main aim is to inform clients about potential risks and opportunities associated with, for example, trading partners. Insurance law and claims experts assist customers with preparing lawsuits and the investigation of frauds, thefts and suspicious accidents. Certified forensic accountants also conduct investigations on suspected financial malpractice and provide consultation in areas such as prevention plans and risk assessments. Insurance companies, lawyers, commercial businesses and rich individuals are the main components of the client base of private investigators. However, the Dutch government uses private detectives and forensic accountants to investigate corruption and fraud within the civil service. In addition to the contract private investigation sector, large corporations such as banks, insurance companies and credit card companies have their own ‘in-house’ investigators. Systems of regulation In 1997, the Act on Private Security Providers and Detective Agencies (Wet Particuliere Beveiligingsorganisaties en Recherchebureaus) replaced the old 1936 Paramilitary Organizations Act. Since this time, the regulation of private security sectors has been strengthened. Companies are required to be licensed by (and registered with) the Ministry of Justice in The Hague. In order to obtain a licence, applicants must make sure that they employ trustworthy and skilled staff. If companies meet the criteria for criminal background checks, training requirements and educational qualifications, certification is granted for a term of five years. The police force that works

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in the judicial area in which the security company is based has the main responsibility to screen and control employees. Security guards wear distinct uniforms, but have no formal powers over and above those of every ordinary Dutch citizen. In practice, however, they are trained to control (quasi-) public spaces and, in doing so, they derive considerable de facto legal powers from property law (Shearing and Stenning 1983: 21). This allows them, for example, to subject people to random searches of their property before entering premises such as football stadia, discotheques and airport terminals. Private security guards are prohibited from carrying weapons, although dogs can be used to guard property. National legislation sets broad standards for working conditions such as maximum working weeks and minimum wages. Additionally, the industry itself implements quality standards on ethics, training, health, safety and the improvement of career opportunities. Together with the Unions, the Dutch Association of Private Security Organizations (VPB) negotiates collective industry-wide agreements. Since private security companies are increasingly operating across national borders, the Confederation of European Security Services (CoESS)10 tries to harmonize the different legislation and regulation systems across the EU. Setting minimum norms and requirements is argued to be very important in providing assurances that private security companies are professional and trustworthy partners throughout the European continent.

New forms of municipal policing City wardens Since 1989, the Dutch government has stimulated the role of ‘city wardens’ (stadswachten) in urban areas. What once started as a subsidized project for long-term unemployed workers has become a major success. Nowadays, some 4,000 city wardens assist the police in different Dutch cities (Hauber et al. 1996: 200). Another provision of police auxiliaries in the Netherlands is the so-called ‘junior police’, launched to be a job for students from the age of fifteen (Van Spaendonk and Nijmeijer 2001). Both city wardens and ‘junior police’ are uniformed officials and serve primarily as ‘extra eyes and ears’ of the police. Their main tasks are surveillance, supervision and providing people with information. The training for city wardens varies throughout the Netherlands. In some cases, city wardens follow an 8-week training programme involving theoretical knowledge and practical skills. The level of education for ‘junior police’ is lower: after only 2 days’ training, those supervisors get to work. City wardens and ‘junior police’ do not have any formal police status and derive their power from the fact that every Dutch resident is allowed to apprehend a suspect, when caught engaging in a crime (Article 53 of the Criminal Procedure Act). Once the suspect is overpowered he or she must be handed over to a competent police officer.

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Neighbourhood watches Recently neighbourhood watch schemes have been set up around the country. Moroccan ‘community fathers’ (Marokkaanse buurtvaders), for example, have become famous for their work to promote safer neighbourhoods in the western parts of Amsterdam. They work together with police officers and parents in an effort to address public nuisance caused by antisocial behaviour among Moroccan youth. This form of ‘responsible citizenship’ (Johnston 1992: 137–158) has been encouraged with government grants to promote best practices in community safety provision. It fits well with the government’s policy to encourage civilian participation and self-reliance. A key objective of neighbourhood watches is the improvement of social bonds in urban areas. Municipal regulatory bodies A highly fragmented system of regulatory bodies is responsible for upholding and assessing various laws in the Netherlands. Examples are traffic wardens, environmental inspectors and city supervisors. Their objectives are to identify bad practices, recommend solutions and punish offenders. Regulatory bodies have powers ranging from implementing on-the-spot penalties such as administrative fines to serious prosecution for breaches of legislation. While about 8,000 inspectors work at the local level, they are often employed by central government bodies. These bodies are examined in more detail below.

Other policing bodies Special police forces There are two special police forces operating at the national level in the Netherlands: the National Police Agency (KLPD) and the Royal Military Police (KMAR). The KLPD employs 4,500 employees, who perform a multitude of duties. Its most well-known task is the regulation of public infrastructure (motorways, railways and waterways) in the Netherlands. Subsequently, the force has divisions that are responsible for specialist areas of policing. Examples are the National Criminal Investigation Service and the Royal and Diplomatic Protection Service. In addition to its operational services, the KLPD is responsible for providing support to the regional forces through equipment, technology and expertise in the form of, for example, liaison work. In doing so, the KLPD plays a key role in steering cross-regional and cross-border activities. Highly skilled officers liaise with Interpol and Europol. They also undertake investigations relating to complex crimes and supply intelligence to regional forces. The KLPD comes under the authority of the Minister of the Interior. In practice however, everyday management is handed over to the force manager (the

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Director-General for Public Order and Safety), the chief public prosecutor at the National Public Prosecutor’s Office and the chief constable of the KLPD. Additionally, an Advisory Board consults the regional forces on matters such as policy priorities and gives recommendations to the minister and his staff. In this role, the Advisory Board assists the KLPD with co-ordinating activities carried out by its specialized divisions (Ministry of the Interior 2003: 22–30). With 6,500 employees,11 the KMAR is much bigger than the KLPD. Nowadays, its main military responsibilities are performing policing duties for the Dutch army and safeguarding international NATO headquarters. In addition, KMAR officers provide security at airports, protect national boarders, enforce immigration legislation and guard cash transports for the Dutch central bank. In close co-operation with the KLPD, it also has responsibility for providing protection to members of the Dutch Royal Family. The Minister of the Interior has authority over the KMAR in so far as its employees carry out public order duties. In performing civil and military law enforcement tasks, the force answers to the Minister of Justice. The Minister of Defence has a voice in respect of the KMAR’s military responsibilities (ibid.: 32). State intelligence services While not being associated with regular forms of policing, the General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) supports the authorities with protecting the Netherlands against the threat of terrorism and radical political movements. The AIVD has close links with the Defence and Security Service (MIVD),12 as both organizations have been placed on the same statutory footing. Officers gather information about suspicious individuals and groups, inform the government and co-operate with the police and military forces to counter serious violations of national security. According to its annual report, the AIVD spends A47.6 million on staff, A26.9 million on materials and A3.0 million on secretive operations in 2003.13 It is estimated that 1,000 people work for the intelligence services. Special regulatory and investigative bodies14 At the national level, a number of specialized regulatory and investigative bodies (bijzondere opsporingsdiensten) are engaged in law enforcement and regulation. These ‘watchdogs’ range from health care protection services to units that investigate fraud with tax revenues. This section provides a brief sketch of the most important organizations in the Netherlands. The General Inspection Agency (AID) is responsible for food safety, animal welfare and nature conservation.15 This Agency is part of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Food Quality and has several functions, including the enforcement of agricultural laws and the

26


assessment of food quality. In 2003, the AID employed 724 people, which were granted supervisory and investigative powers for administering, for example, cattle breeders and fishermen. They verified 62,250 cases, leading to the discovery of 7,200 severe violations of laws. The General Inspection Agency works closely together with the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (VWA), which consists of a central co-ordination unit and two inspectorates: the Inspectorate for Health Protection and Veterinary Public Health (KvW) and the National Inspection Service for Livestock and Meat (RVV).16 The VWA responsibilities concern the supervision of food, animal health and animal welfare. Its mission is to reduce risks and enhance consumer trust in combating outbreaks of diseases such as BSE. The VWA, furthermore, monitors the safety of a wide range of non-food products such as toys, camping equipment, package materials and tattoo dyes. Finally it conducts on-site controls of the provision of alcohol and tobacco to discourage the use of these products by young people. In 2003, the VWA/KvW employed a staff of 912 people. The VWA/RVV worked that year with an average staff of over 1,300 permanent employees and 380 additional assistants and inspectors. The National Forest Authority (Staatsbosbeheer) is another regulatory body within the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Food Quality.17 This authority manages the natural heritage of approximately 235,000 ha around the Netherlands. One of its missions is to maintain, develop and restore valuable landscapes. Staatsbosbeheer employed roughly 1,000 people in 2003. Among these employees are forest rangers charged with the task of overseeing environmental laws relating to fire prevention, fishing and hunting. In close cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Food Quality, the National Society of Animal Protection (LID) has a central signalling function.18 This Society enlists 13 inspectors and 200 voluntary assistants, who respond to pressing complaints about animal cruelty and conduct routine check-ups of, for instance, pet shops. The Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD-ECD) was created in 1999 for detecting fiscal-economic offences.19 This service falls under jurisdiction of the Dutch Tax Department (Belastingdienst). The FIOD-ECD has a total of 1,300 employees, who investigate A450 million worth of fraud and other white-collar crimes on a yearly basis. On average, officers inspect 655 cases of which approximately 90 per cent lead to the conviction of suspects. Furthermore, inspectors are responsible for safeguarding the integrity of firms and fighting organized crime. The FIOD-ECD co-operates with the Customs (Douane) for maintaining economic and fiscal laws in the Netherlands. This agency is part of the Directorate-General for Tax and Customs Administration at the Ministry of Finance and takes the responsibility for levying and collecting taxes, inspecting goods and transits and combating fraud effectively in the European Union. Customs has a staff of 5,900 people, who work in a number of regions. It owns three support units,

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including a laboratory, an information centre and an import and export office that issues licences. The Social Intelligence and Investigation Service (SIOD) is the special law enforcement agency of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. Its most well-known division is the Labour Inspectorate (Arbeidsinspectie) which function is to supervise working conditions within companies.20 The Labour Inspectorate devotes special attention to risk prevention and provides workers with information to improve their well-being. With a staff of 900 people, including 450 inspectors, the Labour Inspectorate carries out 30 to 35 health and safety inspection projects per year, compromising 18,000 individual cases. Other activities are monitoring compliance with illegal work legislation and investigating serious accidents, major hazards and employee complaints. About 6 million euros in fines are imposed and collected each year. The Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM) created a single integral inspectorate in 2002, which enforces legislation on health, safety and sustainable living in the Netherlands.21 It supervises, for example, building constructions, firework companies, swimming pools, campsites and transports of waste materials. A specialist Nuclear Safety Department pursues activities aimed at protecting the technical order of nuclear reactor installations. Inspectors carry out their tasks with colleagues abroad and international organizations such as the Atomic Energy Agency. The department of Crisis Management serves the Ministry with serious accidents, advises relevant organizations and provides information to citizens in crisis situations. Approximately 670 people work for the VROM-Inspectorate. Furthermore, the VROM Intelligence and Investigation Service (VROM-IOD) investigates frauds and other criminal offences concerning housing and spatial planning. VROM-IOD employs 80 inspectors. The Ministry of Transport Public Works and Water Management formed the Dutch Transport Inspectorate (IVW) in 2001, which strives to ensure a safe use of air, water and land for mass transportation.22 In doing so, this body has four important tasks. Firstly, it monitors the technical conditions of vessels, inspects the qualifications of crew members and certifies vessels to sail out. Secondly, it covers transport of people and freight by buses, coaches, trucks and taxis. Thirdly, it is responsible for overseeing safety on Dutch railways and devotes attention to the condition of trams as well as underground systems in Dutch cities. Fourthly, it regulates the aviation sector, inspects dangerous cargo and examines land transport to and from airports. The IWV employs 1,000 people, who work at different locations in the country. In enforcing obedience with laws and rules, it completes ten thousand investigations on a yearly basis. The Health Care Inspectorate (IGZ) is a part of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. Its mandate is to supervise public well-being by enforcing laws and provide advice to central and local government on health

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matters.23 The IGZ employs 350 people. Half of the staff have the power to enter premises, monitor laws and conduct investigations. An important instrument is dealing with complaints from the public, but the IGZ itself also measures the quality of hospitals and (private) clinics by assessing their working methods. Much attention is given to mentally ill patients, a vulnerable group that requires special treatment. The inspectorate ensures, for example, that compulsory admission to a psychiatric hospital takes place in the prescribed manner. Each year, the IGZ publishes an annual report on the health status of Dutch citizens. A related agency is the Youth Care Inspectorate (IJZ), which monitors the quality of youth service and protection institutions.24 Its main goal is to promote the basic right of children and young people to develop in a healthy and balanced way. Juvenile crime is an important social and political topic. Together with the Ministry of Justice, the IJZ tackles this issue and seeks to reduce the incidence of recidivism by focusing on resocialization programmes.

Integration between policing bodies From the above discussion, it is clear that the policing system in the Netherlands is diverse, complex and multifaceted. This makes it understandable that many analysts and practitioners have argued in favour of more co-ordination and integration between the different ‘pillars of policing’ (Table 2.1). Local authorities have little awareness of or control over the activities of private security firms and other regulatory bodies operating in their territories. In his inaugural address as a professor in police studies, Heijder argued ‘that the local police chief should become fully responsible for coordinating the policing activities in his or her area’ (1989: 17). Many have acknowledged Heijder’s recognition of a fragmented policing system, although his preference for the police chief as the central coordinating authority has attracted fierce criticism. A more traditional approach within the culture of Dutch public administration would be to put these powers in the hands of governmental bodies – in particular municipal councils and mayors. Surprisingly though, police chiefs seem to be increasingly seen as ‘directors’ of local safety and security programmes. A survey among public Table 2.1 Employment in policing bodies in the Netherlands Policing bodies

Number of employees

Total Dutch police force City wardens Special regulatory and investigative bodies Specific policy areas (national) Special investigations (sub-national) Private security industry

53,000 4,000 15,000 8,000 30,000

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Table 2.2 Views of police chiefs, mayors and public prosecutors on municipal security and safety policy (% that agrees/strongly agrees)

Local government should be the ‘director’ of local policy on local security and safety. Local government is the ‘director’ of local policy on local security and safety. The local police force is the director of local policy on local security and safety.

Police chiefs

Mayors

Public All prosecutors

98%

94%

81%

91%

33%

67%

26%

42%

45%

22%

52%

40%

Source: Huberts et al. (2004): 197 (results of a survey among mayors (n = 153), police chiefs (n=53) and public prosecutors (n = 27)).

authorities indicates that the police gain a stronger position than governments on setting local policies (Table 2.2). This might be explained as a result of increasing attention for safety and security. The policing landscape has becoming further complicated by government’s attempts to spread responsibility for public safety across society. The concept of Integral Safety Policy (Integraal Veiligheidsbeleid) forms the

Table 2.3 Views of police chiefs, mayors and public prosecutors on the importance of different policing bodies (% that agrees/strongly agrees)

Effective crime fighting presupposes more co-ordination between the regular police and special police units. The private security industry is indispensable in the struggle against insecurity and safety problems in society. Citizen involvement as in neighbourhood watches is indispensable in the struggle against insecurity and safety problems in society. Regional police authorities should oversee private security.

Police chiefs

Mayors

Public All prosecutors

75%

82%

89%

82%

84%

83%

89%

85%

75%

54%

74%

68%

62%

42%

44%

49%

Source: Huberts et al. (2004): 197 (results of a survey among mayors (n = 153), police chiefs (n=53) and public prosecutors (n = 27)).

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anchor for local co-ordination with actors that are now labelled vital partners in safety. These actors are not only police forces or fire departments, but also include a diverse range of bodies including schools, social work departments, bars, community groups, etc. Integral approaches have been important in stimulating commitment and coherence, but also suffer from limitations. First, co-operation remains, in practice, limited to a voluntary set of arrangements and activities. Second, only a part of the policing sector is involved in such safety partnerships. Private security firms, neighbourhood watches and special police forces are often excluded. Political opinions about the participation of these ‘pillars of policing’ are, however, shifting. As can be seen from Table 2.3, mayors, police chiefs and public prosecutors show a positive attitude towards better co-operation and integration between different policing forms. Their changing views have not resulted in any institutional reconfigurations yet, but future years may see significant shifts in this regard.

Notes 1 This section is based on Huberts and Van Steden (2005). For more information on the Dutch police, see http://www.politie.nl (also in English). 2 Full time equivalent (fte) is a numerical value that equates to one staff person working a full-time work schedule for one year. 3 It is not exactly known how many police officers operate in the Netherlands, making the estimate of 53,000 an educated guess. 4 This nationwide population survey, with 90,000 respondents, is conducted to gather sound information on, among other things, the quality of policing. 5 The Dutch Association of Private Security Organizations (VPB) is a professional trade association for the private security industry in the Netherlands. For more information, see http://www.vpb.nl 6 The Ministry of Justice (memorandum on ‘private security in the public domain’, 7 May 2004) differentiates between ‘private guards’ and ‘private officials’. ‘Private guards’ working for a private security firm are not granted special police powers, because this is legally incompatible with their function. ‘Private officials’, on the other hand, are not employed by a private security firm, which has implication for the scope of their legal liability. Those officials can be ‘hired out’ to the government as supplementary, sometimes sworn in, personnel. A Dutch example is ‘Parcon’ – which is, to make things more complicated, a legally defined non-private security division of the private security firm Securicor. Parcon supports local governments with parking assistants. 7 This section in based on Van Steden (2004). 8 According to a survey of 19 central alarm respondents, the control centres oversee 380,000 objects. Their annual turnover was 75 million euros in 2002 (VPB/VEBON). 9 UNETO-VNI is a professional trade association for the technical equipment sector in the Netherlands. Other trade associations for this sector are the Association of European Security Companies (VEB), the Association of Security Companies in the Netherlands (VEBON) and the Dutch Fencing Industry (NHI). 10 For more information, see http://www.CoESS.org 11 According to official estimates of the Ministry of Justice. 12 For more information, see http://www.mindef.nl/ministerie/organogram/mid.html

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13 The annual report can be downloaded from http://www.minbzk.nl 14 With special thanks to Najat Haouli for providing us with an overview of special regulatory and investigative bodies in the Netherlands. 15 The annual report can be downloaded from http://www.minlnv.nl 16 A brochure can be downloaded from http://www.vwa.nl 17 A brochure can be downloaded from: http://www.staatsbosbeheer.nl 18 For more information, see http://www.dierenbescherming.nl 19 A brochure can be downloaded from http://www.belastingdienst.nl 20 A brochure can be downloaded from http://www.arbeidsinspectie.nl 21 A brochure can be downloaded from http://www.vrom.nl 22 The annual report can be downloaded from http://www.ivw.nl 23 A factsheet can be downloaded from http://www.igz.nl 24 A brochure can be downloaded from http://www.inspectiejeugdzorg.nl

References Andeweg, R. B. and Irwin, G. A. (2002) Governance and Politics of the Netherlands, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. B&A Groep and Intomart (2003) Politiemonitor 2003. Landelijke Rapportage, Den Haag/Hilversum: B&A Groep and Intomart. Boutellier, H. (2004) The Safety Utopia: Contemporary Discontent and Desire as to Crime and Punishment, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. De Waard, J. (1999) ‘The private security industry in international perspective’, European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 7: 2, pp. 143–74. Den Boer, M. (2002) ‘The Netherlands’, in M. Den Boer and P. Doelle (eds) Organized Crime: A Catalyst in the Europeanization of National Police and Prosecution Agencies?, Maastricht: EIPA, pp. 397–455. Donkers, H. (2004) VPB Quickscan: Resultaten voor het Kalenderjaar 2003, Zoetermeer: EIM. George, B. and Button, M. (2000) Private Security, Houston: Perpetuity Press. Hauber, A., Hofstra, B., Toornvliet, L. and Zandbergen, A. (1996) ‘Some forms of functional social control in the Netherlands and their effects’, British Journal of Criminology, 36: 2, pp. 199–219. Heijder, A. (1989) Management van de Politiefunctie, Arnhem: Gouda Quint (inaugural address). Hoogenboom, A. B. (1991) ‘The mining police: Dutch private security in historical perspective’, in P. Robert and C. Emsley (eds) Geschichte und Soziologie des Verbrechens, Hamburg: Pfaffenweiler, pp. 85–97. Hoogenboom, A. B. (1999) ‘Privatisering van de politiefunctie’, in C. J. C. F. Fijnaut, E. R. Muller and U. Rosenthal (eds) Politie: Studies over haar Werking en Organizatie, Alphen aan den Rijn: Samsom, pp. 549–75. Huberts, L. W. J. C., Verberk, S., Lasthuizen, K. and Van den Heuvel, J. H. J. (2004) Paradoxaal Politiebestel: Burgemeesters, Openbaar Ministerie en Politiechefs over de Sturing van de Politie, Zeist: Kerckebosch /Politie en Wetenschap. Huberts, L. W. J. C. and Van Steden, R. (2005) The Netherlands, in L. Sullivan (eds) Encyclopedia of Law Enforcement (Vol. 3), Thousand Oaks, Ca: Sage, pp. 1204–8.

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Johnston, L. (1992) The Rebirth of Private Policing, London: Routledge. Jones, T. (1995) Policing and Democracy in the Netherlands, London: Policy Studies Institute. Jones, T. and Newburn, T. (1995) ‘How big is the private security sector?’, Policing and Society, 5, pp. 221–32. Klerks, P., Meurs, C. van and Scholtes, M. (2001) Particuliere Recherche: Werkwijzen en Informatiestromen, Den Haag: ES&E. Loader, I. (1999) ‘Consumer culture and the commodification of policing and security’, Sociology, 33: 2, pp. 373–92. Meershoek, G. (1999) Dienaren van het Gezag: de Amsterdamse Politie tijdens de Bezetting, Amsterdam: Van Gennep. Ministry of Justice and Ministry of the Interior (2002) Naar een Veiliger Samenleving, Den Haag: Ministry of Justice. Ministry of the Interior (2003) Policing in the Netherlands, Leiden: De Bink (see also http://www.politie.nl). Muller, E. R. (2002) ‘Policing and accountability: the Netherlands: a happy marriage or stressful relationship?’, Policing and Society, 12: 4, pp. 249–58. Osborne, D. and Gaebler, T. (1992) Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector, Reading: Addison-Wesley. Projectgroep Organisatie Structuren (1977) Politie in Verandering, Den Haag: Staatsdrukkerij. Punch, M., Van der Vijver, K. and Zoomer, O. (2002) ‘Dutch “cop”: developing community-policing in the Netherlands’, Policing, 25: 1, pp. 60–79. Shearing, C. D. and Stenning, P. C. (1983) Private Security and Private Justice, Montreal: The Institute for Research on Public Policy. Stigter, H. W. (2000) Bedrijfsleven in Beeld: Het Particulier Beveiligingsbedrijf, Zoetermeer: EIM. Tenge, R., Hesselman, T. and Koenders, A. (eds) (2003) Jaarboek Beveiliging 2003, Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer. Tweede Kamer (1984/1985) Samenleving en Criminaliteit: een Beleidsplan voor de Komende Jaren, Den Haag: Vergaderjaar. 1984/85. Van Dijk, F. and De Waard, J. (2001) Public and Private Crime Control: Dutch and International Trends, Den Haag: Ministry of Justice. Van de Graaff, C. C. and Pleijster, F. (2004) Zicht op Beveiliging: Structuuronderzoek onder de Leden van de Vakgroep Beveiliging, Zoetermeer: EIM. Van Spaendonk, F. and Nijmeijer, P. (2001) ‘Politie-junior: Een aantrekkelijke bijbaan?’, Het Tijdschrift voor de Politie, 7/8, pp. 9–13. Van Steden, R. (2004) ‘Particuliere beveiliging in Nederland: Een branche in beweging’, in VPB. Een Branche in Beweging, Gorinchem: VPB, pp. 11–26. Verhoog, Verhoog and Warmerdam (2002) Honderd Jaar VNV: 1902–2002: de Geschiedenis van de Beveiliging, Noordwijk: Uitgeverij aan Zee. Wever, J. (2000) Integral Safety in the Netherlands, Conference paper presented at the Australian Institute of Criminology, http://www.aic.gov.au/conferences/occasional/wever.pdf, accessed 26 October 2005.

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Wintle, M. (1996) ‘Policing the liberal state in the Netherlands: The historical context of the current reorganization of the Dutch police’, Policing and Society, 6: 3, pp. 181–97.

3

The United Kingdom Trevor Jones and Tim Newburn

The pattern of policing in the UK has paralleled the trends in many contemporary industrial societies, in that order maintenance, crime investigation/prevention, and law enforcement are increasingly provided by a complex patchwork of agencies as well as the public police. Following the establishment of the Metropolitan Police in 1829, state-organized arrangements increasingly came to occupy a position of dominance – symbolically and practically – over the policing system in Britain. However, throughout this time, aspects of private and community-based policing arrangements remained, albeit in the background. Elements of these localized non-state forms of policing have, in recent years, experienced something of a renaissance. The ‘rebirth’ of commercial policing, and the emergence of other forms of policing provision, have led to suggestions that we are returning to a more complex and fragmented policing system similar to that which existed prior to the nineteenth century (Z edner 2006). This chapter provides an overview of contemporary policing activities in Britain, and is divided into five broad sections. The first briefly reviews the size, structure and organization of ‘state-organized’ policing arrangements, in terms of those police organizations deriving their authority from the three key governmental bodies with responsibility for policing in the UK: the Home Office (England and Wales), the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly. The second section explores the most significant aspect of plural policing, the commercial security sector and summarizes the most recent evidence about its size and scope. The third section explores developments in municipal policing, including the provision of patrol services as well as a range of other regulatory functions. The fourth section briefly examines the activities of the small number of specialist police forces that operate outside the remit of the Home Office. The final section explores the relationships between policing bodies, and in particular the growing importance of ‘partnership’ in the provision of policing services.

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Public policing in the UK In all parts of the UK, public policing has not been far from the forefront of political debate during the past 30 years (Reiner 2000). There has been considerable debate about the apparent decline in popular legitimacy of the police from the reported very high levels of the 1950s (at least in mainland Britain; Northern Ireland never experienced such levels of popular support for the police). A combination of factors lie behind this, including (among others), consistently rising crime rates (and growth in fear of crime), major miscarriages of justice involving police malpractice, industrial conflicts, major urban riots, concerns about police and race relations, a generally less deferential and more socially divided society, and, most recently, growing political concern about police performance and effectiveness (Newburn 2003). Nevertheless, it seems that the public police still have a significant cultural and symbolic significance in Britain (Loader and Mulcahy 2003). Though public support for the police has declined, it remains high relative to public confidence in other institutions such as the press and government (Hough and Roberts 2002). There are still frequent public demands for increased levels of policing in the form of calls for ‘more bobbies on the beat’ (Loader 1997; Morgan and Newburn 1997). Furthermore, representations of the police remain a central part of popular culture, with crime and policing stories providing a core part of both news reporting and popular fiction on film and television (Reiner 2000, 2003; Mawby 2002). Thus, despite the increasing criticism and scrutiny of the police over recent decades, we retain a peculiar attachment to, and fascination with, the police institution. To date, much writing about policing in the UK focuses exclusively upon the public police in England and Wales. However, it is important to emphasize at the outset that there are important differences in the provision of public policing in the three distinct legal jurisdictions of the UK: England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In fact, although it is still relatively common to hear references to ‘the police service’ in the UK, there has been traditionally strong resistance to the establishment of a single national police force (such as that which exists in France or Finland). England and Wales have seen a gradual reduction in the number of police forces following successive amalgamations and boundary changes (Mawby and Wright 2003). Since the mid-1970s, however, the number of ‘Home Office’ police forces has remained constant, with 41 provincial police forces operating outside of the capital, and two police forces covering London (the Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police). Scottish policing is undertaken by eight regional forces that, prior to devolution, were broadly responsible to the Scottish Office, and now come under the jurisdiction of the Scottish Executive. The history of conflict in Northern Ireland has given rise to a distinctive pattern and organization of policing in the province, with the military playing an important role in various aspects of policing.

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Until recently, public policing was delivered by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), but following the recommendations of the Patten Commission (Patten 1999), this was replaced in 2001 with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). Although there is a strong tradition of locally organized policing in England, Wales and Scotland, there has been a long-term trend towards centralization (Jones 2003). Various factors have contributed to this, including the growing influence of national bodies such as the Home Office/Scottish Executive (especially in promoting a performance management framework), and the recent establishment of ‘national’ policing units. The National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) was established in April 1992 (although not formally recognized by statute until the Police Act 1997). This incorporated a number of previously existing national units providing criminal intelligence reports to local police forces on matters such as football hooliganism and drug trafficking (Johnston 2000a; Levi 2003; Mawby and Wright 2003). It is a UK-wide body in that it provides intelligence analysis services and acts in support of police forces throughout the UK. The 1997 Police Act also established an operational arm in the form of the National Crime Squad (NCS). In 2004, the Home Secretary announced that the NCIS and NCS would become part of a new Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), along with Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise (HMCE) and Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND). The new agency is due to start work in 2006. The regional police forces of the UK differ considerably in terms of size and organization. The PSNI stands out as a particular example of a single centralized force covering one jurisdiction. Relative to the population of Northern Ireland it is a large force, currently consisting of about 7,500 regular officers (this figure is much lower than the RUC strength prior to the Good Friday Agreement signed in 1998). In Scotland, the eight regional forces follow a similar structure to many of the forces in England and Wales (although distinct in several important respects, see Walker 1999 for more details about Scottish policing). These forces differ greatly in size, ranging from the largest (Strathclyde) with about 9,000 officers, to the smallest (Dumfries and Galloway) with about 480 officers. In total, the Scottish police service employed about 16,000 officers as of 30 June 2004 (Summerfield and Gill 2005: 133). In England and Wales, forces differ significantly in terms of size, ranging from the largest force, the Metropolitan Police, with over 30,000 officers (as at March 2004), to the smallest provincial force (Warwickshire) with about 1,000 officers. Increasing the total number of police officers has been a central aim of the government, and England and Wales have seen a significant increase in police officer numbers to what are now record levels. In the year to March 2004, police officer numbers rose by three per cent to reach a record level of 140,6001 (Summerfield and Gill 2005: 134). However, governments have also sought other ways to improve the ability of the police organization to provide a uniformed presence on the streets.

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There is a long history of deployment of ‘volunteer’ auxiliary police officers in the form of the Special Constabulary in England and Wales. In its contemporary form, the Special Constabulary was established by the 1964 Police Act, and each police force has its own Special Constabulary consisting of volunteers from the local community who commit to spending a minimum of four hours per week working with regular police officers. Special constables wear uniforms that are similar to regular police officers, and also operate with the same powers as regular officers when on duty (Mawby and Wright 2003). There are currently about 11,500 special constables in England and Wales, and about 1,100 in Scotland. In addition, there are currently over 2,500 traffic wardens working with police forces in the UK (Summerfield and Gill 2005). For many years, the police have been encouraged to ‘civilianize’ posts that do not need the training and legal powers of a police officer. Although there is a long history of civilian employment within police forces in the UK, the significant drive to civilianization began during the 1980s (Jones et al. 1994). The Home Office encouraged forces to recruit civilian staff into such specialist functions as financial management, legal services, personnel, research and analysis, and forensic services (Mawby and Wright 2003). Some of these civilians are employed at a senior level (the equivalent to assistant chief constable) and are part of force strategic management teams. Civilians now make up over a third of employment in the police organization. More recently, the Police Reform Act of 2002 established a new ‘patrol’ rank in the police service (‘Police Community Support Officer’ or PCSO), intended to provide a ‘second tier’ of policing. These officers undergo more limited training than uniformed constables, and operate with limited (or no) extra legal powers, but provide a uniformed presence on the streets and complement the work of police officers. The Police Reform Act 2002 provides chief constables with the discretion to give PCSOs some limited powers to deal with anti-social behaviour and disorder. By mid-2005, there were over 6,300 PCSOs working with police forces in England and Wales and government plans are for the total to reach at least 25,000 by 2008.

Policing for profit: commercial security Here we adopt a broad definition of ‘commercial security’, which includes organizations and individuals selling products and services in guarding, cash-in-transit, security consultancy, and investigation, as well as staff employed ‘in-house’ in security and investigative functions by private companies and organizations in other sectors of the economy. This section will provide an overview of the size and shape of the British commercial security sector, the functions it provides, the extent to which it has grown over time, factors explaining such growth, and the issue of regulation.

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The shape of the UK security industry Staffed services2 The most visible part of the commercial security sector provides a range of services to state, commercial and voluntary agencies, as well as private individuals. Such services include guarding and asset protection services to industrial, commercial, and residential property owners, body-guarding (or ‘close protection’), the escort of cash-in-transit, door supervision for public houses and nightclubs, debt collection, and alarm monitoring/response services (Johnston 2000a). Industry reports suggest that guarding of commercial retail premises forms the largest single segment of the staffed services market (Business Round Table 1994; Keynote Report 2004). Uniformed security guards are present in shopping precincts, industrial estates, building sites, office complexes, hospitals, educational institutions, government buildings, public and private housing estates, and leisure parks. Given the labour-intensive nature of this work, it is likely to make up the bulk of employment in commercial security, though recent reports have noted that developments in electronic surveillance equipment may well slow growth in this area. Since the 1980s, a growing segment of the market has been the provision of guarding services to government, with commercial security firms now providing guarding services for a range of government buildings, military establishments, prisoner escort services to/from courts and prison, and those prison service establishments contracted out to commercial providers. As Johnston (2000b) notes, contract guarding companies are increasingly operating across national boundaries with the emergence of a significant transnational commercial security market. Although the commercial staffed services sector is still characterized by a large number of very small local firms, in terms of turnover, the market is dominated by a small group of large transnational corporations. The top five companies (Reliance Security Group, Group 4 Falk, Securicor Security Ltd, Initial Security Ltd and Chubb Security Personnel Ltd) are currently estimated to account for over 40 per cent of the market. Market growth has been sustained during recent years, partly explained by a continued trend away from in-house security provision and towards contracting in guarding services (Keynote Report 2004). General labour market conditions will continue to have a particularly important effect on the structure of this sector. Traditionally, it has been characterized by relatively low overhead costs, low wages and high staff turnover, which partly explains how a large number of small companies has been able to flourish. With the imposition of a mandatory minimum wage and the regulations of the Working Time Directive, wages in the staffed security sector have been rising faster than the rate of inflation (Keynote Report 2004). Along with the introduction of statutory regulation (see below), it is likely that smaller companies will find it increasingly difficult to compete with the larger firms in the staffed security market. There clearly continue to be significant opportunities here for the larger firms,

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with the total market size having expanded by over 40 per cent during the period 1999–2003 (Keynote Report 2004). Security equipment Although not often thought of as ‘policing’, the manufacture and installation of mechanical and electronic security equipment is, in terms of market value, the largest segment of the commercial security industry (Jones and Newburn 1998). This includes the provision of a range of physical security equipment including locks and bolts, bars, security shutters, gates and perimeter fencing. In terms of electronic security systems, intruder alarms have seen a dramatic increase in recent years with an estimated 1.5 million alarms having been installed in the UK by the early 1990s. There is also a rapidly growing demand for vehicle alarms, with the noted expansion in autocrime (Jones and Newburn 1998). Closed circuit television (CCTV) has expanded dramatically in Britain over the past two decades driven by active funding and promotion from central government plus a spiralling demand from commercial businesses, local authorities and residential estates. Britain now has more CCTV cameras monitoring public spaces than any other country in the world: Norris et al. (2004) estimate that in the decade from 1994 between £ 4–5 billion was spent on CCTV systems in the UK, excluding the monies required for their monitoring costs. Technology is constantly changing in this area, and many companies are now offering ever more sophisticated integrated security systems including, as Marx (2003) summarizes it, ‘computer matching, profiling and data mining; work, computer and electronic location monitoring; DNA analysis; drug tests; brain scans for lie detection; various self-administered tests and thermal and other forms of imaging to reveal what is behind walls and enclosures’. The UK electronic security market is currently characterized by a few very large generalist companies, and several hundred more specialist local providers. The market has grown significantly in recent years, with a 23 per cent increase in market size estimated for the period 1999–2003 (Keynote Report 2004). Investigation Private investigation remains perhaps the least visible segment of the commercial security sector. However, a range of investigative activities are undertaken by and for commercial companies, including matrimonial work, tracing missing persons, industrial espionage, credit checking, checking on suspect insurance claims, and large-scale commercial fraud investigations (Jones and Newburn 1998). Private investigators also undertake work within the civil and criminal justice system, undertaking witness statements and other criminal defence work, and process serving (Gill and Hart 1997). Recent work has highlighted a key aspect of private policing that has been relatively under-researched; the commercial policing of economic crime and

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the growth of ‘forensic accounting’ services (Williams 2005). Although a number of large multi-establishment commercial investigation companies do operate in the UK, this segment of the commercial security sector remains dominated by small, often one-person, operations (Button 2002). There has been a long-established concern about potential abuses and professional standards within the private investigatory sector, with both main industry associations being longstanding supporters of statutory regulation (see below). The size of the UK security sector Employment, firms and market size There are huge problems in estimating the size of the commercial security sector. Estimates differ in the degree of empirical rigour, the definition of ‘commercial security’ used, and whether they are based on England and Wales, Britain or the UK. Other measurement problems are related to the shifting nature of security labour markets. Similar to other industries operating in low-paid and peripheral labour markets, employment can be sporadic, ‘cash-in-hand’, or part-time, with the result that a significant amount of activity and employment may be hidden (Jones and Newburn 1995). Further measurement difficulties relate to the blurred edges of the private policing sector. Large security firms have diversified in recent years into non-security areas (such as parcel delivery and the application of communications systems). An increasing number of non-security firms (such as office maintenance and cleaning companies) are offering security-related services in addition to their core business (for example, alarm systems and security-vetted staff). Thus, one problem of reliable measurement is that ‘on a continuum of a whole range of commercial services, it is now increasingly difficult to say where the private security sector begins or ends’ (South 1988). Nevertheless, there are sources of evidence available that allow some estimation of the size of the security sector. Many estimates of employment, number of firms and industry turnover began to appear from the late 1980s onwards, although several of these appeared to based on little more than informed guesswork. Others were based on the limited available evidence, such as trade union surveys of workplaces, reports by private consultants, and membership lists of professional and trade associations. During the mid-1990s, a national survey of contract commercial security firms estimated that there were over 7,000 firms in operation in Britain employing up to 333,000 people (Jones and Newburn 1998). However, this figure included people employed in non-‘policing’ tasks (such as those in administrative and managerial functions, and those employed in the manufacture and installation of security equipment). Button (2002) provided estimates of the number of commercial security personnel in the UK who have a direct policing role, which gives a more conservative total of 217,000 (see Table 3.1).

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Table 3.1 Employment in private policing in the UK (2000) Security officers Door supervisors Stewards Investigators Total

140,000 50,000 12,000 15,000 217,000

Source: derived from Button (2002: 99).

More recently, industry reports have provided estimates of market size and employment. Crawford et al. (2005), using data provided by the security industry itself, suggest that the turnover of the industry had reached close to 2 £ billion by 2003. The most recent source of available data is the Keynote Report (2004) market report into the UK security industry. However, although this provides useful indicators about the UK security sector, we should note significant measurement problems. The figures in Table 3.2 are based on figures from the main industry association, the British Security Industry Assocation (BSIA) which is widely accepted to cover only a minority of companies in the industry (although it has excellent coverage of the larger companies). Estimations were made for companies that are not members of the BSIA. In addition, the report covers only certain parts of the security sector, excluding the important area of private investigation services. Nevertheless, the estimates suggest a very significantly sized security industry in the UK, employing at least 146,000 people (in the sectors covered by the report), and with a total market value of over £ 5 billion. Trends over time Although the inherent problems of estimation mean that all figures have to be treated with some caution, there appears to be a consensus that in the UK (as in some other western countries), employment in commercial security now significantly outnumbers staffing in state police forces. There also appears to be strong agreement that this employment has expanded considerably over

Table 3.2 The UK security industry: employment and market size (2003)

Staffed services Electronic security systems Physical security equipment Vehicle security Total

Employment

Market size (£m)

113,290 22,300 8,000 2,000 145,590

2,674 1,628 782 331 5,415

Source: derived from Keynote Report 2004.

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Table 3.3 Changes in commercial and public policing employment 1951–2001

1

Police officers Security guards2

1951

1971

1991

2001

84,585 66,950

115,170 129,670

149,964 159,704

166,407 161,013

Source: Census of population (Great Britain). 1 This figure includes only estimates for police officer numbers. This does not include civilian staff working for the police, which currently accounts for over a third of total police staffing levels. 2 This includes employment in the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) categories 9241 – ‘Security Guards and Related Occupations’ and 1174 – ‘Security Managers’.

recent years. One reasonably reliable indicator of employment trends over time is provided by the occupational estimates of Census of Population data, and has been drawn upon to show that employment in these areas has grown steadily over recent years. Once again we need to treat these figures with some caution (especially when comparing with some of the figures quoted above). The category ‘security and related’ does not cover all of the segments included in a broad definition of commercial security (but may include some others, such as traffic wardens or security guards employed ‘in-house’ by government organizations who are actually public employees). Thus, although these figures should thus be regarded as broad indicators rather than objective measures, they remain the best available to explore trends over time. Table 3.3 provides some interesting insights into the question of extent and timing of growth of employment in security occupations. In particular, it demonstrates that we should not overstate the historical novelty of our current circumstances. There was clearly a sizeable (if perhaps less visible) security sector operating in Britain prior to the 1960s, and this had already overtaken employment of public police officers by the early 1970s. Second, it shows that relative to employment of public police officers, there has certainly been some rapid growth in recent decades, but perhaps this growth is not as dramatic as is sometimes suggested. What is clear, with numbers of public police officers and support staff now at record levels in the UK, is that employment in formal ‘policing’ functions – commercial and public – has expanded rapidly in the latter years of the twentieth century and early years of the new millennium. We consider possible explanations for this in more detail below. Regulation of commercial policing Growing awareness of the expanded role of commercial policing during the 1990s led to increased calls for statutory regulation of the sector. A number of concerns were raised regarding professional standards within the sector, and relating to low pay, poor training, high employee turnover, violence by security staff and, in particular, the employment of convicted offenders within functions that would provide plenty of temptations for

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recidivism (Jones and Newburn 1996). Until relatively recently, the British security sector stood out in comparison with most other European countries in that it was subject only to a form of voluntary self-regulation via membership of trade and professional associations that were widely acknowledged to represent only a fraction of firms in the sector. Following many years’ campaigning by a range of bodies, the Labour government introduced a form of statutory regulation of the security industry in 2001. The Private Security Industry Act 2001 established a Security Industry Authority (SIA) tasked to license individuals operating in particular parts of the security sector. This includes contract staff working in cash-in-transit and static guarding functions, door supervisors (contract and in-house), wheel-clampers (contract and in-house), bodyguards, private investigators and security consultants (Button 2002). All employees in these areas now require licences to operate, part of which involves a clean criminal records check. Although a number of supporters of regulation had argued strongly for the compulsory licensing of security firms, the Act limits itself to a voluntary scheme in which firms submit themselves for regulation. The legislation allows the Home Secretary to extend the regulation to other parts of the security sector if it is deemed necessary. The system of regulation has been criticized for being too narrow – excluding significant sectors of the security industry such as security systems installers and in-house guards. Some critics have suggested that the voluntary licensing scheme amounts to little more than a continuation of the largely ineffective existing system of voluntary self-regulation, in which ‘large numbers of firms are not inspected by … inspectorates or by any other organization’ (Button 2002: 128). Nevertheless, even strong critics of the current system of statutory regulation accept that it is a significant advance on that which preceded it. Explanations for the growth of commercial security Though it is an intuitively attractive argument, it quickly becomes apparent that it is not possible to sustain the idea that commercial security in Britain has grown because of expenditure constraints on public policing. During the last 30 years – the most significant period of expansion of commercial policing – there has been massive growth in spending on the police. Although there have been slight fluctuations, the overall trend is one of strong growth. There are now more police officers than ever before in Britain. However, looking at the considerable real increases in police resources relative to the massive expansion in police workload over the past 30 years, then it is possible to sustain some ‘demand-gap’ argument. Whether measured in terms of reported crime or incidents, traffic-related work, 999 calls, administrative burdens, etc., it seems clear that the demands on public policing have spiralled ever higher, and outstripped the growth in police resources. Indeed, arguably no realistic expansion of public police resources could ever have

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met such demands, and this is likely to be a significant factor behind the expansion of commercial security. Further, in the UK, as elsewhere, it is now well known that public perceptions of crime levels are only partly determined by ‘actual’ crime levels. Thus, in recent years in the UK, despite the fact that crime levels have been falling (at least as measured by crime surveys), public perceptions have stubbornly insisted that the trends are in the opposite direction. The important point here is that recent decades – the period in which private security would appear to have expanded enormously – have been characterized not only by high crime rates as a ‘normal social fact’ (Garland 2001) but also by high levels of anxiety about crime and security. It is undoubtedly the case that such insecurity has fed the demand for ever-greater numbers of alarms, closed-circuit television cameras and security guards. A second factor is the possibility of direct privatization of public functions by government. However, little consideration was given to the idea of extending the policy to the institutions of criminal justice, despite the significant ideological support in the UK for privatization since the 1980s and senior Conservative politicians becoming increasingly exasperated with what they saw as the failure of a relatively well-resourced public police service to ‘deliver’ in terms of crime reduction and detection rates (Jones and Newburn 1997). Although in reality, pressures towards ‘marketization’ had begun to extend towards the police from the mid-1980s onward, the idea of direct privatization (as had been applied in a number of other public services) had not seriously been considered. A number of initiatives in the mid-1990s sought to extend elements of new public management to policing; and small-scale contracting out also took place irregularly. Prisoner vans marked with commercial security company logos are now an everyday sight on Britain’s roads. The guarding of government buildings has also been an important development in this regard. Finally, many local authorities have contracted commercial companies to undertake their parking enforcement for them. Thus, though privatization of policing (in a direct sense) has been limited, that which has occurred has clearly led to an increased visibility for commercial policing and enhanced perceptions of growth. A further possibility, and one that has some purchase, concerns the significant expansion of mass private property in the UK in the retail sector, and the appearance (though not yet at anything other than a marginal level) of gated residential developments. Again, however, this cannot be seen as more than a very partial explanation for the growth of commercial policing. In particular, it is clear that the expansion of such property has been significantly more marked in the USA and Canada than in the UK (and other European countries). The timing of the emergence of such spaces also does not appear to fit closely to the timing of the trends in security employment (Jones and Newburn 1999). As Wakefield (2003: 33) notes, ‘the privatization of urban space appears to form part of a broader trend whereby sites of public life, irrespective of ownership, are becoming subject to increasing levels of

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regulation’, in turn stimulating a range of responses aimed at governing and managing behaviour, of which one is increased private surveillance. Although the urban space arguments are clearly at a deeper level of explanation than factors within the field of policing itself, a further set of questions arises as to why there are changes in urban space, police workloads and public perceptions of insecurity. The apparent reconfiguration of policing can be related at a more fundamental level to a series of structural and cultural shifts currently being experienced across many western industrial nations. There is not the space here to discuss the detailed body of work that explores these changes (see Jones and Newburn 1998) but undoubtedly the increasingly private and individualized nature of social life, the more general sense of insecurity associated with those broad structural changes generally described as ‘globalization’, together with the process of commodification of ‘security’ itself (Loader 1997) all work – no doubt in complex ways – to stimulate the continued expansion and proliferation of new forms of protection and reassurance.

Municipal policing Another important aspect of the pluralization of policing in the UK concerns the expanded role played by local authorities in the provision of policing services. Crawford (2003) has identified several key aspects of municipal policing including the provision of local authority patrols, various activities associated with the policing of anti-social behaviour, and the employment of public auxiliaries. To this we might add the range of regulatory and investigatory functions currently carried out by local authority enforcement staff (many of whom have significant legal powers). Patrol services A number of local authorities became involved in the provision of patrol services during the 1980s and 1990s. The London borough of Wandsworth established its own Parks Police service, whose uniformed officers have a number of powers to enforce council bye-laws in the parks and open spaces of the borough (Jones and Newburn 1998). Other patrol forces began to emerge in the 1990s with councils employing in-house uniformed security patrols, including the Sedgefield Community Force (Wiles 1996), and a similar force in the Wirral (Morgan and Newburn 1997). As Crawford (2003) notes, many local authorities have followed this lead and supported security patrols of housing estates and other areas, but have contracted out the service to security companies rather than go for in-house provision. More recent work by Crawford et al. (2005) provides case studies covering the use of street wardens, neighbourhood wardens, contracted police constables, police community support officers and private security patrols in various combinations.

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The policing of ‘anti-social’ behaviour Following the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, local authorities were given statutory responsibility for the prevention of crime and disorder in their local areas. The Act led to an expansion in the number of local authorities with specialist community safety units, which have been responsible for working with other agencies to reduce crime and disorder. The increasing government emphasis on the criminalization of disorder and anti-social behaviour, along with this emphasis on partnership working, has ‘tied local authorities and other public sector agencies much more closely into policing functions, either in their own capacity or jointly with the police’ (Crawford 2003: 145). Another aspect of anti-social behaviour policing that has increasingly been undertaken by local authorities concerns social housing tenants. Local authority housing management departments (and other social landlords) have increasingly policed tenants’ behaviour via changes to tenancy agreements, and a range of other developments. Thus, since the introduction of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 local authorities have had increased powers to shut down establishments that create noise nuisance and to consider the impact of anti-social behaviour on the wider community in housing possession cases. Social landlords were also given increased powers to take action against ‘anti-social tenants’ including fasttracking evictions and removing the right of some citizens to buy their own home. Public auxiliaries Considerable attention has been given in recent years to the development of various public auxiliary patrolling schemes, which have drawn much inspiration from developments in the Netherlands (see Hauber et al. 1996). The neighbourhood wardens programme was launched in 2000 as an initiative run jointly by the Home Office and the Department of Environment Transport and the Regions (DETR). A fund of £ 18.5 million was allocated over four years, and over 80 schemes were funded to March 2003, subsequently extended to March 2004. In 2002, the policy lead for neighbourhood wardens schemes was allocated to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), which took over the entire funding of the scheme. Of course, the schemes that are funded by central government are only part of a wider picture. Drawing upon a range of local authority and police funding, and a range of regeneration funds, warden schemes have been established in many local areas. Since the findings of the government’s Social Exclusion Unit report on neighbourhood wardens (Social Exclusion Unit 2001) and the inception of the Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy, Neighbourhood Warden Schemes have been implemented throughout England and Wales. In 2003, it was estimated that almost 500 schemes were in operation in England and Wales (NACRO 2003).

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Local authority investigation and enforcement functions Local authorities in Britain have a number of statutory responsibilities in the field of regulation for which specialist enforcement officers are employed. A key responsibility in this field is environmental health, and local authority Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) have a number of statutory duties in areas such as health and safety, food hygiene, pollution, noise and public health generally. Legislation such as the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 provide EHOs with significant legal powers to enter and inspect property, bring prosecutions, compulsorily remove an infectious person to hospital, etc. Hutter (1997) demonstrated that EHOs tend towards a regulatory, compliance-based approach that seeks to work with regulation-breakers rather than move quickly to prosecution. However, prosecution remains an important last resort, and although EHOs are reluctant to see themselves as police officers, they are undoubtedly undertaking important local policing functions, in the broader sense. Local authorities also employ a range of other staff in enforcement functions include Trading Standards Officers, and Dog Control Wardens. In recent decades there has been growing pressure upon local authorities to reduce the incidence of housing benefit fraud. For example, central government pays subsidies on ‘recovered benefits’ as an incentive for local authorities to detect fraud (Jones and Newburn 1998). Local authorities have responded by increasing substantially the numbers of specialist benefit fraud investigators (Button 2002). Although such investigators have no special legal powers (over and above those of the ordinary citizen), they undertake ‘policing’ tasks in terms of investigation, surveillance, and the interviewing of fraud suspects. Thus, it is clear that local authorities also have a range of ‘policing’ functions – in terms of specialist regulatory and investigatory activities (some aided by special legal powers) – in addition to developing roles in the area of patrol. However, we should again remind ourselves of Crawford’s (2003) important distinction between ‘new ways of thinking about things’ and ‘new things to think about’. For the most part, these regulatory functions of local authorities should not be thought of in the latter category. Many of these are long-established features of local government in Britain, and should not be seen as a substantively new aspect of pluralization. A functional division between Home Office constabularies and other regulatory agencies was a noted feature of British policing during the first half of the twentieth century (Taylor 1999). While it is increasingly accepted that, for example, EHOs play an important role in ‘policing’, it would be inaccurate to view their activities as a new development in the policing landscape. Indeed, it seems clear that ‘plural’ policing has, in a fundamental sense, always been with us (Rawlings 2002).

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Special police forces Although state-organized police forces are usually associated with Home Office police forces (in England and Wales), the UK also has a number of more functionally and spatially specialized bodies of police constables that are essentially ‘public’ in nature. During the late 1970s, Miller and Luke (1977) estimated that there were nearly 10,000 personnel employed in such forces. By 1991, it was estimated that there were 35 special police forces in operation in the UK (Mason 1991). More recently, Button (2002) has provided an up-to-date overview of the structure and functions of the key specialist police forces in the UK. The largest special police force in the UK is the Ministry of Defence Police (MDP) which was established in 1971 with the merger of the specialist police bodies of the three armed services. As with the previous service constabularies, MDP officers had full constabulary powers on Crown property, and with regard to armed service personnel within 15 miles of military bases. The Ministry of Defence Police Act 1987 extended this jurisdiction to any place in the UK, under limited conditions, and authorized the MDP to respond to requests for assistance by Home Office police forces in the vicinity of military bases. The force is responsible for the prevention and detection of crime within their jurisdiction, the protection of defence establishments and the security of Crown property. The MDP is particularly visible in garrison towns such as Aldershot where it operates much like any other police force, investigating all crimes other than very serious categories (e.g. murder or manslaughter) which are transferred to the local Home Office police force. The MDP has been the focus of political concern in recent years in two key areas. First, public concern arose around the operation of armed MDP officers in public space, and the nature of their rules of engagement (Johnston 1992). Second, controversy has arisen regarding the replacement of MDP guards by contract security companies, for example following the privatization of the Royal Ordinance factories. Partly due to such developments, the MDP has been reduced in size over recent years, falling from a complement of about 5,000 in the early 1990s to about 3,600 officers in 2001 (Button 2002). The most visible specialist police force in the UK is the British Transport Police (BTP) which emerged from the large number of specialist railway police forces that were established during the nineteenth century. The BTP in its current form came into existence with the nationalization of the railways after World War II, having been created by section 53 of the British Transport Commission Act 1949. For several decades subsequent to this, the majority of funding for the force came from central government, though the privatization of the railways saw this balance shift again, and now the force is primarily funded by the private operating companies that run the rail network. As Button (2002) notes, the BTP closely resembles Home Office police forces in structure and functions. The key distinction (apart

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from the funding issue) concerns the spatial and functional jurisdiction of BTP officers. The current legislation gives BTP officers full constabulary powers ‘in, on or in the vicinity of trains and premises belonging to or used or leased by users of BTP services and elsewhere for matters relating to those premises’ (Jones and Newburn 1998). In this sense, officers are able to pursue, arrest and detain suspects drawing upon full constabulary powers in cases where the alleged crime is committed on the railways. BTP powers were enhanced by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 which provided officers with powers of search of vehicles and people in goods areas. Jurisdictional confusion has still arisen in situations where BTP officers have been travelling in marked police vehicles between railway property, and members of the public have called upon them for assistance (see Jones and Newburn 1998 for a discussion of particular examples). Secondly, government privatization policy has raised concerns about the degree of independence of a ‘public’ police force funded almost entirely by commercial bodies. Privatization has also led to some problems regarding legal powers and jurisdiction. As with the MDP, the BTP has seen a significant fall in staffing levels in recent years, and now has about 2,000 officers (see Table 3.4). The third main specialist non-Home Office police force is what used to be called the United Kindgom Atomic Energy Authority Constabulary (UKAEAC), established by the Atomic Energy Act 1954. Officers of this force have full constabulary powers within UK Atomic Energy Authority establishments, and within 15 miles of such places in respect of offences against AEA property. The jurisdiction of UKAEAC officers was extended by the Atomic Energy Authority (Special Constables) Act 1976, which provided full constabulary powers to officers carrying out escort duties of nuclear matter to any place where this duty would make it ‘expedient’ for them to go (Jones and Newburn 1998). In April 2005, following the Energy Act 2004, the force became the Civil Nuclear Constabulary reporting to a newly formed independent police authority, the Civil Nuclear Police Authority, under the umbrella of the Department of Trade and Industry. It currently has over 650 officers. Table 3.4 Employment of civilian staff and police officers in the British Transport Police 1998–2003

1998–9 1999–2000 2000–1 2001–2 2002–3

Police

Support

2113 2091 2109 2123 2206

524 523 565 644 667

Source: British Transport Police Annual Report 2002–3.

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There are a number of other, smaller specialist bodies of constables. These include the Royal Parks Police who undertake policing duties in the Royal Parks and Gardens in Greater London, and the Royal Botanical Gardens Constabulary. Even in the relatively confined environment of the Royal Parks in London, policing is becoming increasingly dominated by partnerships and plural arrangements. Since mid-2004 London’s Royal Parks have been policed by a combination of the Royal Parks Constabulary, the Metropolitan Police and by Police Community Support Officers. Further, this is part of a process in which the RPC is being merged with the Metropolitan Police to provide a dedicated policing patrol service in the Parks (The Royal Parks 2004). Button (2002) also describes a range of other small bodies of constables, such as specialist market policing bodies or ports and harbour police forces, whose constabulary powers tend to derive from specific Acts relating to policing functions in particular circumscribed geographical areas. The most recent addition to the growing array of policing bodies in the UK are the Traffic Officers currently being piloted by the Highways Agency (HATOs). Currently operating in the West Midlands, these officers will eventually be responsible for the mobile patrolling of all Britain’s motorways (anticipated currently to be by early 2006). Their major functions, as currently conceived, are to enforce road traffic law and deal with traffic incidents. However, as the Police Federation, a critic of HATOs, points out, given the fact that crime is committed on the highways, and that offenders use the highways, the role of this new ‘force’ will almost certainly extend beyond basic traffic policing eventually to include a broader crime control mandate.

Relationships between plural policing bodies We conclude by looking, briefly, at the nature of the relationships between the complex array of policing bodies in the U.K. Other chapters have referred to Johnston and Shearing’s (2002) concept of ‘security governance’, which they see as preferable to the narrower, state-centred concept of ‘policing’. This conception requires us to look beyond the individual bodies that make up the ‘security quilt’ (Ericson and Haggerty 1997), but explore the dynamics of the relationships between such bodies. On this view, the whole is more than the sum of the parts. The emergence of complex networks of policing, involving a range of different ‘nodes’, is a central theme within work on pluralization (Shearing 2001). Much of this work draws upon experiences in North American policing over recent decades (Bayley and Shearing 1996, 2001). For example, a recent Canadian publication observed that: Complex networks of policing that reflect a mix of public and private security providers are emerging. In many urban areas, we are witnessing not simply two-tiered policing but multi-level policing: the public

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police contract out patrol services to private security firms; in some instances, private security firms help fund public police investigations: private police resolve complaints that were once within the exclusive domain of the public police; public police and private security firms cooperate in investigations; and private organizations hire public police to provide security for private functions. (Law Commission of Canada 2002: 15) There is evidence that new kinds of policing ‘networks’ are also emerging in the UK (Newburn 2001). Local empirical studies have uncovered evidence of growing co-operation between a range of policing providers (Crawford et al. 2005; Wakefield 2003). Co-operative relationships can take a number of forms, including the exchange of information and intelligence, the sharing of equipment or facilities, and the undertaking of joint operations (Jones and Newburn 1998: 170–77). Other research has highlighted significant degrees of co-operation between the public police and private policing agencies in dealing with environmental protestors (Button 2002). The work of Ericson and Haggerty (1997) has illustrated the important ‘information exchange’ function of the public police, who supply a range of public and private agencies with information upon which they base risk minimization strategies. There is certainly evidence of the public police undertaking such activities in Britain, although the extent to which this has superseded other police tasks has been questioned (Reiner 2000). However, the picture of cooperation is not the only story. Jones and Newburn’s (1998) research in a London borough also found some evidence of competition between policing agencies. More recently, Noaks (2000) highlighted a significant degree of competition between the police and private security firms providing residential patrols. In addition, many policing bodies operate in different spheres and have little contact with each other. It is clear that there is a complex set of relationships – ‘co-operative’, ‘competitive’ and ‘co-existing’ – between policing bodies at the local level. Official policy has increasingly recognized the involvement of a wide range of institutions (not only, or even primarily, policing agencies) in crime prevention and community safety. A key aspect of this policy of ‘responsibilization’ has involved the official encouragement of partnership working in crime prevention and community safety (Garland 1996). As noted earlier, the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act requires local government to establish ‘crime and disorder reduction partnerships’ involving a range of local authority services along with the police and probation. Such developments signal acceptance by government of the involvement of a range of agencies and community groups in community safety, and may provide a framework for the development of accountability mechanisms that take account of plural policing forms. It is certainly true that the language of ‘partnership’ is increasingly important within the broader picture of policing. However, such terminology undoubtedly hides as much as it reveals. Policing in the UK is now undoubtedly pluralized and

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the picture is continually changing. With the market in security services now well established and embedded, and with all the main political parties committed to significant and ongoing public sector reform, there is every likelihood that the picture will change further still in the next decade.

Notes 1 2

This includes 2,100 officers seconded to the National Crime Squad, National Criminal Intelligence Service and other central services. Within industry reports, this part of the sector is still referred to as ‘manned guarding’.

References Bayley, D. and Shearing, C. (1996) ‘The future of policing’, Law and Society Review, 30: 3, pp. 585–606. Bayley, D. and Shearing, C. (2001) The New Structure of Policing: Description, Conceptualization, and Research Agenda, Washington DC: National Institute of Justice. BTP (2003) British Transport Police Annual Report 2002–3, London: BTP. Business Round Table (1994) The Growing Demand for Security: Opportunities for UK Suppliers, London: Business Round Table Ltd. Button, M. (2002) Private Policing, Cullompton: Willan. Crawford, A. (2003) ‘The pattern of policing in the UK: Policing beyond the police’, in T. Newburn (ed.) The Handbook of Policing, Cullompton: Willan. Crawford, A., Lister, S., Blackburn, S. and Burnett, J. (2005) Plural Policing: The Mixed Economy of Visible Patrols in England and Wales, Bristol: The Policy Press. Ericson, R. and Haggerty, K. (1997) Policing the Risk Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Garland, D. (1996) ‘The limits of the sovereign state’, British Journal of Criminology, 34: 4, pp. 445–71. Garland, D. (2001) The Culture of Control, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gill, M. and Hart, J. (1997) ‘Policing as a business: The organization and structure of private investigation’, Policing and Society, 7, pp. 117–41. Hauber, A., Hofstra, B., Toornvliet, L. and Z andbergen, A. (1996) ‘Some new forms of functional social control in the Netherlands and their effects’, British Journal of Criminology, 36: 2, pp. 199–219. Hough, M. and Roberts, J. (2002) ‘Public knowledge and public opinion of sentencing: Findings from five jurisdictions’, in N. Hutton and C. Tata (eds) Sentencing and Society: International Perspectives, Farnborough: Ashgate. Hutter, B. (1997) Compliance: Regulation and Environment, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Johnston, L. (1992) The Rebirth of Private Policing, London: Routledge. Johnston, L. (2000a) Policing Britain: Risk, Security and Governance, London: Longman.

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Johnston, L. (2000b) ‘Transnational private policing: The impact of global commercial security’, in J. Sheptycki (ed.) Issues in Transnational Policing, London: Routledge. Johnston, L. and Shearing, C. (2002) Governing Security: Explorations in Policing and Justice, London: Routledge. Jones, T. (2003) ‘The governance and accountability of policing’, in T. Newburn (ed.) The Handbook of Policing, Cullompton: Willan. Jones, T. and Newburn, T. (1995) ‘How big is the private security sector?’, Policing and Society, 5, pp. 221–32. Jones, T. and Newburn, T. (1996) ‘The regulation and control of the private security industry’, in W. Saulsbury, J. Mott and T. Newburn (eds) Themes in Contemporary Policing, London: Police Foundation. Jones, T. and Newburn, T. (1997) Policing After the Act: Police Governance After the Police and Magistrates’ Courts Act 1994, London: Policy Studies Institute. Jones, T. and Newburn, T. (1998) Private Security and Public Policing, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jones, T. and Newburn, T. (1999) ‘Urban change and policing: Mass private property re-considered’, European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 7: 2, pp. 225–44. Jones, T., Newburn, T. and Smith, D. J. (1994) Democracy and Policing, London: Policy Studies Institute. Keynote Report (2004) The Security Industry: Industry Report, September 2004 (see also http://www.keynote.co.uk). Law Commission of Canada (2002) In Search of Security: The Roles of Public Police and Private Agencies: A Discussion Paper, Ottawa: Law Commission of Canada. Levi, M. (2003) ‘Organized and financial crime’, in T. Newburn (ed.) The Handbook of Policing, Cullompton: Willan. Loader, I. (1997) ‘Thinking normatively about private security’, Journal of Law and Society, 24: 3, pp. 377–94. Loader, I. and Mulcahy, A. (2003) Policing and the Condition of England: Memory, Politics and Culture, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Marx, G. T. (2003) ‘Surveillance and society’, in G. Ritzer (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Social Theory, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mason, D. (1991) Private and Public Policing: Improving the Service to the Public through Cooperation, Brookfield Papers No. 6 Mawby, R. (2002) Policing Images: Policing, Communication and Legitimacy, Cullompton: Willan. Mawby, R. and Wright, A. (2003) ‘The police organization’, in T. Newburn (ed.) The Handbook of Policing, Cullompton: Willan. Miller, J. and Luke, D. (1977) Law Enforcement by Public Officials and Special Police Forces, London: Home Office. Morgan, R. and Newburn, T. (1997) The Future of Policing, Oxford: Oxford University Press. NACRO (2003) Eyes and Ears: The Role of Neighbourhood Wardens, London: National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders.

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Newburn, T. (2001) ‘The commodification of policing: Security networks in the late modern city’, Urban Studies, 38, 5–6, pp. 829–48. Newburn, T. (2003) ‘Introduction: Understanding policing’, in T. Newburn (ed.) The Handbook of Policing, Cullompton: Willan. Noaks, L. (2000) ‘Private cops on the block: A review of the role of private security in residential communities’, Policing and Society, 10, pp. 143–61. Norris, C., McCahill, M. and Wood, D. (2004) ‘The growth of CCTV: A global perspective on the diffusion of video surveillance in publicly accessible space’, Surveillance and Society, 2: 2/3, pp. 110–35. Patten, C. (1999) A New Beginning: Policing in Northern Ireland, London: The Stationery Office. Rawlings, P. (2002) Policing: A Short History, Cullompton: Willan. Reiner, R. (2000) The Politics of the Police, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reiner, R. (2003) ‘Policing and the media’, in T. Newburn (ed.) The Handbook of Policing, Cullompton: Willan. Royal Parks (2004) ‘New policing partnership for The Royal Parks’, http://www.royalparks.gov.uk/press/current/press_release_63.cfm, accessed 19 October 2005. Shearing, C. (2001) ‘A nodal conception of governance: Thoughts on a policing commission’, Policing and Society, 11, pp. 259–72. Social Exclusion Unit (2001) National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal, London: Cabinet Office. South, N. (1988) Policing for Profit, London: Sage. Summerfield, C. and Gill, B. (eds) (2005) Social Trends 35, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Taylor, H. (1999) ‘Forging the job: A crisis of “modernization” or redundancy for the police in England and Wales, 1900–39’, British Journal of Criminology, 39: 1, pp. 113–35. Walker, N. (1999) Policing in a Changing Constitutional Order, London: Sweet and Maxwell. Wakefield, A. (2003) Selling Security: The Private Policing of Public Space, Cullompton: Willan. Wiles, P. (1996) The Quality of Service of the Sedgefield Community Force, Sheffield: University of Sheffield. Williams, J. (2005) ‘Governability matters: The private policing of economic crime and the challenge of democractic governance’, Policing and Society, 15: 2, pp. 187–211. edner, L. (2006) ‘Policing before and after the police: the historical antecedents of Z contemporary crime control’, British Journal of Criminology, 46: 1, pp. 78–96.

4

France Frédéric Ocqueteau

This chapter explores recent developments in state policing and private security in France. It is widely recognized that the French policing landscape has become increasingly complex over the last few decades, with a growing number of institutions and agencies engaged in the provision of security. The recent creation of a ‘National Crime Monitoring Agency’1 in 2003 demonstrated growing recognition of the legitimacy of the range of agencies offering personal protection and security services (Ocqueteau 2005). As in other countries, research and writing on policing in France has until relatively recently focused primarily upon the state police (Stead 1984; Horton 1995). However, recent years have seen a growing interest in security agencies other than the public police, including the growing commercial security industry (Ocqueteau 1997; Bauer and Ventre 2002). A number of sources are now available that facilitate more detailed comparison of public and private policing agencies than has been possible hitherto. This chapter consists of three main sections. The first outlines the development and contemporary organization of the primary public policing agencies in France: the National Police, the Gendarmerie and Municipal police forces. The second section provides a detailed review of the current evidence regarding the commercial security industry in France. The third section briefly considers the position of France in comparison to some other European countries, and discusses the future possibilities for expansion of private security in French society.

Public policing: a dualistic structure Public policing in France remains highly centralized, primarily delivered by two nationally organized civilian and military forces operating in distinct geographical jurisdictions. The National Police is responsible to the Ministry of the Interior, and covers towns and cities with a population of 10,000 or above. The Gendarmerie is responsible to the Ministry of Defence, and traditionally delivered policing in the rural areas. However, with the growth of cities during the course of the twentieth century, the Gendarmerie increasingly police urban areas (de Maillard and Roche 2004). In addition, since the

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1980s there has been a significant growth in the number of local police forces established and run by municipalities. This section briefly describes the context within which public policing operates in France, and then provides an overview of each of the main national policing bodies. The policing context France is the largest country in Western Europe, with a land mass twice that of the United Kingdom. The system of political administration is known for its centralism, although there have been recent reforms that have attempted to decentralize policy-making somewhat. There are three levels of local government: municipalities, departments and regions. Until relatively recently, the most important administrative unit was the department, each of which is headed by a centrally appointed prefect. In the early 1980s, the Decentralization Act of 1982 transferred more financial resources and decision-making power to elected bodies at each level of local government. However, this has not resolved tensions between the local and the national level, particularly in the field of policing and community safety (Roche 2002). The French police operate within an inquisitorial judicial system, as opposed to the adversarial model that operates within most Anglophone countries. This has important implications for the nature, extent and oversight of police powers in criminal investigations. In essence, this means that the ideal aim of the criminal process is to be an impartial uncovering of the truth, rather than have the ‘true’ events emerge in a contested process between two parties (the defence and prosecution). This means that criminal investigations are directed by judicial personnel rather than by police officers. When a serious crime is reported to the authorities, the public prosecutor will allocate the case to an ‘investigating magistrate’ (Horton 1995). This person will take full authority over the subsequent conduct of the investigation, and have discretion to allocate the case either to Gendarmerie or the National Police (see below). If they are unhappy with certain aspects of the investigation, then they can transfer the investigation to the other agency (Dupont 2005). National police Although currently highly centralized, as in some other countries, the present-day organization of the National Police is the product of a long trend of centralization over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the face of growing industrialization and urbanization, central government gradually transferred responsibilities for dealing with public order to the national level, rather than leaving it in the hands of relatively illequipped and under-trained municipal bodies. During World War II, the Vichy regime brought all police forces in municipalities with over 10,000 inhabitants under central state control. In 1966, the Paris police force was

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included within this structure to create the Police Nationale (Horton 1995). The head of the National Police is a General Director, appointed by the cabinet and answerable to the Minister of the Interior. There are a number of national ‘directorates’ which are divided along functional lines, covering such matters as administration and finance, training, investigative functions, public order, control and audit, intelligence and border policing. Each of these directorates is divided into central and local services. In Paris, the Police Prefecture brings together both judicial (crime investigation) and public safety functions in a force that accounts for over 25 per cent of the staff of the National Police. The National Police has its own mobile specialist public order unit of 14,000 officers (the CRS, or Compagnie Republicaine de Sécurité). This was founded at the end of World War II, and can be deployed anywhere in the country to deal with public order situations. The National Police have about 130,000 police officers, supported by 16,000 ‘police aides’ who are fixed term staff operating on less pay and training than full police officers, with more limited legal powers. However, municipal police officers wear police uniforms, undertake public patrol and crime prevention work, and carry handguns (Roche 2002). The Gendarmerie This current structure of the Gendarmerie dates back to 1798 when the Emperor Napoleon established the organization as a rural police force operating under a militarized form of command. This new organization was based on the earlier Maréchaussée that undertook policing of the rural areas and main highways of France (Horton 1995). Today, a civilian Director General who is answerable to the Minister of Defence undertakes the day-to-day management of the Gendarmerie. The territorial organization is seven geographical regions that reflect current military defence zones. There are two main elements within the Gendarmerie. First, the Departmental Gendarmerie (consisting of around 63,500 officers), providing general policing services in rural and suburban areas. The Mobile Gendarmerie is essentially a public order unit, but also undertakes anti-terrorist and hostage rescue functions, and consists of about 17,000 officers. In addition, the organization includes ‘the Republican Guard’ of about 3,000 officers which provides security for visits of foreign leaders and honour guards on national occasions. The Gendarmerie is also responsible for the provision of security at airports, military bases and nuclear installations (Dupont 2005). The total number of police officers in the National Gendarmerie is about 100,000. Municipal policing As noted above, until the 1940s policing in the majority of French towns and cities was funded and organized at the local level. Up until that point, the

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state had gradually taken over responsibility for the policing of the larger cities, often in the face of significant local opposition (Horton 1995). The Vichy regime in 1941 ensured that the central state took over responsibility for policing in all towns with over 10,000 people. However, the tradition of municipal police forces did not die out completely, and during the 1980s in particular, many mayors established their own local police forces. The number of municipal police forces increased from about 1,750 to 2,860 between 1984 and 1993, with a corresponding growth in personnel of 5,640 to 10,000 (Horton 1995). By the late 1990s, nine out of ten municipalities with a population of over 10,000 had their own municipal police force. Most of these forces were small, with only 25 municipalities employing more than 50 officers (Roche 2002). Although a number of factors lay beneath the rebirth of municipal policing, a key influence was the desire of mayors to respond to growing public demands for more uniformed officers on the streets. Municipal policing continued to grow during the 1990s, and currently number around 18,000 officers (de Maillard and Roche 2004). They have fewer powers than officers of the National Police or Gendarmerie, but they do wear police-style uniforms and carry guns. They deliver a variety of policing services including public patrols, traffic and parking control, minor traffic offences, the enforcement of municipal bye-laws and general service tasks (such as providing directions and dealing with lost property). The municipal police do not have any criminal investigation powers, and in the case of an arrest must hand over the case immediately to officers from the National Police or Gendarmerie (Horton 1995). Recent developments The growing tension between national and local levels in France has, according to some commentators, ended the central state’s monopoly in the field of crime control and security provision (de Maillard 2005). Since the 1980s, there has been growing criticism of the police organizations (and other public servants) that has focused upon a perceived distancing between service providers and the citizenry. A succession of initiatives have been introduced, many of which come under the general banner of ‘proximity’ (the word in French roughly corresponding to the English use of ‘community’). Thus, within the realm of policing, developments in police de proximité have introduced reforms similar to those undertaken in Englishspeaking countries under the banner of ‘community policing’, in an attempt to bring the police closer to the public. Within France the concept covers a range of activities from ‘zero tolerance’ policing through crime prevention to public relations (Ferret 2004). These developments have been subject to similar criticisms of implementation failure and rank-and-file opposition (Gorgeon 2002). However, there has been growing recognition of the range of agencies and organizations involved in the provision of security at the local level. The development of ‘contractualization’ has been a noted feature in the

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governance of security in France. Since the early 1980s, local ‘crime prevention councils’ have existed in France, that bring together representatives of the central state, local municipalities and a range of agencies with an interest in community safety. In the late 1990s, the government launched the policy of ‘local safety contracts’ which lay down agreements between local and national authorities, plus a range of other bodies (including private sector organizations) to deliver community safety in local areas (de Maillard 2005). Part of this trend towards growing support for local influence over community safety has included a number of calls for the formal decentralization of control over policing. For example, in 2000 the Association of Mayors in France called for the responsibility for policing to be formally devolved to cities. However, opinion polls suggest persistent public support for policing to remain the responsibility of the national state, and no further developments in the decentralization of public policing are expected in the near future (de Maillard and Roche 2004). However, the growth of local influence over community safety policy more generally, and in particular the emphasis on partnership, has led to the emergence of new agents at the local level such as local safety managers. It has also signalled a new acceptance of the role of the commercial security industry in helping to deliver public safety (Roche 2002). It is to these new forms of policing that we now turn.

The commercial security sector2 There are three main sources of data about private security in France. These are: census data regarding occupational classifications, data arising from the statutory regulation of private security, and labour market data concerning the activities of commercial organizations. Occupational classifications By the mid 1980s, the main source of information about the private security market was population census information on occupations or professions. Within the occupational classification system used by the INSEE,3 the newly revised category 5317 (a sub-item of overhead 53 concerning the ‘army and police professions’) includes private security agents. These are defined as subordinate employees charged, on behalf of their employer, with the protection of specified property against accidents and criminal intents; employees contributing to public security and order through the surveillance of public places, yet not belonging to the army, to the police, to prisons or the National Forestry Office. The biggest category within this was ‘surveillance agents, cash-in-transit guards, factory guards, museum guards, night watchmen ...’. According to the INSEE, ‘private investigators, bodyguards, dog handlers and night watchmen’

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were also included within this broad occupational category. The three most recent population census figures demonstrate considerable increases in employment in private security since the early 1980s. For example, they indicate that there were 94,000 persons in security occupations in 1982, rising to 105,857 in 1990, and to 134,500 persons in 1999.4 Whilst these figures provide useful indications of trends in employment in private security occupations, they tell us little about the employers of such staff. Employers came under another category in the INSEE classification system which raises a number of difficulties. First, the figures do not allow us to distinguish between ‘in-house’ and ‘contract’ security employment. Furthermore, it is not possible to differentiate between security guards employed by private (commercial) companies, in factories and so on, and those by public enterprises (e.g. a passenger transportation company) or a local authority (such as a municipality). Another problem was INSEE’s attribution to private security agents of ‘missions of public security or of public places’ protection’. This description risked prejudging the kind of work such agents undertake, given that the actual places in which they worked were potentially significantly broader. Unless we imagine that all order-related professions contribute to ‘public’ policing (under its two possible meanings: a collective action or a public place), this implicitly assumes that private resources make up for the failing public resources and thus contribute to public safety. Private security agents under state control Another key statistical source arises from statutory regulations, issued in 1983 and 1984, to improve standards in parts of the private security industry. These regulations aimed to improve private functions of ‘surveillance, care-taking, money transportation and personal protection’. These laws gave Prefectures statutory responsibility for the authorization of chief executives of private companies and their employees working in this part of the security industry. This system of formal regulation provided the Ministry of Internal Affairs5 with a statistical inventory of the sector, starting from 1986. However, my own research suggests that this source is not very reliable, since it seems that there were numerous ways for companies and individuals to avoid the regulations. Once we have allowed for this fact, it appears that the only reliable inventory is the one (and latest) dated from 1993, after improvements to the regulatory system were introduced. This source provides additional information not available in the INSEE census data. In particular, it is possible to identify the ratio of employees to senior staff members and to differentiate contract staff from those employed in-house. In fact, the figures suggest that the latter remain dominant, contradicting the impression given by the intensity of the externalization process of internal security services during the past twenty years. Internal policing survives very well indeed: there were 1,700 home services counted, headed by 1,980 persons directing another 15,500.

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Among the 2,520 security companies listed as working under contract throughout the country, Prefectures counted more or less 2,900 senior staff members and 74,000 employees (a smaller figure than the one advanced in the 1990 INSEE census). This source of statistics on commercial security was last updated in 2000, in preparation for the reform of the 1983 law on the regulation of private security. These figures estimated that there were about 100,000 subordinate security agents (in-house and contract). They also allow the separate identification of particular sectors such as employment in public transport. Two internal security services in particular stand out here: the Parisian Metro’s GSPR6 (composed of 750 security agents) and the rail company SUGE7 (who employ a 1,500 strong service). These figures suggest the importance of regulating sectors where security forces are becoming almost ‘hybrid’ policing agencies. There has been a long campaign by security employees in particular sectors to achieve official recognition of the jobs they are doing. For example, Leroux (1997, 2002) demonstrated how Parisian Metro8 security guards increasingly distinguished themselves from the ‘dirty work’ traditionally associated with private security guards. The creation of the Network Intervention and Protection Group (GIPR9) in 1989 was a key part of the attempt to present themselves as a new professional body providing public safety services. The organization emphasized the militaristic and professional nature of their service delivery, playing a key role in dealing with crime and disorder on the metro system. The GIPR security force also grew rapidly in size, from a force of 50 people in 1990 to one of 300 in 1994. The subsequent merger of SUGE and GIPR gave rise to the Transportation Networks’ Security and Protection Group (GSPR10) as well as the creation of a professional ‘transportation security agent’s licence’. These developments further encouraged the recruitment of agents, whose number rose to 700 in 1997. During this time, the functional remit of this body became as much to provide public reassurance as to catch criminals. In 2002, the Parisian transportation network employed 1,074 security agents (of which 200 were dedicated to bus surveillance). This represented a five-fold increase from 1990. Given their numerical growth, and the importance of the functions that they carry, it is increasingly accepted that legislators need to take account of the ‘intermediate’ policing role of security organizations such as these. Arguably, this role distinguishes them both from private ‘watchmen’ and from public police officers. This was one of the major issues in the reform of the 1983 Act, which was brought about by the Internal Security Law (LSI), on 8 March 2003. The main activities of private security companies During the 1990s, another INSEE data source provided insights into the process of industry concentration, and on the phenomenon of sub-contracting to small local enterprises. The figures concerning the ‘services provided

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to enterprises’11 that appeared in INSEE’s National Annual Survey allow a more complete picture of the contracting out of investigation and security services, following a recently refined definition.12 At the beginning of the 1990s, these service areas were relatively non-specialized, as suggested by their classification under the heading (‘investigation and security’) that both related and distinguished them from the ‘cleaning and tidiness’13 services and from another carry-all category of the same galaxy: the ‘various services provided to enterprises’.14 Moreover, the ‘investigation and security’ heading belongs to four other more general categories distinguishing the ‘operational services’15 of enterprises. This source is relatively reliable, coming from the fact that inventoried enterprises are obliged to provide the required information, thus allowing the INSEE to identify their activities through the contributions paid to the National Unemployment Union.16 The analysis of these figures for 1994 demonstrates the great heterogeneity among security companies. More than a third of them (35.3 per cent) are small companies. Of security companies, about 5.5 per cent have more than 100 employees, whereas 3.9 per cent have 55–90 employees. The biggest enterprises generate by themselves the greatest wealth and the highest added value: 65.6 per cent against 8.9 per cent created by the next smaller enterprises. Numerous, scattered small markets for security work are created through the sub-contracting of work from the larger to the smaller enterprises. This phenomenon has become more important during the past ten years.

Comparing functions in public and private policing Pierre Simula (1999) has undertaken analysis of data from the National Agency For Employment (ANPE17) that permit more detailed exploration of the employment patterns of private security agents. In particular, he provides a comparison (over the last 20 years) between the number of persons working in public security (National Police, Gendarmerie, Municipal police and ‘youth-specific jobs’18) and those working in the private security market. This allows a more detailed analysis than the usual basic comparison of total numbers of public and private police agents, and ratios of public to private that attempt to estimate the degree of ‘privatization’ of policing. As well as focusing on total numbers, it is also important to analyse the functional remits of different policing bodies (Nogala 1996). Moreover, the obsession with numerical comparison has perhaps focused the debate too much on the ‘legitimacy’ of private policing, and deflected discussion away from a consideration of the deeper reasons behind growth in private security employment. Simula’s work allows a detailed comparison of functions carried out by public and private policing agents. The picture he provides is perhaps reassuring for critics of private security, in that it depicts private sector agents as having a narrower functional remit, being invested with lesser powers, and being less ‘professional’ than those of the public sector.

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Although these comparisons clearly have their limitations, they do undermine three key critiques of developments in commercial policing. First, it undermines the legal purists’ sheer refusal to accept the very concept of ‘private police’. Second, it works against the viewpoint of police trade unions and their historians, who denounce private security as attempting to be a ‘parallel police force’. Finally, it contradicts the Marxist argument that presents private security agents as primarily the private ‘militias’ of property owners. Simula’s research, although innovative and useful, implicitly supports the view that private security acts primarily as the ‘junior partner’ of the state police. However, his retrospective analysis of developments in private security began to challenge the dominant ideological theme of the preceding period, characterized by the virulent denunciation of the private sector. Simula’s work presented the security industry in a different light, as a developing sector providing a service in response to a clear public demand. On this view, this development is related to two key factors: ●

●

A two-fold ‘externalization’ of security activities: on one hand, the devolution of public security functions to the municipal level, producing an increase of municipal police services; on the other hand, the increasing tendency of commercial organizations to contract out security functions to external providers (rather than provide such services in-house). The increasing tendency of public police organization to concentrate upon the ‘core’ tasks of criminal investigation and public order, and the relative abandonment of the tasks of public reassurance and general service provision.

Simula used annual social welfare declarations to estimate that by the end of 1995 there was a total of 76,000 private security agents. This figure is composed of a core group of 48,000 permanent employees, plus a large, fluctuating group of people working on a short-term temporary basis. The explanation for this is that activity is organized mainly on the basis of a nonpermanent labour force, recruited when needed. The flexibility of private security employment relates not so much to the use of part-time employees (where women are twice as numerous as men), but in the massive recourse to contract services (often provided by low-qualified young men, hired for a very short period). This workforce is a diverse one, consisting of non-skilled workers, former employees whose professional life has been disrupted, or people who are undergoing professional retraining. While showing that only a third of all agents can be regarded as being a stable part of the security industry (in the sense that they have a contract of more than one year), Simula may overestimate the precariousness of the remaining two thirds (whose fixed-term contracts last less than one year). In fact, employment instability is not always synonymous with exploitation and precariousness. Some workers actually

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seek out such temporary work, such as students temporarily working as night watchmen in order to pay tuition fees. In general, employment precariousness is arguably an inevitable feature of a wage-earning labour force that has perennially adapted to extremely flexible working conditions. It is also likely that there is considerable ‘informal’ activity in this sector, such as earning undeclared income (to avoid taxation) or working illegally for two employers. This highlights the limitations of official statistical sources in exploring the dynamics of security labour markets. It is clear that workforce turnover is massive in the private security sector, where jobs tend to be unstable and short-term. Yet, during the past twenty years, the expansion of private security employment has been significantly greater than that in the public police. Between 1982 and 1995 (Simula 1999, p. 100) the number of police officers and gendarmes grew respectively by 15,000 (12.6 per cent) and 12,500 (15.1 per cent). During the same period, employment in private security shows an increase of 67,000 (68.5 per cent). While employment in state policing still outnumbers that in private security, there has been a slow but consistent trend towards narrowing this gap.

Trends over time The data sets described above allow a more detailed examination of changes in the employment patterns of commercial security agents over the past 20 years. In particular, it allows a comparison of the employment areas 160 000 140 000 120 000 100 000 80 000 60 000 40 000 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000

Commercial security guards Police officers (national police) Gendarmes

Figure 4.1

Comparison trends for public and private policing agents 1982–2001

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Table 4.1 Growth in private security and private surveillance agents 1982–2001

1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

Number of private security and private surveillance agents

% change since 1982

101,387 102,757 107,178 111,244 120,346 112,679 105,570 119,508 113,602 105,956 108,700 112,311 111,953 120,119 134,562 133,804 136,829 146,280 144,019 147,049

100 101 106 110 119 111 104 118 112 105 107 111 110 118 133 132 135 144 142 145

of these agents, for example the number of private security personnel employed by commercial enterprises, by the central state’s administration or by the local powers.19 Comparison of the growth of private and public agents Table 4.1 shows the figures from INSEE data for agents de sécurité and agents de surveillance between 1982 and 2001. Although there are some interesting year-on-year fluctuations, the overall trend is strongly upward. The figures show a 45 per cent increase in the numbers of security personnel during this period. These figures illustrate that the number of security personnel grew steadily during the first half of the 1980s, and before apparently fluctuating somewhat during the years 1986–1992. Thereafter there was significant growth that continued throughout the 1990s and beyond. Table 4.2 shows the growth in numbers of state police officers during the same period, with figures for both the National Police (category 5311) and of the Gendarmerie (category 5312).

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Table 4.2 Growth in state police officers 1982–2001

1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

National police officers

Gendarmes

102,373 96,803 93,857 103,621 102,719 92,191 93,616 98,553 111,435 109,683 105,155 111,693 111,489 98,048 97,668 107,363 113,725 113,171 123,316 119,526

60,307 46,104 50,163 74,760 83,906 93,089 100,816 111,941 113,243 80,343 86,431 123,886 122,387 115,269 106,056 97,705 112,563 85,569 80,021 97,276

Figure 4.1 demonstrates graphically the comparison of trends over time between employment in the National Police, the Gendarmerie and private security. Whereas the number of gendarmes shows a significant decrease since 1993, the number of National Police officers has slightly increased since this time.20 However, the number of private security agents climbs almost continuously since 1992; from then on, they clearly outnumber each of the two public service categories taken separately. It seems that the private and public sectors began to diverge more clearly after 1994–1995. At this time, official recognition of the role of private security in delivering policing services came with the Security Orientation and Programmation Bill21 which refers to the ‘complementarity’ of public and private forces in the production of public safety. Private security agents and employer type Table 4.3 shows that the number of ‘private surveillants recruited by the state and by local communities’ fluctuates from year to year, but on average they have constituted about a quarter of the number of contract private security

France Table 4.3 Growth of private security agents by employer type/training contract

1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

Employed by Employed by In training, private enterprise central and local short-term government contracts

Total

67,542 68,646 75,008 74,909 80,700 71,803 68,950 76,016 78,609 71,853 69,312 79,790 78,790 84,281 96,116 92,140 95,476 101,111 97,790 108,476

101,387 102,757 107,178 111,244 120,346 112,679 105,570 119,508 113,602 105,956 108,700 112,311 111,953 120,119 134,562 133,804 136,829 146,280 144,019 147,049

27,450 30,286 27,883 32,152 32,793 32,630 29,360 33,101 28,224 28,153 32,514 27,689 25,561 27,031 25,755 28,818 27,939 30,398 26,415 23,086

6,395 3,825 4,287 4,183 6,853 8,246 7,260 10,391 6,769 5,950 6,874 4,832 7,602 8,807 12,691 12,846 13,414 14,771 19,814 15,487

150 000 140 000 130 000 120 000 110 000 100 000 90 000 80 000 70 000 60 000 50 000 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990

1992 1994 1996 1998 2000

in training, short-term contracts employed by central and local government employed by private companies

Figure 4.2 Growth in numbers of security agents 1982–2001

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agents hired by private enterprise during recent years. The third column of this table shows a two-fold increase over a period of twenty years of the short-term working contracts and other unstable arrangements (in-service training and fixed-term contracts of under a year). The sources do not specify if the latter are recruited by private enterprises or public agencies, but it is likely they are more frequently hired by the private sector. The rapid overall growth in private security is represented in graphic form in Figure 4.2. Demographic features of private security employment This section provides an overview of the available demographic information about employment in private security in France, including the age and gender distributions, information about levels of qualification and nationality, and the geographical distribution of employment between different regions of France. Age The 20 years following 1982 saw a decrease of eight years in the average age of private security employees (see Table 4.4). This may indicate a trend Table 4.4 Average age of private security employees Year

Average age

1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

44.4 43.8 42.5 41.6 40.1 40.0 39.7 39.1 38.4 38.4 39.1 38.9 38.5 38.3 38.0 38.6 37.9 37.9 36.6 36.8

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Table 4.5 Proportion of private security guard employment accounted for by women Year

% women

1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

6.8 8.1 9.1 5.6 5.3 7.9 6.7 8.7 8.5 9.8 9.3 8.0 8.7 10.3 10.1 7.8 8.5 10.3 12.2 7.9

towards the professionalization of the sector, in that these occupations are becoming less likely to include older employees that have become unfit for other activities in the enterprise. Gender Table 4.5 shows the growth in the proportion of women employed in private security since 1982. Some observers have argued that this suggests a general ‘feminization’ of the private security sector, since the proportion of women almost doubled between 1982 and 2000. However, the year-on-year fluctuations are considerable, and whilst the underlying trend appears to be upward, we should note that the proportion of female employees fell back again to about eight per cent in 2001. These trends are comparable to the gender distribution of employment within the public sector. Women account for about 12 per cent of officers in the National Police, and about seven per cent of gendarmes. Thus, it seems that despite some changes over time, employment in the security professions – whether in the public or private sector – remains predominantly male.

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Geographical distribution The available data sets allow analysis only at the level of French regions.22 Since a quarter to one third – depending on the year – of the total number of private security agents work in the Parisian region, the following results – in Table 4.6 – are presented in terms of comparison between numbers employed in the Paris region and those employed in the rest of the country. The data suggest that whilst the most sustained growth during the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s took place within the Paris region, more recently other areas of France have begun to experience a more rapid expansion of private security (within an overall trend of expansion). Educational level of private security agents The breakdown of the private security agent population into two categories of educational level shows a clear improvement over time of the average

Table 4.6 Private security employment by region 1982–2001

1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

Paris region

Other regions

France total

% Paris region of total

26,304 31,767 31,862 38,764 32,968 36,148 34,673 37,290 37,298 33,218 38,051 41,191 37,327 39,741 43,994 41,683 43,557 46,007 41,512 43,975

75,083 70,990 75,316 72,480 87,378 76,531 70,897 82,218 76,304 72,738 70,649 71,120 74,626 80,378 90,568 92,121 93,272 100,273 102,507 103,074

101,387 102,757 107,178 111,244 120,346 112,679 105,570 119,508 113,602 105,956 108,700 112,311 111,953 120,119 134,562 133,804 136,829 146,280 144,019 147,049

25.9 30.9 29.7 34.8 27.4 32.1 32.8 31.2 32.8 31.4 35.0 36.7 33.3 33.1 32.7 31.2 31.8 31.5 28.8 29.9

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Table 4.7 Educational qualification levels % highest % qualified to Total qualification below high school leaving high school leaving certificate or above certificate 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

92.2 92.8 92.6 93.1 92.7 89.2 88.0 88.8 87.3 87.4 85.3 88.9 89.6 86.7 87.6 85.2 83.3 80.8 80.8 82.7

7.8 7.2 7.4 6.9 7.3 10.8 12.0 11.2 12.7 12.6 14.7 11.1 10.4 13.3 12.4 14.8 16.7 19.2 19.2 17.3

100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

qualification level of people employed in private security (see Table 4.7). By the late 1990s, almost one fifth of private security employees were qualified to high school leaving certificate or higher. This probably reflects two key factors. First, the increasing number of students working in security jobs to make ends meet. Second, it may also demonstrate a trend towards professionalization of the security industry. Proportion of foreign nationals The proportion of foreign nationals with a working permit working in the private security sector averages about eight per cent during 1982–2001. In fact, the number of foreign workers is actually much higher, since it is boosted by the employment of illegal immigrants as well as by the participation of ‘visible minorities’ (Hug 2000). Official rates show peaks rising up to 11 per cent during the eighties and fluctuating between seven and eight per cent during the nineties. By the end of the period, rates of

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employment of foreign nationals are still growing, although it remains to be seen whether this trend will last.

Future trends and constraints on the growth of private security We should beware of assuming that the growth of the private security is an irreversible or inevitable phenomenon, especially if this is taken to imply the gradual ‘privatization’ of law and order functions. A more important question concerns the degree to which co-existence is possible between public and private security forces within the countries of the European Union. A number of studies have undertaken comparison of public and private security employment in different European countries (de Waard 1999) and found very significant differences between national contexts. In the former fifteen-member EU, only in Britain, Denmark and Sweden did employment in private security outstrip the public police (Ottens et al., 1999). It is very difficult to obtain reliable comparative data on this matter (because of differences in national employment classifications, data sources and definitions of ‘private security’). However, these figures (although only indicative) do point to some interesting national differences. It is important to attempt to explain these national differences in order to draw some conclusions about the future of policing systems in Western countries. In general, it seems that the rise of private security is a response to the growing demand for protection on the part of private enterprises and citizens. To a degree, these pressures are visible across all countries. Nevertheless, it seems that there are also powerful cultural mechanisms inhibiting the expansion of a private security market, at least in the countries fashioned by ancient Roman law, where policing, historically and culturally, remains much more closely tied to the central state. For example, one important obstacle to the private security sector’s development is the actual size of public police forces in most EU countries. Another important factor is the power and activities of public sector trade unions, who are active in opposing the privatization of security functions. Having said this, not all Roman law countries show such extremely centralized police systems as France, Italy or Portugal, where state civil and military security forces remain dominant. In fact, by contrast, two European countries with a Latin inheritance, Germany and Spain, are marked by a very strong decentralization of their police apparatus: on a Land level in the enlarged federal Germany, on highly differentiated national, regional and municipal levels in post-Franco Spain. In the area historically formed by common law (UK and Nordic countries, a fortiori USA, Canada and Australia), liberty of commerce – including that of law and order’s management – has very high value. Private agencies are thus not as tightly controlled, and trade unions tolerate them more readily than in countries more obviously influenced by Latin culture.

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In these countries, it seems that the private security sector is generally viewed as complementary to the public police, providing useful additional resources for community safety delivery, rather than as a potential danger. In France, there is currently no true privatization of traditionally state controlled security functions, nor does this seem likely to take place in the near future. For example, while in the UK the function of prisoner escort and court guarding was contracted to the private sector during the 1990s, in France this remains the responsibility of specialist staff from the prison service. In a similar vein, France’s Conseil Constitutionnel firmly rejected the idea of privatizing prison facilities, arguing that this must remain the preserve of state functionaries. Even though private sector involvement in the electronic tagging of offenders has now emerged in countries such as Germany and Switzerland, similar developments in France appear unlikely. Although this would be legal, the French judicial system would be strongly opposed. However, it is important note that the involvement of private security in the provision of ‘public’ policing functions has expanded in France in recent years. For example, the French government introduced legislation following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 that allowed private security an expanded role in the policing of major cultural or sporting events, and in the process of baggage and passenger checking in airports. Yet this legalization was possible only after a very meticulous definition of powers provided to private agents, a necessary condition in the face of state agents’ reserved opinions about extending the role of private security. Owing to growing concerns about passenger safety in recent years, it seemed that train companies might provide a growing market for the contract private security industry. However, in practice in-house providers have dominated and become a de facto railway police force. The professional identity of these internal security agents is extremely close to that of public police officers, perhaps partly because they hold additional repressive legal powers,23 distinguishing them from other private non-empowered surveillance agents. Regarding the computer networks police services, created to counter new menaces on the web (cyber-terrorism, child pornography websites, racist websites, etc.) the most significant developments have occurred within the public policing sector. In other fields, such as the policing of ‘industrial espionage’ or ‘economic intelligence’, public and private agencies compete on similar levels in order to obtain ‘sensitive information’. Although it is the case that investigation is officially recognized as a specific service offered by the private market, private companies are largely confined to the fields of insurance fraud, counterfeiting, and debt tracing and collection services. Finally, the state’s longstanding distrust of mercenary activities (tightly controlled by the law of 14 April 2003) effectively prevents French humanitarian aid from becoming military aid, as is the case for the USA in Iraq or elsewhere (Singer 2003). What, then, are the possibilities for expansion of the private security sector in France? There are two key areas of potential expansion. The first lies

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in the market of ‘risk assessment’, where the public security sector currently has little to offer. National Police and Gendarmerie agencies have not yet succeeded in drawing any significant benefit in this area, either from their own experiences or from those of the private sector. The second possibility concerns the growing involvement of local authorities in the provision of community safety,24 and these constitute what is undeniably one of today’s most important sources of demand for private security. However, care here is also required, as the private sector opportunities for work in French municipalities depend crucially on the approach of the central state. These opportunities will remain limited as long as the state persists in its refusal to enter a process of significant devolution of responsibilities for security and order maintenance to local municipalities (Ferret 2004). Despite the law of 15 April 1999, French municipal police agents remain rather few (in comparison to national policing agencies) and their powers are very limited. In fact, there is currently a trend towards the central state attempting to recover the powers it had previously delegated in the periphery, despite the political rhetoric about security becoming ‘everybody’s affair’ (Ocqueteau 2004). This perhaps enhances opportunities for private providers of electronic surveillance and of urban CCTV whose products might be less attractive if the central state were to bring about significant decentralization of public policing.

Conclusion Despite the fact that for over ten years, official political discourse in France has promoted the language of ‘partnership’ between different security forces in order to improve collective security, private security remains perceived at best as a ‘complementary’ resource to the public police and, very rarely considered as equal to traditional public forces. The continued dominance of the state in this regard relates to two key weaknesses of the private security sector: first, the extreme fragmentation of the private sector, and second, its ‘absorption’ by the public sector when providing services to sensitive public enterprises. Private security employers have not successfully organized as a lobby powerful enough to promote their interests within the political and administrative apparatus, nor to public police elites. Despite significant growth (relative to the public policing sector) in terms of private security personnel, and despite the evidence of increased financial turnover since the mid-1990s, the private sector has not yet convinced civil society and its business partners of the advantages of commercially provided security. If this is the situation in France, then it is reasonable to argue that a similar situation may apply in all the other democracies of the EU (be they centralized or not) in which the public monopoly of security is protected, in spite of a degree of neo-liberal penetration of social policy more generally. It may be that New Public Management (NPM) will in fact have a more significant effect within the public policing sector, forcing them to adapt to new rules of productivity,

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of efficiency, and of accountability. However, in bringing about improvements in public policing, this development will make the continued significant expansion of the private security sector less likely.

Notes 1 Observatoire national de la délinquance. 2 This point is essentially lifted from Chapter 3 of Ocqueteau (2004). 3 Abbreviation of Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, national institute of statistics and information about the economy, in charge of the French census. 4 Source: INSEE, national population censuses of 1982, 1990 and 1999 (one fourth sample). 5 Ministère de l’intérieur. 6 Abbreviation of Groupe de sûreté et de protection des réseaux. 7 Abbreviation of Surveillance Générale. 8 RATP, abbreviation of Réseau autonome des transports parisiens. 9 Abbreviation of Groupe d’intervention et de protection des réseaux. 10 Abbreviation of Groupe de surveillance et de protection des réseaux de transports. 11 ‘services rendus aux entreprises’. 12 This heading, named ‘investigation and security’ (‘enquête et sécurité’ (NACE 74.60)), includes: inquiry and research activities other than judiciary, money transportation services, surveillance, protection and guarding activities (bodyguard services, surveillance, protection and guarding services of housing blocks and other buildings, factories, etc. by watchmen or by CCTV), industrial and personal security counsels. This category does not include the installation of alarm and surveillance systems, nor insurance appraisals, nor studies or advice in computer systems’ security. 13 ‘nettoyage propreté’. 14 ‘services divers aux entreprises’. 15 ‘services opérationnels’. 16 Union nationale pour l’emploi dans le commerce et l’industrie. 17 Abbreviation of Agence nationale pour l’emploi. 18 ‘emplois jeunes’: jobs reserved to persons under 26 years old as a part of the state’s employment policy. Since 1997, these persons have also been able to work in the area of security. 19 Respectively ‘fonction publique d’Etat’ (state’s public function) and ‘fonction publique territoriale’ (local public function). 20 The radical and apparently rapid fluctuations in the figures suggest that they may not be entirely reliable – perhaps linked to some shift in the definitions used or to changes in the counting procedures. 21 Loi d’orientation et de programmation de la sécurité (LOPS, 1995). 22 ‘Département’ gatherings with elected authorities. The Parisian region (Ile-deFrance) is composed of eight départements, including Paris. 23 Through the bill of 24 November 2000. 24 The Conseil général is an elected body administrating French départements.

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References Bauer, A. and Ventre, A.-M. (2002) Les Polices en France: Sécurité Publique et Opérateurs Privés, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. De Maillard, J. (2005) ‘The governance of safety in France: Is there anybody in charge?’, Theoretical Criminology, 9: 3, pp. 325–44. De Maillard, J. and Roche, S. (2004) ‘Crime and justice in France: Time trends, policies and political debate’, European Journal of Criminology, 1: 1, pp. 111–51. De Waard, J. (1999) ‘The private security industry in international perspective’, European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 7: 2, pp. 143–74. Dupont, B. (2005) ‘France’, in L. Sullivan (ed.) Encyclopedia of Law Enforcement (Vol. 3), Thousand Oaks, Ca: Sage. Ferret, J. (2004) ‘The state, policing and “old continental Europe”: Managing the local/national tension’, Policing and Society, 14: 1, pp. 49–65. Gorgeon, C. (2002) ‘La Police a l’épreuve du local: Enjeux internes et mise en oeuvre de la police de proximité sur deux sites’, Les Cahiers de la Sécurité Intérieure, 50, pp. 101–26. Horton, C. (1995) Policing Policy in France, London: Policy Studies Institute. Hug, P. (2000) ‘Les agents de sécurité privée noirs: Un exemple de discrimination dans le monde de la sécurité’, Les Cahiers de la Sécurité Intérieure, 40, pp. 93–118. Leroux, N. (1997) Les agents de sécurité à la RATP, sociology doctorate thesis, University of Lille. Leroux, N. (2002) ‘Un métier en clair-obscur, les agents de sécurité du métropolitain’, in F. Piotet (ed.) La révolution des métiers, Paris, PUF, pp. 99–121. Nogala, D. (1996) ‘Le marché de la sécurité privée: Analyse d’une évolution internationale’, Les Cahiers de la Sécurité Intérieure, 24, pp. 121–41. Ocqueteau, F. (1997) Les Défis de la Sécurité Privée: Surveillance et protection dans La France d’aujourd’hui, Paris: L’Harmattan. Ocqueteau, F. (2004) Polices entre Etat et marché, Paris: Presses de science po. Ocqueteau, F. (2005) ‘Observer les délinquances. Où, pourquoi et comment? Genèse de l’Observatoire national de la délinquance’, in J. Ferret and Ch. Mouhanna (eds) Peurs sur la ville, vers un populisme punitif à la française?, Paris: PUF (in press). Ottens, R., Olshok, H. and Landrock, S. (1999) Recht und Organization Privater Sicherheitdienste in Europa, Stuttgart: R. Boorberg verlag. Roche, S. (2002) ‘Towards a new governance of crime and insecurity in France’, in A. Crawford (ed.) Crime and Insecurity: The Governance of Safety in Europe, Cullompton: Willan, pp. 213–33. Simula, P. (1999) La dynamique des emplois dans la sécurité, Paris: IHESI-CEREQ, Etudes et recherches. Singer, P. W. (2003) Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, London: Cornell University Press. Stead, P. (1984) The Police of France, London: Macmillan.

5

Greece Georgios Papanicolaou1

Although Greece has received relatively little attention in the policing literature for many years, a small but steady flow of information has now begun to reach English-speaking audiences (Rigakos and Papanicolaou 2003; Lambropoulou 2004). 2 The limited but increasing availability of Englishlanguage accounts of Greek policing also reflects the developing state of Greek police scholarship. Although Greek policing been discussed in some legal texts, sociologically informed studies of the police have appeared only recently (Lambropoulou 1994; Dimopoulos 2000; Panousis and Vidali 2001; Stergioulis 2001; Papakonstantis 2003). As a result, there is still a noticeable deficit in the general knowledge of the field. This deficit reflects some problems of the past and other problems of the present. Traditionally, the Greek police have been organized as a military bureaucracy; the impenetrability of this setup has been exacerbated by the explicitly partisan role that they have held in upholding political regimes before and especially after the Second World War. As a result, police organizations were a somewhat hostile environment for social scientists. In the last 30 years of uninterrupted parliamentary democracy, however, these relations have changed gradually, as policing has apparently become less controversial politically and social science more t‘ echnocratic’ K ( aramanolakis 2004b). Still, sufficient and reliable data are not always available today, while policy documentation, such as official statements, plans, reports and even political declarations, is rather scarce. Other publicly available information from non-state sources, such as professional or other interest-based associations, is also limited. Finally, public policies remain in a state of flux, and systematic research and planning tends to be sacrificed for piecemeal and opportunistic action s( ee also Lambropoulou 2005). This situation poses some formidable problems for the current chapter. On one hand, there is the pressing need for a detailed reconnaissance of the present, in the light of the question of how and to what extent Greek policing relates to wider trends acknowledged internationally. For example, Greece has been highlighted as an important exception to the more general international trend of private police growth (De Waard 1999). More generally, Rigakos and Papanicolaou (2003) have argued that the Greek

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Georgios Papanicolaou

experience does not support currently influential theories about the r‘ estructuring’ and ‘multilateralization’ of policing (Bayley and Shearing 2001). On the other hand, some questions about the past must be asked anew, in the absence of a general agreement about the various trends, practices and ideas that have shaped the current state of Greek policing. It is important to remember that the history of policing in Greece contrasts in important ways with that of the police in many other western societies. In particular, the idea of a public police bureaucracy was transplanted from those societies, as were other institutions of government, when a Greek state had to be created from scratch amidst the ruins of the revolution against the Ottoman Empire. Since 1833 and the creation of the Gendarmerie, until the jubilant finale of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greek policing – and Greek society as a whole – has been faced with sets of problems which have differed significantly from those experienced by other advanced liberal democracies, even though modern Greece does share common characteristics with them T ( soukalas 1999, 2004; Karamanolakis 2004a, 2004b). One notable implication of this historical course has been the ascendancy of state police forces in the provision of policing. Therefore, apart from a general overview of all forms of policing in today’s Greece, this chapter also aims to investigate in some detail the extent and methods in which the primacy of state policing is maintained today. The chapter is divided into five sections. The first discusses Greece’s main state police force, the Hellenic Police, while the second covers two other important, though smaller, state police bodies. Some brief reference is made to the historical development of public policing in Greece, but for more detail the reader is referred to Rigakos and Papanicolaou (2003). The main focus is upon the developments of the last 20 years or so. The third section moves to a detailed examination of commercial security, while the fourth is concerned with the recent growth of municipal policing. The final section provides some more general thoughts about the theoretical value of the Greek case for contemporary debates about policing developments.

Public policing: the Hellenic Police Strong state police forces have always featured in modern Greece. However, the force that emerged from the 1984 reform, the Hellenic Police, is associated with particular characteristics, which can be better understood as part of a larger governmental/organizational nexus, the Ministry of Public Order. Police reform as a political project The 1984 amalgamation has its firm roots in the political agenda of the PASOK3 socialist party, which came to power after a landslide victory in the

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1981 general election. In the period after the defeat of the communist side in the Civil War (1949), the police and other related agencies such as the National Security Agency (P YEA) 4 had served as the bastions of the regime established by the victorious Right. While the formal political system maintained a facade of parliamentary democracy, the political policing practices of what has been called the ‘parallel state’ targeted individuals whose actions could be deemed ‘subversive’ under the state ideology of anti-communism (Alivizatos 1986; Tsoukalas 1987). After the collapse of the inevitable military dictatorship (1967–1974), these practices were still exercised in a routine manner (Papakonstantis 2003: 129), even though the (conservative)governments of Constantine Karamanlis did much to purge from the police any individuals who could pose an immediate threat to democracy. Overall, the Right’s deep entrenchment in the police organizations for such a long time not only had severe consequences for police–public relations, but also had implications for personnel selection, modes of command and organizational life in general. PASOK came to power with an agenda of ‘democratization’of the organizational core of the state, which had two main objectives. The first was to eradicate practices of political policing and differential treatment of citizens. The second aim was to eliminate partisan influences in the internal organization of the police (PASOK 1981; Sakellaropoulos 2001: 352). This project assumed the form of a reorganized Ministry of Public Order as a means to claim the new government’s sovereignty over the police, with a view to transform them into a genuine social service working in the interests of the people (Ministry of Public Order 1984). The explicit aim of the reform was to simplify the structure of the police and facilitate tighter political control. However, the explanatory report of the draft that was to become Law 1481/1984 drew heavily on more ‘technical’ arguments such as the need to control police expenditure, reduce the fragmentation of the police organization into multiple forces, hive off some ‘ancillary’ tasks to other organizations, invest in the technological capability of the police, and simplify the command structure. The Ministry of Public Order and the (new?) police The Law 1481/1984 established the new Ministry of Public Order. At the same time it abolished the Co-ordinating General Staff, the Gendarmerie and the Police of the Cities (and their individual Headquarters), 5 the less important Rural Police, and a number of other services, including the National Security Agency. The central structure of the Ministry included the Office of the Minister, the Office of the Chief of the Hellenic Police, and the Branches, which were assigned the responsibility of co-ordination and planning for specific categories of police competences. The peripheral services of the Ministry were the Police Directorates, which have local jurisdiction t(ypically for a prefecture), and include smaller police units, such as local

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police departments and police stations. The services of general policing, traffic policing, public security and state security were now the responsibility of a new specialist body called the Hellenic Police. It is important to note that the Hellenic Police were part of the organizational structure of the Ministry of Public Order, and not an autonomous organization. The Chief of the Hellenic Police was directly accountable for its actions to the Minister of Public Order. The appointment of the Chief involved the selection of an officer from a list of eligible lieutenant and major generals, at the complete discretion of the government and without regard to seniority a( rt. 44 Law 1481/1984). Moreover, the military profile (complete with small arms and other equipment), hierarchy and discipline of the Gendarmerie were also maintained and were thus generalized for all police s( ince the Police of the Cities had been a civil force technically). However, the novel element of direct political control meant that the elected government was in a position to determine to a great extent actions, priorities, and, more importantly, personnel appointments and promotions. It was no surprise that, in the light of PASOK’s radical agenda of the 1970s, the centralist logic of the MPO/Hellenic police structure caused considerable nervousness among the parliamentary Right (see Hellenic Parliament 1984; Rigakos and Papanicolaou 2003). The fate of a reform In the late 1980s, and after several subsequent modifications, the structure and deployment of the force resembled those of the Gendarmerie so much that Papakonstantis (2003: 138)suggests that the gravity of the traditional police bureaucracy neutralized the impetus of the reform. During the brief return of the conservative New Democracy party to power (1990–1993)no substantial change was made to the general structure of the force. Rather, the conservative government moved a step further, by introducing a general operations regulation that consolidated the militarized character of the force (Presidential Decree 141/1991). Throughout this period, changes in Greek society and, consequently, in the operational environment of the Greek police have resulted in organizational responses underpinned by concerns for a more professional and efficient service. This can be easily demonstrated in the creation of specialist units dealing with new forms of crime (such as credit card fraud or cyber crime), or of units whose methods and purpose depart from traditional approaches in Greek police work (such as the recently launched Crime Analysis Unit). I argue, however, that the key relation to observe in the development of the Greek police is that between the political system and the Hellenic Police. New problems in this relationship emerged in the 1990s, especially after the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the first Gulf War, when Greece experienced an increasing influx of illegal immigrants. Estimates of their numbers in the mid-1990s vary from

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500–800 thousand people, the majority of them coming from neighbouring Albania (Tzortzopoulou 2002). The newcomers were immediately related to the rising crime rates of the 1990s, an association which has been supported, especially in relation to serious crime, by official statistics and published studies (Karydis 1996; Kranidioti 2003). Media reports, which gradually shaped representations of the ‘Albanian immigrant’as the typical criminal, also contributed heavily to a general feeling of insecurity. This situation also posed problems because of the country’s involvement in the process of European integration. The penetrability of the borders, among other problems, could certainly raise doubts about the country’s position in the efforts to establish more coherent patterns of cooperation in European Justice and Home Affairs initiated by the Maastricht Treaty. Under these conditions of pressure, the MPO/Hellenic Police nexus produced contradictory responses towards the problems of the public presence, methods and effectiveness of the police throughout the 1990s. While these responses were dressed in a language stressing the need to modernize and rationalize police functions and to ameliorate the relations between the police and the public, they have been compromised in practice by the militaristic mentalities and bureaucratic rigidness of the police organization. For example, foot patrols and static guards which aimed to increase the public’s feeling of security in cities clearly failed because of their highly militaristic profile (Noulas 1999). But perhaps the most characteristic instance of the internal contradictions at the MPO has been the continuous inability to disengage large numbers of police officers from office work and ‘alien’ tasks (see Stergioulis 2001: 144) in order to redeploy them to ‘police the streets’. Such intentions were almost ritually announced by every new minister, only to be announced again by his successor (Papakonstantis 2003: 142–143; Nikolakopoulos 1997; Lakopoulos 1998; Nikolakopoulos 1999). The most notable failure in this respect has been the reorganization of police departments in urban areas around 1995. The plan had been proposed by a committee of experts at the MPO and aimed at the concentration of larger police numbers in urban areas by amalgamating small local police departments. The plan proposed a departmental structure which would eventually increase the availability of officers for patrol and presence in local communities. However, it was received with suspicion by the staff of the Hellenic Police. However, several of these ‘Model Police Departments’were formed at a pilot stage, but the project got bogged down because in practice the adopted procedures and the departmental division of labour reproduced the familiar traditional lines (Papakonstantis 2003: 292–309). Another result of the same contradiction seems to be the creation of two new bodies under the Hellenic Police, the Border Guards and the Special Guards. The Border Guards Service was introduced in 1998 and its mission is to prevent the unlawful entry of aliens and to deal with cases of illegal immigrants once they are arrested in Greece. Border Guards are typically

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dispersed in jurisdictions across the Greek border, but they have a presence in Athens, where the majority of illegal immigrants flows. The Special Guards were introduced by Law 2734/1999 with the exclusive mission of guarding s‘ ensitive targets of police interest’, such as public buildings and facilities. Their use has been extended gradually to a multitude of tasks, such as patrols and special unit assignments, and, as shown in Table 5.1, their number has also increased since their introduction. Guards differ from regular police in two important ways. First, while the Guards have the status of a police officer, and are, therefore, uniformed, armed and subject to police regulations, their appearance and mode of deployment are much more similar to military units. The second and more important difference is that they are hired on five-year renewable contracts and their pay is equal to that of a regular patrolman. These features, when compared with the career guarantees that the regular police enjoy, give the impression that the Guards have been a temporary solution to the concerns of MPO for increased police presence, and that they could be phased out at a later moment R ( igakos and Papanicolaou 2003: 294). However, their introduction has not been received well among the regular police, who express great concerns about the summary procedures of Guard recruitment. Relations between regular police and the Guards were further exacerbated when in late 2003 an amendment of the legislation allowed the latter to apply for tenure at the end of the first five-year term, and made some changes in their pay structure (Law 3181/2003). Nevertheless, the amendment does suggest that the two services may become lasting features in the organization of the Hellenic Police. The politics of accountability The reputation of the Hellenic Police received serious blows in 1998, as a judicial investigation produced extensive evidence of serious corruption among higher officers and services of the force (Mandrou 1997; Nikolakopoulos 1998a, 1998b; Mandrou 1998). The crisis culminated in September, when an operation to rescue a hostage held by a trapped Romanian criminal in an apartment in the centre of Athens failed dramatically K ( rikkis 1998; ‘Tragic victim’ 1998; Papakonstantis 2003). As expressions of frustration inside PASOK began to appear publicly (see, for example, the article by a former Minister of Public Order, Stelios Papathemelis 1998), the political leadership of MPO took a turn towards managerialism. The change became more evident in February 1999 with the appointment of Michalis Chrysochoidis as Minister of Public Order, who openly employed the language of effectiveness and efficiency through plans and targets for the police (Nikolakopoulos 1999). The first tangible result of this change has been the formation of the Internal Affairs Directorate (IAD)L ( aw 2713/1999), a body whose extensive powers of investigation of complaints against police officers were

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previously unknown in Greek police. The IAD is directly accountable to the Chief of the Hellenic Police, and is supervised by a public prosecutor at the Athens Court of Appeals. It reports annually to the Committee for Institutions and Transparency of the Hellenic Parliament. However, the most important step in the managerialist turn has been a further reorganization of the Ministry of Public Order and Hellenic Police structure, which was introduced by Law 2800/2000. The new legislation drew a clear line between the structure of the Ministry of Public Order and the Hellenic Police, which would henceforth operate under its own headquarters. The new structure concedes substantial organizational autonomy to the Hellenic Police, but leaves intact the Minister’s power of supervision and policy planning, as well as the government’s powers over the appointment of the Chief. Since no substantial changes are made in the force’s organizational structure below the level of the new headquarters, the essence of this development is mainly political, and crystallizes the qualified distancing between politics and the police during the 1990s.

Other state policing bodies State policing also involves a number of agencies responsible to other Ministries, and thus not regarded as regular police forces. Of these, the Customs Service and the newly founded Body of Inspectors–Controllers for Public Administration (which come under the Ministry of Economics and the Ministry of the Interior, Public Administration and Decentralization respectively) have a special remit and field of activity, and, therefore, no detailed discussion is necessary. Rather, the focus here will be upon the Financial Crimes Enforcement Unit, which is under the control of the Ministry of Economics, and the Coast Guard. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Unit Greece’s financial police force has been the result of a major reorganization of a number of services belonging to the Ministry of Economics, whose tasks included the detection and suppression of tax evasion and customs offences, including the smuggling of goods, cars, narcotics and antiquities. The government targeted the alleged chronic inefficiency of these services, which posed a serious obstacle in any plans of wider change in Greece’s Inland Revenue service. At the same time, the government was also concerned with creating a reliable mechanism for controlling fraud connected with national or EU subsidies and funds (Hellenic Parliament 1995). The result of the reorganization has been the establishment of a Financial Crimes Enforcement Unit (SDOE), which is an autonomous service within the Ministry of Economics and is directly accountable to the Minister of Economics. The Unit has national jurisdiction and can exercise its powers in parallel with, and independently of, any other services of the Ministry of

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Economics. Its current remit includes the control of a wide variety of offences pertaining to taxation, fraud or misrepresentation connected with national or EU programmes, money laundering and customs legislation. The Unit is also active in anti-smuggling enforcement, which involves drugs, weapons and explosives and antiquities (Law 2343/1995). With an authorized strength of 2,090, the Unit includes a central service based in Athens and 13 Regional Directorates covering the administrative regions of Greece (Presidential Decree 218/1996). Because of its extensive remit, SDOE makes use of a variety of technical equipment, from database systems to patrol boats. However, targeting financial crime entails that the Unit makes heavy use of intelligence and its actions are typically risk-oriented S( DOE n.d.). When it comes to traditional law enforcement, its officers carry formal criminal investigation powers, and as a result they can perform searches, arrests and other actions under the Code of Criminal Procedure. Moreover, while it generally maintains a civil service profile, officers can appear in uniform and carry arms in various circumstances, particularly in searches occurring in areas close to the borders or at sea, or when the search targets drugs or weapon smugglers. The Hellenic Coast Guard The country’s vast coastline and the Aegean archipelago, as well as a strong tradition in sea trade, resulted in a concern about the organization of ports and maritime activity immediately after the establishment of the independent Greek state. However, the Coast Guard emerged as a distinct service only in 1919, when it was separated from the Navy, and assumed the basic characteristics of its current structure in the mid-1930s (Association of Retired Officers of the Coast Guard 1999). It is important to note that the Coast Guard provides the basis for the administration of Greek ports and seafaring as a whole, and that it is the core and main component of the Ministry of Mercantile Marine. Therefore, as a service it is by and large a police force, but it carries out many other tasks as well. As a body of military descent, the Coast Guard has retained the elements of military rank structure and discipline in its current organization. However, unlike the Hellenic Police, it is a rather elitist body, as it recruits its commissioned officers and the majority of its NCOs from university graduates or trained mercantile marine officers. Currently, the force consists of about 8,000 officers and recent Law 2935/2001 authorized a further increase to 10,156 by the year 2006. The jurisdiction of the Coast Guard extends to coastal areas, gulfs and bays, vessels of any type found in Greek waters, harbour areas and the facilities related to them such as warehouses, shipyards or repair zones. The jurisdictions of the Coast Guard and the Hellenic Police are normally mutually exclusive.6 Since the force has similar powers and responsibilities to the Hellenic Police within its jurisdiction, it is responsible for providing security

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and traffic policing at land, and also includes an anti-terrorist squad, search and rescue units and armed patrol boats. It also carries full investigative powers, which are exercised by authorized officers.

Commercial security This section moves on to a detailed account of the private security industry in Greece, which today involves all the typical commercial forms identified by the literature (e.g Johnston 2000: 128–133). The largest part of this section discusses private security companies, but a special reference is also made to private investigator agencies, because of the approach taken by the recent Law 3206/2003, which completed the current legal framework of commercial security in Greece. Private security companies Private security companies have a very short history in Greece, as very few existed before 1990 and the oldest of them was established in the late 1970s. It appears that the industry began to grow in the early 1990s, and legislation was introduced in the summer of 1997, when the government could no longer ignore the phenomenon of policing for profit (Ministry of Public Order 1997). The presence of private police agents has become increasingly visible to the public as private security companies secured contracts for busy public places, such as the newly built Metro system in Athens. Despite this increased visibility, however, reliable empirical information about the industry is still limited. At present, no official data regarding the industry’s structure and size are available from the National Statistical Service, and other sources of information are few and far between. According to ICAP,7 there are just a few large private security companies, while the majority of the sector consists of small businesses. Apart from guarding and escorts, private security companies are also likely to be active in the trading and maintenance of electronic security systems, such as alarm and monitoring systems, which they may complement with alarm response services (ICAP 2003). At any rate, it is company size that determines the range of services that these companies offer. The larger firms have already established a national network directly or through franchises, and a review of ICAP’s annual business surveys in recent years would suggest that the big companies have grown larger over time at the expense of local small businesses. As a number of multinationals, such as Group 4 and Wackenhut, had established a presence earlier, developments at the international levelare also reflected in the structure of the industry in Greece. The introduction of Law 2518/1997 established a system of statutory regulation of commercial security in Greece. Under these arrangements, company licenses and personnel work permits are issued by the Ministry of

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Table 5.1 Public police and private security officers in Greece 1995–2003 Year

Police

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

42,178 43,950 44,183 45,389 45,840 45,565 45,238 45,215 45,267

Border guards

2,178 3,200 4,127 4,126 4,587

Special guards

963 2,316 2,293 2,293 2,269

Total

42,178 43,950 44,183 45,389 48,981 51,081 51,658 51,634 52,123

Private security*

Private security/ police

3,905 6,946 10,588 16,396 22,336 30,378

0.09 0.14 0.21 0.32 0.43 0.58

Sources: Ministry of Public Order, and PASOK n ( .d). * umber of work permits issued N

Public Order, and according to these records 842 company licences had been issued between 1997 and early 2003. Of course, these records include the number of licences and permits issued and not the number of active companies or active security personnel. However, as it will be evident from the discussion that follows, it is reasonable to assume that the number of active personnel must be very close to the number of issued permits. Moreover, 30,378 work permits had been issued by the end of 2003 (see Table 5.1). This number includes in-house and contract security personnel, as the law requires that a permit be issued for both categories. The figures presented in Table 5.1 clarify to a certain extent the situation before 1997 a( s it is reasonable to assume that the active personnel sought to obtain a permit immediately after the introduction of Law 2518/1997), and suggest that the growth of the industry is very much a late-1990s phenomenon. This period coincides with the preparation for the Athens Olympic Games and the related completion of sizeable public facilities, such as the Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport and the Athens Metro, which are known to employ large numbers of private security personnel. Information about the industry’s financial performance reinforces this image. ICAP’s study found that the market grew at a mean annual rate of 27.5 per cent between 1998 and 2002. The study also reports that guarding services contributed 71.6 per cent to turnover in 2002, while electronic security systems and escort services accounted for 15.9 per cent and 12.5 per cent respectively. Moreover, ICAP predicted further growth by 15 per cent in 2003, while stating that the 2004 Olympics in Athens are expected to have a beneficial effect to the sector’s prospects (ICAP 2003). 8 Apparently, one of the key factors contributing to the industry’s financial performance is that of low labour costs, given that security guards are

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generally low paid. In some cases, companies charge the recruits a fee for their training. Not surprisingly, industrial relations in Greek private security companies have sometimes been tense. The newly founded personnel unions undertook industrial action on a number of occasions as their employers have apparently failed to apply the terms of the national collective employment agreement (see the website of the National Association of Security Personnel at www.omypae.gr). Relations appear to be particularly tense in companies employing large numbers of personnel who have already formed unions. Perhaps the extent of this situation may not be fully visible yet, as there are companies which explicitly forbid the formation of security personnel unions. Private investigation agencies Let us turn now briefly to examine private investigation agencies.9 Certainly, these have a much longer history than private security companies in Greece, as a few of them have been active since the 1950s. There are currently about 120 of these agencies, of which the vast majority, about 80, operate in Athens. As elsewhere (see Johnston 2000: 132), their activities mostly involve undercover surveillance or tracing of persons or objects, and inquiries of private interest, such as family or property disputes. They are also active in cases of commercial interest, such as thefts by employees or security fraud. A small number of agencies may also sell and install security devices, or offer physical security services. The vast majority of private investigation firms are small businesses. In Greece, the private investigator is typically a sole trader and relies on the cases assigned to him to keep the business going. As a result, sometimes he or she must go to some lengths to meet the customer’s requests. On the other hand, a private investigator’s work entails a great degree of specialization, which necessarily depends on individual abilities. To pursue a case, the investigator has to rely on a network of informants, especially within public services, and sometimes the enterprise may involve financial transactions under the counter. Overall, the typical structure of such agencies includes, apart from the investigator, only a minimal number of assistants on a stable basis, and may involve a small number of part-time staff. Apparently, the nature of the business and the lack of any legislative framework meant that private investigators have operated in the grey zones of legality, at best. However, they usually remark that the police have been neutral towards them, as long as they ‘didn’t make any trouble’. It may be pointed out that apart from a certain division of labour between investigators and the police, there are also some common elements, as, after all, some of the investigators are former police officers, and ‘moonlighting’is by no means unknown.

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The legislative framework The legislative framework for commercial security in Greece was completed in two phases. The first, Law 2518/1997, was focused upon private security companies. The second with Law 3206/2003 was concerned with private investigators. Despite the temporal distance between these laws, there is no doubt that the government viewed both private security companies and private investigators as part of a single phenomenon. The explanatory reports of both draft laws used exactly the same general argument, specifically that the growth of private security companies and private investigator agencies has been the result of an increasing demand for additional security in recent times. However, the argument continues, the activities of these private entities are likely to create confusion to the public as regards their role, legal status and powers, and therefore, these activities may violate the ‘constitutional and social rights’ of citizens. Hence the necessity for new legislation to regulate and control of the activities of commercial security and investigation companies (Ministry of Public Order 1997, 2003). However, the actual text of the combined Laws 2518/1997 and 3206/200310 provides few clues as to how the rights of citizens will be protected against the activities of commercial security. Nevertheless, any violation of these codes constitutes a criminal offence, leading to sentences of up to three years of imprisonment and the revocation of the license or work permit (articles 8 and 11 paragraph 9). Rather, the law is concerned to establish several formal requirements in the operation of commercial security so as, on one hand, to secure certain standards in the operation and a degree of transparency in the ownership of commercial security businesses, and, on the other, to exclude the possibility of any visual confusion between a public police authority and a commercial security agency. The legislation introduced a system of parallel licensing for the companies and for personnel. Thus a company must apply and obtain a licence, which is valid for five years and can be renewed, provided that the conditions for the original granting are satisfied. The application is reviewed at the MPO by an authorized committee and is issued by the Chief of the Hellenic Police. The law requires that any individual who applies for a licence must be a Greek or EU national, whereas, in the case of companies, this requirement applies for all the members of the board of directors, the executive managers, and any shareholder who owns more than 25 per cent of the company’s shares. Moreover, the shares must be issued in the shareholder’s name. While for private security any type of company is allowed, private investigator agencies must be sole traders or partnerships. The law does not forbid a company from obtaining a private security and an investigation agency licence at the same time. Private security agents and investigators must apply for a work permit issued by their local Police Directorate. Again, these individuals must be Greek or EU nationals, who must have fulfilled their military obligations

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w ( here required), and must not have a criminal record for specific offences. They must not have a record of mental illness or drug use or have any connection with the manufacturing and trade of weapons, ammunition and explosives. Moreover, applicants for a private investigator’s work permit, and also their spouses or relatives up to second degree must not, in a period of five years prior to the application, have worked in the Hellenic Police or other state police force, the Revenue Service, public and private telecommunications companies, nor in banks and companies related to the Stock Exchange. The law requires that companies should not use any words or signs that could be associated with a public authority, and especially the police. This restriction applies to the colours and marking of private security patrol cars. Private security officers must wear an MPO approved uniform, and carry a special identity card and badge. Normally, officers should not carry any arms, but a licence can be issued when the officer guards facilities such as banks, museums or infrastructure installations. Overall, as it has already been argued, the detailed regulations laid down by Law 2518/1997 demonstrate the insistence of the state on maintaining hegemonic control over internal security (Rigakos and Papanicolaou 2003: 298–299). However, the legislative framework in its complete form after Law 2306/2003 also has implications for the commercial security market. This theme will be explored more in detail below.

Municipal policing Municipal authorities are the backbone of local government in Greece, but their relation with the central state has always been one of financial dependence and of competition over substantial powers. Among other competences, they are also authorized to supervise the smooth application of national legislation regarding construction, parking, excessive noise, pollution, sanitation, the issuing of trading licenses, and the operation of theatres, cinemas, recreation grounds and other leisure centres within the boundaries of a municipality (Article 24 of Presidential Decree 410/1995). Municipal officers have always exercised these powers, and municipalities were enabled by law to assign these duties to special services, which could be identified as ‘Municipal Police’ from 1982 onwards. However, only a few municipalities made use of this authorization prior to the early 1990s. The interest in municipal police forces was renewed by a project undertaken by the government in the mid-1990s, which involved the compulsory amalgamation of communes and smaller municipalities into single municipalities, and a reallocation of powers from the central government to the local authorities. Gradually, most municipalities established police forces typically consisting of about 10–20 officers. Generally, the size of the city determines the size of the force, and by 1996 the total number of officers was about 600 (Kroustalli 1996). However, municipal police officers still

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lacked formal powers of investigation under the Code of Criminal Procedure. As a result, their duties were limited to administrative work and the issuing of parking tickets. The municipalities, however, continued to pressure the government to give more powers to the municipal police. The municipality of Athens even provided its officers with special uniforms, patrol cars and motorcycles, in characteristic olive and yellow colour. This move created some controversy, since the Municipal Police had the appearance but not the powers of a state police force. The response of the government, which also reflected the concerns of the Hellenic Police, was to allow cum grano salis any new powers to Municipal Police. New legislation in 2000 gave Municipal Police officers the status of ‘special investigative officers’ in matters within their jurisdiction and authorized them to undertake actions, such as searches, in the context of ‘summary’ investigation under the instructions of the Public Prosecutor (article 26 of Law 2819/2000). After new prolonged negotiations, a statutory instrument was issued in 2002 and prescribed the jurisdiction, powers and organization of Municipal Police, as well as recruitment procedures for officers, who would be trained in facilities provided by the Hellenic Police (Presidential Decree 23/2002).

The new landscape of Greek policing This section will bring the preceding analyses together in order to examine more closely how the various elements of policing in Greece operate in their entirety. As may be evident already, state policing retains its dominance in three particular ways. First, employment in state policing has continued to grow at a significant rate. This process has involved either a direct increase of personnel, especially of the Hellenic Police, or an expansion by means of the novel form of the Guard services (as shown in Table 5.1). Second, there has been a regrouping of previously existing agencies into new organizations with a marked police presence and function, such as the SDOE. Third, the national state has actively maintained a large police force, which is reflected in the consistency of the Hellenic Police’s share of the state budget at levels between 1.5–2.5 per cent throughout the last 20 years (see Figure 1). A closer look at the field of state policing reveals a more particular concern with maintaining the primacy of the Hellenic Police. The firm historical roots of this process are more evident if one considers the relations of the Gendarmerie with the various public forces, since the establishment of the independent Greek state. Not only had the Gendarmerie outlived, dominated or replaced various public forces during the nineteenth century, but it also had been successful in circumscribing the expansion of the Police of the Cities in the twentieth century, as the original 1920 project of creating a professional police force for larger cities never materialized fully S( tamatis 1971; Rigakos and Papanicolaou 2003). Any history of the police in Greece testifies to the

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3.5%

3.0%

2.5%

2.0%

1.5%

1.0% 04 20 3 0 20 2 0 20 1 0 20 0 0 20 9 9 19 8 9 19 7 9 19 6 9 19 5 9 19 4 9 19 3 9 19 2 9 19 1 9 19 0 9 19 9 8 19 8 8 19 7 8 19 6 8 19 5 8 19 4 8 19

Figure 5.1 Police expenditure as a percentage of state budget 1984–2004 Source: Ministry of Economics

existence of an acute antagonism between forces e( .g. Papakonstantis 2003; Association of Retired Officers of the Coast Guard 1999), but the overall balance has always gravitated towards the Gendarmerie. In today’s Hellenic Police this tendency is best demonstrated in how jurisdictional overlaps are handled. As all forces are active in the fight against organized crime, they must and do liaise to a significant extent, but the Hellenic Police usually maintain the primary role.11 An example which points to the particular ways in which the state invests in the primacy of the Hellenic Police has been the controversial case of gaming machines, which attracted considerable public concern during the winter of 2001–2. The proliferation of such machines during the 1990s had been linked with the exploitation by organized crime networks of widespread illegal gambling. Originally, responsibility for the control of illegal gambling fell to the Hellenic Police, but this was moved to SDOE and the municipal police in 1999. Discontent with the SDOE’s apparent inability to control illegal gambling slowly grew in subsequent years (e.g. Mandrou 1999), and, after sensational revelations by the media in January 2002, the situation escalated to a major scandal of crime, ruined families and public corruption. The government’s response was to restore the original powers of the Hellenic Police, complemented by total prohibition of any games which could be connected to gambling. As the government’s representative commented in Parliament, ‘in this way, there will be no overlaps, disputes, weaknesses’H ( ellenic Parliament 2002: 109). Examples such as this, where the state reasserts its role as ultimate guarantor of order and the public good by investing in the authority of the ‘police proper’, are not uncommon in modern Greek history.12

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The state’s concern with upholding the authority of the Hellenic Police is also pivotal to the regulation of commercial security and municipal policing. There is no doubt that forms of policing beyond the state have also begun to grow in terms of numbers of staff and firms, and as regards commercial security, in terms of financial performance as well. This suggests that some of the factors accounting for the expansion of private security elsewhere (see Bayley and Shearing 2001: 21–27) are at work in Greece as well. But the Greek state has not attempted to suppress these forms of policing. Rather, if one looks at the legislative framework, the concern is to manipulate these forms and direct them into areas of activity where the authority of the Hellenic Police cannot possibly be challenged, and furthermore, where the state police can be a resource in case of emergency.13 Municipal policing has been restricted to tasks relating to regulations about traffic and parking, garbage disposal and building and opening hours, which, while necessary for good administration and order maintenance in the cities, are typically regarded as extraneous to regular police core tasks. Equally, private security companies are only allowed to take up roles in the passive protection of spaces, goods and persons, which involves guardianship by physical presence or remote surveillance. This is not viewed as detrimental to the Hellenic Police’s role as dispenser of ‘public’ policing services (Hellenic Parliament 1997: 478). The law, however, took quite a different stance in the case of private investigators. As some among them readily point out (Stoltidis 2004), the criteria for the granting of a license or work permit (as discussed earlier), as well as the substantive constraints imposed on the private investigator’s activity s( uch as the obligation to collect information from the public activity of persons or from ‘other legal sources’a( rticle 11 paragraph 7d))could potentially drive the profession to extinction. It appears then that the commercialization of intelligence-gathering via the targeting of individuals, which is the core of an investigator’s job, does pose a concrete threat to the authority of the Greek state, as it is understood in the context of the period after the political changeover. In theory, the state appeared explicitly as the guarantor of civil liberties (article 25 of the 1975 constitution), and, in practice, the governments of PASOK have not hesitated to provide some clear demonstrations of this premise.14 The restriction of commercial security and other forms of policing of activities that do not pose a challenge for the Hellenic Police’s role also determines the degree of its integration into Greece’s public life. So far, the contracting out of security for public buildings and facilities, such as airports, areas of ports or the Athens Metro, is quite common, even though there is little empirical evidence about the extent of such practices. There is no doubt that contracting out from Greece’s large public sector will greatly influence the financial prospects of commercial security. The difficulty in tracing this process lies in the fact that contracting out is left to be micromanaged by the

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executives of public organizations, as apart from the general provisions found in the Code of Public Accounts and other related legislation. There is no systematized procedure for the decision to hire a private security company for the security needs of public organizations. In this respect, it would be interesting to examine how private security has been, or will be, integrated in the web of c‘ lient–contractor’relations which are increasingly visible in Greece’s public administration c( f. Charalambis 1996).

Conclusion: policing in a society ‘like the others’? The last 30 years have been a period of rapid change for Greek society. The magnitude of change becomes more pronounced if one considers the social advances, problems and concerns found in preceding historical periods. There is now general agreement that many trends visible in other advanced liberal democracies of the West are also experienced in Greece, perhaps more than ever before (Karamanolakis 2004a, 2004b; Tsoukalas 1999). Implicit here is a need to take stock of Greece’s long course to ‘normality’ (Tsoukalas 2004), since to identify commonalities in issues says little about the processes that brought them to the surface. Any attempt to make sense of today’s Greece is likely to be confronted with the issue of the state, if only for its sheer size and prominent role in virtually all aspects of Greek social life. Policing is clearly no exception here. Furthermore, as the circumstances of the 1984 reform reveal, policing has been a central issue in the battle for the control of the state apparatus which commenced as soon as democratic institutions were established safely in Greece. In my view, it is vital to analyse the current structure of Greek policing in relation to the outcome of the broader developments in democratic reform. Greek policing has both shaped, and been shaped by, the wider network of political and legal institutions. This approach takes account of the view that it is important to view policing in its broader national and historical contexts (e.g. Jones and Newburn 2002; Ferret 2004). As far as the study of Greek policing is concerned, this stance necessitates a thorough look at the Greek state and its role in the pronounced development of some forms of policing and the relative suppression of others. This issue involves more than noting the consistent investment in state police, especially as the landscape of contemporary Greek policing hints at some shifts towards fragmentation, decentralization and, not least, privatization. The main point is to note that this process does not take place beyond, or in the absence of, the state. Rather, the development of other forms of policing occupies a special space which is constantly defined by the successes and failures in the state’s effort to maintain the primacy of its centralized police force. Of course, the future trajectory of Greek policing remains to be seen. Much recent theorizing about policing has focused primarily on the supposed diminishing role of the state among wider structures in the provision of security (e.g. Bayley and Shearing 1996). However, the case of Greece

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would suggest that processes and structures found inside the strategic field of the state continue to deserve close attention as key constitutive elements of policing.

Notes 1 I would like to thank the editors, Professor David Smith, Professor Calliope Spinellis, George Rigakos, Josef Kampanakis, and Alexios Tattis for their valuable comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. And, Magda, thanks for everything. 2 Previously, information about the Greek police was only likely to be found in general reports on the structure of the country’s criminal justice system (e.g. Spinellis and Spinellis 1999), or specialized works (e.g. Lambropoulou 2002). 3 An acronym for ‘Panellinio Sosialistiko Kinima’, Greece’s Socialist Party. 4 The National Security Agency should not be confused with the Greek Central Intelligence Agency, which was also restructured and renamed as the National Intelligence Agency by the PASOK government. 5 For a description of the structure of Greek public police forces before 1984 see Rigakos and Papanicolaou (2003). 6 According to Legislative Decree 444/1970, the jurisdiction of the regular police extends to harbours and parts of the coastline which are not enclosed. So the usual demarcation of Greek harbour zones by barriers and other constructions also indicates the jurisdictional limits of each force. 7 ICAP is an important market research organization in Greece, best known for its annual surveys of Greek industry and commerce. 8 The quality of the information regarding the financial profile of the industry is likely to improve in the future, as the National Statistical Service expects to generate data from the taxation database of the Ministry of Economics. 9 Information about private investigation agencies is not publicly available. This section is based on interviews with private investigators conducted in summer 2002 and summer 2004. 10 From a technical point of view, Law 3206/2003 added an extra article to Law 2518/1998 which contained the new provisions for private investigator agencies. Thus, as the explanatory report explains, the impression of a systematic unity of the legislation is reinforced (Ministry of Public Order 2003). 11 Not surprisingly, the national authority and entry point required by the Schengen and Europol Conventions are placed within the organizational structure of the Hellenic Police (article 12 law 2800/2000). As arrangements of European police cooperation against serious and organized crime develop various operational aspects (Hayes 2002), the role of the Hellenic Police in this respect will certainly be more pronounced. 12 At the time of writing, the newly elected government of the New Democracy party wishes to introduce a bill to abolish the Financial Crimes Enforcement Unit, and introduce a new service in its place. The new Special Inspections Service remains in the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Economics. It generally maintains the profile and powers of the SDOE, even though its remit appears to be more specialized. While the practical significance of the reform remains to be seen, there is no doubt that it is highly symbolic from a political point of view. 13 The pattern of manipulation becomes clearer when one employs a labour-based typology of police activity, which has been put forward by Rigakos (2001)and includes 5 types of activity: a)polemic b)sentry-dataveillant c)inquisitorial d) arterial and e) civic-sumptuary. However, I refrain from introducing Rigakos’s

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terms and analysis here since they necessitate a discussion that would far exceed the scope of this text. 14 In the early 1980s the government decided to incinerate the files containing information on the political beliefs and activities of individuals. Equally, the restrictions on the activities of private investigators is another instance of the government’s practical concern about personal data and privacy as enshrined in the constitutive law of the National Authority for Data Protection (Ministry of Public Order 2003).

References Alivizatos, N. (1986) The Political Institutions in Crisis (1922–1974), Athens: Themelio (in Greek). Association of Retired Officers of the Coast Guard (ed.)1 ( 999) History of the Coast Guard, Piraeus: Association of Retired Commissioned Officers of the Coast Guard i(n Greek). Bayley, D. H. and Shearing, C. D. (1996)T ‘ he future of policing’, Law and Society Review, 30 (3,) pp. 585–606. Bayley, D. H. and Shearing, C. D. (2001) The New Structure of Policing: Description, Conceptualization, and Research Agenda, Washington D.C.: National Institute of Justice. Charalambis, D. (1996) Clientelist Relations and Populism in Greece: The Extrainstitutional Consensus in the Greek Political System, Athens: Exantas (in Greek). De Waard, J. (1999) T ‘ he private security industry in international perspective’, European Journal of Criminal Policy and Research, 7, pp. 143–74. Dimopoulos, C. (2000) The Police and the Police Officer, Athens and Komotini: Ant. N. Sakkoulas (in Greek). Ferret, J. (2004)T ‘ he state, policing and “ old continental Europe” : Managing the local/national tension’, Policing and Society, 14: 1, pp. 49–65. Hayes, B. (2002) The Activities and Development of the Europol – Towards an Unaccountable ‘FBI’ in Europe, London: Statewatch. Hellenic Parliament (1984) Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, 3rd Period P ( arliamentary Republic), 3rd Session, 35th–39th Sittings (summer section), Athens: Hellenic Parliament (in Greek). Hellenic Parliament (1995) Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, 8th Period P ( arliamentary Republic), 3rd Session, 48th Sitting (summer section), Athens: Hellenic Parliament (in Greek). Hellenic Parliament (1997) Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament (Parliamentary Republic), 9th Period, 1st Session, 15th Sitting (summer section), Athens: Hellenic Parliament (in Greek). Hellenic Parliament (2002) Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, 10th Period (Parliamentary Republic), 2nd Session, 5th Sitting (summer section), Athens: Hellenic Parliament. ICAP (2003) Sector study for private security services, http://www.icap.gr, accessed 10 August 2004.

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Johnston, L. (2000) Policing Britain: Risk, Insecurity and Governance, Harlow, Essex: Longman. Jones, T. and Newburn, T. (2002)T ‘ he transformation of policing?Understanding current trends in policing systems’, British Journal of Criminology, 42: 1, pp. 129–46. Karamanolakis, V. (2004a, July 23) Thirty Years of Hellenic Democracy: A Discussion with Vassilis Kardasis, Takis Kafetzis, Michalis Spourdalakis and Constantine Tsoukalas p ( art I), Eleftherotypia: Vivliothiki. Karamanolakis, V. (2004b, July 30) Thirty Years of Hellenic Democracy: A Discussion with Vassilis Kardasis, Takis Kafetzis, Michalis Spourdalakis and Constantine Tsoukalas p ( art II), Eleftherotypia, Vivliothiki. Karydis, V. (1996) The Criminality of Immigrants in Greece, Athens: Papazisis (in Greek). Kranidioti, M. (2003)T ‘ he criminality of aliens in Greece’, in N. E. Kourakis (ed.), Criminal Policy, iv, pp. 147–90. Athens: Ant. N. Sakkoulas (in Greek). Krikkis, S. (1998, September 7)H ‘ e surprised them with three hand-grenades’, Ta Nea, 42. Kroustalli (1996, 17 November) W ‘ hat the municipal police (does not) do’, To Vima, A45. Lakopoulos, G. (1998, November 22)I‘ shall suppress corruption’. I[nterview with the Minister of Public Order Filippos Petsalnikos]. To Vima, A10. Lambropoulou, E. (1994) Social Control of Crime, Athens: Papazisis (in Greek). Lambropoulou, E. 2 ( 002)G ‘ reece’, in M. den Boer e( d.) Organized Crime: A Catalyst in the Europeanization of National Police and Prosecution Agencies?, Maastricht, The Netherlands: European Institute of Public Administration, pp. 261–307. Lambropoulou, E. (2004) C ‘ itizen’s safety, business trust and Greek police’, International Review of Administrative Sciences, 70: 1, pp. 89–110. Lambropoulou, E. (2005) C ‘ rime, criminal justice and criminology in Greece’, European Journal of Criminology, 2: 2, pp. 211–47. Mandrou, I. (1997, December 7) F ‘ ixed promotions in the Hellenic Police’, To Vima, A 44. Mandrou, I. (1998, September 20)W ‘ hat Mr. Gerakis found’, To Vima, A50. Mandrou, I. (1999, November 7)S‘ lot machines in asylum, the public prosecutor at SDOE denounces’, To Vima, A58. Ministry of Public Order (1984) Explanatory report to the Hellenic Parliament: Draft law on the organization of the Ministry of Public Order, Athens: Hellenic Parliament (in Greek). Ministry of Public Order (1997) Explanatory report to the Hellenic Parliament: Draft law on requirements of operation of companies providing security services; qualifications and obligations of their personnel and other provisions, Athens: Hellenic Parliament (in Greek). Ministry of Public Order 2 ( 003) Explanatory report to the Hellenic Parliament: Draft law on private investigation agencies, Athens: Hellenic Parliament i(n Greek). Nikolakopoulos, D. (1998a, July 5)T ‘ he backstage of a scandal(,?)’ To Vima, A 48. Nikolakopoulos, D. 1 ( 998b, July 12)T ‘ he s“ecret book”was visible’, To Vima, A 42.

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Nikolakopoulos, D. (1997, February 16)T ‘ he police get out in the streets’, To Vima, A36. Nikolakopoulos, D. (1999, March 7) T ‘ he master plan for the Hellenic Police of 2000’, I[nterview with the Minister of Public Order Michalis Chrysochoidis], To Vima, A 56. Noulas, K. (1999, April 29)A ‘ rmed protection syndromes’, Eleftherotypia, 33. Panousis, .Yand Vidali, S. (eds) 2 ( 001) Texts on Police and Policing, Athens and Komotini: Ant. N. Sakkoulas (in Greek). Papakonstantis, G. V. (2003) Hellenic Police: Organization, Policy and Ideology, Athens, Greece: Ant. N. Sakkoulas (in Greek). Papathemelis, S. (1998, November 1)A ‘ state of emergency in the Hellenic Police’, To Vima, A 20. PASOK (1981) Pasok in Government, The People in Power, Athens: PASOK (in Greek). PASOK (n.d.) ‘Results of our policy for convergence with the E.U.’, http://www.pasok-mme.gr/C2/C2-dimosia-taxi.htm, accessed 11 August 2004. Rigakos, G. S. (2001, October 10) Beyond public-private: a new typology of policing (report prepared for the Law Commission of Canada). Rigakos, G. S. and Papanicolaou, G. (2003)T ‘ he political economy of Greek policing: between neoliberalism and the sovereign state’, Policing and Society, 13: 3, pp. 271–304. Sakellaropoulos, S. (2001) Greece after the Political Changeover, Athens: A.A. Livanis (in Greek). SDOE (n.d.) Report of activities 2002, http://www.sdoe.gr, accessed 12 August 2004. Spinellis, D. and Spinellis, C. D. (1999) Criminal Justice Systems in Europe and North America: Greece, Helsinki: HEUNI. Stamatis, C. T. (1971) History of the Police of the Cities, Athens: M. Frangoulis (in Greek). Stergioulis, E. (2001) The Greek Police after the Political Changeover (1975–1995), Athens, Greece: Nomike Vivliothike (in Greek). Stoltidis, A. (2004)Personal communication with owner of A& A Detecta Detective Agency. Tragic victim the 29-year old hostage (1998, September 24) Ta Nea, 11. Tsoukalas, C. (1987) State, Society, Labour in Post-war Greece, Athens: Themelio i(n Greek). Tsoukalas, C. (1999, July 25)A ‘ society “ like the others” ’, To Vima, A08. Tsoukalas, C. (2004, July 25)T ‘ owards a democracy of boredom?’, To Vima, B42. Tzortzopoulou, M. (2002)T ‘ he position of immigrants in Greece’, in A. Mouriki, M. Naoumi and G. Papapetrou (eds) The Social Portrait of Greece 2001, Athens: EKKE (National Centre for Social Research)i(n Greek), pp. 45–9.

6

The United States of America Peter K. Manning

While the United States follows the Anglo-American pattern of democratic policing, it also manifests some distinctive features. The United States is more flexible than western Europe in developing and facilitating a wide range of federal specialized agencies, state, county, townships and local police agencies. It facilitates and encourages private policing. It is, however, less flexible than western European nations in nurturing variations in municipal policing, e.g. the community support officers (CSOs)seen in the UK and similar officials in the Netherlands. This perhaps reflects the premise that in western Europe the viability and survival of the state supersedes the value of the capitalist economy whereas in the United States the opposite is true. This pattern perhaps accounts for the sustained growth in private security organizations and specialized federal agencies that are a product of the interpretation of the commerce clause in the US Constitution and related legislation.

American police and policing American police organizations resemble police organizations in all industrialized nations. That is, they are bureaucratically structured, punishment oriented to sustain discipline, serve the state and its interests as well as their own, are violent and ‘bottom-heavy.’ Given this frame, an analytic definition of police remains elusive, in spite of abundant published research. Policing responds to normative violations using a variety of sanctions to order (Black 1976, 1980). It can be formal or informal, vocational or avocational K ( lockars 1985). It can require enforcing a civil or criminal sanction, and may not involve carrying a gun. They exercise both formal and informal social control (Clark and Gibbs 1965). The concern here is American policing that is formal, vocational, paid and full-time and designed to react to rule violations. While police can be divided by a level of obligation (federal, state, municipal, private or corporate), and their sources of funding, consider this working definition of police:1 ‘Police in AngloAmerican societies, constituted of many diverse agencies, are authoritatively coordinated, legitimate organizations that stand ready to

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apply force up to and including fatal force in specified political territories to sustain political ordering’M ( anning 2003: 41–2). American policing is a sub-type of what might be called the ‘Peel model’ of policing refined by Sir Robert Peel from his experience as Home Secretary and Secretary for Northern Ireland. This model can be characterized as featuring uniformed police patrolling as reactive, disbursed, discretionary agents operating within a bureaucratic framework and seeking to prevent crime (Klockars 1985: 45 ff.; Rawlings 2004: 118). 2 Variations on this are agents who work in designated places with limited powers, and specialized federal agencies who work either on a proactive intelligence-based model, a regulatory model (not employing criminal sanctions)or a case-based reactive model.

Features of the American policing system The expectations of the police of themselves, combined with and in some tension with public expectations, yield a mandate (Hughes 1958). The public preference for a decentralized system is indicated by the large number of local agencies and the disproportionate number of local and state agents when compared to the number of federal agents (Bayley 1994). American policing is local policing. The people sustain local policing, rooted in local funding and traditions, over a powerful centralized set of federal agencies. The number of federal agencies and agents with arrest powers was ratcheted up only in the last part of the twentieth century (Richman 2000). American police defy any easy or simple description. They are by design and preference the product of an anti-authoritarian, quasi-revolutionary country. It is possible to make some generalizations, especially about local police, consistent with this characterization of American policing.3 With the exception of federal specialized policing, policing in the United States is constituted by organizations of diverse, uneven size, with uneven training and local standards for such, located in the executive branch of government, locally accountable, grounded in the politics of the city, state and region, responding to (and using)overlapping, contradictory, and abundant legal standards, bottom-heavy, demand-oriented (responding to phone calls via 911), reactive by impulse and practice, staffed by officers who are heavily armed and dangerous, dependent on citizens for information and compliance, and shaped by information technologies. Most importantly, American police organizations are quite small on average and while the modal size varies by state (Reiss 1992: 61), the majority of American police officers work in organizations of less than 30 officers. One of the most striking things about American policing is that the number of officers, the number of agencies, and the division between part-time and full-time employees is still being debated (Bayley 1994; Maguire et al. 1998). This is because definitions of part-time, reserve, full-time, and sworn officers are inconsistent, as is the number of agencies sampled (Maguire et

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al. 1998). In addition, policing functions are elastic. For example, some lists of police agencies omit agricultural inspectors, OHSEA and EPA inspectors, but include investigative officers within the armed forces; others define police officers as those who carry a gun and can enforce the law (Geller and Morris 1992). The problem of estimating the number of police officers and agencies begins with the failure of the government to monitor their numbers. There is a difference of 90,000 officers between the US census and LEMAS (a mailed survey sample of police agencies) estimates (Reaves and Goldberg 1997). The census counts 560,799 officers and LEMAS shows 649,037. In 1997, according to LEMAS, there were some 18,769 local, 49 state, and an unknown number of federal agencies that ‘police.’ LEMAS shows some 90,000 federal employees carrying out some law enforcement function. It defines a police agency as any agency employing more than one full-time officer. LEMAS said in 1997 that there were over 650,000 full-time public police officers, some 8.2 percent (53,300)of whom are federal employees, and another 250,000 part-time officers (Reaves and Goldberg 1997). This would mean a total of some 800,000. Civilians constitute 27 percent of police employees and have increased by 161 percent as a ratio to the population B ( ayley, 1994: 86). Maguire et al. 1 ( 998)compare LEMAS, census, and a sample drawn by the COPS agency to present a more systematic critique of the samples and biases of each, tabularizing the several estimates. Maguire et al. 1 ( 998: 109–110) conclude, by adding omitted data, that there are in total 21,143 agencies in the US: 14,628 local, 49 state, 3,156 sheriff-headed, and 3,280 special agencies. They conclude that there may be as many as 681,012 ‘sworn’officers as a result of combining the estimates: 383,873 in local agencies, 53,336 in state agencies, 137,985 in sheriffheaded agencies, and 58,689 in special agencies. The local agencies vary in size from a handful in departments serving small towns and villages to over 38,000 officers in the NY PD. Two county forces, Cook County and Los Angeles County, range from three to five thousand. The salary structure (level and variation in pay by rank)varies in relation to the size of the organization. In 2000, the salary of an officer in the smallest force (less than 2,500)ranged from $ 20,900 to $ 22,900, while officers in the largest ranged from $ 35,900 to $ 51,300; a similar pattern characterizes sheriff’s departments (Reaves and Goldberg 2003). Federal pay mimics the pay in the largest departments and includes better benefits and retirement packages. In all three cases, the difference between the highest ranks and the lowest is remarkably small.4 In part to protect police operations from overt political commands, public policing historically stands in the executive branch of government. Policing powers, de facto, are quite widespread, and shared amongst individual citizens, private investigators, citizen self-help groups, private policing agencies and, occasionally, the military (national guard, reserves, and regular forces). Territorial limits or jurisdictional boundaries, once


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binding in Anglo-American policing, now are largely irrelevant at the federal level, since American law is extended and applied within foreign nations with startling impunity, and global and task force-based transnational policing is growing. The American police exist in a network of telecommunications links. Information technologies (IT) are now shaping policing in many perhaps unanticipated ways (see the summary in Manning 2003). IT capacity is rather closely correlated with the size and location of the agency, as is their own accessibility to the media via media information offices (Mawby 2003). The practice of policing is affected only marginally by use of the internet, the paperless office, the fully automated police car, crime mapping and crime analysis, and the 800 MHz radio capacity. The future influence of compstat, crime mapping and crime analysis, while promising, is yet unproven (see Willis et al. 2004; Weisburd et al. 2003). American police are demand-led. Since the 1920s they have presented themselves as ready and available. They encourage demand by advertising – C ‘ all 911’is emblazoned on the side of nearly every vehicle. They are available and visible, bottom-heavy and reactive, and mount periodic tactical crackdowns. Police allocate some two-thirds of their sworn personnel ‘on the ground.’The police react to calls for service, investigate further some of those that are crime-related, and manifest minimal formal specialization. Some five to eight percent are in detective work and other specialized units. The police are divided into staff and line, with patrol as ‘line’and staff performed by administration, internal affairs, detectives, and the service division. The top command and support is a very small part of the personnel, around 12 percent. Most officers prefer to remain in patrol, and city budgets constrain the available slots. The public police carry arms, some of which are visible. Policing combines a visible and distinctive uniform with an astounding array of tools, including high powered semi-automatic weapons, and burgeoning information technology (Manning 1997: 102–6). The public police both seek and avoid violence, both symbolic and ‘real.’ They differentially distribute violence to groups within the state, eschew its role in their work, conceal and deny its emotional satisfactions and attractions. There are patterned police tactics for managing citizen encounters (Bayley and Bittner 1986; Bayley and Garofalo 1989; Mastrofski et al. 2002). These patterns suggest conditions under which events may escalate, or require force, although official reports suggest that violent episodes constitute less than five percent of police encounters (Alpert and Dunham 2004). The use of violence, ultimately sanctioned by the state, varies empirically rather than being, as Bittner (1972)claims, an ‘essential feature of the role.’ The American public police seek demand, primarily in responding to and selecting calls for service, yet are occasionally overloaded. They are affected by technology, by the roles and tasks of the participants in the police communications systems (PCS), and by the ecology and the interpretive

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practices of the police. The publicly stated aim is to increase demand and provide service. They do plan some demand, such as for parades and demonstrations; furthermore they have elaborate plans for major disasters, initiate stops and investigations, control demand for investigative services by controlling personnel and overtime, but are primarily responsive to called-in demand. Called-in demand is shaped by screening, prioritizing, assigning calls to loose and rather arbitrary categories, receiving calls from cell phones5 and public phones 911, 311, and seven digit numbers6 and reclassifying them formally and informally, shifting levels of personnel to respond to them, and altering information technology to reallocate calls to automatic answering.7 They are periodically unable to handle demand, thus indirectly showing their differential availability and therefore sustaining their importance and power. Police develop and state organizational operational strategies, systematic allocation and mobilization of resources (personnel, equipment, time), and presentational strategies and tactics. These may not always match: what is claimed in a presentational or rhetorical strategy, e.g. that community policing is the policy of the force, may not be revealed in the deployment of officers, their actual day-to-day duties and routines. They periodically deal with overloads in demand by informal means rather than by policy, by phone menus, workable differential response systems, that attempt to set priorities, or by using designated units to calls requiring non-emergency response. As Bittner (1972: 39)correctly argues, the public police are a mechanism for the situational distribution of force. They stand ready to intervene when the risk to the social order is such that it might get worse, escalate, and require force to produce a solution. This is local (defined by local conventions, assumptions and traditions)and situated (subject to the judgment of the officer at the scene or in the event).

Trends in employment of American police America has four broad types of police: local, state (all 50 states have them with the exception of Hawaii), federal, including specialized sworn officers and investigators, and private police. Large university police departments have of late been required to submit their crime figures to the Department of Justice, but their size and the number of university police departments are still debated. In addition, there are a number of shadow functionaries who police, including reserves or auxiliaries, ad hoc volunteers with quasilegal status such as senior citizens who patrol schools looking for truants, or people parking in spots for disabled people (both carried out in Lansing, Michigan). Unlike other industrialized nations, the United States has continued to hire more police even during periods of economic downturn (the 1980s in particular)and crime declines (the decade of the 1990s).


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It is clear from Table 6.1 that the number of counted public police agents has increased in the last 40 years. Public police have increased in number and per capita W ( alker and Katz 2003: 90). This growth is in part stimulated by direct block grant-type funding from COPS and, since 2001, Homeland Security funds. The size of police organizations in America varies widely s( ee Walker and Katz 2003: 64). As the range in size would suggest, the ratio of police per 1,000 people also varies from the national average of 1.5 per thousand. This ratio is radically skewed by the vast numbers of small agencies. The most densely policed city is Washington D.C. with 6.7 per thousand, while the least densely populated large city, San Diego, is policed with 1.7 per thousand. Expenditures at all levels for s‘ ecurity’ in the form of public police have increased both absolutely and per capita. As noted above, and emphasized by Maguire’s study (2003:3), the variety within police organizations is astonishing: he notes that the number of ranks varies from four to twelve, that some have centralized headquarters, others many precinct houses, that generalization in tasks ranges widely (specialized units are a function of size, but not entirely, as even small departments have special units such as water police, SWAT teams, and traffic units), that some give supervisors great leeway and others are very strict and controlling, that some have highly informal and unwritten policies, while others have written policies covering ‘almost every imaginable contingency’ p ( . 3), some invest great resources on the street, others not, and finally, they are variously staffed by civilians (or non-sworn officers). Patrol functions and modes also vary widely, with some using motorcycles, horses, bicycles and walking officers extensively, and others confined almost entirely to motorized units (Reaves and Goldberg 1997). The percentage of civilians has increased from 11 percent in 1960, through 18 percent in 1980 to the 1997 figure of 29 percent. In general, they are employed in larger departments with greater specialization of function. Because of specialization, differentiation by size, costs of retirements, salaries, and union contracts that protect officers, the number and percentage of civilians will continue to rise, regardless of the variation in the growth of sworn officers. The consequence of these political preferences for weak, local, non-federal, small police forces is clear – 77 percent of American public police officers are employed by localities (Reiss 1992). It should be emphasized that in contrast to other Anglo-American forms of policing, the American, small, local force is rarely consolidated (as has happened in England and Wales in particular over the last thirty years), and a close examination of any large city will show a patchwork of amazing overlap and competition (from Walker and Katz 2003:73). 8 The figure for the total number of local public police is not agreed upon, but ranges from 660,000 to 800,000 depending on the source. Estimates of the number of private police range from 1.5 to 2.0 million. This means that the ratio of private to public is approximately 2.4 to one. If one adds state

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Table 6.1 Trends in public police employment 1964–2003

1964 1974 1984 1994 2003

Full-time law enforcement employees in US

Full-time law Total state police enforcement officers and highway in US patrol officers in US

202,189 338,895 389,582 474,663 546,920

200,000 286,973 309,960 368,441 421,074

n/a 44,802 47,995 n/a n/a

police, sheriffs, and federal agencies, it does not alter the ratio very much. Furthermore, if it is assumed that these agents work primarily in large cities and near suburbs serving businesses, corporations, or middle-class or above housing estates or homes, it is clear that the concentration of security officers is heavily skewed to the suburbs and small cities, and inversely related to the prevalence and incidence of crime.

Organization and accountability of American public policing Histories of American policing, found in several fine overviews M ( iller 1998 1 [ 977]; Monkkonen 1981, 1992; Reppetto 1979; Reiss 1992), disproportionately focus on large departments B ( oston, New oYrk, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia). The most comprehensive studies are of specific cities such as Lane’s fine work on Boston 1 ( 967). This focus obscures the dominance in American life and memory of hesitant, fragmented, locally grounded and accountable small police organizations, with limited official legal powers, combined with the growth of wide-ranging activities unimpeded by federal control, regulation or intervention. It follows that accountability is a contextually defined matter that defies generalization. Police organizations are patently and obstinately resistant to reshaping and changes in structure and function (Maguire 2003). Some of the influences resisted are ‘internal,’ resulting from changes in demography and ecology, while others are the result of external socio-political trends. Local political issues shape the size, functions and budgets of American departments more than general principles such as efficiency, low costs or effectiveness (Reppetto 1979; Reiss 1992). By local political issues I mean those that become axial media events like the Rodney King beating, the sodomizing of Abner Louima, or the innocent verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial. These alter perceptions of risk, and shape political campaigns based on law and order politics. No research has shown clear and consistent longterm correlations between crime, budgets and policing patterns, nor the impact of the environment on such matters as police size and organization M ( aguire 2003). Additional officers do suppress official figures for short


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periods of time (Harcourt 2000), although it is not entirely clear why or how this takes place. From the beginning of the nineteenth-century Peel innovation, the concern of politicians and police top command has been to control corruption and veniality amongst patrol officers. This appears now as a concern with training, supervision and control and a lesser concern with loyalty. Corruption scandals, as Sherman demonstrated some time ago (1978)are cyclical and reproduce themselves on a regular basis. This is in part because in a punishment-centered bureaucracy (Gouldner 1954: 207–28), officers are constantly inventing ways to do the work that blurs the formal and informal (Manning and Redlinger 1977). The distinction between what is said by officers and what they actually do remains unspecified in most police research (Waddington 1998). Some advocates (Haberfeld 2005)assert that the efficacy and brevity of American police training, its unstandardized nature, its focus on physical skills and rote memory of legal procedures (recipe knowledge to keep you out of trouble), and its almost total absence beyond the police training academy, mean that training as now constituted is not a solution to corruption, nor will it lead to the development of management skills. This is becoming more apparent in the form of business-speak referring to efficiency, ‘service delivery’ and ‘customer satisfaction,’ police chiefs as managers with sophisticated management skills, policing as a business, all of which clouds the reality of everyday policing. A s‘ ilver bullet’solution to scandal, that works in parallel with training, is better communication-as-supervision. As Reiss and Bordua (1967) and Bordua and Reiss (1967)noted presciently some forty years ago, information technology systems, or more generally, the police communications system (PCS) that funnels demand in and out of the organization, has increasingly become the mode of supervision, control, and accountability for American forces. With increased mobility of the population and the dispersal of populations out of large, dense cities into suburbs, pressure was placed on policing to serve via the rule ‘you call, we roll.’The vast network of efficient telephones increased demand, and the police emphasized ‘responsiveness’as a theme in presentation of their mandate. This demanddriven theme, in due course, increased social distance and the quality of local control of policing. This punctuated the demise of the local political machine in all save a few American cities (perhaps Boston, Miami-Dade, Chicago and Philadelphia), and of police union strength and control of conditions of work (strongest also in these cities). The ethnic composition of policing has always been a striking feature of American policing as WASPs declined in power in big cities, and the Italians and Irish became the stereotypical police officers. The patronage and a succession based on ethnicity became powerful from 1890 onwards, in effect excluding women and people of colour successfully until affirmative action penetrated local police and fire hiring procedures in the 1970s.

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Three trends have affected local police accountability. As Walker (2004) has shown, public modes of regulating police by citizens (complaints, citizen review boards, advisory boards, eternally staffed and funded agencies), or in general some efforts at ‘civilian oversight’ have a brief, unsavory and weak history in the United States. No national effort has been made to alter this except through ad hoc court orders. A second influence has been court orders dealing with fabricated official statistics, failures in hiring in line with affirmative action rules, race profiling, jail conditions and services, and individual and collective organizational liability to civil suits. The third influence is rather indirect and tenuous. This is the ‘managerialism’ evidenced in policing by objectives, mission statements, value commitments and public pledges. This is often combined with the rhetoric of community policing, problem-solving, joint partnerships, and the ‘co-production of order.’ As Bittner (1972) and Klockars (1994) have pointed out, the courts in their wisdom have left the definition of violence, brutality, excessive force and coercion to local standards, much like those that govern physicians’ and lawyers’ liabilities and the remedies offered by the civil courts. Thus, while the law is a dramatic point of justice, its standards in this and other matters are flexible, local, and subject to the politics of the day (Lawrence 2000). If the problem of policing, as Reiss (1992) argues, is maintaining balance between the internal equilibrium and the external challenging environment, then policing is likely to be less constrained in the future by massive political machines, central city bureaucracies, and even state governments. The growth in per capita policing is in middle sized towns, suburban departments, rural areas with typically weak governments, low taxation and low services in general. With the exception of a few large cities such as Washington DC and New oYrk City, policing in large cities shows low growth in the number of police per capita. American policing has been influenced by transnational policing, ad hoc task forces, and formal co-operative arrangements to a lesser extent than European nations. Ironically, the courts and the American Executive Branch have been viciously imperialistic in extending American policing into international waters, denying the Geneva convention, snatching and kidnapping foreign citizen suspects without warrants, and mounting searches and seizures on the high seas, sometimes in pursuit of suspected drug dealers. All this violates international law and semi-legal conventions governing international relations that restrain policing across borders (Nadelmann 1993; Deflem 2003; Scheptycki 2000).

Reform in American municipal police organizations The term ‘municipal’here refers to the local non-state public police, not the wide variety of quasi-ecologically grounded local forms of policing (see the section below on municipal innovative policing). The idea of policing


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reform rests on the notion that some forces, internal or external to the police, are manifest in visible change. Recent trends do point to a reduction in functions provided, or ‘load shedding’B ( utton 2002: 35–40): contracting out functions, adapting businesslike managerial techniques, and a tendency to charge for services rendered. These include charges for false alarms answered, charges for arrests and costs at accidents, fees for licenses and for processing insurance claims, and increased use of civilian employees to augment traffic revenue. These amount to a reduction of the general collective will as expressed in and through policing (Bayley and Shearing 1996). At least six major changes/reforms can be identified in American policing. These include the reforming of private and public policing functions, the impact of funding from Office of Homeland Security, concern for ‘race profiling,’ refining and expanding information technology, the popularity of community policing and problem solving, and the shadow of managerialism. The reform of private and public functions Forst and Manning (1999)argued that the line between public and private policing has always been more blurred than the media and scholars realized. The dimensions of comparison reveal very little essential difference except perhaps in the commitment to the general welfare, or conversely, the protection of special interests represented by corporate entities who hire private security guards, cash conveyors, and jail officers (see Forst and Manning 1999: 98–9). Virtually all police departments, especially county and state forces in the United States, are available for contract policing for areas that pay for increased patrols, officers, or specific services like 911 or emergency rescue. A large number of departments offer pay on a contract basis for parades, sporting events, construction sites, and dangerous areas (such as street repair or high level cranes in operation)R ( eiss 1988). 9 Funding from OHS The impact of the creation of the Office of Homeland Security and the distribution of funds as a result of this reorganization in 2002 is yet to be felt. However, consistent with the decentralized politicized system of the nation, the money is being allocated in block grants by states rather than by sites or departments. Thus remote rural states with relatively sparse populations such as Vermont and North Dakota get massive sums per capita, whereas Massachusetts and New oYrk, for example, get ridiculously low sums per capita. Within states, the distribution is highly political and based on requests from cities that read like a laundry list. Thus, like the LEAA block grants of thirty years previously and the COPS grants beginning in 1992, the aim is to build a police constituency and sustain patronage patterns by members of congress, rather than to respond to well defined ‘security risks.’

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Profiling and its consequences Profiling is commonly called ‘race profiling,’but in fact is the study of differential stops of people of color, the young, and primarily young minority youths. Controversy arose when it was discovered that Maryland and New Jersey state police officers were stopping drivers on I-95 (an interstate/federal highway that runs from Florida to Maine along the east coast of America)on the basis of a profile that had been created by DEA to alert officers to possible drug transporters driving south to north from Florida. This led to a disproportionate number of stops of black motorists in these states and complaints. A six million dollar suit was settled in Maryland. The attorneys general of the two states intervened to require monitoring, and soon discovered that the pattern of differential stops was quite clear. A large number of New England states have adopted laws that require police to monitor and report their stops. The data from these studies in many states and cities show that disproportionate stops of people of color are made within big cities, across areas, within smaller cities and towns, and within state boundaries (McDevitt and Farrell n.d.). They reflect institutional patterns based on habit, past experience of ‘disorderly’ or ‘high crime’ areas, demand for production of traffic stops as an indication of activity, and longstanding oral traditions about where to make stops, where the ‘trouble lies,’and what areas are seen as ‘high crime.’The overall impact of such monitoring and reporting practices is unknown at the present time. Technology and reform The argument has been made that policing in the twenty-first century will be information-based (Ericson and Haggerty 1998). This begs the question of what is a fact and what is information, as well as highlighting an absence of research on actual use of such technologies. To explore the relevance of new information technologies (IT) to the police, the chaotic features of their information systems must be noted (Abt Associates 2000; Dunworth 2000; Greene 2000), including uneven links to local and national departments and a strong aversion to systematic data analysis and abstraction among working officers. A rule of thumb concerning reform via information processing in policing is that the more simple, concrete, useful in day-to-day operations, and related to definitions of the ‘job’it is, the more likely it is to be used by officers. The more abstract and general the technique, such as expert systems-based software (e.g. HOLMES in the UK), crime mapping and crime analysis, the less likely it is to be used; it may even be ignored.


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Community policing, problem solving and reform It is difficult to find evidence that the structure and function of policing has changed in the last twenty years as result of these changes, especially the acclaimed and touted community policing movement. It is fair to say, as do Skogan and Harnett (1997) and Skogan et al. 1 ( 999), that community policing has spawned a momentous variety of tactics as well as given rise to innovations involving older and well established tactics such as foot patrol. Insofar as visible presence bears on accountability, it may affect the individual officer’s style, but there is not evidence that it has changed everyday policing (Maguire 2003; Greene 2000). Community policing was always a blurred, undefined label in search of a social location. It was a solution searching for a problem. The implication of the fashionable political rhetoric was that it was not but would soon be current practice. The most commonly cited examples of problem solving G ( oldstein 1990 provides thin examples), those by Eck and Spelman 1 ( 987), and Braga et al. 1 ( 999), are not based on systematic problem solving, but ad hoc actions by individual officers, hypothetical diagrams and charts, and reification of the local knowledge of practicing officers (e.g. officers identifying known drug dealing areas which were later mapped and subject to systematic interventions guided by researchers). The imagined ideas have far outstripped the results claimed for problem solving. Crime control and prevention The combination of a drop in the official statistics concerning the conventional nineteenth-century street crimes, especially in New oYrk City B ( lumstein and Wallman 2000), new approaches to managing police and public agencies M ( oore 1997), and more formally educated police leadership in large cities H ( aberfeld 2005)has produced a veneer of success unparalleled in modern p ‘ rofessional policing.’eYt the causes of the drop are moot K ( amen 2000; Harcourt 2000; Manning 2001); the particular case of New oYrk was confounded with trends elsewhere which were not consistent across the country and in cities, across all serious crimes. The public relations efforts of NIJ, the Heritage Foundation, George Kelling, Catherine Coles, Heather MacDonald and others played a major role in amplifying the belief that it was clear h ‘ ow to run a good police department,’how to solve crime z( ero tolerance and crackdowns), and what works. Other scholars traveling briefly abroad declared that Americans knew how to make democratic policing work around the world B ( ayley 2000). Ironically, the considerable progress in crime prevention in the UK T ( illey 2004; Weisburd and Eck 2004), largely through the efforts of the Home Office, has had virtually no impact on American policing. The dominant and continuing practices are random patrols combined with periodic c‘ rackdowns’ on selected street crimes in areas populated by minorities.

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Commercial security The number of private police is difficult to estimate (Nalla and Newman 1990; Johnston 2000). The estimates range from 1.5 to 2 million working for some 60,000 firms. The numbers of both agents and agencies have grown since 1970 (Kakalik and Wildhorn 1971; Cunningham and Taylor 1990). Given the flexibility in these estimates and the heavily ideological character of the arguments (primarily negative with some exceptions e.g. Forst and Manning 1999), one should be cautious in advancing explanations for future growth. This is in part because computers and information systems have been substituted for some officers; furthermore ‘de-skilling’ and ‘civilianization’have occurred, shifting some security type jobs to nonuniformed clerks.10 However, even among Anglo-American democratic states the comparisons between private and public police numbers seen in ratio terms are suggestive of other factors at work. Button (2002: 98) reports from several sources that the ratio of private to public (excluding non-home office officers)officers is 1.4 to one in the UK, 2.6 to one in the US, 2.0 to one in Canada and 1.5 to one in Australia. However, sophisticated observers such as Nalla and Newman (1990) point out that the problem of estimating the numbers of private security employees has at least four aspects: defining a security organization, an officer, and security-related functions (carrying out desk work, patrolling, watching doors, cutting keys, answering alarms and scrutinizing videos). How do these reduce or prevent risk or loss?What range of functions does s‘ ecurity’ cover – contract security, corporate police, policing jails and courts as transport officers?Are locksmiths security experts?In what sense do they provide security? In addition, because the number of people employed in these functions rests on the definitions of human resources divisions rather than an analytic definition, it is difficult to get accurate data from private corporations. The first major study of personnel and trends in private police was published in the United States in 1971 (Kakalik and Wildhorn 1971), followed by the overview of Hallcrest (Cunningham and Taylor 1990). The growth of private policing in the United States was stimulated by at least three trends – the growth of unions and unionization which led to large strikes and demonstrations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. These were led by miners in the western and the central states P ( ennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky)and stimulated not only the use of agents provocateurs, private forces to break the strikes, but also the establishment of state police forces. The second trend was the growth of the frontier and the need to protect the money, gold and other valuables being transported long distances to the Far West. This gave rise to Wells, Fargo, and other protection agencies similar to those that transport money to and from banks. The third trend was the growing threat to the wealthy and the investigative needs left unsatisfied by public police, especially those


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where a crime was anticipated rather than having been committed. This led to the establishment and growth of Pinkerton, the most famous of the early investigative agencies. Shearing 1 ( 992) argued that massive semi-private space has stimulated the great growth in private policing. This semi-private space includes shopping malls, sporting arenas, and the like. There are clearly other factors in the apparent growth of private policing, discussed, if not empirically documented, by Button (2002: 98–9). These include the rise in crime and fear of crime (sometimes associated with the growth of the rhetoric of risk rather than the facts of risk itself (Ericson et al. 2002),) the risk of terrorism since 9/11, expanded demand for protection and police services, perhaps related to community policing and efforts to reduce social distance by public policing, the growth of the insurance industry and its capacity to demand security and protection of assets. These are facets of the more general argument concerning the ‘shrinking state’ under the influence of neoconservative thinking (Johnston and Shearing 2003; Garland 2001)and the growth of privatization of previously public functions (running prisons, guarding courts, transporting prisoners). The Hallcrest report set out some of the basic parameters of assessing private security (Cunningham and Taylor 1990: 192), dividing the security service and manufacturing sector into armored car (cash conveyance)alarm companies, contract guards, private investigators, consultants/engineers, locksmiths, manufacturers and distributors of security equipment. Cunningham and Taylor (1990) show tables for 1980, 1990, and projections for 2000. Some general trends are discernible above the actual numbers: the proportion of security or contract guards has declined, although they still represent about 50 percent of the sector; alarm companies have the most robust growth and there is very little category specific growth t(hey estimated a four percent growth from 1990–2000). These figures are subject to debate; for example, according to the Bureau of Labor statistics, there were only 39,000 private investigators in 2000 while Hallcrest claimed that there were 45,000 in 1980 and that the total continued to rise to an estimated 90,000 by 2000. Some sociological generalizations might be made concerning the balance between private and public policing in the United States, and the organizational pattern of police organizations. The United States has the largest number of private security officers and companies, and the largest figure per capita. There is very little perceived competition, tension or concern about the growth or size of private policing in America. This is in part because the wealth of the country and the tendency to hire public police when crime rises means there is no loss of public policing jobs during budgetary crises. The operations of the private police are rarely controversial and ‘below the radar’ of the public. They are legitimate, but relatively unregulated. The federal government is a contractor for the largest number of private security officers through the auspices of the Federal Protective

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Service and the Transportation Security Administration (Johnston 1992). Their functions (cash conveyance, locksmithing, selling security products, patrolling parking lots and malls, and monitoring screens)vary so widely as to suggest they are not a precise category but a residual category based on the organizational premise that ‘policing’is public policing. Corporate security organizations, designed to protect assets and reduce ‘shrinkage,’ are being replaced by contract security, and outsourcing of skilled functions such as investigation. Security work is now more likely to be done via contracts to monitor quasi-public property and places. The most radical decline is in the number of in-house corporate security operations that serve the interests of the CEO, board of trustees and management in general. While they began as a kind of easily mobilized force to destroy the union movement in the 1930s, they are now being ‘downsized.’ This change in the composition and mode of employment of workers in private security arises from several interrelated factors: ●

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They are vulnerable as they can no longer sustain roles as personal chauffeurs and bodyguards for top management. Management is less stable and is likely to be a shifting, unstable coalition. Private security officers in corporations have lost out in the struggle to define and control ‘loss prevention’and risk management. New functions in this arena are carried out in the human resources and risk management sections of corporations. Audio and visual surveillance systems now substitute for personnel; advanced computer records are kept by human resources and insurance or risk management divisions within companies, not in the files of the security office. The rise of a specialized Chief Information Officer and office (CIO)has centralized corporate information gathering functions. As in public policing, the division of labor is leading to outsourcing of specialized tasks and a shifting of other tasks into more specialized organizational roles.

Regulation of security in the United States is loose, even haphazard. Most states require modest licensing for work in private security, and only recently have national organizations such as ASIS arisen to monitor and regulate standards, provide seminars, certification and continuing education.

Municipal policing The United States, unlike continental systems, has not encouraged semilegitimate private city organizations, in part because the pervasive use of private guards and contracts with private security organizations leaves no ecological niche for such organizations. In addition, the pressure felt nationally in the UK and the Netherlands to integrate social services, including


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police, in order to maintain functions in city centres has not had any appeal in the United States. Some police departments have encouraged police academies to co-opt citizens, citizen advisory groups and volunteers, such as the San Diego RSVP adult retirees groups who provide clerical functions in the department, but no formal groups with a national presence and sponsorship exist. There have been a few innovations in non-sworn forms of policing such as private non-sworn police regulating order in urban business areas such as downtown Washington D.C. and lower Manhattan. Local policing–regulatory groups such as park services, sewer and water, rubbish collection, code enforcement, health and sanitation and the like are not integrated with policing, nor are there any formal or informal ties except in Chicago. Some cities, such as Washington DC, have urban development areas e.g. NW 7th avenue near Chinatown and the MCI Center, that are patrolled by semi-uniformed agents who give advice, tidy the area, communicate via cell phones and liaise with public police in the area. Large cities also have overlapping jurisdictions that arise from university and park police who patrol in and around the university areas but are not restricted to them.

Other policing bodies The 1997 LEMAS survey (Reaves and Goldberg 1997)indicated that there were 53,300 federal officers. Maguire et al. (1998)argued, based on several samples, that there were some 30 federal law enforcement agencies that employed some 47,129 agents. This is probably the most accurate survey, but clearly the definition of ‘agency’ is elastic. Geller and Morris (1992) argue that there are 50 federal agencies that carry guns and make arrests. This is a partial list of federal agents and their policing functions. Geller and Morris (1992: 231)wrote concerning federal agencies and their integration some 13 years ago that ‘there remains a vast ambit of overlapping federal and nonfederal criminal jurisdiction guided primarily by political fashions.’ It would appear that there are at least 43 agencies with broad obligations. The variable definition of federal agency and their duties makes counting agents and agencies difficult (Richman 2000). While there are various estimates of the number of federal agents and agencies, there is some consensus about the most visible, the largest, and the most prestigious agencies amongst them: CIA, FBI, Drugs Enforcement Administration (DEA), Treasury and the Department of Defense (DOD)as well as agents affiliated with Department of Homeland Security. After 11 September 2001, and the establishment in 2002 of the Department of Homeland Security, the blurred boundaries between policing, high policing, intelligence and security functions emerged (Odom 2004a, 2004b), in part because the intelligence functions of the CIA in particular are hidden in both budget and numbers, and the line between intelligence, policing, and military action has been systematically distorted by the present US administration.

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We lack descriptive overviews and analyses of the specialized federal agencies in the United States. Even the most expert of observers such as Howard Odom, former director of the National Security Agency (NSA), is slightly bewildered at the division of labor within and across agencies even within the subset of federal police agencies, the ‘intelligence community’ O ( dom 2004a, 2004b). 11 The work on federal enforcement and specialized federal agencies is thin, most of it carried out by extraordinary journalists P ( owers 2004; Kessler 1994, 2003; Bamford 2002, 2004; Epstein 1977), focused on a few major agencies such as NSA, CIA, FBI and DEA. The finest analytic works are now dated (Kaufman 1960; Moore 1977; Epstein 1977). The material on specialized, smaller agencies is virtually non-existent outside the world of encyclopedias and listings of federal agencies (see Sullivan et al. 2005). Other forms of federal policing involve regulation using civil sanctions with occasional recourse to the criminal sanction. Federal specialized agencies are divided in the origin of their authority. The Executive Branch has 38 policing agencies under its control, and within the Executive Branch, State has one policing agency, Agriculture two, Treasury eleven, and Justice seven. The other policing agencies are distributed between Interior (five), Defense (nine), Commerce (one), and Transportation (two). The Legislative Branch has three police agencies while the Judicial branch has one. There are two independent specialized federal policing agencies – the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority)police (and fire), a semi-privatized public development agency in the mid-South, and the AMTRAK (public rail system)police.

A taxonomy of specialized (federal) agencies A full discussion of federal agencies in the United States requires a more differentiated taxonomy. Law enforcement, as the recent interest in plural policing and governance of security has brought to mind, is not restricted to those who carry guns and can make arrests. Governmental social control takes many forms and the term ‘law enforcement’ is a rhetorical device associated with the rise of ‘professional policing.’The term divides and conquers by denying status to those lacking guns and the criminal sanction, but does not change the powers of other agencies to apply coercive authoritative control. It also obscures the inspectorial function and the meta-inspectorial functions, even though some inspectorial agencies are gun-carrying. Since 9/11, reorganization has occurred by amalgamating several agencies into a notional Homeland Security office. This has not altered their traditional functions; it has dramatized those that represent protection against various forms of invasive foreign-based terrorism. Consider some of these complexities. The sanctions used are various. When criminal law is used primarily, distinctions between and among agencies are neither easily established nor a‘ menable to any categorical distinction’R ( ichman 2000: 82). As Richman


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argues in the following manner, trends in legislation make even this distinction slippery. ●

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While the US constitution does not grant the federal government general police powers, legislative moves, especially in the twentieth century, granted increasing power to federal agencies by use of the commerce clause, civil liberties, and legislation broadening mandates (pp. 83–91). Growth occurs through the passage of substantive law, ‘budget creep,’ and ad hoc laws responding to specific worries (kidnapping, drinking, drugs)rather than through mandate expansion of given agencies (p. 81). Boundaries are not set by law or narrow jurisdiction but by negotiation between federal, state and local agencies (pp. 91–6). Legislatures pass laws that are open-ended in part to permit agencies to explore, expand or contract their responsibilities (pp. 91–6). Tacit agreements, rather than written memos of understanding or statutes, guide the division of enforcement labor. These, in turn, are known through breaches or violations of what is taken for granted about what is a f‘ ederal’case and what is a ‘local’case (p. 95). As is commonly noted, these exceptions are negotiated on a case by case basis. Exceptions tend to favor the more powerful i.e. federal agency. Limits upon federal enforcement are due not to the absence of reach, jurisdiction or resistance, but to the small number of agents, resources that they lack for local enforcement (information and informants, and inadequate local knowledge), and the political autonomy of US federal attorneys. These form a network extending from the Department of Justice and headed by the US Attorney General (p. 101).

The most specialized federal agencies have a specific territorial/organizational remit to police a place, or places with defined features. These range from policing zoos and art galleries through the Pentagon and the FBI t(he FBI has its own police force that polices FBI properties and personnel) to international cross-border, international policing. Civil regulatory agencies that do not employ the criminal law routinely tend to have broad rather than specialized remits. Inspectorial services, such as the Inspector General and the 23 agencies that have Inspector Generals within their boundaries, and meta-inspectorial agencies t(hose that inspect the inspectors, such as the IRS Inspectorial agency), have a monitoring function. Some of these agencies are themselves monitorial in function. This represents bureaucratic attempts to ensure trust by adding layers of bureaux. The broadest obligations of agencies are those that include high policing and Homeland Security functions. Clearly, agencies are not all equal. They vary in their political visibility, power and salience. This is in part due to the broad range of laws they are authorized to employ and these in turn give them power. These agencies can be separated by the sanctions used, with the most visible and dramatic

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agencies being the criminal sanction and secret agencies that are devoted to national security and to criminal matters involving the national welfare – FBI, CIA, NSA, treasury, and others. Those with more mundane mandates use regulatory sanctions in part to sustain the environment and industries of merit rather than to eradicate a market in illegal transactions (goods, services, people). There are specialized agencies that work as inspectors: OHSA, the US Postal Inspector, and FAA. Finally, there are meta-inspectorial services that audit the inspectors and auditors: IRS Auditors, Solicitor General, and the Inspector General’s Office (see Geller and Morris 1992: Table 1, Appendix, especially the note). Without doubt, a broad taxonomy hides the fact that some of the agencies said to have ‘internal obligations,’ such as the FBI and military investigative services, are in fact international and worldwide. They can be sent to investigate or are stationed abroad (there are some 43 ‘legats’housing FBI agents in foreign countries). As Odom (2004a) shows, boundary disputes between CIA and FBI continue in and outside this country because the questions of national security can be defined variously, include criminal acts within this country or abroad or both, and cases may involve both US crimes and matters that are not yet criminal, but are conspiracies. Ironies remain such as the fact that CIA cannot investigate itself and must call on the FBI when it suspects ‘moles’or spies within. Any listing of agency functions or a division of labour, even an analytic taxonomy, can only capture a given time period or adminstration. Reorganization, as the creation of Homeland Security agency illustrates, is common, almost constant, in the mammoth federal governmental structure. Agencies are reorganized periodically and their duties shifted in accord with current political concerns. The BIA and Forest service officers, for example, are required to seek to eradicate marijuana growing in federal parks and lands; the Treasury (secret service)has inherited duties relating to computer fraud since 1984; the Interior land management and law enforcement resources police have responsibility for wild burros and horses, while the TVA police have responsibilities for police and fire services in the lands regulated by the TVA. While the agencies each have a mandate and name, the categories of policing duties within a given branch can be wildly diverse. DOD has world security obligations to oversight of buildings and lands of US bases; within the Treasury the duties of agencies vary from protecting elected officials to patrolling the mint. The level at which the agencies police or regulate varies enormously. At one level, the MPs and Shore patrol, for example, patrol bases and shore around the bases, while at the other extreme, the IRS (Inland Revenue Service)inspector is inspecting the IRS inspectorate (it is an inspectorate of an inspectorate which in turn regulates the IRS as a regulatory body). There are 25 Inspectorates General in the federal government, and two of these are law enforcement bodies whose agents carry guns. Very large units police


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fraud, embezzlement and white collar crimes which are largely invisible, unlike traditional nineteenth-century visible crimes. If one divides the federal agencies by the sanctions used, one can see that some agencies use traditional criminal sanctions and that the cases are entered into the criminal justice system. Other agencies are regulatory and rely on civil sanctions. Others are primarily inspectorial or regulatory and supervise or audit other federal agencies. Finally there are those that are meta-inspectorial, that is they inspect the inspectors. At the bottom, symbolically, are agencies that police the status quo ante.12 These are ambiguous agencies that seek to sustain the truth as government defines it. They monitor the nature of the viability of life, the water, the air, or the sky and sea, as the government of the day defines it. This includes setting the level of danger a citizen a can expect from water, air, emissions, nuclear radiation, and serving the survival of the country. One can label the models of regulation as: the criminal coercive model, the compliance–negotiation model and the co-operative model. Of course, in practice, they overlap as agents use whatever sanction works in their eyes. The investigative function is performed by some, while others are committed more to patrol and order maintenance, or at the other end, high security world politics. As noted above, some agencies are quite specialized in their ecological obligations, the most extreme examples of this being the National Gallery, the Supreme Court, Mint and Library of Congress police. Some are truly federal, such as the FBI, fisheries and park police. The Legislative, Judicial and Special Establishment police are concerned primarily with order and ordering, and protecting property, visitors and personnel in specific ecologically defined sites. This ecological basis for authority stands in contrast to the broader mandate of the agencies within the Executive branch of the federal government. Here a rather specific listing of distinctions is required. Executive policing functions vary along the following dimensions: ● ● ●

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their analytic focus-intelligence, reaction to crime, or patrol and ordering their level of attention – here and now, inspectorial or meta-inspectorial the sanctions typically applied – criminal, civil, or broader ordering and status quo maintenance the scope of the enforcement practices the obligation for national security and integrity of boundaries and borders, i.e. high policing functions the nature of the abstraction required in the functions – data integrity, fraud contracts, versus people or material property internally or nationally oriented, or internationally located the degree of statutory obligation to carry out high policing, e.g. Homeland Security, CIA, FBI, DOD the control of currently controlled prisoners versus those on probation or citizens at large.

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Note also that the functions of the agencies within the executive branch are much broader than other branches and that they reflect the expansion of federal powers through the commerce clause and the need for inspectorial functions given the huge number of agencies and agents. The number of functions within policing agencies in the executive branch can range from high, e.g. in Department of Defense on oversight of security, to low, e.g. patrol of buildings and grounds. This variation is not found in agencies in the Judicial, Legislative or Special establishments because they are quite restrictive in locale and obligation.

Extent of integration of policing forms While Geller and Morris (1992)note that both incentives and disincentives exist for communication, co-operation and co-ordination among federal and local agencies, their analysis is rather pessimistic. They conclude that continued progress in integration is hampered by ‘powerful mythology’and p ‘ olitical realities’and note the continued independence among the ‘14,000 local and at least 50 federal police agencies’1 ( 992: 231). It might be noted further that the division between criminal sanction-based policing, civil regulation and inspection cleaves the large set of enforcement agencies and that, unlike processes within the criminal justice system (Reiss 1974), the code of legal language by which cases move in and out of consideration does not integrate the larger network of rule enforcement agencies. Relations among local, state and municipal agencies, as well as with the federal agencies, are weakened by the overlapping laws, regulations and rules that govern response as well as differing investigative procedures. Specialized agencies are in theory restricted to territories, places, locales, symbolic or otherwise, for which they are held responsible. However, the mobility of criminals, the negotiated nature of the investigation (e.g. who investigates crimes within reservations, casinos, or Indian territory?)and the notional place of the crime create ambiguities. While jurisdiction may be clear in law, it is negotiated in practice between BIA, County Police, Indian Tribal Police and the FBI and/or military investigative agencies. The further globalization of criminal opportunities makes easy territorially based distinctions less viable now than even ten years ago. Agencies are bound together in large part by three things: routines that organize their tasks, such as case-making, investigation and closure; the oral culture and place-based ecologically situated density of interaction, and traditions and historically drawn boundaries around the scope of their responsibilities and practices. The internal conflict between levels of officers, especially between command and the lower participants, is suppressed by the tacit system of shared misunderstandings – ideas about the shared experiences as uniformed patrol officers, beliefs in ‘good police work,’ and the threat of the public bind them together (Manning 1977: 145).


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Agencies that enforce the law are based on the premise that their work must be secret, stealthy, of low visibility and clandestine until action is taken. They prize secrecy, territorial dominance and boundary maintenance. They prize backstage teamwork within a given agency. They elevate their own traditions and practices over other organizations, and cling to the notion that secrecy and secrets are to be guarded with a bodyguard of lies if necessary s( ee Bamford 2002, 2004; Powers 2004; Kessler 1994, 2003). Domestic specialized federal policing is predicated on the idea of the case as the center of action choices. If a case is not extracted from the natural events ‘on the ground,’ what is seen to be taking place, or further along if the investigator decides no crime has been committed (the record of crime is ‘unfounded’,) no case exists. In the investigative world and the world of internal affairs, cases can be constructed a priori, but in general, the aim of these agencies is to bring criminals to justice with media assistance and expected amplification of investigations, suspects and outcomes. This aligns investigators more with the high police and federal police whose obligations are to ensure domestic security (agencies primarily in Justice, Treasury, Homeland Security, and DOD). On the other hand, since investigators consider that cases and information should be worked on one at a time without broader connections, such as connecting a series of burglaries, thefts, or deaths, and should be a matter of personal ‘property,’ beliefs that are reinforced by the routines and practices of ‘working a case,’ constraints mitigate against shared cases, data, informants, clues or even hunches. These matters make the development of co-operation erstwhile, fragmented, personalized, local, incident-driven and historically shaped. By erstwhile, I mean that formal modes of communicating are neither consistent and well-formulated nor formalized. ‘Fragmented’ refers to the overlapping of jurisdictions, the different relevant laws and the hierarchy of local/state/federal violations, which mean that the networks binding one agency to another are partially complete, rather than systems (bounded, closed, organized by a code and channels of communication). These patterns or habits of communication begin locally and end locally, in that enforcement usually requires some contact, liaison with local agencies. The tendency for cases originating in a locale to stay in the originating organization is a hypothesis that one could test. Co-operative networks, when they do arise, come as a result of a major disastrous spectacle – such as the Washington DC sniper of 2002, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Murrah Building bombing and subsequent investigation, or a specific task force formed for a stated short-term purpose such as suppressing gangs, reducing youth homicide, or drug enforcement. By ‘historically shaped,’I refer to the idea that if the relationships have been friendly in the past they will be continued if personal relationships have been formed between the agencies. By ‘personal,’I mean one officer who knows another and trusts him or her. Case studies, it would appear, suggest that the hierarchy of authority in a locale or event is established by tacit admission rather than legal authority

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M ( anning, forthcoming). In longer term planning around major national security events (as they are now designated in the United States), working arrangements require agreements at the level of local politics which are economically essential to forming the network and planning. Once in place, the dominant organization assumes its pride of place to determine where and when it will serve in the enforcement role. The arrangements for the division of labor are set out with a hierarchy of resort based upon firepower and resources (both of which fall in the control of the federal agencies), and if an incident occurs, the most central federal agency to the matter, normally either the secret service or the FBI, takes operational command. In this negotiation, something of a dance, evidence suggests, private security is generally omitted from planning and liaison. The most famous instance of co-ordinated public–private police planning is the Christmas celebration at Rockefeller Center every year. In summary, co-ordination of levels of enforcement cannot be easily understood by categorical listings of powers, jurisdictions, or sanctions. Most of the work that has alerted scholars to the study of policing generally has been taxonomic, or has pointed out from a socio-legal perspective that sanctions, even employing the criminal sanction and carrying a gun, do not delimit the range of interventions that can be undertaken or are undertaken by any legitimate agent employed by either a public or private agency. For this reason, among many others, the term d ‘ iscretion’ is misleading. The decision to intervene, investigate, open a case, or make a stop does not require a legal basis; deciding amongst options in arrest and charge and the system to which the case is to be submitted is patterned by law and is glossed with the term d ‘ iscretion.’ In some rather unclear fashion, private agencies are distinguished only because they cannot other than as a citizen make an arrest and enter a case into the criminal justice system. As Richman 2 ( 000: 101), for example, argues effectively, US attorneys are gatekeepers to the federal system and in practice determine what is a f‘ ederal’ case. These agreements are difficult to uncover in official discourse and too few studies have examined it closely. These ambiguities are made more complicated by the pressure of federal agencies to encourage the application of federal rather than state or local standards in many areas, e.g. federal sentencing guidelines, the informal symbolic power of federal agencies to which local agencies tend to defer, especially in times of crisis or m ‘ oral panic,’ 13 and past practices and personal relationships that shape co-operation.

Conclusion American policing is local policing, complemented by county, township and federal agents and agencies. They supply sanctions, largely reactively, to a wide variety of rule-breaking, including law-breaking. Private policing is a major figure in policing, but is not generally viewed as competition or an enemy. There is little pressure for innovation in respect to building a network


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of security, expanding policing to include CSOs or the equivalent and no questioning of the worth of policing in its modern guises – community oriented yet crime-focused. The decline in official crime figures has shored up the policing mandate and given new credence to the American police ideology that states that the police stand between the citizen and chaos.

Notes 1 Even such a brief definition requires some specification. Policing of a formal sort is implicitly sanctioned and may be directed, licensed and regulated by government. It has taken a profoundly bureaucratic form (organized around ranks, roles, duties, authority distinctions, careers and external constraints (Reiss 1992: 82)) since its initiation in 1829. The territorial and functional limits on policing have always been flexible, never more so than at the present time. Establishing ‘order’ is in part a value question, in part a functional one, and in part a reflection of the overall legitimacy of the political order in which police operate. In periods of rebellion, police shift in function to concern for national security or high policing, and are less guided by procedural protections. 2 The Peel model was deterrent in purpose, aiming to reduce opportunity via visible police presence, ease of access of the citizens to the police and active response to disorder. The idea was much influenced by the ideas of Bentham, Mill and other utilitarians whose emphasis was on reducing temptation in advance rather than applying punishment after the fact. These ideas are rarely found in modern police rhetoric as well as its crime ‘fighting’practices. 3 I have summarized these matters elsewhere (Manning 1997: 97–106; Manning 2003: 43–58). 4 For example, in 2003 the Police Commissioner in Boston made $ 120,000 and the starting pay for a officer was about $ 48,000, a ratio of 5:2. In that same year, the President of Northeastern University in Boston made 430,000 and the beginning professor in Criminal Justice made 45,000, a ratio of about 10:1. 5 Calls from cellular or mobile phones, because they do not produce an address shown on the e-911 system, must be handled separately. I assume these calls will soon be classified on the basis of their origin using a GPS grid and satellite positioning. 6 411 and 311 calls must be prefaced by a three digit area code, even when one is calling from within that area code. 7 For example, the BPD computer system reallocates calls to an automatic answering system when a block of origin is the source of an overload. This happens in the event of a fire, gun shots, a loud multi-car accident or a power outage. 8 In Boston and Cambridge Massachusetts, for example, there are: four types of municipal police (housing, parks, municipal, and transportation system police M ( BTA)); at least seven university campus police forces (e.g. the BPD and State Police); two county police forces (Middlesex and Suffolk)who do not regularly patrol but are present; and an unknown number of private security companies. 9 Perhaps the most notorious of these cities is Boston, where not only is police pay on average the highest in the country, but further ‘details’are paid at $ 34.70 an hour (for any part of an hour after the first). As a result some 19 officers made more than 200,000 dollars in 2004 (Boston Globe, 12 March 2005). The mechanism is that captains assign officers by contract, sometimes themselves, and sometimes a captain’s presence is required by union contract (e.g. at Fenway park for the 81 home baseball games). The officers are paid by the city after the city is paid by the companies employing the officers.

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10 Structural features affect the ratio of public to private police (DeWaard 1998; Jones and Newburn 1998; Button 2002). It is likely that centralized state authority and the traditional acceptance of high policing in civil law countries reduce the growth of non-public policing. 11 This position is echoed in the most significant study of US intelligence, carried out by Roberta Wohlstetter (1962). She examined the evidence of intelligence failure during and prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in December 1942, using the 39 Volume Congressional Hearings on the matter. 12 These ideas are Patrick Healy’s. We discussed them in Oxford in 1985–6 and intended to publish a joint paper on regulation which was never realized. 13 This is a reference to Stan Cohen’s 1 ( 980)term.

References Abt Associates (2000) Police Department Information Systems Technology Enhancement Project (ISTEP), Washington, D.C.: Department of Justice. Alpert, G. and Dunham, R. (2004) Understanding Police Use of Force, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bamford, J. (2002) The Puzzle Palace, New oYrk: Simon and Schuster. Bamford, J. (2004) The Pretext for War, New oYrk: Doubleday. Bayley, D. 1 ( 994) Police for the Future, New oYrk: Oxford University Press. Bayley, D. 2 ( 000) Democratizing the Police Abroad: What to do and how to do it, Washington D.C.: Department of Justice. Bayley, D. and Bittner, E. (1986) T ‘ he tactical choices of police patrol officers’, Journal of Criminal Justice, 14, pp. 329–48. Bayley, D. and Garofalo, J. (1989)T ‘ he management of violence by police officers’, Criminology, 27, pp. 1–25. Bayley, D. and Shearing, C. (1996) T ‘ he future of policing’, Law and Society Review, 30, pp. 585–606. Bittner, E. 1 ( 972) The Function of Police in Modern Society, Washington, D.C.: NIMH. Black, D. 1 ( 976) The Behavior of Law, New oYrk: Academic Press. Black, D. 1 ( 980) Manners and Customs of the Police, New oYrk: Academic Press. Blumstein, A. and Wallman, J. (eds)2 ( 000) The Crime Drop in America, New oYrk: Cambridge University Press. Bordua, D. and Reiss, A. J. Jr. (1966)C ‘ ommand, control and charisma’, American Journal of Sociology, 72, pp. 68–76. Bordua, D. and Reiss, A. J. Jr. (1967)L ‘ aw enforcement’, in P. Lazarsfeld, A. Sewell and H. Wilensky (eds) The Uses of Sociology, New oYrk: Basic Books. Braga, A. et al. 1 ( 999) P ‘ roblem-oriented policing in violent crime places: A randomized controlled experiment’, Criminology, 37, pp. 541–80. Button, M. 2 ( 002) Private Policing, Cullompton: Willan. Clark, A. L. and Gibbs, J. (1965)S‘ ocial control: A reformulation’, Social Problems, 12, pp. 398–415. Cohen, S. (1980) Folk Devils and Moral Panics, London: Martin Robertson. Cordner, G. and Biebel, E. (2005) ‘Problem oriented policing in practice’, Criminology and Public Policy, 4: 2, pp. 155–80.


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Cunningham, W. and Taylor, T. (1990) The Hallcrest Report, Portland, Oregon: Chancellor Press. Deflem, M. (2003) Policing World Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press. DeWaard, J. (1998)T ‘ he private security sector in fifteen European countries: Size, rules and legislation’, Security Journal, 4: 2, pp. 58–63. Dunworth, T. (2000)C ‘ riminal justice and the information technology revolution’, in J. Horney (ed.) Criminal Justice 2000, Vol. 3, pp. 371–426, Washington, D.C. NIJ/Office of Justice Programs. Eck, J. and Spelman, W. (1987) Problem Solving Policing, Washington D.C.: Police Foundation. Epstein, E. (1977) Agency of Fear, New oYrk: Random House. Ericson, R. and Haggerty, K. (1998) Policing the Risk Society, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Ericson, R., Doyle, A. and Barry, J. (2002) Insurance as Governance, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Forst, B. and Manning, P. 1 ( 999) Privatization of Policing: Two Views, Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Garland, D. (2001) The Culture of Control, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Geller, W. and Morris, N. (1992)R ‘ elations between federal and local police’, in M. Tonry and N. Morris (eds) Modern Policing, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Goldstein, H. (1990) Problem-Oriented Policing, New oYrk: McGraw-Hill. Gouldner, A. (1954) Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy, Glencoe: Free Press of Glencoe. Greene, J. (2000) C ‘ ommunity policing in America’, in Policies, Processes and Decisions of the Justice System, Criminal Justice, 2000, Vol. 3, pp. 299–370. Haberfeld, M. (2005) Police Training, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Harcourt, B. (2000) The Illusion of Order, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Hughes, E. C. (1958) Men and Their Work, Glencoe: Free Press of Glencoe. Johnston, L. (1992) The Rebirth of Private Policing, London: RKP. Johnston, L. and Shearing, C. (2003) Governing Security, London: Routledge. Jones, T. and Newburn, T. 1 ( 998) Private Security and Public Policing, Oxford: Clarendon. Kakalik, J. S. and Wildhorn, S. (1971) Private Police in the United States, F ( ive Vols.), Washington, D.C.: USGPO. Kamen, A. (2000) New York City Murder Mystery, New oYrk: New oYrk University Press. Kaufman, H. (1960) The Forest Ranger, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Kessler, R. (1994) Inside the CIA, New oYrk: Pocket Books. Kessler, R. (2003) The Bureau, New oYrk: St. Martin’s Paperbacks. Klockars, C. (1985) The Idea of Police, Thousand Oaks: Sage. Klockars, C. (1994)A ‘ theory of excessive force and its control’, in W. Geller and H. Toch e( ds) And Justice For All, Washington, D.C. PERF. Lane, R. (1967) Policing the City, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Lawrence, R. (2000) The Politics of Force, Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Maguire, E. (1997)S‘ tructural change in large municipal police organizations during the community policing era’, Justice Quarterly, 14, pp. 547–76. Maguire, E. 2 ( 003) Organizational Structure in American Policing, Albany: SUNY Press. Maguire, E. R., Snipes, J. B., Uchida, C. D. and Townsend, M. (1998) C ‘ ounting cops: Estimating the number of police officers and police agencies in the United States’, Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, 21, pp. 97–120. Manning, P. K. 1 ( 997) 1 [ 977] Police Work (Second Edition), Prospect Heights: Waveland Press. Manning, P. K. (2001)T ‘ heorizing policing: the drama and myth of crime control in the NY PD’, Theoretical Criminology, 5: 3, 315–44. Manning, P. K. 2 ( 003) Policing Contingencies, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Manning, P. K. (forthcoming)T ‘ wo Studies of American Anti-Terrorism’, in J. Wood and B. Dupont, (eds.) Policing and Democracy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Manning, P. K. and Redlinger, L. (1977)I‘ nvitational edges’, in P. Manning and J. Van Maanen (eds) Policing: A View From the Street, Santa Monica: Goodyear. Mastrofski, S., Reisig, M. and McCloskey, J. (2002) P ‘ olice disrespect toward the public’, Criminology, 40, pp. 519–51. Mawby, R. C. (2003) Policing Images, Cullompton: Willan. McDevitt, J. and Farrell, A. (n.d.) Report on Traffic Stops, Institute for Race and Justice, Northeastern University, Boston. Miller, W. 1 ( 998) 1 [ 977] Cops and Bobbies: Police authority in New York and London, 1830–1870, S( econd Edition), Columbus: Ohio State University. Monkkonen, E. (1981) The Police in Urban America, 1830–1920, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Monkkonen, E. (1992)H ‘ istory of urban police’, in M. Tonry and N. Morris (eds) Modern Policing, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Moore, M. (1977) Buy and Bust, Lexington: Lexington Books. Moore, M. (1997) Creating value, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Nadelmann, E. 1 ( 993) Cops Across Borders: The Internationalization of US Criminal Law Enforcement, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Nalla, M. and Newman, G. (1990) A Primer on Security, Albany: Harrow and Heston. Odom, H. (2004a) Fixing Intelligence, New Haven: aYle University Press. Odom, H. (2004b) Report of the 911 Commission, Washington, D.C.: USPGO. Powers, T. (2004) Intelligence Wars, New oYrk: Simon and Schuster. Rawlings, P. (2004)P ‘ olicing before the police’, in T. Newburn (ed.) The Handbook of Policing, Cullompton: Willan. Reaves, B. and Goldberg, A. (1996) LEMAS Data, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, D.C.: Department of Justice. Reaves, B. and Goldberg, A. (1997) Local Policing, LEMAS Data, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, D.C.: Department of Justice.


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Reaves, B. and Goldberg, A. (2003) Sheriff’s Offices, LEMAS Data, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, D.C.: Department of Justice. Reppetto, T. (1979) The Blue Parade, New oYrk: Macmillan. Reiss, A. J. Jr. (1974) D ‘ iscretionary justice’, in D. Glaser (ed.) The Handbook of Criminology, Chicago: Rand McNally. Reiss, A. J. Jr. (1988) Private Employment of the Public Police, Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Reiss, A. J. Jr. (1992) P ‘ olice organization in the twentieth century’, in M. Tonry and N. Morris (eds) Modern Policing, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Reiss, A. J. Jr. and Bordua, D. (1967)O ‘ rganization and environment’, in D. Bordua e( d.) Police: Six Sociological Essays, New oYrk: John Wiley. Richman, D. (2000) T ‘ he changing boundaries between federal and local law enforcement’, in J. Horney (ed.) Changing Boundaries in Criminal Justice Organizations, Washington, D.C. Department of Justice: USGPO. Scheptycki, J. (2000) In search of Transnational Policing, Aldershot: Ashgate. Shearing, C. (1992)T ‘ he relation between public and private policing’, in M. Tonry and N. Morris (eds) Modern Policing, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sherman, L. W. (1978) Corruption and Reform, Berkeley: University of California Press. Skogan, W. and Harnett, S. (1997) Community Policing, Chicago Style, New oYrk: Oxford University Press. Skogan, W., Hartnett, S., DuBois, J., Comey, J., Kaiser, M. and Lovig, J. (1999) On the Beat: Police and Community Problem Solving, Boulder, CO: Westview Publishing Co. Sullivan, L., Haberfeld, M. and Schutz, L. (eds) 2 ( 005) Encyclopedia of Law Enforcement, T ( hree Vols.), Thousand Oaks: Sage. Tilley, N. (2004)C ‘ ommunity Policing, problem-oriented policing and intelligenceled policing’, in T. Newburn (ed.) The Handbook of Policing, Cullompton: Willan. Waddington, P. A. J. (1998) P ‘ olice [canteen] culture: an appreciation’, British Journal of Criminology, 39, pp. 286–309. Walker, S. 2 ( 004) Police Accountability, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Walker, S. and Katz, C. (2003) The Police in America F ( ourth Edition), New oYrk: McGraw-Hill. Weisburd, D. and Eck, J. (2004)W ‘ hat can police do to reduce crime, disorder and fear?,’ Annals, 593, pp. 42–65. Weisburd, D., Mastrofski, S., McNally, A. M., Greenspan, R. and Willis, J. (2003) ‘Reforming to preserve: COMPSTAT and strategic problem solving in American policing’, Criminology and Public Policy, 2: 3, pp. 421–56. Willis, J., Mastrofski, S., Weisburd, D. and Greenspan, R. (2004) Compstat and Organizational Change in the Lowell Police Department: Challenges and Opportunities, Washington D.C.: Police Foundation. Wohlstetter, R. 1 ( 962) Pearl Harbor: Warning and Disaster, Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

7

Canada George S. Rigakos and Cherie Leung

This chapter deals with the structure of contemporary Canadian policing by examining the variable roles of both public-sector and commercial security provision in the last three decades. It covers core municipal, provincial, and federal public policing as well as other quasi-public and ancillary state regulatory inspectorates and the rapid growth of private policing bodies especially in large metropolitan areas. The general approach is to provide a concise overview of the state of contemporary Canadian policing and to identify current trends that are indicative of the future direction of public and private security provision in this country.

State policing One of Canada’s unique features is its identification with its federal police as a national symbol of sovereignty. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police R ( CMP), affectionately known as the ‘Mounties,’ are perhaps internationally the most widely recognized police agency in their unique red tunic, Strathcona boots, and wide-brimmed hats. The RCMP’s g‘ reat march west,’ their storied civilizing effect during the Klondike gold rush, and their reputation for ‘always getting their man’ is an embedded part of the Canadian national identity (e.g. Horrall 1973; Macleod 1976). While the RCMP are a federal, centralized, quasi-military constabulary, they are also responsible for local municipal and provincial policing through contractual relationships with regional municipalities, provinces, and federal territories except in u Qb é ec and Ontario (who maintain their own provincial services: the Ontario Provincial Police and Sû retédu u Qb é ec). Of course, the RCMP still maintain primary responsibility for federal issues such as co-ordinating with Interpol, maintaining a centralized national police criminal database, national security and terrorism, co-ordinating efforts in drug trafficking, organized crime, and security for major international events. When one includes specialized aboriginal policing, there are generally four levels of public policing in Canada: municipal, provincial, federal, and First Nations. The five largest Canadian police forces, the RCMP, Metropolitan Toronto Police, OPP, Sû retédu u Qb é ec, and the Montréal Urban Community

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Police, are thus alternately federal, municipal or provincial and account for over 60 percent of all Canadian police officers. First Nations policing is governed by an assortment of direct policing agreements between aboriginal communities across Canada and the RCMP, the OPP, or the Sû reté du u Qb é ec. 1 In certain instances, stand-alone First Nations police services have responsibility for policing their own communities and in others the community uses tribal police or band constables pursuant to the Indian Act. The latter band constables may enforce band bylaws but are not fully sworn constables. Bayley 1 ( 985: 57) adeptly describes the existing configuration of Canadian public policing as a decentralized–co-ordinated–multiple system because i‘n any one place policing is overwhelmingly the responsibility of a single force – though that force may be variously national, provincial, or municipal.’ When a contracted provincial force o ( r the RCMP)is removed, another fills its place with limited jurisdictional overlap. There is thus a great degree of variation across Canada when one looks at the number of police officers employed in the 581 Canadian municipal police services. For example, as of 1997, 196 municipal forces were RCMP contracts and 36 others were OPP contracts S( wol 1999: 13)while Canada’s three federal territories uY ( kon, Northwest, and Nunavut)had no municipal police whatsoever. Municipal police services, therefore, vary greatly in size and operating expenditures – from Canada’s largest municipal force, the Metropolitan Toronto Police Service with an annual operating budget of over $ 635 million to RCMP detachments such as Q ualicum Beach, British Columbia at 3 $89,689. The RCMP is thus a federal service but more than half of its officers provide policing services to provinces, territories or municipalities under contract to these levels of government. Overall, in 2001, total policing expenditures in Canada totaled $ 7.3 billion which represents an increase of 6.9 percent from 2000. In constant dollars, expenditures are up 4.2 percent, the fifth year in a row that costs have increased C ( anadian Center for Justice Statistics 2002: 57). While costs have been rising, public police demographics suggest that there has been an overall decrease in the number of uniformed public police officers relative to the Canadian population since the 1950s. It is difficult, indeed, to get an accurate count of state-sponsored policing given the wide host of other public servants who conduct regulatory and enforcement functions J( ones and Newburn 1999)s( uch as social housing special constables, railway and other transit police, port and harbor police, customs officers, hydro police, wildlife, game and park wardens, Competition Bureau investigators, etc.), but the statistics compiled by the federal government focus on the defensible barometer of uniformed public police officers at the provincial, federal, and municipal levels. The largest rise in police officers per population took place after the 1960s. In 1960 there were fewer than 145 police officers per 100,000 population but by the mid-1970s this had risen to 200 police per 100,000 population, peaking in 1991 at 203. By 2000, however, that number had dropped to 182 police per 100,000 population

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C ( anadian Center for Justice Statistics 2001: 40–1) reflecting the recent belief that public policing has not kept pace with the Canadian population. The cost of public policing has thus risen while the number of uniformed police officers per capita has been declining in recent years, creating an emerging perception that the Canadian public is paying more for less. Between the 1988–89 fiscal year and the 1994–95 fiscal year, the cost for public police services per Canadian rose from 1 $63 to 1 $98 while controlling for inflation R ( igakos 2000b: 176). The increased cost of public policing has long been considered to be a key factor behind the expansion of private security (Spitzer and Scull 1977) although, in the Canadian context, there has been no direct empirical support to substantiate this claim (Rigakos 2000b). This issue, among others, will be explored in a more substantive manner when considering private security later in this chapter. Canadian public police unionization since the late 1970s has surely contributed to higher wages through nationally coordinated collective bargaining teams. In addition, it is important to reflect on two recent developments that bear directly on the increasing per capita cost of public policing: the drive toward regionalization, and state investment in policing in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in New oYrk City on 11 September 2001. Given Canada’s contract-based policing arrangements between municipalities and either provincial services or the RCMP, it is not surprising to see a movement towards the amalgamation of smaller forces as a third option. One of the most significant developments in Canadian policing over the last three decades has been a general move towards larger regional or provincially contracted detachments in lieu of smaller local policing units. This process accelerated in the 1990s as the Conservative provincial government in Ontario, in keeping with their wide-ranging neo-liberal initiatives, passed legislation that amended the Police Services Act in favor of ‘equitable police financing.’ Whereas the provincial government historically subsidized smaller town policing, amendments pursuant to Bill 105 created new regional authorities that were responsible for the full costs of their own policing. The process of regionalization was already under way: from 1962 to 1996, 153 police services were amalgamated into 11 regional police services providing policing to over 60 percent of Ontario’s population. After legislative changes introduced by the Conservative government, the Ontario Provincial Police went from providing 35 police service contracts in 1998 to 92 contracts with full cost recovery in 2002. The OPP managed to cut the number of subsidized contracts in the same period from 576 to 199. The provincial government also made it possible for municipalities to contract from more than one service in any given jurisdiction. The main benefactors seem to be the OPP who contracted their specialized services such as emergency dispatch and detective work on top of local regional or municipal police patrol. Thus, as of 2003, the OPP was servicing 54 specialized contracts and providing

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9 8 7 6 5 4 3 Constant dollars

Current dollars

2 1

19

85 19 86 19 87 19 88 19 89 19 90 19 91 19 92 19 93 19 94 19 95 19 96 19 97 19 98 19 99 20 00 20 01 20 02

0 Year

Figure 7.1 Current and constant dollar spending on policing, Canada, 1985–2002 Source: Police Administration Survey, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics

quotes for an additional 24 municipalities (OPP 2003). This development lends itself to the possible long-term displacement of the dominant singlejurisdiction, single-police service model in Canada. In fact, the Q uinte West police transition board entertained bids from private security companies for tertiary policing responsibilities to supplement the eventual creation of a regional police service (Rigakos 2002). The federal government has for some time adopted a similar service delivery philosophy for the RCMP. From 1928 to 1966, the Solicitor General paid for 60 percent of local or provincial policing contracted with the RCMP. This federal share dropped slowly to 30 percent by 1990 and the long-term goal of the RCMP contract policing unit is 100 percent cost recovery. Thus, all expansions must be cost-neutral to the federal government. So, while the RCMP increased by five the number of its municipal contracts in British Columbia between 1997 to 2002, the municipal share of police expenditures also rose from 82.4 percent to 87.2 percent in the same five-year period (Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics 2003: 23). For both federal and provincial governments, the monetary incentive to divest policing responsibility to local regions and municipalities is rather transparent. But the move toward regional police services was also seen as essential for ‘effective and efficient’ policing. Despite this rationalization rhetoric there is actually contrary empirical evidence suggesting larger regional forces are no better or more effective than smaller, local police services based on measures such as clearance rates, and cost per officer L ( ithopoulos and Rigakos 2005).

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In the five years after 2005 federal expenditures on policing can be expected to increase due to the federal government’s investment in the national security of Canadians following the terrorist attack in the United States on September 11, 2001. An immediate $ 280 million Anti-Terrorism Plan was announced in October 2001. Two months later, a new federal budget allocated $ 7.7 billion over five years for initiatives aimed at terrorism, including $ 1.6 billion for strengthened intelligence and policing. The funds are slated to enhance information-sharing capabilities among policing services and intelligence and national security agencies, as well as increase the number of police and intelligence officers and better equip them for response and prevention to terrorist activity (Canadian Center for Justice Statistics 2002: 21). By the time these initiatives are fully implemented they may have some effect on public police employment and expenditure statistics in Canada, including the police–citizen ratio.

Other state and quasi-state policing bodies There are myriad regulatory personnel involved in policing functions on behalf of Canada’s three levels of government. These range from Canada’s 400-plus park wardens, to tax investigators, to campus security, to military police, and the quasi-public Corps of Commissionaires, Canada’s railway police, special constables who guard legislative assemblies, etc. Indeed, it would be impossible to cover even a representative minority of all of these various regulatory organizations. Instead, in this section we examine more closely three selected policing organizations that are of particular interest, playing as they do a prominent role in quasi-public policing in Canada. The Corps of Commissionaires The Corps of Commissionaires can trace their roots to 1859 and to Captain Edward Walter, who was concerned with the difficult transition of war veterans back into civilian life after the Crimean war. In 1915, the Governor General suggested that an organization similar to the British Corps of Commissionaires be formed in Canada after World War I. In 1925, the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires came into existence through a Federal Charter under a Letters Patent issued by the government. Today, the Corps of Commissionaires is a private not-for-profit organization employing over 18,000 former members of the Armed Forces, the RCMP, and other organizations.2 Some divisions of the Corps also recruit graduates with recognized law and security college qualifications, which has been somewhat controversial among executives in the private security industry. The Corps offers security services to businesses, industries, homeowners and provincial governments but its main client is the federal government through its role of guarding federal facilities and buildings. In

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1945, the Corps of Commissionaires approached the Secretary of the Treasury Board for special dispensation. They argued that after the Second World War the number of security contracts filled by the Corps had been decreasing while the number of veterans available for work had increased. This resulted in the rather unique Treasury Board position that all federal departments, boards and commissions give first consideration to the Corps for all security service contracts. This has come to be known as the right of first refusal which means that all federal government security contracts are offered first to the Corps of Commissionaires. The Corps may choose to accept or reject contracts based on the availability of personnel. The right of first refusal was re-examined in 1996 and reinstated for another five years. In 2000, the Auditor General of Canada examined the policy and the right of first refusal was reinstated for another five years. The Corps of Commissionaires is therefore in a rather ambiguous market position. Executives from security companies believe that the right of first refusal stunts competition and drives down market prices because members of the Corps are subsidized by their own federal and/or military pension plans. This allows the Corps of Commissionaires to accept contracts at very low rates. Indeed, the Corps of Commissionaires has more than doubled in size since 1961, from 5,211 officers gradually increasing to 11,217 officers in 1998 (see Figure 7.2). Proponents of the Corps argue that the agency fulfills a very important public function by providing employment to veterans. Moreover, the availability of the Corps allows the federal government to keep its security costs down all the while employing well-trained and certified security personnel who are also military pensioners. As it stands, the Corps of Commissionaires accepts about 80 percent of the right of first refusal contracts it is offered by the federal government. The Corps of Commissionaires is also typically the security service of preference by other jurisdictions such as small municipalities that contract with it for municipal bylaw enforcement. Another source of discontent among some security executives is that the Corps of Commissionaires has started an ancillary branch known as ‘Corps 2’ that competes alongside other private-contract security providers and employs non-veteran staff. The Corps’ right of first refusal is once again under review by the Treasury Board. The federal government is a major employer of contract security services and a change of policy would have serious implications for the configuration of private security provision in Canada. The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) Unlike the Corps of Commissionaires, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority C ( ATSA)has a very recent history, being established on 1 April 2002 in response to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.3 The new federal authority is also a not-for-profit Crown corporation but is responsible for key aviation issues pursuant to the new Canadian Air Transport

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Security Authority Act. CATSA is part of a $ 2.2 billion federal initiative for aviation security. CATSA officers, in their distinct security uniforms, are deployed in airports across Canada. They are responsible for screening passengers and baggage, patrolling restricted areas, enforcing pass systems and overseeing the program of RCMP officers on board aircraft. To most Canadians, CATSA would appear to be a large, federal, uniformed security agency and this is intended. The ‘common look and feel, including the new CATSA logo and uniform worn by screening officers’ conveys the image of ‘consistent service to travelers’ and is aimed at contributing to ‘a greater sense of professionalism among screening officers’C ( ATSA 2004: 21). In terms of who actually services the public, however, very little has changed. While CATSA sets minimum standards and requirements for screening officers, this task is still contracted out to private security providers. Whereas the mish-mash of uniforms that dominated airports across Canada (Rigakos 2000a: 145) seems to have become more homogenized, CATSA screening officers are nonetheless contracted security personnel from a variety of competing regional providers. In many cases, screening officers simply switched their company uniforms for CATSA uniforms. CATSA has, however, improved

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working conditions for screening officers by introducing minimum wages, the latest in screening technology, and improved training and the potential for career development which has purportedly resulted in lower turnover rates (CATSA 2004: 36). Alongside CATSA personnel, the Corps of Commissionaires still patrols airport parking lots and entranceways, issuing parking notices and enforcing municipal bylaws. BIAs and paid duty policing The proliferation of Business Improvement Areas or Associations (BIAs) across North America has had particular effects on policing. BIAs concern themselves with improving the area around storefronts including lighting, pedestrian walkways, general beautification and promotional activities for merchants. A BIA allows local businesses to join together and organize, finance and carry out physical improvements and promote economic development in their district. The BIA reports to the local municipality which approves the budget of the association. According to the Ontario Business Improvement Association there are over 230 BIAs operating in the province.4 In British Columbia there are another 53 BIAs in operation.5 Canadian police researchers have pointed out how these BIAs have used private security to patrol high-traffic public areas and act as ‘ambassadors’ to shoppers and tourists (Murphy and Clarke 2002). The use of private security to patrol public streets is becoming increasingly common in Canada. In Halifax, the Spring Garden merchant district is patrolled by private security alongside the local municipal Halifax Police. In Gastown and the west end of Vancouver, BIAs employ uniformed ambassadors to direct tourists, issue parking notices, and move along undesirables. The Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA) meets regularly with the Vancouver public police to co-ordinate security efforts with its private security officers. Indeed, the DVBIA is perhaps the first Canadian BIA to have a full-time Crime Prevention Officer on its Board of Directors. While the DVBIA utilizes private security guards to patrol public streets, the Downtown oYnge BIA D ( B YIA)in the heart of Toronto’s merchant district employs paid duty Metropolitan Toronto Police officers. The DY BIA had difficulty with the high turnover of extra-duty police officers who patrolled the large downtown tract that includes over 1,400 businesses. In order to make sure its concerns were being met, the DY BIA Operations Manager insisted that police officers would file reports and conduct targeted runs on their patrols by visiting local merchants and asking them if there are any crime problems. This is probably the first instance in which public police officers are required to file shift reports summarizing their activities with a private client. The occurrence reports contain directions for officers including what stores they are to visit and a notification that failure to submit the reports will mean that they will not get paid. It is perhaps fitting that this

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development should take place in the heart of Toronto, where Shearing and Stenning first identified the rise of m ‘ ass private property’ S( hearing and Stenning 1983). Whereas the large tracts of feudal-like policing arrangements described by Shearing and Stenning increased the privatization of indoor spaces6 such as large retail malls, thereby squeezing out the public police, here we have the mall literally being turned inside out in the same neighborhood and the police themselves being privatized.7 In order to solidify their status to make arrests on behalf of merchants that line the DY BIA, the Metropolitan Toronto Police required that merchants fill out a Trespass to Property Act consent form allowing them to act as agents of the property owner for enforcing trespass-related issues. That downtown merchants would pool their resources together and insist that public police officers patrol their public storefronts and report to their association directly is truly revolutionary in the history of Canadian policing, albeit now common course for private security. The interchangeability, overlapping jurisdiction, and cross-fertilization of public and private policing is thus perhaps most evident in the recent evolution of BIAs in Canada.

Private security Ascertaining the relative size of the private security industry is no easy task in most national contexts (de Waard 1999; Jones and Newburn 1995). The generally accepted (conservative) estimate of the ratio of private security agents to public police officers in Canada is 2:1 (Swol 1999)despite more recent statistics that grossly under-count the industry based on national labor force estimates (Sanders 2003). It appears that the private security industry in Canada began to overtake the public police somewhere in the late sixties to early seventies (Rigakos 2000b) and that with the gradual decline of public police officers per 100,000 population, the private security industry has continued to increase the gap (see Figure 7.3). As might be imagined, the breadth of private security provision in this country is vast. Companies offer services ranging from forensic investigations to bodyguard services and access control. Although mass private property – especially with the development of large retail spaces – has dramatically affected delivery of security, Canada has not experienced the rapid growth of gated residential communities seen in the United States (Blakely and Snyder 1997). Current oversight structures for the private security industry are in the hands of provincial registrars. With the exception of British Columbia and Newfoundland, there are no minimum training standards for security guards across Canada. Moreover, only contract private security personnel are required by law to pass background criminal history checks and the proprietary security sector is entirely unregulated. There has been a recent whirlwind of activity in Canada around regulating the private security industry including national radio documentaries, television specials, an

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international conference, and an imminent Report to Parliament on the relationship between public police and private security by the Law Commission of Canada. In the province of Ontario, a recent coroner’s inquest into the death of Patrick Shand (a black shoplifter who died while being handcuffed and arrested by security agents in a Toronto Mall) resulted in recommendations that the private security industry be regulated, minimum training standards be set, and that the in-house security sector be brought into account. Given academic and policy concerns about the rise of the private security sector it would appear that changes are on the horizon, albeit 30 years overdue. There is some comparative demographic information about the public police and private security industry in Canada. Women seem to be better represented in the private security industry on the whole depending on the type of work and company. Sanders (2003)reports that between 1991 and 2000 approximately 20 percent of security employees in Canada were female. In 1993, Erickson found that 34 percent of security guards in Toronto were women (Erickson 1993). However, in Rigakos’study of a private l‘aw enforcement company’that engaged in high-risk ‘parapolicing’he found that only 8 percent of the workforce were women (Rigakos 2002: 85). There have been concerted efforts to increase recruitment and retention of female constables. Services such as day care and targeted recruiting have resulted in the gradual increase of women from 0.6 percent in 1962 to 12.2 percent in 1998 in public police services (Swol 1999: 8). The percentage of Canadian-born security officers employed by contract firms has been reported at 57 percent in Ontario for 1980 (Shearing et al. 1980: 141), 44 percent in Toronto for 1993 (Erickson 1993: 15), and 23 percent for Rigakos’ parapolice in 2002 (Rigakos 2002: 85). Comparatively, in 1998 only 7.6 percent of uniformed Metropolitan Toronto Police officers were members of visible minority groups (Rigakos 2002: 94). According to Statistics Canada, as of 1999, visible minorities accounted for 10 percent of the Canadian labor force, but only 3 percent of Canadian police officers. Aboriginal persons were 2 percent of the Canadian labor force but accounted for 3 percent of police officers (Swol 1999: 9).

Conclusions: public and private policing in Canada at the crossroads The state of Canadian public and private policing is at a crossroads. The state was becoming increasingly involved in the use, management, and possible regulation of the private security sector even before the terrorist attack on New oYrk City on 11 September 2001. Moreover, the interchangeable use of private security or paid duty public policing on public streets on behalf of BIAs is creating an atmosphere of increased competition and commodification (Loader 1999; Rigakos 2002) both between public police

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services, as in the case of regionalization and municipal sub-contracting, as well as between private security agencies and the public police. When the oYnge-Dundas BIA insisted that paid duty police officers report directly to the operations manager through shift reports it was under the auspices of a threat to move to private security. When the police transition board in u Qinte West entertained bids for the policing contract under a new regional governance structure forced upon it by provincial neoliberal policies, the board listened to proposals from local town police, proposed regional forces, the Ontario Provincial Police, and even private security companies to perform ‘tertiary policing’duties. Radical proposals have been floated that would allow current regional Police Services Boards to contract with and license special constabularies and private security companies to perform ancillary policing tasks (CAPB, 2002). These newly constituted boards would be in charge of public security and have a dedicated budget aside from funds earmarked for the public regional or municipal force aimed at subsidized local initiatives for securing communities. As a mechanism for recovering ‘the public good’L ( oader and Walker 2001) in Canadian private policing, proposals from all quarters including academics, policy-makers, police associations, and security executives themselves have called for an oversight system that includes civilians on provincial licensing, regulatory, and enforcement commissions. This chapter has only highlighted a few areas where the confluence and confusion about public and private policing in Canada are apparent. In the next few years many of the proposals alluded to above may be either ignored or acted upon by provincial and federal policy-makers. It remains

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to be seen whether or not market principles alone will dictate the future of security provision in this country or whether the state will reimpose itself to reclaim policing as public good.

Notes 1

2 3 4 5 6 7

First Nations policing falls into two general categories: Self-administered Agreements between Canada and the participating province or territory as well as the First Nation community. Under these arrangements, the police service is autonomous and manages its own affairs through provincial legislation. Community Tripartite Agreements (CTAs)are thus between the federal Solicitor General, the province or territory in which the First Nation is located and the governing body of the aboriginal community. Under the CTAs, First Nations policing is administered by an existing police service but has its own dedicated contingent of officers who are primarily aboriginal. See http://www.commissionaires.ca/ for more information. See http://www.catsa-acsta.ca/ for more information. See http://www.obiaa.com/ for more information See http://www.bia.bc.ca/ for more information. The mass private property thesis has been considered in other contexts and its applicability to non-North American sites may have limits (Jones and Newburn, 1999). The Downtown oYnge BIA security initiative is the topic of an ongoing research project by the author and Michael Gavendo.

References Bayley, D. 1 ( 985) Patterns of Policing: A Comparative International Analysis, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Blakely, E. and Snyder, M. (1997) Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Canadian Center for Justice Statistics (2001) Police Resources in Canada, 2001, Ottawa: Statistics Canada. Canadian Center for Justice Statistics (2002) Police Resources in Canada, 2002, Ottawa: Statistics Canada. Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (2003) Police Resources in Canada, 2003, Ottawa: Statistics Canada. CAPB (Canadian Association of Police Boards) (2002) Bulletin # 60 h ( ttp://www.capb.ca/) CATSA (2004) CATSA Annual Report, 2004, Ottawa: Canadian Air Transport Security Authority. de Waard, J. (1999) T ‘ he private security industry in international perspective’, European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 7, pp. 143–74. Erickson, B. (1993) People Working in the Toronto Private Contract Security Industry, Ottawa: Police Policy and Research Division Solicitor General of Canada. Horrall, S. (1973) Pictorial History of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 1873–1973, Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson.

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Jones, T. and Newburn, T. 1 ( 995)‘How big is the private security sector?’, Policing and Society, 5, pp. 221–32. Jones, T. and Newburn. T. (1999)U ‘ rban change and policing: Mass private property re-considered’, European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 7, pp. 225–244. Lithopoulos, S. and Rigakos, G. (2005) N ‘ eoliberalism, community, and police regionalization in Canada: A critical empirical analysis’, Policing: An International Journal, 28: 2, pp. 337–52. Loader, I. 1 ( 999)C ‘ onsumer culture and the commodification of policing and security’, Sociology, 33, pp. 373–92. Loader, I. and Walker, N. (2001)P ‘ olicing as a public good: Reconstituting the connections between policing and the state’, Theoretical Criminology, 5, pp. 9–35. Macleod, R. (1976) The North-West Mounted Police and Law Enforcement, 1873–1905, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Murphy, C. and Clarke, C. (2002) Policing Communities and Communities of Policing: A Comparative Case Study of Policing in Two Urban Communities, Ottawa: Law Commission of Canada. OPP 2 ( 003) 2003 Provincial Business Plan, Orillia: Ontario Provincial Police. Rigakos, G. (2000a) B ‘ ubbles of governance: Private policing and the law in Canada’, Canadian Journal of Law and Society, 15, pp. 145–86. Rigakos, G. (2000b) T ‘ he significance of economic trends for the future of police and security’, in Richardson, J. (ed.) Police and Security: What the Future Holds, Ottawa: Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, pp. 176–179. Rigakos, G. (2002) The New Parapolice: Risk Markets and Commodified Social Control, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Sanders, T. (2003) Rise of the Rent-a-Cop, Ottawa: Law Commission of Canada. Shearing, C., Farnell, M. and Stenning, P. (1980) Contract Security in Ontario, Toronto: Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto. Shearing, C. and Stenning, P. (1983)P ‘ rivate security: Implications for social control’, Social Problems, 30, pp. 498–505. Spitzer, S. and Scull, A. (1977)P ‘ rivatization and capitalist development: The case of the private police’, Social Problems, 25, pp. 18–29. Swol, K. 1 ( 999) P ‘ rivate security and public policing in Canada’, in The Juristat Reader, pp. 15–25. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing.

8

Brazil Jennifer Wood and Nancy Cardia

In Brazil, as in other Latin American countries, there are ‘volatile and contradictory’ O ( M ’ alley 1999) tendencies in the politics of policing. On the one hand, Brazilian human rights activists and organizations play an important role in a global campaign designed to expose illegal and undemocratic practices of state institutional violence, particularly on the part of the public police. On the other hand, there is widespread popular and political support for violence as a policing tool, even to a degree that threatens the very principles of democracy and human rights. This ‘punishment mentality’ J( ohnston and Shearing 2003), reflective of a broader crime control culture (Garland 2001), is justified now more than ever by heightened feelings of public insecurity during a time of real increases in crime, particularly that which is organized and violent in nature. As this penal populism maintains a firm grip on collective sensibilities, other forms of policing that are not directly sponsored and authorized by the Brazilian state are diversifying and proliferating. Examples range from community-based vigilantism to police death squads, to commercial services and products offered within legal and illegal markets, and finally to forms of self-protection found in processes of fortification and urban segregation. When it comes to describing and explaining this field of policing and security governance, the utility of the public/private distinction as a conceptual tool becomes profoundly problematic. While for most scholars this is now a rather unoriginal and taken-for-granted insight (see Wood and Kempa 2005), the Brazilian case reminds us of the imperative to explore new conceptual directions in policing research. In this chapter we will provide a sketch of what we know about the mentalities, institutions and practices of policing and security in Brazil with the proviso that the data we present is not comprehensive, but rather circumscribed by what researchers and journalists have been able to access to date. We also examine existing forms of regulation and accountability and describe some of their key limitations and failures. We end the chapter with a very brief proposal as regards to the key thrusts of normative work in Brazil for the future. As a beginning to this chapter we locate the Brazilian field of policing and security in historical context.

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Historical context Brazil experienced two decades of military rule before it entered its recent phase of democratization officially commencing in 1985. On 31 March 1964 there was a military coup ending the civilian rule of President João Goulart. As in other Latin American countries, the military dictatorship was responsible for grave violations of human rights in the form of torture, disappearances, and politically motivated murders in addition to other serious restrictions on individual liberties such as freedom of association. A key tool enabling this repression was the Institutional Act Number 5 adopted in 1968 which granted vast powers to military authorities to circumscribe citizens’rights (ICHRP 2003: 61). The most serious forms of repression carried out by the military dictatorship ended in 1974, after which levels of repression began to diminish C ( hevigny 1995: 145; ICHRP 2003: 62). In 1979, the Institutional Act Number 5 was suspended and an Amnesty Law was passed, granting pardons to political prisoners and allowing exiles to return home (ICHRP 2003: 62). During the 1980s a series of events unfolded that represented what Caldeira and Holston describe as ‘disjunctive democratization’ C ( aldeira and Holston 1999). Consistent with Western ideals of progress, Brazil embarked on specific processes of political democratization, including regime change, the introduction of elections, and the creation of new political parties (ibid. 691, 695). Moreover, social movements grew during the 1970s and 1980s (ibid: 695)and, in addition to a renewal of trade unionism, there were signs of what Kaldor would describe as a nascent ‘global civil society’ 2 ( 003) seen in the emergence of various non-governmental organizations in the 1990s (Caldeira and Holston 1999: 695). Countering such generally positive events have been, and continue to be, very clear threats to Brazil’s commitment to democratic principles (Caldeira and Holston 1999). For a start, real levels of crime in the country have increased since the 1980s, particularly crime that is more violent and organized in nature. In metropolitan areas such as São Paulo, Vitó ria, and Recife, homicide rates (whose victims are often poor young males) have doubled every ten years. Violence has also come to penetrate medium-sized cities comprising between 25,000 and 500,000 inhabitants. Even smaller cities, and some small rural areas, are losing their status as safe havens. Between 1992 and 2002 there were more than half a million serious assaults in the metropolitan of São Paulo, over one million armed robberies and 21,751 reported rape cases (per 100,000 residents). Between 1981 and 2002, homicides increased phenomenally from 14.62 to 43.39 per 100,000, having peaked in 1999 at 51.93. The growth in armed robbery is equally disturbing. In the early 1980s the rate was 233 per 100,000 and by the end of 1999 it was 905.99 per 100,000. The rate of car robbery, which is reported more widely to police for insurance purposes, doubled between

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1996 and 2000 from 246.59 to 532.86 per 100,00 and has begun to decline in the last couple of years. The crime problem can be partly understood as a negative (although predictable)consequence of changes experienced by a society in transition that underwent further restructuring due to global economic and neo-liberal imperatives (Schiffer 2002; Wacquant 2003: 199). Brazil has traditionally suffered from profound disparities in wealth which have deepened in recent times (Chevigny 1995: 146). These disparities can be seen across regions; there is considerable poverty in northern and north-eastern states, and many of its poor and homeless have been drawn to São Paulo which is seen as Brazil’s e‘ conomic giant’i(bid. 146; Schiffer 2002). By 1990 São Paulo’s population was over 15 million in the metropolitan area, the majority of which were poor (Chevigny 1995: 146). During the second half of the 1990s economic growth stalled, successive economic stabilization plans came into place, and the profile of the labour market began to change significantly. In the metropolitan region of Sã o Paulo for example, industries left the region, opportunities for low-skill labour disappeared and the local governments collected less tax, which resulted in a lack of investment in public services S( chiffer 2002). All of this is thought to have contributed to the growth of violence. In Wacquant’s terms, B ‘ razilian society remains characterized by vertiginous social disparities and mass poverty, which together feed the inexorable growth of criminal violence that has become the main scourge of the big cities’2 ( 003: 199). Further jeopardizing democratic progress are levels of police violence that are higher than those before the democratic transition (Caldeira and Holston 1999: 695). Between the early 1980s and the early 1990s, the numbers of Brazilian citizens killed by the military police grew dramatically, to a point where in 1992, there were at least four people killed per day (Chevigny 1995: 147). As Chevigny points out, ‘[th ] at figure for one year, as well as the smaller figure for 1991, represents more deaths than all the deaths and disappearances for partisan political reasons documented during the more than fifteen years of the dictatorship’i(bid). Ironically, militaristic and brutal policing has received popular support during the transitional period due to objective increases in crime coupled with high levels of public anxiety over insecurity. In a 1996 survey conducted by the Globo television network, violence was cited as the most serious problem for the metropolitan region of São Paulo. In a 1999 survey carried out in ten state capitals, it was found that 95 per cent of residents in Sã o Paulo believed that violence was still growing, whilst 57 per cent of the population thought that violence would have a major impact on city life (Cardia 1999). Public insecurity has thus fuelled a penal populist attitude toward law and order, and furthermore (as we will discuss below), those with an entrepreneurial spirit and financial wherewithal have turned to forms of self-protection, most of which are found in both legal and illegal security markets.

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It is ironic that those unable to participate in security markets – that is, poor and marginalized populations who themselves are the primary targets of police violence (Silva 2000)– equally express a penal populism that further reinforces the state’s brutal stance on law and order (Paes-Machado and Noronha 2002; Caldeira 2002). That being said, fear of crime is an existential condition that cuts across classes, and political authorities exploit this near-universal anxiety to their advantage, especially when they are unwilling or unable to provide strong social programmes (Chevigny 2003). One implication of this populism for human rights actors is the fact that in their efforts to deepen democratic transformation they are contesting a collective sensibility that supports violence as a central policing strategy. Far from being seen as harbingers of a new peace, defenders of human rights are seen as protecting criminals (Wacquant 2003: 200; Hanashiro 2000: 104). It is within this broader political and cultural climate that we examine the nature and organization of public policing in Brazil as well as other forms of policing and security that cut across the public–private continuum.

‘Public’ policing: nature and organization The responsibility for public security is spelled out in the 1988 Brazilian Constitution. The country has a federal system of government, which means that penal law and procedure are established nationally while the organization and funding of law enforcement (including police, courts, and corrections)are the responsibility of each of the 26 states as well as of the federal district (see Macauley 2002: 6). Within this structure at the federal level there are two types of police agencies in operation: the federal police and the federal highway patrol. At the state level there are the state civil police and the state military police, each of which has different duties and jurisdictions. The federal police are mandated to protect national and border security, and targets such crimes as drug trafficking, smuggling and crimes that cut across state boundaries. The federal highway patrol enforces the law on federal roads. Both the federal police and the federal highway patrol are small in size, with fewer than 10,000 agents combined. As a result, both forces have no capacity to maintain an effective presence in regions. Each state has a State Secretariat of Public Security in charge of the local military and civil police forces, scientific police and traffic authorities. This secretariat defines the strategies of public security to be enforced by the police forces. The state military police are responsible for uniformed patrol and for the p ‘ revention’of crimes and misdemeanours. As their name suggests, all state military police forces possess a traditionally militaristic ethos and method of organization and discipline. While not related to the Army, the military

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police were designed as an auxiliary arm of the Brazilian Army, to be deployed if necessary during the period of the military dictatorship. This auxiliary status has been retained with the enactment of the new Brazilian Constitution in 1988. The state civil police are responsible for criminal investigations, which include interrogation and the collection of evidence for criminal justice processing. Each civil police station is run by a chief (delegado)who is usually a lawyer (Chevigny 1995). Municipalities do not have any constitutional mandate to deliver public security. That being said, some municipalities have instituted ‘municipal guards’ since the mid-1980s, whose role (whilst having no enforcement powers)is to protect municipal infrastructure such as parks and buildings C ( aldeira 2002: 238–9). By 1999, 17.6 per cent of cities (municipalities)or 969 municipalities had municipal guards (Fundação IBGE 1999). It must be kept in mind that Brazil has 5,507 municipalities: 80.8 per cent of the municipalities with 500,000 residents have municipal guards as opposed to 9.2 per cent of municipalities with fewer than 10,000 residents. In contrast to some of the other country contexts presented in this volume, it would be very difficult to institute municipal police forces in Brazil, particularly in major urban centres such as São Paulo. The São Paulo metropolitan area consists of 39 municipalities, each of which has its own mayor and city council. There is no over-arching governance structure that would ensure consistency between local government priorities and the overall interests of the metropolitan region. In this way, co-operative governance is a great challenge, as seen already in competitive or conflictridden relationships in the provision of public services like waste disposal or protection of water sources. Whilst state legislation exists in relation to the governance of the metropolitan area, there is no metropolitan governance authority. Overall, police effectiveness is very poor and the justice system as a whole is generally perceived as unfair and inequitable C ( hevigny 1995: 150). Evidence of both real and perceived incompetence can be found in reporting rates. Rates of victimization in Brazil are very difficult to ascertain, not only because of the classic d ‘ ark figure’problem, but also due to the fact that victimization surveys, using robust methodological tools, are rare. With that in mind, in a 2002 victimization survey pertaining only to the city of Sã o Paulo n ( ot the metropolitan region) I(lanud/FIA-USP/Gabinete de Segurança Institucional, 2002)it was found that under-reporting is widespread, except for car robbery and theft, having a 95 per cent reporting rate, as well as motorcycle theft and robbery at a 76 per cent reporting rate. In other kinds of robberies only a third of instances are reported. In property crimes such as break and enters of homes, shops, offices etc., there was found to be a 31 per cent reporting rate. Interestingly, this survey found that assaults were reported by only 27 per cent of victims, whilst theft was reported by only 15 per cent of victims. The least reported crimes, with a report rate of 7 per cent, were sexual assault, car vandalism and attempted break and enter.

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Across all crime types, the average reporting rate was found to be 27.1 per cent, representing less than one-third of victims. A lack of faith in the effectiveness of public policing is supported by statistics that reveal their poor investigative capacity. Data for 1996 in the metropolitan region of São Paulo shows that police investigated only 15.7 per cent of cases reported. By the year 2001 this figure dropped to 12.6 per cent of cases reported. Preliminary research undertaken by Adorno and Izumino (2003) shows that between 1991 and 1997, police inquiries into violent offences constituted only 6.46 per cent of recorded cases. Poor police performance can be attributed in part to the ways in which the state and federal police agencies are structured and organized, particularly regarding the separation between the military and civil branches. These two state forces are known to compete more than co-operate, a situation sometimes fuelled by unclear jurisdictional boundaries, as seen in cases where a civil police precinct covers a slightly different territory than a military police detachment. Due to this rather basic lack of jurisdictional correspondence, it has been difficult to share crime statistics, to engage in joint analysis, joint goal setting, and joint performance evaluation. Even in cases of homicide, clearance rates are low. Adorno and Izumino (2004), analyzing homicides in the city of São Paulo between 1991 and 1997, observed that despite the Criminal Code, according to which the police notice of a homicide is the first step of the investigation, only 69.51 per cent of cases recorded by the police resulted in a police investigation. Clearly without such investigations there is little chance that cases will be cleared. Typical to many countries, a common approach to police reform is to invest more resources. In the state of São Paulo, in the midst of increasing urban violence, the general public put pressure on police agencies to improve their performance. This outcry was catalysed by high-profile cases of violence in which elite members of Brazilian communities (such as wellknown entrepreneurs and members of the media) had been victims. In response, the state invested in more material resources including personnel, cars, arms and other equipment. Investments were also made to improve the workplace conditions of officers, such as the development of collective life insurance, the provision of bullet-proof vests, and increases in wages (over inflation rates). The police subsequently invested in other technologies, such as Land Rover Defenders, helicopters, arms, and information and communications systems. The recording of criminal offences is now done on computer terminals, and police are now able more effectively to map crimes online by retrieving real-time data on registered offences according to street block. The police also made efforts to become more outcome-oriented, including the setting of goals and establishing quality controls and performance evaluation. Despite such investments in personnel and equipment, police effectiveness remained poor. While some short-term drops in crime were noted (and we are cautious about whether this drop will remain stable), other types of crime have grown.

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In addition to problems of instrumental ineffectiveness, Brazil’s police have not demonstrated a commitment to human rights protection since the transition to democracy. In fact, police brutality appears to have increased since the dictatorship. Constitutionally, Brazil’s commitment to human rights and civil liberties is very clear. The country is a party to all major international human rights conventions and its 1988 constitution stresses the importance of civil liberties M ( acauley 2002: 4). As Macauley points out however, Brazil’s public policing institutions continue to be criticized for their abuse of human rights and for the impunity they receive. Recent reports by human rights organizations highlight serious incidences of extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment on the part of public police as well as prison officials H ( uman Rights Watch 2002, 2003b; Amnesty International 2003). The Human Rights Watch Report of 2002, drawing on statistics from the police ombudsman of Sã o Paulo, indicates that in the first half of 2001, military police in the state of Sã o Paulo killed 272 people, which translates into three killings every two days. The report adds that most of these victims had no prior criminal record and a disproportionate number of them were black or dark-skinned H ( uman Rights Watch 2002). Violence is also targeted indiscriminately at land activists and indigenous people. Military police involved in evicting land activists within contexts of land disputes have been accused of harassing and attacking them. Furthermore, hired gunmen carrying out killings of land activists are doing so whilst local police and authorities are apparently turning a blind eye. According to the Pastoral Land Commission C ( omissã o Pastoral da Terra), there were 38 killings of land activists in 2002, representing an increase of 31 per cent from 2001 A ( mnesty International 2003). In the state of Pará , there was a minimum of ten killings of rural workers and trade unionists A ( mnesty International 2003). B etween 1998 and September 2001, there were 1,532 assassinations carried out in rural areas, with victims including workers, labour leaders and lawyers. In the majority of cases, impunity was enjoyed by the perpetrators H ( uman Rights Watch 2002). A common method of reporting on such instances where excessive police force is used is to record them as ‘resistance followed by death’. This victimblaming strategy both reflects and constitutes an environment of almost total impunity for officers (Amnesty International 2003). Between January and October 2002, there were 703 killings by police in the state of São Paulo, a number equivalent to the entire calendar year of 2001. Of this number, 652 were registered as ‘resistance followed by death’, 138 of which involved off-duty police officers. Between January and September 2002, 656 killings by police were carried out in the state of Rio de Janeiro, a number significantly higher than the previous year’s total of 592. In some states, d ‘ eath squads’ t(o be discussed below) continue to enjoy impunity that is strongly enabled by collusion with public police or by the participation of the police in such activities (Amnesty International 2003). Torture carried out by police was depicted as ‘widespread and systemic’ by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture (United Nations

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2001, cited in Macauley 2002: 26). Both civil and military police torture suspects on a regular basis, both before and after arrest, in pre-trial detention facilities as well as prisons (Human Rights Watch 2003b). Children held in juvenile detention centres are a common target of police brutality H ( uman Rights Watch 2003a). In efforts to extract information or confessions or to extort money, police officers or prison guards routinely mistreat suspects, in some cases in the form of electric shocks or beatings. The inhumane conditions of detention facilitate and exacerbate the pain of torture, and torturers themselves enjoy almost complete impunity (Amnesty International 2003; Human Rights Watch 2003b). Accordingly to Amnesty International, while the federal government embarked on a campaign to reduce torture in 2001, prosecutions based on the 1997 torture law are very low. Between June 2000 and June 2002, 5,000 incidents of torture took place in São Paulo, according to the NGO Christian Action for the Abolition of Torture (Aã o ç do Cristã os pela Aboliço ã da Tortura (ACUT)). The NGO Global Justice provided figures indicating that since the enactment of the torture law in 1997, only 30 prosecutions for torture have taken place (Amnesty International 2003). The injection of more material (particularly technological) and human resources has not had a discernable impact on practices of abusive use of lethal force in Brazil. It is a well known fact that Brazilian police forces routinely exercise lethal force, and increasingly the human rights community has sought to reduce impunity of errant officers. Cases of gross human rights violations have been brought against Brazil in human rights courts – such as the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of the American Organization of States (AOS)– most of which have involved state military police forces, particularly that of São Paulo. Use of torture as a strategy of the police has been of particular concern. In 2001, the Special Rapporteur on Torture for the United Nations, Sir Nigel Rodley, highlighted the problem of torture in institutions such as police precincts and prisons for young offenders. In Sã o Paulo, state authorities are required to produce reports every three months on deaths of civilians in cases defined by the police as ‘resistance to prison’or c‘ onflict’. In Sã o Paulo, the number of civilian deaths at the hands of military police has tripled since 1996, and the data from the first six months of 2003 reveals a continuation of this trend. Although counter-intuitive, it should be noted that the number of people killed by the military police is always higher than the number of people injured in confrontations with the police, which clearly suggests that police do not undertake tactical judgements of when it is necessary to escalate their use of force (and how)in particular situations. It is clear from this data that the exercise of violence continues to be the core of what police do, and is indicative of a deeper ‘punishment mentality’ J( ohnston and Shearing 2003)within the police and across society in general. While the institutional structures of policing – particularly the

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separation of civil and military police – may impede progress toward effective and democratic policing, problems with police education and training provide a further clue as to the challenges of reform. Ethnographic studies of training for military police carried out by Paes-Machado and Noronha (2002), and Albuquerque and Paes-Machado (2004), reveal that despite the implementation of new curricula, police training continues to be embedded in programmes and practices that mould the subjectivities of trainees in line with a paramilitary ethos that undermines formal commitment to human rights principles. Official reform is thus undermined by cultural resistance, a classic dilemma of democratization in many countries. Lino argues that the key to transforming police education and training is to establish collaborations between universities and police academies, which will serve to integrate global training standards in areas such as human rights whilst supporting a multi-cultural learning environment (Lino 2004). A third key factor impeding the democratization of policing is the current system of regulation and accountability. As we can see from the above discussion, there is a great deal of knowledge generated by human rights organizations about levels of state institutional violence in Brazil. This important function constitutes part of what Birkbeck (2004) describes as ‘moral work’ – that is, efforts to establish normative standards of conduct for security agents (through both formal and informal rules)and to assess concrete instances of police behaviour against such abstract norms. Indeed, the moral work carried out by human rights organizations (both locally and internationally) has been profoundly significant in this regard (on human rights movements across different country contexts see ICHRP 2003). At the same time, this moral work can be impeded by concrete institutions and practices of regulation that, for one reason or another, tend to reinforce undesirable police practices. In the following section we will examine key mechanisms of accountability for public policing that currently exist in Brazil.

Regulation of public policing It should be noted that in Portuguese, as in Spanish, the English term ‘accountability’ has no direct translation. In its place, a combination of terms is used to fill the conceptual gap, such as ‘regulation’, c‘ ontrol’ and ‘supervision’. In the Brazilian context, the notions of ‘transparência’, f‘ iscalizaço ã ,’ and ‘responsabilidade’ are used in a similar fashion (Macauley 2002). Macauley defines ‘transparência’as t‘ he existence of clear rules and performance criteria, laid open to public scrutiny’ and ‘fiscalizaço ã ’ as ‘internal or external checking mechanisms to assess performance against rules, procedures and explicit criteria’ i(bid. 5). She defines ‘responsabilidade’ as b ‘ oth a willingness and obligation on the part of institutions and individuals (here, police officers)to own the consequences of their actions, or to apportion blame or praise, and the capacity to take the proportionate

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remedial action’M ( acauley 2002: 5). [T ‘h ] ese three elements’, she adds, ‘are inter-related and inter-dependent. All three must pertain for accountability to be substantial and effective’i(bid). Working from within this conceptual framework, Macauley assesses the three key mechanisms of oversight in Brazil, which involve a mix of internal and external forms: the judiciary in the form of military courts; the executive in the form of the internal affairs department (corregedorias)and the police ombudsman’s office ( ouvidoria); and the prosecution service (Ministério Público). The two forms of oversight located in the judicial and executive branches of government are entirely external in nature, as both the investigations of complaints and disciplinary actions are undertaken by the police or the military courts. The Ministério Público, according to Macauley, is an external, independent ‘hybrid judicial institution’ rather than a civilian oversight body (ibid. 7). There is a separate system of military regulation for military police, thus creating a dual regulatory structure which is seen as the most problematic of flaws in Brazil’s system of police accountability i(bid. 9). According to Macauley, the system of military justice lacks credibility along all three dimensions of t‘ ransparência’, f‘ iscalizaço ã ,’ and r‘ esponsabilidade’. Not only are military institutions by nature insular and resistant to external inquiry, the deep culture of impunity for police misconduct makes it difficult to collect information on the workings of military courts i(bid). Nonetheless, the limitations of the military system of accountability are clearly apparent by looking at its structural organization. Initial inquiries into police m ‘ isconduct’ a( s construed within a separate military penal code and in the r‘ egimento interno’of the military police)are undertaken by a military corregedor. This inquiry results in either internal disciplinary action or a military police investigation and possible prosecution that are carried out by a military prosecutor and military tribunal respectively. Cases remain in the military system except in instances of i‘ntentional homicide of civilians committed by on-duty military police’ (Macauley 2002: 9). While the mainstream criminal justice system has jurisdiction over such alleged acts, it is the military investigators who determine the element of i‘ntentionality’in the first instance i(bid). As Macauley points out, the fact that military investigators retain this authority to define and construct the nature of an alleged act explains the high number of incidents classified as r‘ esisting arrest’, which then leads to the dropping of charges. Compounding this is the systemic police practice of tampering with evidence which tends to remove, or at least challenge, proof of police malpractice i(bid). Within this system of military regulation there tends to be an undue emphasis on severe administrative sanctions for relatively minor disciplinary infractions accompanied by a disproportionately low emphasis on punishments for serious instances of malpractice. This is partly explained by the occupational culture of military hierarchies that strongly emphasize discipline. Another explanation is the fact that disciplinary infractions are

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spelled out clearly within the military’s r‘ egimento interno’, whilst very few rules exist about how to undertake core police functions like arrest or use of force (ibid. 9–10). W ‘ ithout rules’, Macauley explains, ‘that is, a baseline of established procedures in which police officers are trained and against which their performance is measured, fiscalização is meaningless and impossible’i(bid. 10). While the military police are regulated by the Military Penal Code and the regimento interno, the civil police are regulated by the civilian penal code and the Estatuto do Funcionário Público (ibid. 10). Consequently, as Macauley explains, a misdemeanour committed by both a civil and a military policeman would result in entirely different internal disciplinary consequences and, more seriously, in terms of the democratic principles of equality before the law, in different punishments handed down by the courts. A bifurcated police force results not only in inefficient and disorganized policing, but also in a fissiparous and ineffective oversight system. i(bid. 10–11) Both the civil and military police have their own internal affairs departments (corregedoria)tasked with preliminary investigations of complaints. Depending on the result of this investigation, administrative or disciplinary action may ensue, or a police investigation may take place, which thus involves the prosecution service in the laying of criminal charges (ibid. 11). Macauley describes these departments as ‘slow, secretive, ineffective, and biased in favour of the police’i(bid). The regulation of both civil and military policing is constrained by fundamental problems of incapacity, due to lack of training and skills development, as well as problems of culture. For example, it is commonly known that military police officers – those who respond to crimes in the first instance – do not preserve the crime scene. While this problem is of major concern to civil police detectives (Pinheiro et al. 1999), and whilst it clearly compromises the quality of investigations undertaken by them, little has been done to build capacity in this area. Lack of skills and capacity is also found at the federal level. Both the federal police and the federal highway police are generally considered to lack the competencies required to carry out their jobs effectively. This is of particular concern in regard to police enquiries which tend to be of low quality. Due to problematic enquiries, there are a high number of cases that are thrown out, which then serves to perpetuate public concerns over impunity of those who have committed crimes. Since preliminary investigations provide an initial interpretation of what happened using particular language and meanings, serious instances of malpractice can be constructed as relatively normal or minor. For example, torture can be defined as a‘ buse of authority’which obviously carries with it

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less serious penalties. Macauley also notes problems of f‘ oot-dragging’ which, if done effectively, can take the investigation in question beyond the statute of limitations for the relevant offence 2 ( 002: 12). The chances of disciplinary sanctions actually taking place are increased both by very clear and significant evidence as well as media coverage. At the same time, Macauley notes that there is a disproportionately low rate of sanctioning of senior officers i(bid. 13). Of the regulatory rules that do exist within such internal affairs departments, they often fail to guide practice. Investigators also seem to lack requisite knowledge of new formal rules, such as those embodied in the anti-torture law of 1997. Also, existing rules guiding investigatory procedures (i.e. the Penal Procedure Code)fail to shape investigatory processes M ( acauley 2002). Structurally, corregedorias suffer from the classic problem of ‘regulatory capture’ s( ee Prenzler 2000). They exist alongside other departments within the police organization and their human resources come from the general police population (resources which may flow in and out of this area). Thus, both organizationally and in terms of resources, there is no independence (Macauley 2002: 13). In the second half of the 1990s, ouvidorias were established with the intention of monitoring internal affairs departments. In English, such bodies can be described as ‘Ombudsperson Offices’ with limited authority and independence. Based at the state level, these units receive complaints about police misconduct, prepare case summaries, refer the cases to the appropriate internal affairs departments and track the ensuing investigations. They may also refer the cases to the Ministério Público d ( escribed below) M ( acauley 2002: 14). There are significant inconsistencies across states in terms of the resources and infrastructure such offices are provided with as well as the specific mandates and forms of authority they possess (ibid. 14–15). That being said, these offices have been effective in shedding light on police malpractice. For example, police extortion constituted 60 per cent of complaints lodged with the Rio de Janeiro office during a 21-month period. The Sã o Paulo office was, for some time, effective in demonstrating that the majority of police officer deaths took place whilst such officers were offduty and moonlighting for the private security sector (an issue to which we will turn below). These offices have also made progress in exposing system problems with the working conditions of officers. Furthermore, since the ouvidorias guarantee anonymity, members of the public are more inclined to lodge complaints without fear of reprisal. Nonetheless, these offices remain powerless to undertake their own investigations or to shape what happens during investigation and prosecution (ibid. 15–16). This places the ouvidorias in an undesirable position of dependency vis-à-vis the internal affairs units which, as Macauley points out, ‘are capable of engaging in forms of passive resistance, manifest in a reluctance to release information, or in their ignoring the ouvidoria altogether’ i(bid. 16). Nevertheless, the

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ouvidorias have contributed to a shift toward a culture of accountability for policing in Brazil: t[h ] e notion that the public should have a right to oversee, control and determine the actions and priorities of the police represents a significant cultural shift in Brazil of which the ouvidorias are both a reflection and a constitutive element. i(bid. 18) Brazil’s 1988 Constitution extended the powers of the Ministério Público. In addition to its responsibility for public prosecutions, it has a broader external mandate to ensure that public authorities uphold the law and Constitutional rights (ibid. 18). In this way it is an ‘autonomous guardian of the law (fiscal de lei) and of the public good’, thus serving to ‘erode public tolerance of exceptionalism and impunity for those in positions of political and economic power’ i(bid). In theory, the Ministério Público has both oversight and review powers, but in practice has accomplished very little in reducing human rights abuses on the part of the police. One partial explanation for this is an ambiguity surrounding the Ministério’s core functions. Historically, it is essentially a prosecution service that depends significantly on the quality of police investigations. Today, the Ministério Público may carry out its own investigations, but in practice this creates duplication and overlap with the police inquérito. Often the Ministério Público thus simply relies on the police inquiry, the quality of which shapes the success of the prosecution process. At the same time, the Constitution indicates a much broader responsibility of the Ministry to ensure compliance of state institutions with constitutional and legal norms. Concrete interpretations of this responsibility however do vary. Some argue that the Ministry has the authority to scrutinize only the integrity of police investigations. Others suggest that all aspects of police practice should be subject to scrutiny (ibid. 18–19). To an extent this ambiguity has been resolved in different states that have passed their own regulations (leis orgânicas complementares). For example, the state of Rio de Janeiro grants the Ministry authority to inspect correctional institutions and police stations (ibid. 19). This authority is granted to the members of the Ministério Público by the Constitution, article 129 of the Constitution item VII: ‘The institutional function of the Ministério Público is to exercise the external control of police activities’. Each state then details how this control is to be exercised. The contested arena in different states, presently under review by the Brazilian Supreme Court, is whether members of the Ministério Público can investigate criminal cases irrespective of the police. The state of São Paulo provides for the greatest functional breadth amongst all states. Here the Ministério Público can inspect police documents, interview prisoners and verify the status of goods that the police have

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confiscated, given historical problems with police trading such goods within illicit markets (ibid. 19–20). As with other aspects of the Brazilian system of police accountability, the problem of regulatory capture is problematic in relation to the Ministério Público. The ideal space of independence required by any legitimate regulatory authority is crowded by a much-needed relationship of co-operation between the Ministry and the police in processes of both investigation and prosecution.1 The Ministry is interested not only in successful prosecutions within their traditional criminal justice portfolio, but they are also required to ensure the integrity of activities carried out by actors within the criminal justice system, particularly the police. In weighing these competing priorities, something may have to give at a higher level of political decision-making, such as that carried out by the state attorney-generals who are in charge of the prosecution services (ibid. 22). For example, Macauley suggests that p ‘[ o ] litical pressures may mean that the priority of the state attorney general … is a sustained crime reduction and criminal conviction rate, rather than a possibly counter-productive clash with the police over their questionable methods’i(bid. 22). From the above discussion it is clear that the various public police organizations described above are central actors in the governance of security in Brazil. Because of this, they have been the target of various regulatory efforts (as limited as such efforts might be). We now turn to other actors whose primary role is to contribute to the enhancement of policing and security. Before we move on to a discussion of commercial actors, we provide a few examples of developments in the non-commercial sector.

Non-commercial actors In addition to traditional public police bodies, many non-governmental organizations have been formed during the past two decades to enhance security. For example, the São Paulo Institute Against Violence was formed in 1998 as result of a proposal by an International Seminar on Violence which recommended that the economic elite organize as a pressure group on matters of public security. The Institute was constituted by representatives of the São Paulo Federation of Industrialists (FIESP), Trade and Commerce, Banking, Insurance, Transportation of Valuable Goods, Advertising, Television, the School of Public Health (University of São Paulo), Getú lio Vargas Foundation Business Administration School, Centre for the Study of Violence (University of São Paulo), Viva o Centro (an organization that tries to renew the old centre of the city) and the Roberto Marinho Foundation. The Institute has two notable successes. It established both an anonymous phone-in service that enables citizens to assist both the police in their investigations and the São Paulo Metropolitan Forum for Public Security. The call service has been successful with the public and has contributed to closing numerous cases of

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kidnapping, robbery, murder, and drug trading. Information provided by callers has also assisted in rescuing victims and in arresting delinquents. In Sã o Paulo the Metropolitan Forum has been working to enhance local governments’involvement in security issues. For over three years mayors of the 39 municipalities from the metropolitan region of São Paulo have been meeting to discuss ways in which they can contribute to the primary prevention of violence. The Forum has also encouraged dialogue between mayors and state public security authorities. An important result of this is that municipalities now have access to GIS crime databases from the Secretariat of Public Security. This allows municipalities to plan more strategically around how to prevent violence. The federal government through the Ministry of Justice has responded to the continued crisis of insecurity in the large urban centres by designing and implementing two national security plans. The first one (2000) financed the modernization of equipment of state police forces based on the proviso that states would make a clear commitment to improving their performance and would accept a performance evaluation by the federal government. The second plan (2003) formally requested that state governments sign a commitment to adopt standard procedures for registering and reporting crime, improving data collection and provision in order to feed a national database on crime, encourage local police forces to work collaboratively with each other and with the federal police in joint operations and to implement an Integrated Public Security Management Group, including representatives of the Ministry. This plan also encourages co-operation between the two forces by unifying training, territory, pay scale, disciplinary code, and command (preferably a civilian), and hierarchy. Occurring alongside these developments are initiatives in commercial security and self-protection. The feelings of anxiety about crime and violence mentioned above have prompted those with sufficient entrepreneurial spirit and financial wherewithal to exercise self-direction in meeting individual and common security needs. In the following section we examine the commercial security market before discussing vigilantism and the more contemporary phenomenon of segregation and fortification.

The security market: entrepreneurialism and self-protection A key aspect of the security market in Brazil is the existence of private auspices that sponsor security services provided by commercial enterprises. Growth in this area can be traced back to developments in 1969 in the banking sector. Prompted by a high incidence of robberies in large urban centres, the Central Bank formally required via decree that banks provide for the security of both their assets and their clients. According to the decree, if banks did not comply with the requirement for self-policing, they would be shut down by the Central Bank. As a result, a number of private

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security companies were formed and, in theory, were to be supervised by the State Secretariat of Public Security in conjunction with the Central Bank. Unsurprisingly, the niche for private security grew in sectors besides banking. For example, during the ten-year period between 1985 and 1995, the growth rate of commercial security far outstripped the rate of growth in public policing. The former grew by a rate of 112 per cent, whilst the later grew by 43 per cent during the same period (Musumeci 1998). In 1998 the federal police estimated that 1,200 private security companies, with a total of 400,000 workers, were operating in the country. Twenty-five per cent of the total (290 companies) is said to come from the state of São Paulo. According to the federal police, the main services provided by private security companies are the provision of guards to watch over property, bodyguards and escort services for the transportation of goods or to protect persons en route. In São Paulo by 2000, 30 per cent of the clients were industries, 25 per cent banks, 15 per cent public buildings, 10 per cent condominiums, 10 per cent shops, and 10 per cent others. The fastest growing branch of private security has been electronic surveillance (O Estado de S. Paulo 2000a). Gross revenue in this sector grew from US$ 101 million, to US$ 134 million in 1997 (a growth of almost 34 per cent)to US$ 615 million in the year 2001 (Folha de São Paulo 2002). While it is difficult to find reliable data on the nature and size of car armouring, a 1998 estimate suggested that four large and 14 middle-sized car armouring companies were in operation, most of which were foreign companies (Gazeta Mercantil 1998a). The first Brazilian-owned company was established in 1987 in the city of São Paulo (ibid). By the year 2000 this industry had grown exponentially. Between 40 and 45 car armouring companies were said to be in operation, providing approximately 450 vehicles per month. In this same year there were at least 13,000 armoured vehicles circulating in the country, particularly in São Paulo. Some cars were also being exported to Argentina, Peru and Chile (Gazeta Mercantil 2000b and 2000c; Diário de Sã o Paulo 2003). While car armouring was traditionally a luxury that only the very wealthy could afford, the market has grown to be accessible to Brazilian professionals in general. Indeed, the boom in the car armouring industry was spurred on by a wide fear of either being kidnapped or becoming a victim of armed robberies at traffic lights. The industry responded to this by adopting its technologies to less expensive cars, from the Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audis and sport vehicles t(he SUVs) to the Golfs, Ford and Fiat models. Client needs vary. Some wealthy people decide to d ‘ owngrade’their vehicles as a means of disguising their economic status. Others simply want to protect their families. Some companies began providing armoured cars to their executives as a fringe benefit, as a means of reducing insurance, and/or to enhance feelings of security and/or to assist with the trauma of having been a victim of crime a( trauma which ultimately has impacts on productivity)

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F ( olha de Sã o Paulo 1997; O Estado de Sã o Paulo 1998; Gazeta Mercantil 1998a; Diá rio de Sã o Paulo 2001; O Globo 2002). In 1983, new legislation designed to regulate the private security industry was passed. This legislation designated the Ministry of Justice as the main regulatory institution with responsibility to authorize and monitor private security companies. At a practical level, the federal police have been undertaking this function under the authority of the Ministry of Justice. The private security legislation of 1983 stipulated ways in which recruits should be trained on the part of training centres established by the private security companies. The federal police were also tasked with supervising this training component. In 1995 further legislation came into effect that served to reinforce the regulatory function of the federal police. It also allowed for the police to charge private companies for undertaking authorization and monitoring functions. While the public police were charged with supervising private security, many close relationships had formed between agents working in these sectors, generating a fundamental issue of collusion. Theoretically, private security functions are supposed to complement those functions carried out by public police, a principle that is spelled out in the legislation. In reality, there is promiscuity across these two sectors, as the public police provide human resources, with particular kinds of skills and know-how, to private enterprises (Musumeci 1998). Existing regulations contain some rather strict requirements for private security entrepreneurs. For example, in order to be granted approval by the federal police, company owners must be Brazilian-born, have Brazilian citizenship and must have initial capital financing of R$ 110,000.00 (approximately 21,232 GBP). In addition, a training course, which must be approved by the federal police, must be provided to recruits prior to taking up their positions. As an unintended consequence of such requirements, there has been a growth in ‘clandestine’private security businesses that circumvent formal regulatory structures. It is difficult to ascertain reliable information as to the precise nature and size of the (legal and illegal) commercial security sector as a whole. Clandestine operations escape the reach of formal statistics and a significant proportion of those who moonlight would obviously not report this employment. Furthermore, within the ‘formal’ private security sector, which is authorized by the federal government, control and monitoring of such activities is slipshod and the integrity of the data generated is questionable. With this in mind, in the year 2000 the federal police indicated that across both formal and informal companies, almost one million private guards were operating nationally. In contrast, a total of 510,000 public police officers were said to be employed across the country. For São Paulo, the federal police indicated that 306 legal security companies were in operation, employing 100,000 guards, with 165 of those companies being affiliated with the local trade union. The federal police also suggested that

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at least 70 per cent of members of the military police forces moonlighted as private guards. Moonlighting was being encouraged not only by the existence of low wages in public policing, but as well by the growth in violence and fear which was serving to raise the demand for private services. At the end of 2001 the Trade Union of Private Security, Electronic Surveillance and Training of the State of São Paulo estimated that 1,300 legal companies were in operation in the state of São Paulo, employing 330,000 guards and with 255,000 arms registered. The same trade union estimated that 5,000 businesses not registered with the federal police were employing approximately 600,000 guards. The annual growth rate of the industry, both formal and informal, was estimated to be at 25 per cent. The security market as a whole responds very quickly to changing consumer demands, as the above example of car armouring demonstrates. We find a similar example in the area of cargo protection services. During the 1990s the crime of cargo hijacking grew phenomenally. This led to an increased demand for protection in the transportation of certain products p ( harmaceutical, electronic equipment, tobacco products, and food)which further resulted in higher transportation costs. Between 1996 and 2002, the costs for providing transportation security increased from 3 per cent to 10–12 per cent of the value of the cargo (Folha de São Paulo 2002). This boom in the industry of transportation protection was catalysed in particular through pressure from insurance companies; the greater the risk to inventory, the higher the rates of insurance. As such, businesses were compelled to lower the risk profiles undertaken by insurance companies by purchasing security services (O Estado de São Paulo 2003). By 2002, the revenue for the private security sector, including both formal and informal security companies, was estimated to be R$ 7.8 billion. According to the Annual Survey on the Services Industry (Fundação IBGE 2002)carried out by the National Census Bureau, the private security sector grew by 4.2 per cent (equalling 14,000) between 2000 and 2001. Across the 2,580 formal companies identified, 352,000 people were employed across the country. These formal companies reported a net revenue of R$ 5.6 billion in 2001. On average, each private security company employs 130 people, and (again on average) they generate a revenue of R$ 2.2 million. Consistent with the findings of Musumeci (1998), the census survey found that private security companies were increasing their profit margin by subcontracting out services. Unsurprisingly, wages to those actually delivering services were seen to decrease between the years 2000 and 2001. The major formal private security companies are located in the southeast of Brazil. The largest concentration of companies is found in São Paulo, which has 885 formal companies (32.8 per cent of the country)and an estimated total staff complement of 114,480. In 2001, the Services Industry survey F ( undaço ã IBGE 2002) showed that illegal private security in São Paulo generated a gross revenue of R$ 2.5 billion. In 1999 the federal police

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reported to have closed 100 clandestine companies, although it was clear that this would not deter entrepreneurs from starting new companies and new addresses. Clandestine companies have flourished mainly in the market for bodyguards and guards for premises such as condominiums and shops. The 1995 National Household Survey conducted by the National Census Bureau reported that 667,000 people work as ‘private guards’ while 675,000 work as ‘watch guards’ M ( usumeci 1998). Watch guards tend to work for smaller businesses or for families without a formal contract (and hence without protection by labour laws), while ‘private guards’may work for either legal or illegal companies (ibid). Of the above groups of private guards and watch guards, 10 per cent revealed this to be their second occupation, while indicating that their primary employment was in public policing. Of course, the real extent of moonlighting on the part of police officers is much higher. Products and services in the high-tech area are often provided by foreign companies which, to the best of our knowledge, do not set up clandestine branch locations. Activities such as the provision of electronic surveillance and monitoring, provision of armoured car services, the sale and installation of security equipment and satellite monitoring of cargoes en route tend to require specific competencies. European companies dominate the market in the area of electronic surveillance, whilst armoured car services tend to be provided by the USA, Israel or Germany. Furthermore, the bulk of equipment in the high-tech area is imported. Based on data from the year 2000 in Brazil, 50 per cent of electronic surveillance equipment is imported from the United States of America, 20 per cent comes from Israel, another 20 per cent comes from Japan, 5 per cent comes from Canada and 5 per cent comes from other countries (Folha de São Paulo 2000). Members of the legal private security sector have made sustained efforts to generate public awareness of the informal sector, something that obviously threatens the economic viability of the former. For example, the President of the State Trade Union of Private Security and Transportation of Valuables has conducted advertisements on radio news programmes warning listeners of the possibility that they are buying illegal services, and asks listeners to verify the status of the companies they have hired with the union. Both the federal police and the trade union are concerned that such companies are hiring c‘ riminals’O ( Estado de Sã o Paulo 2000b). It is a well known fact that ex-police officers, expelled from public forces for criminal conduct, readily find employment in the clandestine sector M ( usumeci 1998). One key to the success of illegal private security companies is the fact that they can operate at lower costs because they circumvent regulatory requirements. Workers are paid lower wages than their legal counterparts and there is no investment in training facilities for such workers. From the perspective of companies that do comply with regulations, the existence of this informal economy leads to unfair competition in the security marketplace.

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Clandestine companies also contribute to a poor image of the private security sector as a whole because of their low standards in hiring personnel, the lack of training they provide them, and the potential forms of misconduct, such as criminal behaviour, that workers engage in. Ironically, attempts to regulate the commercial security sector in Brazil have facilitated the existence of a dual economy. Existing regulations provide disincentives, rather than incentives, for entrepreneurs to operate legally. Of course, the problem is more complex than this. Insatiable public demand for more security, and for different kinds of security, allows both formal and clandestine markets to diversify and flourish. At the same time, both existing and ex-police officers, who bring to bear well-honed skills and capabilities, are enticed into the market in order to supplement their low incomes in the public sector. The fact that moonlighting is illegal is a moral imperative that neither overrides public demand for security (in whatever form)nor an officer’s desire to profit from this anxiety. Violence itself can be seen as both a commodity and an expression of communal retribution. The example of ‘death squads’ illustrates this dual meaning. Death squads and extra-judicial killings D ‘ eath squads’can be seen as groups that specialize in meting out violence on behalf of particular common interests. Huggins argues that there is a symbiosis between formal public policing and informal death squads, and indeed, the core ‘service’that death squads provide was originally one provided by public police officers (Huggins 1997). Over time, squads have formed both within and across the formal and informal sectors of the economy, some drawing on officers already employed in the public sector, others drawing on private citizens. Forms of ‘extra-legal vigilante violence’ H ( uggins 1997: 210) can be described along a continuum, ranging from more informal, spontaneous groupings involved in mob lynchings, to individual assassins (justiceiros), to relatively organized squads of off-duty police, to on-duty groups of police (ibid. 210). Mob lynchings are carried out by civilians seeking justice by taking the law into their own hands. This is a highly spontaneous activity (hence the term ‘mob’lynchings), prompted by the reaction of a crowd to a suspected law-breaker. Mob lynchings, often involving groups of strangers, are to be distinguished from ‘communal’ lynchings which are more organized and consisting of known members of a community that come together to redress an injustice to that community. Along the continuum are more systematically organized ‘lone-wolf’ killers ( justiceiros) that are usually citizens who are out to protect their communities. At the same time, many justiceiros kill for money, meaning that their actions are not simply driven by their community attachments. Also, some lone-wolf killers are off-duty police, thus representing a direct link to the state. Even more formally

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organized, with very direct connections to the state, are public police who are members of ‘elite’police units, known for their extraordinary degree of ‘bravery’, who carry out killings while on duty (ibid. 211). ‘The state’, according to Huggins, ‘has direct connections to such violence through its formal constitutional and operational control over the police, whose violence is officially justified by the state’s declared war against drugs and crime, and under the military, against “ Communists”and political “ terrorists’’(ibid). D ‘ eath squad’ violence is also located on this formal end of the continuum. Death squads are teams of murderers, most of whom are off-duty police who are paid collectively by businesses or politicians. These squads are normally connected to other teams of murderers that also consist of members of the paid police. There are also informal death squads that are effectively endorsed by the state, as state officials give them jobs and secretly reward them (ibid). Research undertaken by the Centre for the Study of Violence at the University of São Paulo has involved an analysis of changes in this phenomenon since the 1980s. In the past, groups responsible for extrajudicial killings made a point of having a clear identity (marking the execution with symbols), but after some governments arrested, tried and jailed some of the more highly visible groups, executions continued to happen but the nature of the aggressors became more hazy. As such, the centre uses the term ‘extrajudicial killings’and it separates killings by hired gunmen from others. This conceptual distinction underlies the database it has developed (see below). In general the centre has more information on the victim and on the conditions of death than about perpetrators and cases are identified by how victims die rather than by who is responsible. The database (fed by five major national newspapers)shows that for the period of January 1980 to December 2003 the press reported the number of killings shown in Table 8.1. The phenomenon of ‘death squads’ or e‘ xtrajudicial killings’ serves as another expression of the punishment mentality that supports coercion as a central technology of policing. This technology is used in a variety of ways by various actors working within and across state and commercial sectors and in accordance with common interests that are not easily understood as Table 8.1 Extrajudicial killings in Brazil, 1980–2003

1980s 1990s 2000–2003 Total

Cases

Victims

696 4,391 3,281 8,368

1,187 6,959 4,951 13,097

Source: Centre for the Study of Violence: Database on Gross Human Rights Violations

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either ‘public’or p ‘ rivate’. The following discussion on trends in urban segregation and physical fortification provides another example of what may be termed c‘ ommon interest security governance’ S( hearing and Wood 2003a), rather than say, ‘public policing’or p ‘ rivate security’. In this example, s‘ patial sorting’ K ( empa et al. 1999; Kempa et al. 2004)backed up by coercive capability is the central governance strategy. Segregation and fortification Police inefficiency, coupled with public distrust of police officials, has prompted some Brazilians (with the financial wherewithal)to take drastic measures of self-protection. Here we refer to initiatives aimed at insulating individuals and their families from criminalized and demonized segments of the population (Macauley 2002: 4). Complementing violent policing in Brazil is an important contemporary development described by Caldeira as the n ‘ ew urban segregation’ expressed in the construction of ‘fortified enclaves’ C ( aldeira 1996a, 1996b and 2000). Caldeira describes these developments as ‘privatized, enclosed, and monitored spaces for residence, consumption, leisure, and work … They appeal to those who are abandoning the traditional public sphere of the streets to the poor, the ‘marginal’, and the homeless’C ( aldeira 1996b: 303). Fortified enclaves range from closed condominiums to office complexes, shopping centres, and other kinds of retrofitted spaces such as schools and hospitals C ( aldeira 2000: 258). Consistent with Shearing and Stenning’s conception of ‘mass private property’S( hearing and Stenning 1981, 1983), these ‘common spaces’v( on Hirsch and Shearing 2000; Hermer et al. 2005; Kempa et al. 2004) serve both to contain and separate (see Hermer et al. 2005 on ‘containment’,) leaving those who cannot participate in this form of communal governance to organize their collective life in ‘conduit spaces’ S( hearing 1999). Caldeira explains: All fortified enclaves share some basic characteristics. They are private property for collective use, and they emphasize the value of what is private and restricted at the same time that they devalue what is public and open in the city. They are physically demarcated and isolated by walls, fences, empty spaces, and design devices. They are turned inward, away from the street, whose public life they explicitly reject. They are controlled by armed guards and security systems, which enforce rules of inclusion and exclusion. They are flexible: because of their size, the new technologies of communication, the new organization of work, and security systems, they constitute autonomous spaces, independent of their surroundings, that can be situated almost anywhere … Finally, the enclaves tend to be socially homogeneous environments. People who choose to inhabit these spaces value living among selected people (considered to be of the same social group) and away from the undesired

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interactions, movement, heterogeneity, danger, and the unpredictability of open streets. (2000: 258) An emblematic example of fortification is the ‘gated community’, a significant development in Brazil to which we shall now turn. Gated communities The term g‘ ated communities’is not adequate to describe the enclosed, highly monitored forms of housing that exist in Sã o Paulo, as they do not represent c‘ ommunities’in the sense that there is community life and an awareness that the members of the group share values, expectations, ideals and so forth. The irony is that people take to living in such enclosed, surveilled spaces to flee from the life in a community. A more adequate term perhaps is that of g‘ ated housing’, by which we mean an enclosed w ( alled)form of housing, whether under the form of high-rise apartments or houses, detached or semi-detached, in which the external areas of the abode are shared with persons whose identity residents perceive to be known or controlled by someone they know. This type of housing tends to exclude residents from all external contact, fostering dissociation within existing neighbourhoods. Some such communities may represent full suburbs, almost like small towns in the spirit of ‘edge cities’ and can be almost self-sufficient in the sense that they provide shopping areas, leisure, work and services including health, schools, and so forth. It should be stressed that these are few and tend to be located in the outskirts of the metropolitan region of São Paulo and cater for upper- and upper middle-class families, though some estates are beginning to be developed and sold in low middle-class areas. Earlier on in the late 1970s in the consolidated urban areas some groupings of highrise buildings occupying large wooded areas were built for residential use, only differing from the suburban gated areas because they are were self-sufficient. More recently, a new type of gated arrangement emerged – the h ‘ orizontal condominium’ or v‘ illa’ mimicking a gated mews in which half a dozen dwellings are located in a heavily monitored plot within a regular city block, most often located in an upper-class residential area. Such groupings, depending on the size of the original plot, can gather up to 30 houses where previously there was a single home. Whereas earlier forms of gated housing were sold to prospective buyers on the basis of quality of life, the newer sites are sold with two types of appeal: the quality of the surroundings in terms of the environmental attributes n ( amely the number of trees, the quiet, the beauty of the surroundings o ( utside the gates))and on the basis of the security offered, particularly to children. This type of real estate is presented as an alternative that would in theory allow people to live in houses with the same security that flats are presumed to grant. This type of investment results in major profits for real

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estate developers as they intensify land use, but this process is reducing green areas and encouraging conflict between residents of such housing and other residents in the area. Of interest here is the question of how efficient these forms of housing have been in terms of providing a secure life. Unfortunately, there are no police statistics that can provide us with a clue. The study by Caldeira 2 ( 000)on some of the earlier forms of gated housing shows that they are not protected from external or internal sources of violence. Internally, a number of problems arise as many residents find it difficult to enforce rules that would reduce conflict between residents, in particular those that refer to the behaviour of youth (driving cars without a licence, alcohol and drugs use, consuming and trading drugs, perpetrating petty thefts and so forth). Some adults also have difficulty in respecting collective rules. In terms of external threats, once such ‘edge cities’ are built, their management and upkeep demand the presence of a number of manual labourers, who are then forced to find accommodation in their vicinity, thus existing ‘on the edge of the edge’, so to speak. In other words the beautiful model environment is soon surrounded by slum-like settlements inhabited by the people who provide the labour for their services. This reproduction of the inequality that reigned in the downtown is sure to generate tension. The more recent and numerous types of gated housing, such as fortresstype high-rise buildings, are often reported in the press in São Paulo as well as in other states as targets of collective robberies. The same is being reported as happening in the ‘villa’ type of condominiums: a number of highly armed robbers, fully informed as to who is in the condominium, or in the high-rise fortress, arrive and use some strategy (e.g. delivering goods; visiting a resident whose name they know), disrupt the security, take control of the cameras and rob each of the residences in the place. This is a fullscale operation and one in which power and telephone lines are cut and in which much care is taken to prevent residents from calling for help. Some such large-scale robberies have kept their victims for hours on end in the hands of delinquents. Eventually, the police discover that the robbers received information about residents and about the security in the housing compound from a disgruntled worker, ex-worker or even a person in charge of the security of the place. Being able to screen your personnel properly seems to be a key requirement of security. It would appear that in the case of enclosed communities, fortress highrise, gated housing, villas, whatever the terminology, the idea that in a violent environment it is possible to create a small oasis does not in reality seem achievable. People will still have to circulate through the city and thus be vulnerable to the violence, and it is the realization that there are limits to what the private sector can provide in terms of individual protection that has led people to recognize that true security has to be collective. Thus, while fortification is justified largely by fear of crime (Caldeira 1996a: 55), it appears to have exacerbated the kind of ‘exclusive society’ of which

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oYung is critical o(Yung 1999)through its provision of security as a ‘club good’H ( ope 2000; Crawford, in press). A further implication of segregation is the likelihood that those who do not travel to or live within fortified enclaves will be subject even further to the violent policing undertaken on behalf of a range of ‘public’, p ‘ rivate’ and ‘common’interests (Caldeira 2002: 247; Hermer et al. 2005). Shearing and Wood speak of different groups of ‘denizens’ that are governed within and across particular kinds of common spaces in accordance with their status vis-à -vis particular governing auspices (Shearing and Wood 2003b). In a similar effort to challenge the naïvetéof c‘ itizenship’as an underlying principle of contemporary governance, Huggins refers to the n ‘ oncitizen’poor [who]are rarely protected by the state’s social control system, [and]have learned to expect violent periodic Militarized Police lightning raids into their shanty towns, punctuated regularly by death squad murders, lone-wolf ‘justice maker’killings, and lynch mob assassinations. (Huggins 2000: 121) This example illustrates the ‘criminology of the other’G ( arland 1996)that reinforces a widespread punishment mentality. The denizens of which Huggins speaks are the young, the dark-skinned, and the poor, and as such, violence exercised toward them sparks ‘little political action and moral outrage’H ( uggins 2000: 117). That being said, and as we indicated above, the ‘moral work’B ( irkbeck 2004)carried out by human rights-based organizations and other related interest groups are playing an increasingly large role in the field of security governance. In the year 2003, Human Rights Watch released a report titled ‘Cruel Confinement: Abuses Against Detained Children in Northern Brazil’ H ( uman Rights Watch 2003a). Reports like this, with reliable empirical data, are publicly accessible via Internet and other media, exemplifying the fact that the job of regulating policing and security is itself increasingly pluralized. In the conclusion to this paper we will briefly speculate as to the future of explanatory and normative work from this pluralist perspective.

Conclusion The mentalities, institutions and practices of policing and security in Brazil are difficult to explain in reference to the public/private distinction. Mentalities, and the strategies they inform, cut across sectors (commercial and non-commercial), whilst individual security actors participate in different sectors within different times and spaces. There is clear evidence of a shared punishment mentality that privileges violence as the central technology of policing and security. This shared mentality is expressed in different ways through a range of practices that are enabled by particular resources,

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capabilities and regulatory processes (or lack thereof). Repression thus exists, according to Huggins, along a continuum (Huggins 2000: 119). In this way, it is perhaps more appropriate to describe the mentalities, institutions and practices of Brazilian policing in terms of auspices and providers that serve to promote ‘common’ interests and goods that exist somewhere along a continuum of more or less ‘public’and more or less ‘private’ goods and interests (Shearing and Wood 2003a). These forms of governance operate within and across ‘communal’ spaces (Kempa et al. 2004) that are distinguished through physical markers and/or symbols. Within and across such spaces, groups of ‘denizens’ S( hearing and Wood 2003b) are allowed access, or conversely denied entry, depending on the rights and privileges they expect to receive in accordance with their access to economic and other forms of capital (see Wood 2004). From a normative perspective, the security field in Brazil is fraught with regulatory challenges. While significant progress has been made by human rights-related movements in their ‘moral work’of identifying forms of state institutional violence, concrete structures and practices of regulation still undermine this progress. As a future normative guide, one could adopt a very broad understanding of regulation, one based on ‘influencing the flow of events’P ( arker and Braithwaite 2003: 119)in ways that realize the multiple objectives of democratic governance, including access to justice, equity, fairness, respect for rights and instrumental effectiveness (Hermer et al. 2005). As discussed above, the key impediment to democratic transformation in Brazil is the existence of a fairly widespread mentality that supports brutal policing (of all forms) as well as urban segregation, to the end of enhanced security. In this regard, the regulatory challenge is two-fold: first, to improve mechanisms that constrain undemocratic behaviour on the part of all agents of policing and security (what we can conceive of as a negative conception of regulation); and secondly, to develop new forms of policing and security governance that provide more effective and democratic alternatives to violence and segregation (a positive conception of regulation). To date, a negative conception of regulation dominates the debates on policing and security in Brazil and in other countries. The improvement of existing systems of oversight and accountability are undeniably essential, and must continue to be central to democratization efforts. In our view, what must accompany such efforts are forms of ‘democratic experimentalism’ (Parker and Braithwaite 2003) aimed at building new models of collective policing and security governance that provide non-violent alternatives to existing programmes and practices (Wood and Font 2004). New actors supporting a non-punitive mentality, such as those involved in the human rights movement, must play a more dominant role in the plural field of security by introducing new discourses and practices, ones that recognize collective feelings of insecurity whilst challenging the instrumental limitations of violence as a central governance strategy. In other words, actors from all sectors can, and must, develop new models for

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both security and its regulation that radically challenge existing mentalities, institutions and practices.

Note 1

Affonso 2 ( 004)studied the impact of the legislation that removed from the military police the privilege of trial by military courts in cases of homicide of civilians in São Paulo. Affonso’s research shows that impunity continues to reign as public prosecutors t(he members of the Ministério Público)do not pressure the police forces to carry out proper investigations and in fact seem to be in collusion with the police forces to drop charges.

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Lino, P. R. (2004) P ‘ olice education and training in a global society: A Brazilian Overview’, Police Practice and Research 5: 2, pp. 125–36. Macauley, F. 2 ( 002) Problems of Police Oversight in Brazil, Oxford: University of Oxford Centre for Brazilian Studies. www.brazil.ox.ac.uk/workingpapers/ Macauley33.pdf Musumeci, L. (1998) Serviços privados de vigilância e de guarda no Brasil: Um estudo a partir das informaçeõs da PNAD 1985/1995: Texto para Discussão no. 560, Instituto de Pesquisa Econô mica e Aplicada. O’Malley, P. (1999) ‘Volatile and contradictory punishment’, Theoretical Criminology 3, pp. 175–96. Paes-Machado, E. and Noronha, C. V. 2 ( 002)P ‘ olicing the Brazilian poor: resistance to and acceptance of police brutality in urban popular classes’, International Criminal Justice Review, 12, pp. 53–76. Parker, C. and Braithwaite, J. (2003) Regulation. Oxford Handbook of Legal Studies. P. Cane and M. Tushnet. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 119–145. Pinheiro, P. S., Adorno, S. and Cardia, N. (1999)Continuidade autoritária e construço ã da democracia. Relató rio final de pesquisa. São Paulo, NEV-USP. Prenzler, T. (2000) C ‘ ivilian oversight of police: a test of capture theory’, British Journal of Criminology 40, pp. 659–74. Schiffer, S. R. (2002)S‘ o ã Paulo: Articulating a Cross-Border Region’, in S. Sassen e( d.) Global Networks, Linked Cities, New oYrk: Routledge. Shearing, C. (1999) R ‘ emarks of Professor Clifford Shearing [on zero tolerance policing],’ Criminal Law Bulletin 35: 4, pp. 378–83. Shearing, C. and Stenning, P. (1981) Modern Private Security: Its Growth and Implications. Crime and Justice: An Annual Review of Research. M. Tonry and N. Morris. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 3, pp. 193–245. Shearing, C. and Stenning, P. (1983)P ‘ rivate security: Implications for social control’, Social Problems 30: 5, pp. 493–506. Shearing, C. and Wood, J. (2003a) G ‘ overning security for common goods’, International Journal of the Sociology of Law 31, pp. 205–25. Shearing, C. and Wood, J. (2003b) N ‘ odal governance, democracy and the new d ‘ enizens’,’ Journal of Law and Society 30: 3, pp. 400–19. Silva, J. 2 ( 000) T ‘ he favelados in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’, Policing and Society 10, pp. 121–30. United Nations (2001) Report of the Special Rapporteur [on Torture], Sir Nigel Rodley submitted pursant to Commission on Human Rights Resolution 2000/3 Addendum. Visit to Brazil. 30 March 2001, Geneva, United Nations Human Rights Commission. von Hirsch, A. and Shearing, C. (2000) E ‘ xclusion from Public Space’, in A. von Hirsch, D. Garland and A. Wakefield, Ethical and Social Perspectives on Situational Crime Prevention, Oxford: Hart Publishing, pp. 77–96. Wacquant, L. (2003) T ‘ oward a dictatorship over the poor?,’ Punishment and Society 5: 2, pp. 197–205. Wood, J. 2 ( 004) C ‘ ultural change in the governance of security’, Policing and Society 14: 1, pp. 31–48.

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Wood, J. and Font, E. (2004) I‘ s c“ommunity policing”a desirable export?On crafting the global constabulary ethic’, prepared for the workshop on C ‘ onstabulary Ethics and the Spirit of Transnational Policing’, Oñ ati, Spain, 13–14 July. Wood, J. and Kempa, M. (2005)U ‘ nderstanding global trends in policing: explanatory and normative dimensions’, in J. W. E. Sheptycki and A. Wardack (eds) Transnational Comparative Criminology, London, Sydney, Portland: Glass House Press. oYung, J. (1999) The Exclusive Society, London: Sage.

Newspaper articles Diá rio de Sã o Paulo (2001)E ‘ mpresários buscam segurança,’ 24 September, p. 7. Diá rio de São Paulo 2 ( 003) M ‘ edo da violência faz até criança usar roupa blindadas’, 30 March, pp. A–8. Folha de S. Paulo (1997) C ‘ lasse média começa a blindar carros’, Negó cios, 8 September, pp. 1–2. Folha de S. Paulo (2000)V ‘ iolência alimenta a indú stria da segurança,’ Economia, 16 October, pp. B–3. Folha de S. Paulo (2002)O ‘ preço da segurança,’ 26 May, p. 1. Gazeta Mercantil (1998a)B ‘ lindagem de carros cresce com a insegurança,’ Grande Sã o Paulo, 3 September, p. 1. Gazeta Mercantil (1998b) I‘ nsegurança sustenta negó cios milionários na América Latina’, Caderno América Latina, 29 November, p. 1. Gazeta Mercantil (2000a) P ‘ rejuizo com roubo de cargas éde R$315 milliõ es in 1999’, 23 March, p. 1. Gazeta Mercantil (2000b)C ‘ arros blindados a pronta entrega’, Grande São Paulo, 4 April, p. 2. Gazeta Mercantil (2000c) C ‘ arros blindados dão lugar a populares’, Caderno Carro, 20 September, p. 1. O Estado de S. Paulo (1998) V ‘ iolência fêz triplicar procura por blindagem’,’ Cidades, 15 June, pp. C–5. O Estado de S. Paulo (2000a) S‘ egurança privada supera efetivo das polícias’, caderno Cidades, 10 October, p. C–1. O Estado de S. Paulo (2000b)E ‘ mpresas clandestinas preocupam Polícia Federal e o Sindicato’, Cidades, 16 October, p. C–1. O Estado de S. Paulo (2003)E ‘ mpresas tiveram seu boom nos anos 80’, Economia, 5 January, B–1. O Globo (2002) C ‘ arro blindado é proteço ã cada vez mais popular’, Rio, 3 November, p. 35. O Globo (2003)S‘ egurança: setor cresce 26% no país,’ 6 May, pp. 1–2.

9

Australia Tim Prenzler and Rick Sarre

Policing in Australia has followed a roughly similar pattern of growth, diversification and partial privatization as occurred in many Western countries. Change and growth were initially driven by the explosion of crime in the 1970s and recurring crises of confidence in state police. Politicization also fed the change process, as did a new consciousness about the need for focused situational measures against crime and for ‘smart’regulatory strategies to contain both the ‘old’criminal law violations and the ‘new’crimes – such as corporate fraud, environmental harm, corruption and discrimination. There has been a revolution in policing in Australia over a thirty-year period, and major change has included the old guard of state police forces that slowly took on board the new language of performance measurement, problem-oriented and community policing, and personnel diversification. But the new structures and rhetoric of modern Australian policing have made only limited headway against the avalanche of crime, violence and exploitation. At the start of a new century there seems to be little prospect except for ‘more of the same’, as priorities shift – to child abuse, for example, or terrorism – and both government and private agencies of protection struggle to make a difference and maintain faith in their mission.

Historical background Australia was ‘settled’ by England through a set of colonies of enormous geographical size. Much of the land was inhospitable, and control was exercized from capital cities, the first being Sydney where the colony of New South Wales was established in 1788. This structure was retained when the colonies became independent and then federated as states in the nation of Australia in 1901. The states retained jurisdiction over areas such as education, health and criminal law. Policing has therefore been predominantly ‘state-based’; with large centralized bureaucracies, no local policing, and only a small federal agency. One of the major legacies of the federal system concerns criminal law, with a basic division between common law and code jurisdictions, but with each jurisdiction also having its own permutations and own change processes. Police in Australia for all intents and purposes

170

Tim Prenzler and Rick Sarre

operated in different countries, but with functional agreements on extraditions and arrest of suspects across borders. The Australian Federal Police A ( FP) enforces federal laws concerning crimes such as fraud against the Commonwealth and drug importation, and provides ‘community policing’ services in the Australian Capital Territory on a contract basis. The AFP was established in 1979, but variations of federal policing date back to 1917. Immediate events leading to the formation of the Commonwealth Police provide an example of just how ignominious the politics of policing can be in Australia. When Prime Minister Billy Hughes was addressing an anti-conscription rally in a Q ueensland town he was struck by an egg launched from the audience. After the local constable refused to arrest the offender the Prime Minister vented his frustration by hastening the creation of a federal police force (Bryett et al. 1997: 88). The first ‘civil’ police tasks in Australia were undertaken by marines, who resisted the role and engaged in opportunistic crime. They were replaced by the New South Wales Corps in 1795, which became known as T ‘ he Rum Corps’due to its organization of a trade in spirits. In desperation the authorities recruited ex-convicts, which further inflamed conflict between police and the colonial authorities and between police and the population. The spread of settlement across vast distances made the English concept of local civil policing difficult to implement. The frontier environment obliged a mounted military style of police organization, with a focus on the pursuit of outlaws (Bryett et al. 1997). Despite a more professional organization from the mid-nineteenth century, the well-known Australian working-class suspicion of police was cemented with the violent suppression of the great strikes of the 1880s and 1890s, and the policing of severe strictures on alcohol and gambling. The latter situation led to the establishment of protection rackets and the image of the ‘bent copper’. For much of the twentieth century, state police held a virtual monopoly, at least in the public mind, on crime control. But from the 1970s a process began in which many criminal law enforcement and protection tasks were taken on, usually in tandem, by other agencies, including private security and specialist law enforcement agencies. This was driven in part by disillusion with police sluggishness and corruption, but also by the size of the crime problem. Given its convict origins it is not surprising that Australia was a high crime society from the start. Attempts at reforming convicts had limited success and the new colonies were beset by problems of theft, assault, escapes and disorder. Public drunkenness has been a particular problem for much of Australia’s history, along with associated problems such as assault G ( raycar and Grabosky 2002). Following more moderate levels of crime in the first six decades of the twentieth century, Australia experienced the same dramatic increases in reported crime in the 1970s and 1980s as many Western countries, with a pattern of more stable rates of crime reported to police but at very high volumes from the 1990s. The most recent International Crime Victim Survey conducted in 1999 placed Australia at

Australia

171

the top of the 17 developed countries category, with approximately 30 per cent of the population claiming to have been victimized in the previous year. Australia had amongst the highest rates of car theft, burglary, robbery, personal theft, sexual assaults, and assaults and threats (ICVS 2000: 178). The challenges for anyone engaged in law enforcement or crime prevention are therefore immense.

‘State’ policing Table 9.1 lists some key dimensions of the main police forces, showing the characteristic feature of large numbers of personnel in a small number of departments. Australia experienced a long period of a t‘ raditional model’ of policing centred on rapid response to calls and investigation of major crimes by detectives. Innovations were largely technologically driven, focused on improving response times or offender identification. The community policing movement of the 1980s drove the first wave of major policy reorientation. Police typically spend about two-thirds of their time outside criminal law enforcement, in resolving disputes, restoring order or assisting people with problems such as traffic accidents or missing persons C ( JC 1996). But the idea of systematizing this, and giving the community a partnership role, was something alien at the time S( arre 1996). Problem-oriented policing P ( OP) followed closely on the heels of community policing, and police annual reports are now suffused with the rhetoric of both community policing and POP, with increasing attention being given to applying overseas research on intelligence-led policing by addressing repeat offending, repeat victimization and targeting crime h ‘ otspots’. POP fitted with the growing emphasis on government accountability through quantitative measures of efficiency and effectiveness, and police have taken on a range of performance indicators Table 9.1 Australian police services, June 2003 Jurisdiction NSW Victoria u Qeensland WA SA Tasmania NT AFP Total

Year established

Sworn

Unsworn

1862 1853 1864 1853 1838 1899 1870 1979 (1917)

14,739 10,691 8,704 5,063 3,056 1,118 974 2,925

4,059 2,233 2,465 1,176 840 430 204 1,345

18,798 12,924 11,169 6,239 3,896 1,548 1,178 4,270

47,270

12,752

60,022

Sources: Police annual reports and AIC 2003.

Total

172


including crime reduction targets, public perceptions of safety, and caller satisfaction. The results have been very mixed, although public satisfaction is fairly high P ( renzler and Sarre 2002). Some of the best examples of POP have been in traffic law enforcement. Australia was a leader in successful experiments with random breath testing in the 1980s, and states like Victoria pushed further with speed and red light cameras, and experiments with testing for drug impaired driving. Positive case studies of police innovations abound, but research on police management styles in Australia suggests that lack of strategic thinking and resistance to experimentation makes it unlikely that many innovations will come from within or really take hold as a routine way of doing things or make major inroads into crime (Palmer 1999). Despite major reductions in traffic accidents, deaths and injuries, for example, carnage on the roads continues, in part because of a reluctance to engage in highly interventionist restrictions on citizens’ freedoms, and police have not been good at lobbying for the tough response required. In terms of bringing offenders to justice, police penetration of crime remains extremely limited, with, for example, only around 20 per cent of motor vehicle thefts and 10 per cent of burglaries being cleared (Mukherjee and Graycar 1997: 70). In the classic tension between the authority of elected representatives and executive independence, Australian policing has tended to come down on the side of executive independence. This is the convention, although the police minister retains authority over the police commissioner under the principle of ministerial responsibility (Bryett et al. 1997). One way in which the practice of the separation of powers is evident is in the news media. Whereas the Director General of Health or Education is rarely seen and the Minister is prominent, in policing the Minister frequently takes a back seat to the Commissioner in interviews and press conferences. There have been some exceptions to the practice of constabulary independence, the most notorious, in a perverse inversion, being the protection of corrupt police by police ministers and the Premier in Q ueensland. And in the last decade police ministers appear to have sought a more prominent profile. The monkey of corruption was never really thrown off the back of police until the very end of the twentieth century. Internal disciplinary measures resulted in frequent dismissals, but judicial inquiries over the decades failed to expose major corruption while also doing nothing to dispel suspicions. The first inquiry to break through this pattern was the Fitzgerald Commission in u Qeensland, from 1987 to 1989. The inquiry was forced on the government by investigative journalists working with police whistleblowers. The core findings concerned protection of vice in a system that included the Commissioner. The wider findings included a damning critique of corruption across the government and of incompetent management of the police. The most devastating inquiry was the Wood Royal Commission in New South Wales, from 1994 to 1997. Organized protection and graft were also central to the Wood revelations, along with fabrication of evidence,

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173

assaults on suspects, internal fraud and, in an associated high profile line of enquiry, the serious neglect of the activities of paedophiles. A major enquiry into the Western Australia Police concluded in 2004, while the scandal-ridden Victoria Police in 2004 managed to fend off intensified calls for a Royal Commission amidst gangland shootings on the streets of Melbourne that were coloured with allegations of police involvement. Revelations of serious corruption from the late-1980s were merely the summit of a more general malaise that beset policing in Australia – as in many other Western countries. What Bradley calls ‘the crisis in policing: a multilayered critique’ 1 ( 992: 135) entailed condemnation of almost every aspect of modern police work. There was growing disquiet over police neglect of victims of ‘hidden’ crimes such as domestic violence and sexual assault, for example – symptomatic of a general reactive chauvinistic approach by police to social problems. The 1991 report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (Johnston 1991)was highly critical of reactive arrest practices carried out by police when dealing with problems of disorder and crime amongst Aboriginal Australians. Police have also been criticized for persecuting minor drug users while neglecting crimes by corporations. There have been repeated criticisms of police behaviour in relation to dangerous high-speed pursuits or the use of excessive force against public demonstrators. Misuse of discretion has been a major problem, with police repeatedly caught out abrogating their responsibility to enforce the law ‘without fear or favour’ in diverse cases such as not prosecuting politicians offending against road rules or ‘over-policing’ ethnic minorities and young people (Prenzler and Sarre 2002). Major reforms have occurred in the area of human resource management since the 1980s. Figure 9.1 shows that male sworn police remain dominant, but female recruitment rates of over 30 per cent are slowly changing the 60 50

Officers

Recruits

40 % 30 20 10 0 AFP

Tas.

NSW

WA

NT

Vic.

SA

Qld

Figure 9.1 Percentages of female police officers and female recruits, 2003

Total

174


ratio following a long period of intense resistance to women. Policies supporting women are now amongst the best in the world and substantial efforts are made to recruit indigenous Australians and persons from nonEnglish speaking backgrounds (Prenzler and Sarre 2002). Anti-discrimination legislation has meant that more mature and better-educated recruits are contributing to the changing profile of policing following the removal of restrictions on age, height and weight. Civilianization is also a significant feature of the new policing profile. Table 9.1 above shows that non-sworn staff now make up 20 per cent of police personnel. Australia’s federal structure means that local government has no constitutional authority. When the states delegated tasks to local councils they kept policing at the state level and, despite the ‘local’nature of much crime, responsibility remained outside local government for most of Australia’s history. It was only in the 1980s, and the 1990s in particular, that local government interest in crime became a noticeable development. Box 9.1 provides an example of newspaper coverage of this relatively new trend in Australia. The example describes a typical profile of frustration with rising crime and the apparent inability of state police to manage the problem. The example refers to the idea of councils employing police-style patrols with a view, essentially fanciful, to interdicting crimes as they occur; and ideas like this have tended to go nowhere. There has also been a rash of safety surveys and security plans put forward by councils. But the real effect of local government interest in crime has been in the installation of CCTV cameras and monitoring stations in open-air malls, usually in locations where main streets have been closed to traffic and converted to pedestrian precincts. Cameras have usually been introduced amidst controversy, with police on the defence and civil libertarians complaining about threats to privacy. But cameras are now commonplace in open malls.

Private and public security services Like many countries, Australia experienced dramatic growth in the security industry in the last three decades, although the precise dimensions of this change are difficult to identify. The occupational category ‘guards and security officers’ was introduced into census reports quite late, in 1986. In the 15 years between the first count and the most recent in 2001, the number of security officers increased by 52.1 per cent, while police increased by 19.5 per cent. The trend towards convergence is apparent in Figure 9.2, with the number of guards likely to overtake police by about 2010. Table 9.2 shows census data for a wider range of security occupations for a five-year period from 1996 to 2001. Overall, the results show that the Australian population increased by 6.0 per cent, police increased by 6.5 per cent and security providers by 31.1 per cent. The figures show a ratio of security providers to police of 1.2 to 1.0 in 2001.

Australia

175

Box 9.1 A local government response to crime Council plan to employ civilian police by Dave Reardon ... Mandurah council chief executive Stephen Goode confirmed yesterday the council was considering employing private security agents as council rangers to protect the community from thugs and criminals. Mr Goode said the plan – proposed by Mayor Bruce Cresswell – was still in its early stages but many people were keen for it to go ahead. He said video and camera equipment would probably be used to record crimes but he hoped officers would also have stronger powers of intervention, possibly to arrest offenders. They would use mobile phones or two-way radios to keep in contact with local police. Mr Goode said if the plan went ahead, ratepayers would be asked to pay a 5 $0 property levy. The council would also approach the State government and private sector for support ... 1 ( 994, in Prenzler 2004b: 273)

The above figures have some limitations. They report only individuals’ main occupation; so many part-time workers are not counted. (Licensing figures include part-timers and suggest a much larger number – see Table 9.3.)In addition, the figures do not differentiate between private and public 50,000

40,000

30,000 Police officers 20,000

Guards and security officers

10,000 1986

1991

1996

2001

Year

Figure 9.2 Police officers, and guards and security officers, Australian census, 1986–2001

176


Table 9.2 Security providers, Australian census 1996 Private investigator Security adviser Locksmith Insurance investigator Debt collector Bailiff or sheriff Security officer* Armoured car escort* Guards and security officers n ( ot classified elsewhere)* TOTAL Police Population

917 595 1,493 397 5,931 581 27,432 51 264 37,661 37,993 17,892,423

2001

Percentage change

1,228 33.9 793 33.2 1,882 26.0 470 18.3 9,654 62.7 637 9.6 33,903 23.5 102 100.0 739 179.9 49,408 40,492 18,972,350

31.1 6.5 6.0

Source: Prenzler 2004b. Elements of g‘ uards and security officers’. *

operatives. The best information on the private sector comes from a special study by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)in 1998/9 using a survey of firms listed in the ABS Business Register. The main findings were that there were 1,714 businesses employing 31,752 people, and an income of AU$ 1,395 million. Employment was largely casual or part-time, with 47 per cent of persons employed casually, 37 per cent permanent full-time and 14 per cent permanent part-time. Males and females made up 81 per cent and 19 per cent respectively of personnel, with females making up 56 per cent of administrative or management personnel. In terms of the number of businesses, the industry was described as being dominated by ‘micro-businesses’ e( mploying fewer than five persons), with 1,006 (59 per cent) of businesses in this category. However, the 19 per cent of businesses with 100 employees or more covered 54 per cent of industry employment and 63 per cent of income. A recent industry analysis conducted for the Australian Security Industry Association Limited (ASIAL)estimated that Chubb held 46 per cent of the ‘security services’market, followed by Mayne with 13 per cent. Chubb held 30 per cent of the ‘security installation’market, with Tyco holding 25 per cent (Ruthven 2003). Although the ABS study provides a rare picture of the private sector, it did not include locksmiths, equipment manufacturing, wholesaling and installation firms, nor in-house private sector personnel. Each state and territory in Australia has a licensing system for security providers. The 1980s and 1990s saw a major shift from minimalist forms of occupational registration to more developed forms of licensing based on

Australia

177

compulsory training, criminal history checks and other tests of ‘good character’. Tougher and wider licensing was driven by scandals, including violence by crowd controllers, allegations of incompetency and poor training, disclosure of fraud in alarm and patrol services, trading in confidential information, misuse of firearms, and insider crimes such as theft. Change in regulation remains a feature of the contemporary scene, with the recency of much current legislation evident in Table 9.3. However, the year 2004 saw another round of review and change as the industry was beset by more scandals: the killing in Melbourne of a famous cricketer by a crowd controller, a murder charge in Sydney against a cash-in-transit guard over the shooting of an armed robber believed to be fleeing the scene, the infiltration of the crowd control industry by criminal gangs in Adelaide, the theft and loss of security guard weapons in Sydney, and a major prisoner breakout from court custody under private contract in Perth. A major source of industry frustration is the mish-mash of licensing systems resulting from each state operating independently of the others. Table 9.3 shows the types and numbers of licences for 2003, based on the core regulatory legislation P ( renzler 2005). An obvious aspect of these figures is the diversity of licensing categories. The table shows a total of 97,182 licences, but the number of individuals with licences is probably closer to 71,000 because of the double counting of dual licence holders within some jurisdictions and of persons holding licences in more than one jurisdiction. At the same time, there are numerous unlicensed personnel in security work in several jurisdictions, including in-house private- and public-sector guards and investigators, and hardware installers. Process servers and debt recovery agents are also licensed under separate legislation in most jurisdictions. A 2001 study found there were 21,333 licence holders in this category in Australia P ( renzler and King 2002). Consequently, a further adjustment could bring the number of individuals back up to 100,000. Although many of these would be part-time, a rough comparison would put the ratio at about two security providers to every one police officer. In 2003 there were 47,270 sworn police officers recorded by police departments s( ee Table 9.1). Part of the growth in security has occurred within public-sector security services, mainly in guarding government buildings and in public transport security, including the use of state security guards at the reception desk of at least one police headquarters. Specific numbers are difficult to obtain, although these units do not seem to be large P ( renzler 2005). u Qeensland, for example, in 2003 had 240 State Protective Security Officers compared with 8,704 police s( ee Table 9.1). At the national level, however, there were 1,087 Australian Protective Service A ( PS) officers compared with 2,925 Federal Agents. In one of the perennial restructures of Commonwealth law enforcement, the APS was enlarged and shifted into the AFP in 2004 as part of the response to terrorism post-September 11 and following the 2002 Bali bombing in which 88 Australians lost their lives. Australia’s military contributions to the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq make it a prime

178


Table 9.3 Security licences by jurisdiction, 2003 Jurisdiction

Legislation, Regulatory Agency and Licences

New South Wales

Security Industry Act 1997 Security Industry Registry, Police Ministry

Victoria

Queensland

Western Australia

South Australia

Number

Master (firm) 4,480 Class 1 A (guard)B (bodyguard)C (crowd controller) 29,415 Class 2 A (consultant)B (security equipment sales and 5,798 advice)C (security equipment installation and service) D (training) Total 39,693 Private Agents Act 1966 (amended 1990) Licensing Services Branch, Victoria Police Security firm Security guard Crowd controller Security guard/crowd controller Total Security Providers Act 1993 Licensing Services, Office of Fair Trading

492 1,357 203 19,294 21,346

Firm 543 Crowd controller 92 Security officer/crowd controller 12,130 Security officer 594 Private investigator 1,303 Total 14,662 Security and Related Activities (Control) Act 1996 Commercial Agents Squad, Western Australian Police Service Crowd control agent (firm) Crowd control Inquiry agent (firm) Investigator Security agent (firm) Security consultant Security installer Security officer Total Security and Investigation Agents Act 1995 Commercial Licensing, Business and Occupational Services, Consumer and Business Affairs

81 2,918 177 477 517 812 762 4,074 9,818

Firm Individual Total

246 7,084 7,330

Australia

179

Table 9.3 continued Jurisdiction

Legislation, Regulatory Agency and Licences

Tasmania

Security and Investigations Agents Act 2002 Business Affairs Branch, Consumer Affairs and Fair Trading

Northern Territory

Agent body corporate security (firm) Agent body corporate inquiry (firm) Agent body corporate Commercial (Firm) Agent individual security Agent individual inquiry Agent individual commercial agent Employee security guard Employee commercial sub-agent Mutual recognition security agent Mutual recognition inquiry agent Mutual recognition commercial agent Total Private Security Act 2003 Racing, Gaming and Licensing; Treasury

Australian Capital Territory

Security firm Security officer Crowd controller Total Security Industry Act 2003 Registration and Client Services Unit, Office of Fair Trading Employee (guards, crowd controllers, consultants, installers)

Total

Number

8 2 3 70 27 10 182 6 3 4 3 318

8 981 912 1,901

2,114 97,182

target for terrorism – hence the boost to APS numbers along with an enlargement of Australia’s intelligence services p ( rimarily the Australian Secret Intelligence Service A ( SIS)and the Office of National Assessments O ( NA)) and the Protective Security Co-ordination Centre P ( SCC). The core business of the APS is security at high-risk establishments, such as federal parliament, foreign diplomatic missions and major airports. It also competes for contracts in specified areas such as general airport security and immigration detention centres. The South Australian Police Security Services Branch P ( SSB) similarly crosses the p ‘ ublic/private’ divide. It employs non-sworn officers and competes in the same marketplace with private firms in security advice, alarm monitoring, and personnel services S( arre 2005).

180


Despite the growth of the security industry, police have been largely insulated from either outsourcing of their functions or commercialization of their services. There are exceptions, such as the provision through competitive tender of police training to neighbouring countries. And in 2000 the Western Australian Department of Justice introduced the contracting out of court security, prisoner transport and police ‘lock-up’ management, with police and private providers sharing jurisdiction in these areas (Sarre 2005). Such initiatives remain at the margins, although a related area of developing expertise is aid missions to neighbouring law and order trouble spots such as in East Timor, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. Australian television news now shows Australian police on patrol in the streets of Dili and Port Moresby. The question of relations between security providers and police has received only limited official attention in Australia (Sarre and Prenzler 2000). Private security is a standing item on the agenda of the police commissioners’ conferences, but little has come out of this. Security for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney is the most recent and large-scale example of successful co-operation, although sporting events regularly involve shared order maintenance responsibilities on a smaller scale. Aside from sport, for the most part the issue remains in the ‘too hard basket’. Security providers and police operate largely in parallel universes, with some ad hoc flows of criminal intelligence and with police providing back up to security services in the same capacity as they would to any call for assistance.

Specialist agencies The rise of private security has been amongst the most prominent developments in policing in Australia since the 1970s. This revolution has been matched, however, by a less visible but equally important development in the growth and diversification of specialist government law enforcement agencies. The establishment of the National Crime Authority (NCA) in 1984 represents the critical turning point, although the process was well under way before then. The creation of the NCA followed a series of inquiries that sounded alarm bells about the growth of organized crime and the failure of state police to manage the threat – either because of incompetence or because of direct involvement through corrupt relations with criminals. The reports argued for a new type of independent, highly skilled agency to focus on one target using a raft of special powers (Leaver 1997). But since that time the evolution of Australian policing has been one of continuing fragmentation, with attempts to generate co-operation between the many agencies through the creation of even more agencies. Table 9.4 is a sampler of specialist policing agencies. The list includes targets/functions across a three-way division of labour between the following:

Australia 1 2 3

181

tasks related to conventional policing, such as fighting organized crime facilitative functions, such as research, executive training and information sharing, and industry regulation in areas such as consumer and investor protection, anti-competitive behaviour and white collar crime.

Budget and personnel figures shown in Table 9.4 indicate that the majority of these agencies are relatively small, although when added together they present a significant policing profile. The sample agencies are mainly federal bodies. Many have state counterparts, especially in consumer protection. The table leaves out a host of other ‘policing’domains, including the environment, health and safety, animal welfare, parking, traffic and taxation. In these areas, the only certainty is change. For example, the 1980s and 1990s saw numerous revelations of failure in the enforcement of environmental protection legislation, triggering new laws and the creation of new environmental protection agencies. Moreover there have been unprecedented inquiries into the abuse of children, including in state institutions. Invariably these reports were damning of government protection and called for major institutional overhauls, including, in at least one case, the creation of a whole new Department of Child Safety. The common theme is that change tends to be crisis-driven and politicized, rather than based on proper research and long range planning. Two examples of additional major areas of regulation now follow: equity and public sector integrity. Legislation in Australia concerned with the prevention of discrimination has a genealogy squarely in the civil rights movement of the 1970s, although several jurisdictions did not get anti-discrimination legislation until the 1990s. Equity agencies generally have considerable powers to expose and curb discrimination, and they work primarily by investigating complaints and reviewing annual equity reports. Equity standards and reporting requirements are much higher for government than for the private sector, with more demanding affirmative action-style legislation being introduced after anti-discrimination laws produced limited progress. The legislation and the administration of legislation have been part of major improvements in the application of objective employment criteria, increases in the employment of target groups such as women and indigenous people, and the provision of redress for victims of discrimination. But research suggests that these agencies tend to be overly detached and passive in addressing systemic resistance to equity in private and public institutions (Prenzler 2004a). Another major area of development has been anti-corruption agencies, shown in Table 9.5. The creation of watchdog agencies was influenced primarily by police misconduct but the agencies also attract numerous complaints about misconduct by public servants and politicians. The majority of agencies cover the whole public sector, with two states having

182


Table 9.4 Composition of specialist agencies, 2003 Agency

Targets/functions

Jurisdiction

Personnel Year Allocation/ estab- expendilished ture1

Tasks related to conventional policing Australian Crime Organized crime Commission Australian Smuggling, illegal entry Customs NSW Crime Organized crime, drug Commission trafficking Australian Guard high-risk Protective government facilities, Service detention centres Protective Co-ordination of Security counter-terrorism, Co-ordination national security Centre Corruption Public sector and Crime misconduct, Commission organized crime Crime and Public sector Misconduct misconduct, Commission organized crime Australian High Computer crime Tech Crime Centre Facilitative tasks Law Enforcement Co-ordination Division Australian Institute of Police Management Australasian Centre for Policing Research Australian Institute of Criminology National Centre for Crime and Justice Statistics CrimTrac

National

478

2003

$ 62.1m

National 4,827

1985

$ 685.7m

NSW

108

1986

$ 14.7m

National 1, 264

1984

$ 7.4m

National

730

1976

$ 27.0m

WA

136

20042

4 $.7m

3

3 $0.9m

Q ueensland

308

1990

National

45

2002

Co-ordinate law enforcement

National

?

1994

?

Executive education

National

?

1960

?

Policing research and policy

Australia and New Z ealand

15

1983

$ 1.7m

Crime and justice research and policy

National

44

1973

$ 6.6m

Crime statistics

National

?

Clearinghouse for criminal profiles, forensic data

National

39

1996

2000

?

?

$ 20.3m

Australia

183

Table 9.4 continued Agency

Targets/functions

Jurisdiction

AUSTRAC

Monitoring financial National transactions, money laundering National Institute Research and standards National of Forensic in forensic science Science National Crime Support crime National Prevention prevention projects, research and policy Financial regulation and consumer protection Australian Securities and Investments Commission Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Australian Prudential Regulation Authority

White collar crime, fraud, regulates investment services

Personnel Year Allocation/ estab- expendilished ture1 59

1988

$ 3.5m

9

1992

?

?

National 1,396

1996

$ 4.7m

1991

$ 172.6m

Fair trading, consumer National protection

469

1995

$ 52.2m

Regulates financial services

453

1998

$ 68.6m

National

1 Expenditure used when larger than allocation. 2 Absorbed Anti-Corruption Commission, established in 1996. Figures for 2004. 3 As Criminal Justice Commission. Sources: Annual Reports 2002/3, CCC 2003/4 annual report, and personal correspondence.

separate agencies for police. Oversight of police has been particularly weak at the federal level. The government refused to release the 1997 report of the Harrison Inquiry into corruption in the AFP and rejected an Australian Law Reform Commission recommendation for a more powerful agency to oversee federal law enforcement (ALRC 1996). In 2003 a television documentary exposéof corruption in the ACC led to a commitment from the Federal Government to create a new agency to take over from the Ombudsman to oversee the ACC, AFP and Customs. Generally speaking these agencies have expanding powers to engage in direct investigations of potential corruption problems, but tend to be over-reliant on paper-based reviews of in-house complaint handling and prevention procedures. The utility of so many agencies fighting organized crime must be questioned. Part of the issue is multi-tasking by integrity agencies. For a long time the u Qeensland Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC)was in a

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Table 9.5 Anti-corruption agencies Jurisdiction New South Wales

Victoria u Qeensland Western Australia South Australia Tasmania Northern Territory Commonwealth

Name

Established

Ombudsman 1975 Independent Commission Against 1988 Corruption Police Integrity Commission 1996 Ombudsman 1973 Crime and Misconduct Commission 1990 1 Ombudsman 1972 Corruption and Crime Commission 20042 Ombudsman 1972 Police Complaints Authority 1985 Ombudsman 1978 Ombudsman 1978 Ombudsman 1976

1 As Criminal Justice Commission. 2 Replaced the Anti-Corruption Commission established in 1996.

unique position in being tasked with both public sector integrity and fighting organized crime. In Western Australia, the Royal Commission recommended that police oversight be taken over by the new Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC), created in 2003. The new agency was modelled along the lines of the CMC, including a major brief to fight organized crime. The latter addition to the work of integrity commissions arguably detracts from core business and adds to confusion over law enforcement responsibilities. In Q ueensland, for example, an illicit drug importation operation or a paedophile ring could be subject to the attention of the u Qeensland Police, the CMC, the AFP, the ACC and Australian Customs Service, as well as assorted agencies such as CrimTrac and AUSTRAC. These latter agencies, designed to facilitate intelligence sharing, are important for creating a national approach and a number of the personnel work on secondment from core agencies. But their logical place, including that of the work of the ACC, would seem to be within the AFP. In some cases these new agencies have been highly politicized. Two of the worst cases involved firstly the Q ueensland CMC and secondly the federal NCA. The Fitzgerald Inquiry in Q ueensland led to the creation of the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) in 1990. One of its first tasks was to investigate misuse of expenditure accounts by politicians, leading to a number of senior opposition politicians losing their positions or going to jail. When they obtained office in 1996 they conducted an expensive inquiry into the CJC that was a poorly disguised witch-hunt. They also cut the CJC’s budget and put its organized crime work into a new agency, the

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185

Qeensland Crime Commission (C u QC). The restructure created a more rational division of labour but the motive was arguably questionable. After Labour returned to power in 1998 it shut down the Q CC and returned its work to the CJC, renamed as the Crime and Misconduct Commission L ( ewis 1999). Federal law enforcement was the site of one of the most extraordinary cases of political intermeddling by a politician. In 2000, NCA Chairman Gary Crooke expressed support for a trial of supervized heroin-injecting rooms as part of an approach that would balance the ‘hard-line’ law enforcement attack on supply with a programme to reduce demand and improve options for addicts. This provoked the ire of the Prime Minister, John Howard, who launched a political attack on the NCA and, in a move that had the effect of removing Crooke, disestablished the Agency and created a new body, the Australian Crime Commission (Walters 2002). One final expression of frustration with crime levels is the creation of special government units and programmes designed to integrate the preventive efforts of different service providers. South Australia’s Together Against Crime Strategy was launched in 1989 and located in the State AttorneyGeneral’s Department. Other jurisdictions, including Victoria, New South Wales and Q ueensland have followed suit, as has the Commonwealth with the National Campaign Against Violence and Crime launched in 1997 and located in the federal Attorney-General’s Department in Canberra. A new government felt obliged to change the name to National Crime Prevention.

Evaluation Conventional state-based police forces in Australia had a dominant role in law enforcement and crime prevention for most of the period since English settlement. Since the 1970s, however, there has been an extensive diversification of policing, with the expansion of private security and the creation of various public-sector security and specialist agencies. This is consistent with developments in other countries (Bayley and Shearing 1996), and part of a common response to the volume and diversity of modern crime and the inability of traditional institutions to make inroads into the crime problem. But in many ways the rise of these new bodies simply makes questions of accountability more complex. And questions of accountability continue to apply to the ‘old police’, which have tended not to lose any authority or resources in this process, and now work in parallel or co-operation with their new rivals or partners, as the case may be. Within this process of diversification, the process of p ‘ rivatization’needs to be differentiated from the usual understanding of the term in management parlance: downsizing, outsourcing and selling off government services. Studies of the growth of security in Australia have found very little evidence of a deliberate policy of privatization of law enforcement P ( renzler 2004b). The only area of criminal justice where this policy has been pursued

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is prisons, and there are very few cases in Australia of any key police functions being outsourced. Overall, public police numbers have increased over the twentieth century, and are currently at their highest levels in terms of the ratio of police to population P ( renzler 2004b). At the same time, it is true that police numbers did not keep pace with the growth in reported crime in the 1970s and 1980s, and it is fear of crime and the invasion of crime into almost every aspect of people’s work and personal lives that is the most likely cause of the growth in security. The change has been demand-driven, but a new pragmatic consciousness has also developed about the need for guardianship and for self-provision of security at the physical location of potential crimes. Substantially increasing police numbers to counter rising crime was never going to be a solution. State police are inevitably too remote, spread too thinly, and are too slow to respond to the high volume of highly dispersed crime in Australia. Security providers p ( redominantly private) are now greater in number than conventional police in Australia. Governments have been slow to understand this phenomenon and to develop regulatory systems to protect consumers and third parties adequately. Although industry regulation in Australia has been in advance of most other countries, it remains highly fragmented with little input from the federal government. Development of a nationally consistent licensing system would progress productive regulation. The other main issue concerns regulatory strategies, which to date have been fairly passive and unsophisticated. There is some proactive checking of licences, and licences in some numbers are denied or revoked as a result of complaints investigations and suitability checks P ( renzler and Sarre 1999). Nonetheless, research suggests that security providers want a more dynamic approach to regulation that includes better communication between regulators, licence holders and industry associations, along with more research, and more proactive inspections and auditing P ( renzler and King 2002, Prenzler and Sarre 1999). Critiques of conventional police forces tend to diverge between the cynics and the optimists. The cynics cite the apparent cultural rigidity of policing, its apparent infinite capacity to absorb challenges and new policy imperatives from politicians and external stakeholders while maintaining b ‘ usiness as usual’. This includes a continued reliance on rapid response to calls, regardless of results; an obsession with arresting offenders rather than reducing crime; continued reliance on paramilitary tactics, and the failure to engage with local communities in co-operative efforts against crime M ( cCulloch 1998, Palmer 1999). The more optimistic observers point to a responsiveness to the idea of becoming problem-solvers, with the introduction of performance measures, and the deployment of crime statistics to target areas most likely to benefit from police intervention. But even these assessments tend to be heavily qualified by calls for such strategic approaches to become more widespread and accepted at the operational level B ( rereton 2000). Reform in human resource management has probably

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advanced further than crime strategies, with substantial improvements in the position of women and more inclusive employment policies. What then has been the contribution of the new specialist public sector agencies?Unfortunately, these agencies have been subject to familiar crises of confidence, inquiry and review, and attempts at revival through restructuring. Agencies targeting organized crime and drug smuggling have been prominent in this controversy. Critics maintain they have been preoccupied with catching imagined ‘Mr Bigs’ of the underworld. Despite perennial major drug interceptions and frightening jail sentences, there appears to have been little impact on the ready supply of illicit drugs and an ongoing problem with deaths from overdoses, transmittable diseases from insanitary needles, and crime committed by addicts (Brown et al. 1997). This critique has been partially challenged by the ‘heroin drought’of the last four years, which was attributed to major seizures and resulted in reduced drug-related crime D ( onnelley et al. 2003). But a sharp imbalance remains between resourcing of law enforcement and that of harm minimization approaches. The latter have been stiffly resisted in most jurisdictions and suffer from the personal opposition of the Prime Minister. The new regulatory agencies concerned with consumer protection, equal rights and environmental protection, to name but a few, have also been subject to critique, primarily in terms of the concept of ‘regulatory failure’. Research in the 1980s identified a major problem with under-enforcement by these agencies, due in part to inadequate powers and resources, but in large part attributable to a culture of deference to the organizations they were regulating (Grabosky and Braithwaite 1986). Since then most of these agencies have obtained an even wider capacity to seize evidence, compel testimony, initiate prosecutions, seize assets, give directives, issue warnings and shut down operations. Annual reports show an uptake of the contemporary emphasis on performance outcomes, and the deployment of ‘smart’ strategies including facilitation of compliance through communication and advice, and the strategic use of exemplary prosecutions. The practices of recovering proceeds of crime and of compensating victims have provided an important rationale for some agencies. These are all important advances, but evidence remains of a culture of under-enforcement and of agencies being prosecution-averse. Almost all these agencies remain swamped by complaints, many of which are never investigated, with the result that unhappy victims are forced back on the civil system to seek redress (Hayes and Prenzler 2002).

Conclusion It is clear that state police in Australia are now only part players in law enforcement and crime prevention. However, the traditional reliance on state police presence and rapid response to deter or interdict crime has not been displaced as the dominant conceptualization of crime control,

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although it is being challenged and modified. Law enforcement and crime prevention are now dispersed across a wide range of generalist and specialist, in-house and contract, public and private, sworn and unsworn actors and agencies. They employ a mixture of reactive and proactive strategies. The application of quantifiable performance indicators has been an important innovation. Unfortunately, however, outcome measures have tended to highlight how the enormous investment in policing by governments is not resulting in significant reductions in crime – although crime containment and stabilization of crime rates can at least be considered a partial effect of this investment. Private agencies can claim a degree of commercial accountability for performance, but the industry itself argues for better government regulation to improve the effectiveness of its product and enhance professional conduct. One particularly notable outcome of the crises of the last three decades is the realization that police of all types are highly vulnerable to corruption and require close scrutiny by powerful and expensive permanent watchdog bodies. Overall, it appears that the future of policing in Australia will involve a process of continued multi-dimensionality and complexity, with only marginal gains in crime reduction. References AIC 2 ( 003) Composition of Australian Police Services as at 30 June 2003. Available online at http://www.aic.gov.au/policing/stats/2003/ ALRC (1996) Integrity: But Not by Trust Alone, AFP and NCA Complaints and Disciplinary Systems, Sydney: Australian Law Reform Commission. Bayley, D. and Shearing, C. (1996) T ‘ he future of policing’, Law and Society Review, 30, pp. 585–606. Bradley, D. (1992)E ‘ scaping Plato’s cave: The possible future of police education’, in P. Moir and J. Eijkman (eds) Policing Australia, Melbourne: Macmillan. Brereton, D. (2000)P ‘ olicing and crime prevention: Improving the product’, in D. Chappell and P. Wilson (eds) Crime and the Criminal Justice System in Australia: 2000 and Beyond, Sydney: Butterworths. Brown, M., James, S. and Sutton, A. (1997)L ‘ aw enforcement and the prevention of drug-related harm’, in P. O’Malley and A. Sutton (eds) Crime Prevention in Australia, Sydney: Federation Press. Bryett, K., Harrison, A. and Shaw, J. (1997) The Role and Function of Police in Australia, Sydney: Butterworths. CJC 1 ( 996) The Nature of General Police Work, Brisbane: Criminal Justice Commission. Donnelley, N., Weatherburn, D. and Chilvers, M. (2003) The Impact of the Australian Heroin Shortage on Robbery in NSW, Sydney: NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. Grabosky, P. and Braithwaite, J. (1986) Of Manners Gentle: Enforcement Strategies of Australian Business Regulatory Agencies, Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

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Graycar, A. and Grabosky, P. (2002)T ‘ rends in Australian crime and criminal justice’, in A. Graycar and P. Grabosky (eds) The Cambridge Handbook of Australian Criminology, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Hayes, H. and Prenzler, T. (2002) Profiling Fraudsters, Canberra: National Crime Prevention, Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department. ICVS (2000) International Crime Victim Survey, Geneva: United Nations. Available online at http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/research_icvs.html. Johnston, E. (1991) Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody: National Report, Volume 3, Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. Leaver, A. 1 ( 997) Investigating Crime, Sydney: Law Book Company. Lewis, C. (1999) Complaints Against Police: The Politics of Reform, Sydney: Hawkins Press. McCulloch, J. (1998) Blue Army, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Mukherjee, S. and Graycar, A. (1997) Crime and Justice in Australia, Sydney: Hawkins Press. Palmer, D. (1999) C “ ‘ onfronting police culture’”or t“he force is still with you” ? Making sense of contemporary policing in Australia’, International Journal of Police Science and Management, 1, pp. 333–46. Prenzler, T. (2004a) ‘Gender discrimination and regulatory behaviour: An exploratory case study in policing, International Journal of Police Science and Management, 6, pp. 171–182. Prenzler, T. (2004b)T ‘ he privatisation of policing’, in R. Sarre and J. Tomaino (eds) Key Issues in Criminal Justice, Adelaide: Australian Humanities Press. Prenzler, T. 2 ( 005)M ‘ apping the Australian security industry’, Security Journal, 18: 4, pp. 51–64. Prenzler, T. and King, M. (2002)T ‘ he role of private investigators and commercial agents in law enforcement’, Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, 234, pp. 1–6. Prenzler, T. and Sarre, R. (1999) A ‘ survey of security legislation and regulatory strategies in Australia’, Security Journal, 12, pp. 7–17. Prenzler, T. and Sarre, R. (2002) T ‘ he policing complex’, in A. Graycar and P. Grabosky (eds.) The Cambridge Handbook of Australian Criminology, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Ruthven, P. (2003)F ‘ uture directions for the private security industry’, paper presented at National Security Industry Forum, Melbourne, March. Sarre, R. (1996)T ‘ he state of community based policing in Australia: Some emerging themes’, in D. Chappell and P. Wilson (eds) Australian Policing: Contemporary Issues, Sydney: Butterworths. Sarre, R. (2005) ‘Researching private policing: Challenges and agendas for researchers’, Security Journal, 18: pp. 57–70. Sarre, R. and Prenzler, T. (2000)T ‘ he relationship between police and private security: Models and future directions’, International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice, 24, pp. 92–113. Walters, P. (2002)P ‘ M’s bid to break law agency’, The Australian, 9 March, p. 1.

10 South Africa Clifford Shearing and Julie Berg

A network, by definition, has nodes, not a center. C ( astells 1998)

Policing scholarship and policy have been centred primarily in North America and Britain and to a lesser extent other parts of Europe. While the understandings of policing that have been produced have understandably been largely shaped by developments in these parts of the world, they have had a wide reach and have influenced the way in which policing has been thought about globally. Central to this North American and Eurocentric view has been the normative claim that states should exercise a monopoly over forms of governance that take place either directly through, or in the shadow of, physical coercion – this view is associated with Hobbes (Hobbes 1985 1 ( 651))and Weber 1 ( 978). Equally central has been the associated empirical claim that this ancient normative aspiration has, for the most part, been realized. This empirical accomplishment is seen as fragile and thus as something that states need jealously to safeguard and protect. In weak and failing states this accomplishment is regarded as something that has been lost but that usually can, and should, be regained. This state-centred view of governance constitutes the backdrop against which developments in governance over the last several decades have been conceived and interpreted. While governance has always been plural R ( oberts 2005), during the first half of this century the idea that states had effectively taken firm empirical control over governance was firmly entrenched both at a scholarly and a policy level. During this period, associated with the welfare state, provision of governmental services was regarded, conceptually at least, as something that states monopolized. In the sphere of the governance of security this meant that state-police agencies were seen as monopolizing, or owning, policing (Johnston and Shearing 2003; Baker 2002b). Over the last several decades two trends have emerged that have led to a shift away from this conception. The first has been a shift in normative views of state governance from a view that states should govern directly to a view that they should govern, at least to some extent,

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indirectly through others (Osborne and Gaebler 1993). The second has been a shift, which has not been normatively promoted in the same way as this first shift has, that has seen the emergence of relatively autonomous non-state auspices of governance (Bayley and Shearing 2001; Baker 2002b). The most influential thesis (associated with ‘neo-liberalism’) in seeking to explain what has been happening to governance has focused on the first of these shifts. It has argued that states have been deliberately refiguring how they govern in ways that enable them to mobilize and integrate state and non-state resources to accomplish state governance. To do this states have devolved the provision of some governmental services to commercial and voluntary agents while continuing to direct what takes place. They have, in Miller and Rose’s words, learned to ‘rule at a distance’ R ( ose and Miller 1992) and, in O’Malley and Palmer’s words, to ‘responsibilize’ O ( M ’ alley and Palmer 1996) citizens in ways that enable this to happen. This is not a new development, if thought of within a wider context than contemporary western states. For example, it was a well established form of governance within the context of colonialism where ‘indirect rule’ was a central strategy of governance (Olowu 1989). However, it is relatively novel in the context of Western ‘welfare’states that, for many decades, have been centralizing service delivery. This has been particularly true of policing where, in Britain for example, 1829 has been thought of as a symbolically crucial moment, in a shift of governmental provision from arrangements of non-state policing to state policing. A variety of useful concepts has been used to comprehend these ‘rule-ata-distance’ developments. Two central ones are ‘meta-regulation’ and the r‘ egulatory state’ G ( rabosky 1994a and 1994b). Within this conception states have, it is argued, modified their approach to governance from being direct regulators (as they were under the framework of the welfare state)to indirect or meta-regulators. As a consequence they have come to be thought of as regulatory states. Within this rule-at-a-distance conception pluralization is revealed as extending and deepening, rather than challenging, state governance G ( rabosky 1995). This understanding leaves undisturbed the idea of state sovereignty as both a normative ideal and an empirical reality. Pluralization is instead conceived as strengthening state governance by enabling states to mobilize effectively and efficiently a variety of non-state resources. Colonial indirect rule provides a good example of both such an intention and its realization – for a discussion on African developments see Olowu (1989). Far from being h ‘ ollowed out’ by these developments, states are seen as having been substantially strengthened through pluralization. While there have been questions raised about the extent to which state-directed plural governance has enhanced effectiveness and efficiency, there has been remarkable agreement that pluralization has been promoted by state governments so as to strengthen and enhance their capacity to govern. Indeed, the fact that strong states have been promoting plural governance to enhance their

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Clifford Shearing and Julie Berg

governance has been used by Dupont et al. 2 ( 003)as a basis for arguing that one of the ways of strengthening weak and failing states is to encourage them to promote networks of plural governance. The conclusion drawn from this analysis is that, while state governance has been fundamentally refigured, it is, nonetheless, alive and well. One is reminded of Mark Twain’s comment that reports of his death were greatly exaggerated. Within this hypothesis plural governance has strengthened, not weakened, states’ command over governance. We might live, it is argued, in an age of plural governance but this does not mean that state governance has been diminished. On the contrary it has been strengthened and enhanced. We fully concur with these arguments and conclusions. We also agree that these state-encouraged forms of pluralization can, in principle at least, be democratically directed, although we accept that how this can, and should be, done within rule-at-a-distance governance still requires considerable thought and attention (Loader and Walker 2005). Shearing, both alone and with others, has argued that while the view of pluralization we have just canvassed certainly captures much that has been happening to the governance of security (and governance more generally), it is at best a very partial view – see, for example, Johnston and Shearing 2 ( 003). Not only is this a partial view but it is a view that has served to obscure other important developments (Drahos 2005). These other less recognized developments have led to the emergence of what Macauley (1986) has termed ‘private governments’. By this he means non-state auspices of governance that, like states, direct regulatory initiatives to promote their concerns and objectives. Shearing and colleagues have argued that private security provides a useful window through which to explore these non-state governments and their governance. This window was originally used in the context of the emergence of new forms of property that Shearing and Stenning (1983) termed ‘mass private property’. The argument they advanced was that state property laws enabled, and authorized, the emergence of non-state auspices of governance of common spaces (that operated very much as public spaces) located on private property. The fact that these common spaces were located on private property was critical, they argued, as it enabled the owners of this property to mobilize property law to authorize their governance of it. They argued further that while these new private governments were authorized (and legitimized)through state law, and for the most part operated in ways that did not violate state laws, they were not simply carrying out state government directions (they were not state agents acting at a distance), but were using the legal space created by state law to establish themselves as governing auspices in their own right. In contrast to the n ‘ eo-liberal’hypothesis, the mass private property argument did not see plural governance as exclusively a consequence of neo-liberal mentalities that governmental programmers promoted to create a mechanism

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of rule that mobilized the private sector through markets and what Drucker called the t‘ hird’or civil society sector through the use of volunteers D ( rucker 1994). This sector is often thought of more widely as not limited to volunteers but as including a variety of non-governmental and community-based organizations. Shearing and Stenning viewed pluralization as being as much, or indeed even more, about the emergence of private governments that took direct control over the governance of space and regulation more generally than about an extension of strategies of indirect rule beyond colonial governance. Normatively they argued, that unlike rule-at-a-distance developments which could be integrated with established understandings of democratic rule, private governments raised difficult questions as to how private governments could be held democratically accountable f(or an insightful review of these 1983 arguments see Johnston 2002). In raising questions about accountability Shearing and Stenning were careful to point out that just because private governments did not fit easily into established democratic arrangements did not mean that these governments were entirely unaccountable. Rather, it meant that they were not directly accountable through the established state-centred mechanisms for holding governments accountable. In pointing to the nature of their accountability, and what might be done to strengthen it, they argued that one needed to look to other mechanisms, for instance, to the way in which market processes served to provide consumers with accountability resources that they could and did mobilize. Since Shearing and Stenning used the emergence of private security to develop these arguments others have taken the emergence of non-state sources of governmental direction further. Braithwaite and Drahos (2000) using the window of business regulation and intellectual property have, for example, examined the way in which corporations have exercised enormous influence over states (who in turn work through various agreements and supra-state entities like the World Bank to get others to do their bidding). Like Shearing and Stenning they have suggested that what is emerging is a form of governance that has resonance with earlier feudal forms (Drahos and Braithwaite 2002). In developing their arguments, Braithwaite and Drahos, along with others like Monbiot (Monbiot 2003), have argued that many of the governing entities that have emerged globally have moved outside of the reach of established forms of state-centred democratic controls. In addition they have argued that strong global states have emerged, particularly the United States, that now effectively rule over populations through complex agreements with other state and non-state entities. Many of the populations that these governmental assemblages regulate have little or no say in how they are governed by them. Today, it is clear that not only are corporate interests fundamental to governance, through the vehicles of both non-state and state governments, but that we need to move beyond a simple state/non-state distinction to a

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wider, more encompassing and non-binary conception of governance that will enable analysts to trace the way in which the interests and concerns of a variety of constituencies are being realized through governing mechanisms – horizontally within states as well as above and below them. What we might call a shift from police to policing has seen the sovereign state – hitherto considered focal to both provision and accountability in this field – reconfigured as but one node of a broader, more diverse ‘network of power’ ... this network continues to encompass the direct provision and supervision of policing by institutions of national and local government. But it now also extends through governments, to transnational police arrangements taking place above government; to markets in policing and security services unfolding beyond government; and to policing activities engaged in by citizens below government. We inhabit a world of plural, networked policing. L ( oader 2000: 323–4) Drahos (2005), for example, has argued that a wider nodal conception of governance enables us to include the insights provided by, and then go beyond, a network approach to governance within a framework that focuses on locations where the business of governance actually takes place – where, in Braithwaite’s words, ‘governance buzzes’ p ( rivate communication). These nodal loci of governance (and the various assemblages they form)encompass a variety of nodal levels including what Drahos has called s‘ uper-structural nodes’that do n ‘ ot integrate networks, but rather ... bring together actors who represent networks in order to concentrate resources and technologies for the purpose of achieving a common goal. Super-structural nodes are the command centres of networked governance’ D ( rahos 2005: 405). This chapter seeks to contribute to this emerging theoretical discussion by making the governance of security within South Africa our focus. We argue that in both Africa more generally, and in South Africa in particular, states do not as a matter of fact monopolize the governance of security, either directly, or indirectly through rule-at-a-distance mechanisms (Baker 2002b). The paper will first summarize very briefly evidence from Africa before proceeding to elaborate on the South African situation. Our argument will consider what sorts of auspices and providers of governance exist, as well as the sorts of nodal assemblages they form and operate within. We conclude by raising some normative issues.

African governance ... most of the population of Africa has never seen much in the way of the state provision of policing. B ( aker 2002a: 40)

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As this opening citation from Bruce Baker suggests, the governance of security in Africa has always taken place within a nodal context. Although colonial governments enjoyed considerable success in some parts of Africa, in establishing indirect governance processes that allowed them to govern territories at a distance, they did so by building their governance structures on existing plural institutions of governance – in particular ‘tribal’arrangements of rule O ( lowu 1989). These structures were not simply made-to -order service providers, as is the case with contemporary ‘contractual governance’. This governance was not simply imposed but was very much a negotiated accomplishment (Roberts 2005). This meant that the governmental assemblages formed were not simply hierarchical arrangements in which the objects of a single auspice controlled these governmental arrangements. Rather they incorporated the objectives of both the colonial and the indigenous governments that were brought together in governing assemblages. Governance was as much by agreement as it was by command. This is very different from the rule-at-a-distance arrangements that involve governments contracting with private sector commercial agencies to undertake service provision on their behalf. Governance was a matter of bargaining rather than being simply a matter of top-down direction. Indirect colonial governance, as it developed in Africa, fitted more closely with the governance that takes place in the international sphere where states negotiate with each other to establish processes and orders of governance. As with international governance these negotiations were not between equals. However, while these inequalities can be summed up by noting that one party usually had a greater say than others, what happened was full of cross-cutting strengths and weaknesses. Power was shared even though very often this sharing was distinctly unequal (Mbabazi et al. 2002). Although all governance at a distance involves the injection of a variety of sources of direction – what is known as the translation thesis (Latour 1986; Smullen 2004)– what the notion of governance as translation argues is that power is always a matter of persuasion to some degree rather than simply command. With the development of independent African states there has been a shift in many African countries to establish greater direct state rule over plural systems of governmental provision in an attempt to create more state control over the direction of governance. That is, there has been a move away from the more autonomous arrangements of indirect forms of state governance that are more in line with the neo-liberal forms we have outlined. This has taken place through intentional rule-at-a-distance strategies that have promoted processes of state-directed decentralization (Olowu 1989). In most African settings, however, this has not created anything like a monopoly of state-directed governance (Isima 2004). The net result has been a complex pattern of governance in which states govern through negotiated arrangements like those of colonial indirect governance, through neo-liberal contractual arrangements, through aid-based alliance with other states. All this has taken place within a context of the governing of the

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directions of a variety of interstate organizations such the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in favour of the ‘liberalization’of African governance (Isima 2004). In addition to these various arrangements through which states and other state-related entities seek to govern territories within Africa there have been a variety of non-state sources of governance that include corporations that govern areas of economic interest to them such as mines and large agricultural estates (what might be thought of as industrial mass private property)as well as a host of more local nonstate auspices and providers of governance that are often labelled as vigilantes. These include local self-help organizations and politically motivated organizations of various sorts that challenge states’ sovereignty over post-colonial territories. As the Nigerian experience makes clear, states often seek to co-opt (often under pressure from citizens)the resources of a variety of non-state auspices and providers of security governance (Baker 2002a). For example, due to a spate of violent robberies in the Nigerian state of Anambra the Governor of that state was urged by market traders to utilize the services of the Bakassi Boys – a publicly supported and often brutal vigilante group from a neighbouring state (Baker 2002a). A central feature of state rule in Africa is often a lack of resources. Hills cites an extreme case in Rwanda in 1994 in a report from Kigali four months after a new government took power: ... ministries still have no staff, no files, no paper, no running water. The state has no tax officials, so no revenue; no judges, police or prison officers, so no law. (The Economist 1994, in Hills 1996: 275) The result of these various developments has been a vast, varied and changing governmental quilt of governing auspices, providers, institutional arrangements, technologies and mentalities of governance. While governance in most parts of the world, as we have argued, is fundamentally plural, Africa provides a particularly rich example of the enormous variety of governing nodes and nodal assemblages as well as the complex governing patterns that arrangements have created. Within this mix, as Hills makes clear, African states operate as one node among many within a contesting nodal field. One of the key nodal players is the armed forces that exist within and outside of the state. With respect to state forces Hills has this to say: Public disorder remains a constant threat because political order is fragile, and the armed forces in Africa are always a potential threat to those in power… H ( ills 1996: 279) While the evidence available especially for the governance of security is scanty H ( ills 1996), the evidence which is available is largely supportive of

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this broad-brush picture of a multi-nodal environment in which states and other nodes relate to each other in a variety of ways – where states are always significant, but not the only auspices and providers of governance within a context of contesting political and other elites. Policing generally, and state policing in particular, shapes and is shaped by this complex environment – ‘coercive systems mirror, or parallel, the state or regimes from which they derive their legitimacy’H ( ills 1996: 273). In order to explore this general picture of nodal governance further we turn now to the African country where the evidence is most substantial. In reviewing and presenting this evidence we have been mindful of the comparative concerns of this volume and the template that the editors have provided to the contributors to facilitate comparative analysis.

South African plural policing State policing: the South African police service Under apartheid South Africa was disingenuously represented not as a single state but as made up of several autonomous states of which ‘South Africa’ was the largest and one that assisted the others financially. Postapartheid South Africa is presented, more appropriately, as a single unified state that now ‘incorporates’ previously s‘ elf-governing’ territories. One of the first things required after South Africa’s transition to a democratic state was the integration of the ‘national’ police of these various territories, including the ‘old South Africa’, into a new national police organization. This involved the unification of 11 police forces into a single national police agency, the South African Police Service (SAPS)in 1994 (Rauch 2000). Given that all of these police forces had been known for their partisanship, brutality, lack of accountability and lack of investigative skills required to tackle ordinary crime (Rauch 2000; Brogden and Shearing 1992), the task of creating a legitimate, accountable, de-politicized police organization that was responsive to community concerns was enormously challenging. Following 1994, the new Ministry for Safety and Security developed a number of very progressive policy and mission statements, what van der Spuy (van der Spuy 2004)has termed ‘visionary constructs’, inspired by developments elsewhere. Included in these constructs was a new legal framework, the South African Police Service Act (68 of 1995). This foreshadowed a series of innovative initiatives to make the police more responsive to community concerns. These included Community Police Forums, that were to provide community input into police policy and practice (Shaw 2002: 31), and an Independent Complaints Directorate L ( ue-Dugmore 2003). Both were intended to provide avenues for citizens’ voices to be heard within policing. In addition the South African Police Service Act provided for civilian/political direction though the establishment of National and

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Provincial Secretariats for Safety and Security (Rauch 2000). This was intended to create sources of direction from the offices of political officials b ( oth central and regional) in setting and implementing policy directions. The approach advocated across these initiatives was a neo-liberal one of mobilizing a range of state and non-state resources to build a new multinodal set of policing arrangements that would include both commercial and volunteer capacities. While these policy statements did not differentiate clearly between providers and auspices of governance the background assumption was that these proposed nodal assemblages would act, if not always under state direction, within a state-sanctioned regulatory framework. Several commentators have noted that for a variety of reasons (budgetary restraints, police lobbying, public calls for more law enforcement prompted by rising crime rates, as well as the development of illegal policing initiatives)what has emerged has been ‘a growing divergence between the visionary hopes of the immediate post-election period and the reality of the new policing order that took shape in the second half of the 1990s’v( an der Spuy 2004: 207; Shaw 2002). This reality has proved to be somewhat more police-centred, with less of an emphasis on relatively autonomous multi-nodal arrangements and more of an emphasis on building the police into a strong effective governing node that can, and should, carry the burden of governing security within the country (Olowu 1989). At the same time the idea of police drawing upon a wider set of resources has not been abandoned. A key feature of the reforms that have taken place has been the promotion, within the SAPS, of a ‘performance-driven culture’ thought of as being consistent with global moves to have state organizations adopt a more business-like approach to governance (van der Spuy 2004; Rauch 2000; South African Police Service 2004; Shearing 1997). What was thought of as international rule-at-a-distance ‘best practice’ was drawn upon to build programmes of community policing, crime prevention, sector policing and local partnership policing. The police, within this conception, were viewed as a ‘community leader who harnesses community resources to tackle the problems leading to crime and disorder’ S( APS and ISS 1998: 3) including developing positive relationships with the private sector and citizens. This was all done with a decidedly police-centred tilt. For example, the commitment of the SAPS to sector policing introduced in 2002/2003 – through which policing is seen as localized so as to enable institutions and individuals to ‘join with the police in identifying and resolving local crime problems’D ( ixon and Rauch 2004: 55)– has prompted the SAPS to recruit more personnel and increase its vehicle fleet and equipment (South African Police Service 2004). At the same time ‘budget constraints’ prompted, and were used to justify, the contracting out of policing functions to private sector companies as well as the internal civilianization of posts (Minnaar 2004). An example of the increasing police-centredness of these neo-liberal

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reform initiatives has been the decision to draw back somewhat from the objective of ‘partnership policing’ with private security. The argument that has been advocated at present by influential policy advisors is that the SAPS should not be outsourcing core policing functions. Instead outsourcing should be restricted to activities such as guarding, building maintenance, gardening and catering (Minnaar 2004; Minnaar and Ngoveni 2004). But there have been many internal ‘challenges’within the SAPS that have hampered its ability to become the central player in the policing arena. For instance, according to the South African Institute of Race Relations, 25 per cent of the police are functionally illiterate (Star 2004). The SAPS’s detection rate while improving was at 35.5 per cent in 2002/2003 and 36.24 per cent in 2003/2004 (South African Police Service 2004). There is also a ‘crisis’ of over-management within the SAPS. It was recently reported that the SAPS had over five times more inspectors than constables – a complete inversion of international trends where the sergeant to constable ratio is on average 1:5 (Leggett 2002). This not only has structural implications (lack of field supervision and a shortage of police on the ground), but also impacts on costs as a substantial portion of the budget is assigned to inflated management structures (Leggett 2002). With respect to the current size and composition of the SAPS itself, there were in 2004 43 police areas, 1,126 police stations and 144,150 SAPS personnel 1 ( 12,168 sworn with the remainder civilians). The ratio of SAPS police personnel to the population is 1:415. It is planned to increase the size of the SAPS by over 30 per cent to 156,760 by early 2007 and to increase substantially the number of reservists p ( art-time uniformed volunteers with full police powers)assigned to sector policing S( outh African Police Service 2004). State policing: municipal services There is a long and very mixed history of policing at the municipal level in South Africa. In addition to conventional municipal policing – the Durban municipality has had, for example, a municipal policing agency since 1854 – there have been a variety of infamous municipally based policing entities (Rauch et al. 2001; Brogden and Shearing 1992). Municipal police forces during apartheid, operating under authority of the then South African Police (SAP), were deployed in black and ‘coloured’areas to guard government facilities and had a reputation for being violent, ill-disciplined and for engaging in criminal activities. In 1989 when many of these forces were formally integrated into the SAP an attempt was made to distance them from their past activities by using a different nomenclature – the terms ‘metropolitan police’ and ‘city police’ replaced ‘municipal police’ (Rauch et al. 2001). During the 1980s conventional municipal agents were encouraged to become more engaged in responding to the increasing ‘political unrest’that characterized this decade. Traffic policing agencies were redefined as ‘local

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police agencies’which were largely paramilitary in nature and were funded by local governments (Rauch et al. 2001). It was not, however, until the year 2000 that the issue of municipal police agencies came onto the transitional agenda despite the fact that that they had been foreshadowed in the 1993 Interim Constitution (Newham 2004). A number of reasons have been offered for this interest in municipal policing – lack of municipal influence on SAPS agendas and activities in local areas, rising crime, perceived ineffectiveness of the SAPS and the fact that enabling legislation prompted by the constitutional provisions was being finalized. Once municipal involvement in police was placed on the political and policy agenda the Durban City Police was seen as ‘providing a precedent to other cities, particularly with regard to the working relationship between the SAPS and the Durban City Police’R ( auch 2000: 13). The developments in state policing within South Africa fit very well with what one might expect on the basis of Anglo-American developments within the context of a continent in which establishing a state monopoly over governance and over physical force has always been, and continues to be, tenuous B ( aker 2002a). The developments in South Africa over the decade since its first democratic elections have been ones in which policy and practice has sought to accomplish, albeit in a less than fully co-ordinated manner, the twin objectives of building a strong police organization that monopolizes policing at the same time as it has sought to mobilize a variety of resources to assist in this strengthening process. This fits very nicely with the neo-liberal policies of building a strong state direction and control through building nodal assemblages that mobilize a range of resources to meet state-defined policing objectives. As Olowu notes: The important point about decentralization is that it accepts even by definition that power must first be centralized before it is decentralized to lower level organizations. O ( lowu 1989: 203) What has made South African developments different from recent AngloAmerican ones has been the extent to which building a strong police organization (that is so often taken for granted in a Euro-American world) has been a central focus. The building of state policing in South Africa continues to be very much a work in progress with enormous challenges of resources, institution building, developing effective policing practices, education and training of existing members and of recruitment. This has, and is, taking place within a wider nodal context. We turn now to a set of nodes that provides policing capacity to which the state police in South Africa, like police elsewhere, have been ambivalent H ( ermer et al. 2005)– namely, private security. The SAPS response to private security has displayed both an interest in being able to use this capacity

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a( s a source of provision)at the same time as there has been a wariness that if police agencies build close links with this industry this might undermine state attempts to establish and maintain control over the governance of security. This reflects an awareness that private security reflects neo-liberal rule-at-a-distance developments at the same time as it poses a challenge to state sovereignty over governance. In South Africa, as we will outline, commercially based policing has been aligned with state objectives to promote effective governance of security. At the same time, however, it has, and continues to, pose challenges to the Westphalian ideal of a state monopoly over governance. Private security State directives and insecurity As has been the case in a number of developed countries, the commercial security industry in South Africa underwent a boom in the 1970s and 1980s. However, whereas the private or commercial security industry experienced a ‘quiet revolution’S( hearing et al. 1980: 1)with little state input in places like the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, the rapid development of private security in South Africa was actively supported by the apartheid state (Shaw 2001: 214). Apart from substantial in-house security provided for the mines, during the period preceding this growth the commercial security industry in South Africa was ‘a very humble kind of profession’1 consisting of an emergent cash-in-transit sector and a guarding sector epitomized by the image of a solitary man patrolling during a night shift with a knobkerrie2 and his dog. A number of things changed this situation. Pre-eminent among them was the withdrawal of the then SAP from traditional policing patrolling and emergency response duties in ‘white areas’ to concentrate on diffusing ‘political unrest’ t(he South African government’s euphemism for the struggle against apartheid particularly during the 1980s). To facilitate this, the apartheid state encouraged the private security sector to fill this gap. Its engagement with the state as part of a network of policing services dedicated to maintain apartheid also included arrangements to encourage the protection of ‘national key points’ I(rish 1999: 12). In an attempt to destabilize the apartheid government anti-apartheid activists targeted various strategic facilities. For instance, in the early 1980s attacks were made on a fuel plant outside Johannesburg and four rockets exploded at a military base in Pretoria. The African National Congress A ( NC)took responsibility for both attacks. 3 The National Key Points Act stipulated that the proprietors of certain strategic sites of national importance or ‘key points’ i(dentified by the Minister of Defence as such)had to provide their own security. These arrangements would be under the supervision of the then South African Defence Force (SADF). The proprietors,

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not wanting to be seen to be associated with the apartheid regime by using their own employees, opted for contracting private security companies which were influenced by the paramilitary nature of the SADF and given powers of arrest and search and seizure in order to perform their duties M ( ehta 1990; Grant 1989: 108). The types of attacks being made against these key points were regarded as necessitating a professionalized, well trained and regulated security industry. A conference held in 1987 (entitled ‘Security – A National Strategy’)and attended by key apartheid state- and private-sector security executives discussed the idea of promoting a closer integration of the public and private security sectors, the need for increased participation of the private sector in crime prevention (to free the state police)and the ‘paramount importance’ of having w ‘ ell-trained security personnel’ W ( andrag 1987: 86–7). These state legislative directives contributed significantly to the rapid growth of this industry in the 1980s. During the post-apartheid period the security industry has continued to flourish. The prime reasons have not been state direction but decisions by companies and householders to protect themselves in the face of a growing sense of insecurity. While this fear has not been restricted to the more affluent it has only been the wealthy who have been able to employ private security to enhance their security. One consequence of this has been that the apartheid ‘security deficit’ has been not been reduced – indeed it has been widened (Bayley and Shearing 1996). This growing inequality in security governance has been associated with a growth of mass private property. Private constituencies are ‘clubbing’ together to provide collectively for their security through the use of the private security sector. Within the ‘new South Africa’, as elsewhere, the reasons for the growth and use of this sector have been a combination of statedirected rule-at-a-distance initiatives along with other reasons that while related to the state’s ability to provide security have not been orchestrated through state-driven programmes. Size and scale In 1986 the industry was estimated to be worth about R600 million (Grant 1989). Current estimates range from R13 billion to R14 billion, growing about 30 per cent a year (Berg 2004b; Lebone 2004; Shaw 2002). Following the demise of apartheid, many who had been involved in the p ‘ olitical unrest’– ex-military and police personnel (either for or against the apartheid government)– made use of their skills to start up or join existing commercial security firms (Minnaar and Ngoveni 2004). In contrast to apartheid governments the new democratic governments have been less directly supportive of the private security industry and have expressed concern about its growth, size and influence. One expression of this has been the recent introduction of strict and complex regulatory legislation.

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Figure 10.14 represents the growth, from 1997 to mid-2004, in the number of security officers in South Africa who are registered with the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority P ( SIRA). The end of the apartheid regime has also meant the entry of a number of international conglomerates seeking opportunities in South Africa’s security arena. This has meant that despite the increase in the number of security officers the number of companies has decreased as more and more local and international mergers and acquisitions have taken place over the past decade (Irish 1999). The total number of registered security businesses dropped from 5,185 since the start of 2001 to 4,271 in June 2003.5 The bulk of the commercial security industry is controlled by a few major companies since only about 20 of the approximate 4,271 companies employ over 1,000 security personnel, whereas about 2,000 businesses employ five people or fewer.6 Activities South Africa’s private security sector was initially divided into three sectors by the Security Officers Board t(he previous regulatory body of the private security industry): the guarding, cash-in-transit and armed response sectors B ( erg 2004a). With the creation of new legislation targeting all security service providers, including in-house providers, it is no longer adequate to divide the industry into these broad categories. Recent descriptions of the industry have become more complex as more specializations within the industry have been identified. For instance, the South African Institute of Race Relations divides the industry into five broad categories: the guarding sector; electronic security; monitoring and response; assets-in-transit, and investigations L ( ebone 2004). Minnaar 2 ( 004) sub-categorizes the industry into security guards i(ncluding industrial, residential and commercial; cash-in-transit; armed response; and national key points guards); security consultants; special events security; security training; body guarding; security control room operators; security loss control; and entertainment venue control. Whatever the classification, the private security industry performs a wide range of policing functions and activities for various clients – from the state to individual property owners. In fact, commercial security companies were even employed in 2001 to guard police premises to free up the state police 7 to perform other duties (Mail &Guardian 2004). The private security industry has developed substantially since its apartheid days and had at the last count 38 security associations representing the many specialized areas of the industry, for example, locksmiths, private investigators, VIP protection services, counter-terrorism and security professionals, polygraph associations, intruder detection services, campus security, hotel and casino security and so forth.8 The commercial security industry is a well accepted feature of urban life in South Africa. Many buildings carry signs, indicating the name of the

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Clifford Shearing and Julie Berg 300000 250000 200000 150000 100000 50000 0

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Years

Figure 10.1 Number of active registered security officers in South Africa, 1997–2004

security company used to protect it and its occupants. In addition, patrol vehicles of security companies as well as vehicles on emergency calls are a common sight as are private security personnel patrolling on foot and on bicycles. In urban middle-class and business districts South African policing is very visibly a multi-nodal business. The newly arisen gated communities and other security enclaves are major sites of private policing, in particular visible patrol functions. Private security personnel in South Africa (as is the case in many other countries)operate under a variety of legal auspices (in particular property law)that accord them powers of arrest as well as search and seizure. They can in addition invoke the powers of peace officers indirectly by handing over suspects to the state police and by providing state police information that they can, and often do, act upon. Regulation In addition to indirect regulation primarily through property and contract law the private security industry in South Africa is regulated directly through the Private Security Industry Regulation Act 56 of 2001. The act was created to replace the Security Officers Act 92 of 1987 that was seen as having a number of shortcomings that the new act addresses. For instance the 2001 Act identifies a broader range of activities that can be defined as a s‘ ecurity service’. This includes categories of security service providers that were excluded from the prior legislation such as in-house security, locksmiths, private investigators, security training or instruction providers, manufacturers, importers and distributors of monitoring devices, installers of security equipment, labour brokers, control room operators and so forth

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B ( erg 2003). The inclusion of the in-house sector in the legislation is a significant attempt by the government to bring the whole of the security industry under its regulatory directions – many security personnel are employed by municipalities, banks and mining and oil companies on an inhouse basis (Minnaar 2004). The Act also makes provision for the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSIRA), a replacement of the I(nterim)Security Officers Board which was considered ineffectual by state and private security companies alike. PSIRA is responsible for information gathering to ensure that security service providers are registered and properly trained. PSIRA inspectors may conduct inspections of security businesses and have peace officer status to enforce regulations so as to ensure that non-complying businesses are refused registration and consequently denied the right to do business (Berg 2003). Security service providers may also be held criminally liable for failing to ensure that PSIRA is aware of changes in business practices, such as change of company name, renewal of registration and so forth (Berg 2003). Therefore, according to the new regulatory structure, the onus is placed on the security service providers to adhere to legal stipulations and the Private Security Industry Regulation Act, 2001. It also places responsibility on clients to ensure that they deal only with registered security service providers (Berg 2003). Other legislation regulating the industry includes, amongst others, the Improper Conduct Enquiries Regulations, 2003; Private Security Industry Regulations, 2002; Private Security Industry Levies Act, 2002; Code of Conduct for Security Service Providers, 2003 and the Firearms Control Act, 2000 w ( hich has a section specifically aimed at the private security industry). From the wealth of legislation and the broad mandate given to PSIRA it is evident that the government is concerned about being able to control and regulate the industry adequately, particularly in light of its past involvement in apartheid activities, its current composition o ( f ex-military and police personnel)and its unprecedented growth and involvement in a number of duties that are conventionally considered to be the traditional task of state police. Unauthorized security entities Popular policing, often referred to in South Africa as ‘popular justice’ or c‘ ommunity justice’in the 1980s and early 1990s, re-emerged in force after the South African political transition (Nina 2000). Many observers use the terms vigilante and vigilantism to refer to what we have termed ‘popular policing’. We use the term ‘popular policing’as a more inclusive term than v‘ igilante’, which the Encarta World Dictionary used by Microsoft Office 2004 defines as ‘someone who punishes lawbreakers personally and illegally rather than relying on the legal authorities’. We include in popular policing activities that promote safety and security that may not include punishment and may not be illegal but which do not rely on ‘the legal authorities’.

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Many reasons have been given for the growth in popular policing, particularly after the shift to a democracy, such as the inability of the criminal justice system to manage rising crime effectively and thereby not meeting the public’s expectation and demand for state-provided protection, security and justice (Sekhonyane and Louw 2002). The new human rights culture was, it is argued, popularly perceived as favouring criminals at the expense of victims. The response, it is argued, was popular policing, often undertaken by vigilantes who govern security and administer ‘justice’ on their own terms. Baker (2002a)differentiates between formal and informal vigilante groups. Whereas informal groups usually operate on an ad hoc fashion and may resort to the beating and/or execution of a person believed to have committed a crime in the community, formal vigilante groups operate in more organized and sustained ways to counter crime. The largest formal popular policing organization in South Africa is Mapogo-a-Mathamaga, with a membership of over 70,000 members that includes white farmers, rural poor, black business people and so forth. Mapogo-a-Mathamaga, which operates in South Africa’s Northern Province, was created by local business persons as a direct response to the killings of business people, robberies and burglaries in 1996 (Sekhonyane and Louw 2002). Initially working within the law as a popular policing organization, Mapogo soon began using illegal means to administer ‘justice’ when suspects initially handed over to the police by them were subsequently released. Mapogo operates as a private security business with its members paying a fee for services. Fees are set in terms of the financial status of members S( ekhonyane and Louw 2002). Tactics employed by Mapogo supposedly entail beatings or whippings and the torturing of suspects to extract confessions. There have been accusations of Mapogo members allegedly throwing suspects into crocodile-infested waters and about 20 people have died and numerous others have reportedly been injured by Mapogo. eYt despite this, and despite internal leadership problems, misuse of funds and the splintering of the group at various stages, Mapogo remains popular, influential and has a growing clientele (Sekhonyane and Louw 2002). Similarly, the Peninsula Anti-Crime Agency or PEACA, formed in 1998, operates in the Western Cape and, like Mapogo, receives a fee for its services and operates as a private security business. Like Mapogo, PEACA receives reported ‘cases’c( riminal cases as well as non-criminal grievances) to investigate. It uses its discretion in deciding on the appropriate ‘judgement’and p ‘ unishment’to be administered – which apparently may involve threats or actual beatings (Tshehla 2002). Another example (from the many that could be cited within South Africa) of a formal vigilante group emerged about the same time as Mapogo. Situated in the Western Cape, People against Gangsterism and Drugs, or Pagad, was initially a law-abiding popular policing group that conducted demonstrations and marches in response to the gang and drug

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problem in the communities of the Cape Flats (Baker 2002a). However, given the unregulated environment within which it operated, Pagad, like both the other groups we have mentioned, soon adopted a violent approach to the gang problem and was hurtled into the limelight when it executed a key gang leader in 1996 (Kinnes 2000). Publicized gang executions and punishments led to conflict between Pagad, gangs and the police in the area over the next two years, resulting in the deaths of many, including 30 gang leaders and drug dealers and Muslim business people who refused to support Pagad financially and who were thus targeted and attacked with pipe bombs K ( innes 2000). Numerous bombings between 1994 and 2000 have been attributed to Pagad and its fights with the gangs soon extended into an urban terror campaign as Pagad aligned itself with Islamist anti-West sentiment H ( b üschle 2004). Police stations, courts, justice system personnel and tourist attractions were attacked including Western capitalist targets such as Planet Hollywood in Cape Town’s Waterfront, resulting in the US State Department adding Pagad to its list of terrorist organizations (Hb üschle 2004; Baker 2002a). Vigilantism – both formal and informal – has become a feature of South African life. According to a recent national Victims of Crime Survey B ( urton et al. 2003), many South Africans have had direct experience of vigilantism through witnessing acts of violence as forms of punishment against suspected offenders. The racial and socio-economic divisions enforced during apartheid are still apparent. The majority of vigilante activity takes place in black communities and is reported by black respondents, whereas private security companies are predominantly active in wealthier, still often white, suburbs and gated communities. The state’s response to vigilante activity has been one of arresting vigilantes. Many within Mapogo, for instance, have been arrested at one time or another. However, convictions are few as police face similar problems in convicting vigilante groups as they do in convicting known gang members. There is also much ambivalence amongst communities and state officials. This, apart from the occasional clamp-down on vigilante activity, has meant that there has not been a hardline approach to eradicating vigilante groups altogether (Baker 2002a). The South African government has often attempted to negotiate with formal vigilante groups before taking on a punitive approach. An important motivation here is the fact that political leaders have sometimes attempted to mobilize the support of vigilante groups (Baker 2002a). The ambivalence is also reflected in the SAPS especially considering the fine line which Mapogo and PEACA straddle – between vigilantism and commercial security, between being of assistance to the SAPS by dealing with certain crimes within the community versus employing illegitimate means that are sometimes regarded as undermining the SAPS and the entire criminal justice system.

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Integration of policing forms Various integrated policing arrangements exist in South Africa. This may be no more than simply two policing entities working in ad hoc joint operations or it may comprise more complex networks consisting of, for example, the SAPS and SAPS reservists, commercial security, municipal police and the Army Territorial Reserve.9 Figure 10.2 represents an estimate of the numbers of security personnel in South Africa as at 2004. We include it not because we are confident in the absolute numbers but to demonstrate the range of policing forms. These figures, for example, do not take into account different jurisdictions and geographical concentrations of the agents nor do they include the various specializations of each entity.10 Also the number of police reservists is not included. As a way of providing a glimpse of the nature and complexity of plural policing in South Africa the following section will consider some of the types of policing arrangements that have emerged. This will be followed by a case study of the plural nature of policing in Cape Town’s City Improvement District (CID). Networked policing assemblages Most of the assemblages that link the SAPS to other policing entities are ad hoc rather than the result of formal agreements. Although the private security industry approached the SAPS, in 1995 and 1996, to create a formal partnership (Minnaar 2004), no formally sanctioned partnership currently exists between the SAPS and the private security industry. Nor does the SAPS have any formal guidelines specifying how interaction should take place. Two policy papers – the National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS) D ( epartment of Safety and Security 1996) and the White Paper on Safety and Security (Department of Safety and Security 1998)– encouraged civil society and business involvement (the White Paper explicitly refers to the private security industry in this regard) in safety and security matters. However, very little has flowed from this (Berg 2004b). For the most part, co-operation between the SAPS and private security has been opportunistic and has been facilitated by the ‘old boys network’that links their personnel B ( erg 2004a). One commercial security representative expressed the nature of this relationship in the following terms: it’s informal, it’s unstructured … when the police are short-handed they will often call on the security industry. Our bomb for instance [referring to a bomb blast that occurred in 1999 in the suburb of Camps Bay, Western Cape], the security companies were there, roping off, helping to stop traffic flow and so on, necessary functions which some kind of supplementary service has to do. So it is voluntary and positive in that way, but it is unstructured, this is the other aspect which the security industry tried to tackle various ministers on …11

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In contrast, the South African state has formally authorized that the Army Territorial Reserve co-operate with the SAPS and vice versa (see above). One of the main co-operative ventures has been the Farm Watch programme consisting of farmers, the commandos and the SAPS (Minnaar 2004). The Farm Watch programme or Commando System entails the allocation of commandos, who are voluntary and part-time, to defined geographic localities. The constituencies for which the commandos are responsible are further divided into cells of farmers. Cell members retain radio contact with each other and their cell leader who in turn has a communication link with the local police station and local commando.12 However, a phasing out of the commandos is currently underway due to the commandos taking on the duties of farm patrolling as their primary duties whereas this duty was initially meant to be a secondary responsibility and the commandos are perceived to be ‘taking over’ the role of the SAPS B ( urger 2003). There are also d ‘ octrinal’differences between the SAPS and the military in terms of their differing approaches to crime (Burger 2003). In terms of urban operations, it is apparent that the SAPS and military have been co-operating since 1996 in terms of cordon and search operations in gang-infested areas of the Western Cape (Samara 2003). Currently it seems to be the case that the military and the SAPS engage in joint ventures, at times with the inclusion of police reservists and the commercial security 300000

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Private security industry

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Figure 10.2 Security personnel in South Africa, 2004

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industry. The nature of these operations and extent of co-operation requires further investigation.13 Co-operation between the SAPS and municipal police forces in South Africa is also formally recognized by the state (although that is about as far as state involvement goes with actual implementation taking place through local government efforts). Many demarcated municipal areas were specifically aligned to SAPS jurisdictions to further perpetuate co-operative arrangements (Newham et al. 2002). The SAPS and municipal police generally engage in joint operations and a National Forum was created consisting of the SAPS, municipal police and the Independent Complaints Directorate. The Forum is described as a ‘communication mechanism’between the SAPS and municipal police and its objective ‘is to jointly determine a strategic direction and priorities of mutual concern’ S( outh African Police Service 2004: 15). The municipal police are also largely involved in Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) systems in their jurisdictions and so interact and cooperate daily with the SAPS and other policing entities, retaining contact primarily through regular meetings and radio communications (Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality 2004; Berg 2004b; Johannesburg News Agency 2003). These are only a few of the large number of arrangements (mostly ad hoc)that have been, and continue to be, negotiated between various policing agencies. The Cape Town CID A study was conducted in 2002 at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cape Town which comprised, amongst other things, an audit of new policing arrangements and developments in the Cape Town metropolitan area D ( ugmore 2003) and a study on the commercial security industry B ( erg 2004a; 2004b). From these empirical investigations it was found that a network of policing agencies operates in the Cape Town CID.14 The ratepayers b ( usinesses and homeowners)of the CID decided that they would utilize the services of commercial security which conducts its activities along with the Cape Town City Police and the SAPS as well as members of the city’s traffic department, members of the old law enforcement structure that preceded the Cape Town City Police b ( ut still in operation and yet to be integrated with the City Police)and parking marshals B ( erg 2004b). The creation of the CID and the intermingling of various policing entities have impacted particularly on relations between the SAPS and private security. In fact i‘t is of significance that the SAPS personnel have admitted that prior to the creation of CIDs, very little standardized co-operation existed between the SAPS and private security in the Western Cape’B ( erg 2004b: 241). The various policing agencies have regular meetings, constantly communicate and may even patrol together, since the under-resourced SAPS often relies on the equipment and personpower of the commercial security industry B ( erg 2004b). Further to this, the

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SAPS and municipal police services partake in joint operations such as raids and roadblocks D ( ugmore 2003). One of the reasons for the s‘ ound relationships’, as described by the Cape Town City Police Chief S( angster 2003), between the SAPS and the two other policing entities is the fact that both the municipal police and the private security industry acknowledge that the SAPS is the leading agency and both entities are required to hand over suspects to the SAPS for processing B ( erg 2004b). Therefore this CID initiative has created a new landscape of security provision of which the SAPS is just one role-player, albeit the dominant one. B ( erg 2004b: 241) The CID has not been without its problems. For example, the mandate of the City Police is not altogether clear and there is, accordingly, an overlap of duties and public confusion in terms of the City Police and the pre-existing law enforcement bodies and traffic department which also operate in the city centre (Berg 2004b). The City Police are also expected to police a large array of by-laws, traffic infringements and priority crimes (such as violence against women)and some fear they may lose effectiveness because of this multiplicity of tasks (Dugmore 2003 in Berg 2004b). Lack of direct police powers for, for instance, private security personnel and parking marshals is also a contentious issue which the private security industry has raised on a number of occasions (Minnaar 2004: 32). Private security personnel are cheaper to employ but very often do not receive the training some commentators feel is needed for joint ventures (Dugmore 2003 in Berg 2004b). The CID developments demonstrate how relationships and assemblages shift over time. The SAPS was initially unreceptive to the other entities in the CID areas due to its initial exclusion from the CID project B ( erg 2004a). It is also clear from Berg’s study that much of the co-operation – especially SAPS–commercial security co-operation – relies on the relationship established between particular individuals which has led to a period of openness within the local SAPS to the idea of working with other policing bodies B ( erg 2004b). As the commercial security industry is fiercely competitive, co-operation between competing companies usually arises out of very specific mutual needs. For example, companies co-operating with each other during joint operations with the SAPS may do so to ensure that future operations and therefore future business are secured. The relations – whether formally mandated or not – inevitably rely on individual relationships that shift considerably over time. Co-operative assemblages such as the CID are thus by definition very fragile and can emerge and dwindle very easily and quickly. Although the South African state has operated as a tone-setter in the establishment of plural partnerships, it has, to date, not prescribed the

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manner in which they should take place. There have, however, been a number of moves in this direction which have failed to materialize. What the CID exemplifies is the creation of problem-specific solutions that seek to create resource pools for co-operative ventures that the particular sets of partners feel are ‘optimal for the effective promotion of safety and security in their area’ (Berg 2004b: 243). The outcome of these processes has been the emergence of alcoves of security that are well policed, and some might argue over-policed, which exclude constituencies that are not as well protected. Castells has referred to these excluded constituencies as forming a ‘Fourth World, made up of multiple black holes of social exclusion throughout the planet’ (Castells 2000: 167). The network of policing in geographically defined, exclusive areas is the antithesis of the democratic, free and equal society to which the South African transformation aspires. We consider this issue briefly in our concluding comments.

Conclusion The question of the state is quickly disappearing behind us; the question of democratic regulation of actually existing processes of social control is what this new fin de siècle seems to be placing squarely in front of us. M ( elossi 1997: 73) We begin our consideration of the question of how plural policing can be made to operate in ways that contribute to a democratic, fair and equal society by examining the framework established by Ian Loader (2000)in his insightful paper on plural policing and democratic governance. He begins with this passage from Dario Melossi; after reviewing the plural terrain of policing – which we have explored within the context of South Africa – he asks the question with which we concluded the last section. On what basis might citizens be able to seek a ‘fair’ share of, or voice their concerns about, the multiple policing forms that increasingly impact on the quality of their lives? L ( oader 2000: 324) He argues that ‘state-centred modes of theorizing government’ L ( oader 2000: 325) within the context of ‘centreless society’ L ( oader 2000; Luhmann 1982)in which p ‘ ower h [ as become]increasingly separated from politics’ L ( oader 2000: 331) and in which ‘private governments’ L ( oader 2000)and p ‘ olitical subcentres’L ( oader 2000; Shearing 1996)have become commonplace – have become a fatal trap. These state-focused modes of thinking have fundamentally limited our ability, he argues, to understand developments in policing and governance (Loader 2000). Having recognized this, Loader then goes on to argue that given this multi-nodal environment it is ‘hard to imagine any agency other than the

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state with the capacity to undertake this role’ L ( oader 2000: 336). T ‘ he state alone’, he argues, has ‘the resources at its disposal to respond to the threats to democratic, equitable and effective security provision that networked policing poses’L ( oader 2000: 336). In pursuing this line of thinking he expands on his earlier thinking (Loader 1996)– in which he calls for the use of national, regional and local police commissions to oversee police activity – to argue for the development of policing commissions at these levels L ( oader 2000). In doing so he draws upon the ideas developed within the Independent Commission on Policing in Northern Ireland, or Patten Commission (Independent Commission on Policing in Northern Ireland 1999), that argued for the development of ‘policing boards’at both central and local levels within Northern Ireland. Like the Patten Commission proposals these Policing Commissions would be required to formulate policies and coordinate service delivery across the policing network, and to bring to democratic account the public, municipal, commercial and voluntary agencies that comprise it. L ( oader 2000: 337) In pursuing the Patten Commission’s idea of providing policing boards with policing budgets, Loader argues that policing commissions should be required to provide all citizens with ‘a f“air”share of available policing resources’L ( oader 2000: 338). … policing commissions clearly need to be given statutory responsibility to take account of potential inequalities in the distribution of policing resources, and to seek where necessary to rectify them when making policy/network coordination decisions … L ( oader 2000: 338) Loader spells out what this might entail when he goes on to argue that policing commissions should be encouraged to invite tenders from, and issuing contracts to, public, municipal, commercial or voluntary agencies who might wish to provide services required under the policing plan a[ nd to use their powers to]make good inequalities in the l(ocal) provision of policing and security, something that may involve commissions in either allocating state police resources in particular ways or using their funds to b ‘ uy in’services for disadvantaged communities … L ( oader 2000: 339) We endorse Loader’s arguments (one of us was a member of the Patten Commission); see also Shearing (1996) and Bayley and Shearing (1996). Clearly the governance of security in South Africa, and Africa more generally, would benefit from this view of policing accountability as a way of

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including but moving beyond the positive licensing moves that we have outlined. What Africa and South Africa make clear, however, is that while requiring states to move beyond a ‘node-specific’ L ( oader 2000)approach and make policing their focus, it is necessary, in this context, to think beyond a state-centred normative agenda. What is clear from our discussion above is that constantly loading new responsibilities onto states that are stretched, sometimes way beyond breaking point, is likely to be self-defeating. To think in these terms alone is to indulge in a failure of imagination in the normative realm of the same order as the failure of imagination in the explanatory realm that Loader rightly criticizes. Such an approach is just as f‘ atally trapped within the confines of an exhausted paradigm’ L ( oader 2000: 335). Thus, although we fully endorse the importance of not forgetting the state, and of involving it in appropriate ways in responding to the problems of inequality and fairness we have outlined, we need to think beyond this. To cite Loader’s thinking again, we need to move beyond the presumption that the sovereign state is the only possible institutional container capable of holding policing legitimately to account [as this]actually stands in the way of more adequate democratic supervision of transnational developments. L ( oader 2000: 332) The question is, how might our imagination be extended?One argument that has been developed, and experimented with, is that poor communities might be allocated some form of ‘block grant’ e( ither by states or some other non-state or supra-state entity)that would enable them to both create and then participate in a market for security in ways that would allow them, as consumers, to enjoy some of the benefits of market accountability that wealthier constituencies now do (Bayley and Shearing 1996; Shearing 2001). Another idea that we would like to canvas briefly here is the possibility of making more explicit use of the possibilities of accountability that the nodal governance presents – thereby looking to the possibilities it offers as well as to its problems (Burris et al. 2005). Colin Scott’s 2 ( 004)work has been particularly insightful here. He has pointed to the importance, within regulation generally, of non-state nodes as sources of regulatory authority that can, and do, hold nodal auspices and providers of governance to account. One way of doing this would be to seek to establish accountability networks as ‘super-structural nodes’s( ee Drahos above)that bring together the resources of both state and non-state regulatory entities. Particularly important here would be the mobilizing of the resources of the already elaborate networks of global non-governmental monitoring nodes such as Africa Watch and Amnesty International (that already have extensive networks of accountability in place using widely accepted normative criteria

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such as Human Rights standards)and integrating them with the capacities of nodes that have the capacity to intervene in support of their conclusions, such as Policing Boards or Policing Commissions. This is something that would be particularly important to do in areas of the world where it is not at all clear that ‘the state alone has the resources at its disposal to respond to the threats to democratic, equitable and effective security that networked policing poses’. We realize that simply stating the sort of rethinking that needs to take place does not constitute the new imagination that is required. However, we do think that recognizing that a new imagination is required and providing suggestions as to the sort of directions that might be pursued in getting there is a necessary precondition for its realization. If this challenge were taken on – that is, if we moved away from our current state-centred normative preoccupations and moved deliberately beyond their limitations – much might be accomplished in cutting the Gordian knots that now bind us so tightly. If such new imagination were to be realized within a country like South Africa (that has already made important strides in using state resources to respond to the inequalities facing it), it could lead to significant new directions and new additional resources being mobilized to accomplish the many transformations that are required. A failure to move into a normative terrain that fits the empirical nodal terrain that now engulfs us is likely to lead to a deepening of the already enormous divide identified by Castells’ idea of a Fourth World – a world already p ‘ opulated by millions of homeless, incarcerated, prostituted, criminalized, brutalized, stigmatized, sick, and illiterate persons’C ( astells 2000: 168). The already apparent consequences that this justifiable anger and desperation are having, and will have, will affect all of us – rich and poor, weak and powerful alike. This very real prospect is truly frightening. In recognizing the difficulties confronting Africa, and other places of the Fourth World, and the hope that must be pursued we end with a passage from Castells: the de-linking of Africa in its own terms [from asymmetrical global networks]would take a revolution, in the oldest, political meaning of this word – an unlikely event in the foreseeable future, considering the epic fragmentation of the population, and the people’s devastating experience vis-à -vis most of their leaders and saviours. eYt the writing is on the wall if we refer to historical experience, according to which there is no oppression that is not met with resistance. As for the social and political outcomes of this resistance, uncertainty and experimentation are the only possible assessments, as the process of change muddles through the collective experience of rage, conflict, struggle, hope, failure and compromise. C ( astells 2000: 128)

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Notes 1

2 3 4

5

6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14

Interview conducted with a risk consultant and South African Security Association representative, 2002. As part of a broader research project at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cape Town, on the challenges of police reform, research was conducted by one of the authors on private security. The analysis of SAPS–private security relations formed part of this research venture and 13 in-depth interviews were conducted over a three-month period (May to July 2002), with key players within, and/or involved with, the private security industry in the Western Cape. The Institute of Criminology is hereby acknowledged. Pronounced ‘knop-kirie’: A ‘ short thick stick with a knobbed head, used as a weapon or missile by South African peoples.’ From Oxford English Dictionary online: http://dictionary.oed.com (last accessed 24/01/2005). Information obtained from http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/mainframe.htm l(ast accessed 24/01/2005). Statistics obtained from Minnaar (2004: 11)and the Parliamentary Monitoring Group website: Briefing to the Safety and Security Portfolio Committee by Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority on Activities of Private Security Industries, September 2003 http://www.pmg.org.za/viewminute.php?id= 3239 l(ast accessed 26/01/2005). Briefing to the Safety and Security Portfolio Committee by Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority on Activities of Private Security Industries, September 2003 http://www.pmg.org.za/viewminute.php?id= 3239 (last accessed 26/01/2005). Ibid. The newspaper article reports that the SAPS saves about R16 million per annum by hiring private security personnel (Mail & Guardian, 2004). See http://www.security.co.za/associations.shtml for a list of security associations (last accessed 26/01/2005). According to the National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS), apart from the defence of the country, one of the South African National Defence Force’s S( ANDF)secondary functions is to co-operate with the SAPS ‘to uphold law and order’ D ( epartment of Safety and Security 1996: 24). A component of the SANDF, the Army Territorial Reserve (or c‘ ommandos’)is primarily engaged in this policing function – especially rural/farm safety – through co-operation with the SAPS. However, it was announced in February 2003 in a state of the nation address by President Mbeki that the Commando system would be phased out over six years, to be replaced by a ‘revised SAPS reservist system’B ( oshoff 2003: 1; Minister of Safety and Security 2003). The main rationale for this was that there is a conflict of interest between the SAPS and the commandos. Therefore, for instance, the municipal police service do not operate nationally w ( hereas the other forces do)and are concentrated in specific metropolitan areas and may outnumber the SAPS in these areas. Interview conducted with a risk consultant and a South African Security Association representative, 2002. Information from SAPS website: http://www.saps.gov.za/statistics/reports/rural_ safety/eng/pages/n02e.htm (last accessed 31/01/2005). This information is based on one of the author’s informal discussions with police personnel through the course of ongoing investigations into the nature of policing in the Western Cape. A City Improvement District ‘is a non-profit private-public corporation established when property owners within a defined geographical area agree to levy an additional assessment on their property. In this way [CID]members generate a

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supplemental pool of money that is then used to promote business and economic development’D ( avis and Dadush 2000: 7).

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Shearing, C. (2001) T ‘ ransforming security: A South African experiment’, in H. Strang and J. Braithwaite (eds) Restorative Justice and Civil Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shearing, C., Farnell, M. and Stenning. P. (1980) Contract Security in Ontario, Toronto: Centre of Criminology, Toronto University. Shearing, C. and Stenning, P. (1983)P ‘ rivate security: Its implications for social control’, Social Problems, 30: 5, pp. 125–38. Smullen, A. (2004) L ‘ ost in translation?Shifting interpretations of the concept of ‘agency’: the Dutch case’, in C. Pollitt and C. Talbot (eds) Unbundled Government, London: Routledge, pp. 184–202. SAPS (South African Police Service) 2 ( 004) Annual Report of the South African Police Service 2003/2004, Pretoria: South African Police Service. Star, The 2 ( 004)C ‘ ops are taking uneducated guesses: Police fail to make the grade in literacy tests’, 8 November. Tshehla, B. (2002)N ‘ on-state justice in the post apartheid South Africa – a scan of Khayelitsha’, African Sociological Review, 6: 2, pp. 47–70. van der Spuy, E. (2004)S‘ outh African policing studies in the making’, in B. Dixon and E. van der Spuy (eds) Justice Gained? Crime and Crime Control in South Africa’s Transition, Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press. Wandrag, A. J. (1987)C ‘ rime – the growth industry’, in R. L. Jackson (ed) Security – A National Strategy: The Integration of Security in the Public and Private Sector, Cape Town: Lex Patria. Weber, M. (1978) Economy and Society, G. Roth and C. Wittick (eds), Berkeley: University of California Press.

11 Japan Naoko Yoshida and Frank Leishman

This chapter provides an overview of plural policing in contemporary Japan. The first section briefly outlines the history and structure of public policing arrangements and recent trends in crime. The second section focuses on the private security industry, outlining the contours of its scale, scope and regulation, and explores underlying explanations for the sector’s expansion. The third section critically considers Japan’s famous koban system, identifying issues arising from recent field research. The final section suggests that while there may be many distinctive cultural differences, plural policing in Japan exhibits many similarities to other jurisdictions discussed in this volume.

Public policing in Japan In common with most other jurisdictions covered in this volume, the emergence of a modern police organization in Japan was a phenomenon of the nineteenth century. After almost three hundred years of self-imposed national isolation (1600–1867), the country embarked on a rapid modernization programme, borrowing and adapting technologies and institutions from the West. Policing was heavily influenced by arrangements in France and Prussia, and beginning with the founding of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police in 1874, Japan’s n ‘ ew police’were established very much in line with continental European principles, being charged with a wide range of administrative functions and a political surveillance mandate. On the recommendation of German police advisers, a network of police boxes was introduced in all prefectures of Japan, providing what was a highly centralized police system with a prominent local presence (Leishman 1999). By 1912, there were over 15,000 rural residential posts (chuzaisho)and urban neighbourhood offices (koban), a combined total not far removed from that of the present day: in 2005, Japan had 6,509 koban and 7,592 chuzaisho. Following the end of World War II, a central objective of the US Occupation of Japan 1 ( 945–52)was to reconstruct Japanese policing along American lines through a radical decentralization programme, with municipal police forces for major towns and conurbations, and a National Rural Police Force to cover smaller towns and villages. On the grounds of geography, cost-effectiveness,

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efficiency and cultural tradition, the intended reforms were not successful and under the 1954 Police Act, a recentralized hybrid framework for public policing was the result, and this remains in place today. Each prefecture and major metropolitan area in Japan c( ollectively referred to as todofuken)has its own regional public police force, while the National Police Agency (Keisatsucho) provides central guidance and oversight of policing throughout the country. Prefectural police personnel are, in the main, local government employees, while officers of the rank of senior superintendent and above are national public servants employed by the Tokyo-based NPA. The top positions in each of the 47 prefectural forces are held by NPA officials, who will generally have commenced their careers as fast-track graduate entrants. The NPA has responsibility for setting national standards for policing and drafting associated legislation, and thus the Agency exerts a significant influence over provincial policing. A surviving legacy of the Occupation police reforms are the national and local Public Safety Commissions (Koan Iinkai) which were established to maintain democratic control of the police and ensure their political neutrality. The National Public Safety Commission (chaired by a Cabinet Minister and comprising five other members)endorses basic policing policy that the NPA in turn passes down to the 47 prefectural forces, each of which is supervised by a local commission. Depending on force size, local Public Safety Commissions consist of three or five members, who are typically prominent local figures, often with backgrounds in business or education. As with their national counterparts, their remit is to give formal approval to a broad policy agenda, but not to specify operational details, although they do have some influence in respect of disciplinary and licensing matters, including regulation of the private security industry. While prefectural police forces vary considerably in size, the organization of each is virtually constant throughout Japan with core departments dealing with police administration, criminal investigation, traffic, crime prevention and security. The full establishment of the public police in 2004 was approximately 246,800 officers, reflecting recent phased increases of 4,500 in 2002, 4,000 in 2003 and 3,150 in 2004 (National Police Agency of Japan 2004). While there is a significant number of civilian support staff based in police headquarters throughout the country, in Japan there are no part-time or volunteer police officers: they are all full-time employees. Despite the recent increases to the police establishment, at around 533:1, Japan’s per capita ratio of population to public police officers is high compared with other developed countries. Public policing in Japan has been relatively under-researched. Compared with other jurisdictions, there has been little empirical work on police investigative practice, for example, and the dynamics of the accountability relationships between the NPA, Public Safety Commissions and prefectural forces await systematic comparative exploration by academic researchers. The primary focus of attention has been the koban

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system, mentioned earlier, which has attracted worldwide interest and inspired many experiments with transplantation, notably in Singapore and the United States. In Bayley’s seminal study of koban (1976, 1991), Japan was characterized as ‘heaven for a cop’ on account of its famously low recorded crime rates and apparently close police–community relations. In much the same way that the UK police enjoyed high levels of popular support and legitimacy through the 1950s (Jones and Newburn, this volume), so the discourse surrounding Japan’s public police from the mid-1970s and on into the early 1990s can be described as essentially ‘celebratory’, though perhaps too readily and uncritically attributing apparent successes in crime control and community confidence to the existence of Japan’s ‘unique’nationwide network of police boxes (Aldous and Leishman 1999). On the surface, there was much to celebrate. In a country with a population of over 125 million, the annual number of recorded crimes was less than 2 million until 1997. The arrest rate – a potent if problematic police performance indicator – was perennially rather high. For over twenty years, the dominant proposition was that Japanese society was an exceptionally safe one. However, as the twentieth century drew to a close, there was increasing evidence to suggest that the image of Japanese policing and perceptions of public safety had shifted significantly, against a backdrop of rising crime S( chreiber 1997), economic downturns and broader debates about the efficiency and effectiveness of Japanese bureaucracies and institutions generally J( ameson 1997). The 1995 sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway by members of the Aum sect, which resulted in the deaths of 12 people and injuries to more than 5,000 others, was a watershed for Japan, marking a dividing line between a prolonged era of confidence in community safety and an emergent r‘ isk’society. Safety in and around Japanese schools has become a matter of prominent public and political concern following a number of distressing incidents, notably that in Ikeda in 2001, when eight elementary school children were fatally stabbed and thirteen others and two teachers injured by an intruder A ( jima 2005). In the same year, the police arrest rate plummeted to below 20 per cent, compared with over 60 per cent 25 years previously. By 2003, recorded crime had increased to nearly 2.8 million and although the number of felony cases like murder, robbery, arson and rape accounted for less than 1 per cent overall, there has been a sharp increase in violent offending since the late 1990s, underlining the sense of a qualitative shift in criminality in Japan (The Economist 2003). Table 11.1 gives an indication of the effects of these changes in terms of police workload. While public police officer numbers have been steadily increasing since 1989, these appear to have been outstripped by demands for service. Not surprisingly, many Japanese citizens are increasingly resorting to policing services other than those provided by the public police (Tamura 2004). The next section seeks to illustrate the magnitude of the private security sector in Japan and highlight trends in its characteristics and regulation.

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Table 11.1 Percentage change in numbers of police officers and crime reports since 1989

1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Establishment of prefectural police forces

Crime reports

Emergency reports

Felony reports

100.0 100.7 100.7 101.3 103.8 103.8 103.9 105.0 107.0 108.9

100.0 102.1 107.6 106.6 113.5 129.4 146.0 163.5 170.5 166.7

100.0 109.3 117.6 133.0 151.8 168.1 188.4 203.0 207.3 217.0

100.0 106.7 124.0 121.1 140.6 166.9 207.9 244.8 253.5 272.6

Source: National Police Agency of Japan 2 ( 004).

The private security industry in Japan In common with other countries discussed in this volume, the public police in Japan do not have a monopoly on policing activity. Japanese society has long accommodated a sizeable and visible private security sector. Private guards in various uniforms can be readily seen in shopping centres, offices, residential compounds, train stations, airports, construction sites and so on. The list could go on endlessly. The first private security company in Japan was established around 1962. As the 1960s progressed, vast numbers of private security personnel were being employed mainly for the guarding of offices and factories and traffic control at construction sites. High economic growth brought about a shortage of human resources and many corporations were forced to contract out their in-house security. Not only was the period one of intense economic expansion, but it also included the staging of the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, which generated further opportunities for the emergent industry M ( iyazawa 1991). Initially, there was little controversy surrounding the activities of the private security sector, although some episodes of misconduct such as thefts by guards were reported. However, in the early 1970s, there were many cases where the legitimacy of the use of the private security guards came to be questioned, when local city halls and some companies hired private security guards to end industrial disputes. In extreme cases, security guards injured demonstrators and minor stockholders opposing the majority at general stockholder meetings. Consequently, the National Police Agency found it necessary to intervene and a legal framework to regulate the industry was the result, as will be discussed shortly.

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According to the most recent government figures, the number of private security guards in Japan has been steadily rising over the last decade, reaching a combined figure approaching double the size of the public police establishment in 2003 (Table 11.2). It is not just the numerical size of the industry that is worthy of attention. The economic activity of the private security sector has been constantly expanding. Total sales of the industry in 2003 reached 3,222 billion yen (US$ 30.6 billion) 1, 17.2 per cent up from the previous year’s sales of 2,750 billion yen (US$ 26 billion). This figure relates to manned guarding activities only. The Association of Manufacturers of Security Equipment (Shadanhojin Bohan Setsubi Kyokai), representing providers of such commodities as security alarms and CCTV systems, announced that its sales in 2003 were approximately 660 billion yen (US$ 6 billion), more than double those for the previous year. It should be noted that this is based on the sales of six specified items only, so it could be argued that this figure significantly under-represents the real growth in demand for such equipment by organizations and private individuals. However, in total, the sales of the private security sector (excluding private investigators, etc.) easily surpassed 3,400 billion yen (US$ 32 billion). By comparison, in the fiscal year of 2003 the state budget for Japan’s police was 3,637 billion yen (US$ 34.6 billion). Table 11.3 indicates the profile of companies providing security guards in Japan. While it can be seen that the number of companies involved in service provision has declined in recent years, the majority of providers are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with a quarter of companies being staffed by fewer than five guards.

Table 11.2 Number of private security companies and guards in Japan2 1996 Number of companies Total number of guards f(ull-time) p ( art-time)

1998

1999

9,122

9,350

9,722

377,140

392,624

401,011

406,109 3 ( 06,935) 9 ( 9,174)

2000 Number of companies Total number of guards f(ull-time) p ( art-time)

1997

8,669

2001

2002

2003

9,900

9,452

9,463

9,131

422,851

446,703

436,810

459,305

3 ( 19,512) 1 ( 03,339)

3 ( 41,264) 1 ( 05,439)


3 ( 38,710) 9 ( 8,030)

3 ( 58,607) 1 ( 00,698)

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Table 11.3 Number of guards employed per company Number of security guards

Number of companies

Percentage

Less than 5 5–9 10–19 20–29 30–49 50–99 100–499 500–999 More than 1000

2299 977 1603 1028 1270 1091 774 53 36

25.2 10.7 17.6 11.3 13.9 11.9 8.5 0.6 0.4


An industry that consisted of 775 companies employing 41,146 guards in 1972 has grown into something of an embedded feature of contemporary Japanese society. We will consider some of the explanations for its growth below, but first let us outline the regulatory framework. Regulation of private security The Private Security Industry Act (Keibigyoho) came into force in 1972, subsequently undergoing major amendment twice in 1982 and 2004. The private security activities regulated under the Act are contract manned guarding against theft and accidents that could lead to bodily harm, including surveillance through systems operated by a staffed surveillance station. Production, provision and installation of security alarms are all excluded from the Act’s remit, as are private investigators, in-house security staff, locksmiths and security consultants. The reasons for the Act’s revision in 1982 mainly concerned the variable quality of private security services and developments in security equipment: some companies were revealed to have connections with organized crime groups (yakuza), and false reports to the police were increasing due to improper handling of security alarm systems. Since 1983, the industry has received comprehensive supervision by the public police, the NPA being the responsible regulatory agency. The Private Security Industry Act specifies a number of ineligibility criteria that are used to ‘screen out’ would-be owners or directors of private security companies as well as security guards. A person (1)who is declared to be incompetent, (2) who served imprisonment within the previous five years or whose suspended sentence expired within the last five years, (3) who violated the Act or committed any other grave offence concerning private security duties, (4)who is assumed to be habitually violent or engages

228


in gang violence, (5) who is addicted to alcohol, illegal drugs, or who is mentally ill, (6) who is unlikely to appoint a certified private security trainer, cannot become an owner or a director on the board of a private security company. If all the above conditions are cleared, a company will receive a licence from the relevant prefectural Public Safety Commission. This licence is valid for five years. A person falling into any of the categories 1 ( )to 5 ( )cannot lawfully become a security guard. The Act contains some interesting provisions, which underline that the private security sector is a ‘junior partner’ in policing activity, by strictly limiting its policing powers. Article 8 states that private security companies and security guards should take notice that they are not vested with any special power by the Act. Article 10 specifies that in cases where the Public Safety Commission considers it necessary in the maintenance of public safety, security guards are prohibited from carrying even self-defence equipment. As an interpretation of this article, most prefectural Public Safety Commission regulations state that private security guards cannot carry metal shields or batons or the like. However, metal batons smaller than 60 cm in length, 3 cm in diameter and weighing less than 320 g may be carried. This size is the same as the standard issue baton used by the police. However, even this type of baton can only be carried in exceptional circumstances. The quality of private security services must be seen to be of a high standard, otherwise this would tarnish the good image of the Japanese public police as de facto regulators of the industry. Article 11 of the Act stipulates that security guards should receive designated training and that security companies must provide it. Security guards have to go through an initial 15hour training programme and subsequently undergo three hours of training every six months. In addition, Article 11.2 states that the prefectural Public Safety Commission can accredit private security guards with specialist knowledge and ability. To this end the Commission can implement official examinations. In accordance with this Article, four kinds of certification can be obtained. These are airport duty, traffic control, nuclear fuel transport duty and cash and valuables transport duty. Each certificate has firstand second-class grading depending on its requirements. Another area where plural policing is very much in evidence in Japan is in the policing of festivals (matsuri) and other major civic events. Historically crowd control at these kinds of event has been considered to be the responsibility of the sponsor or promoter. The public police simply required that a policing plan be submitted to them by the sponsor or promoter and seldom involved themselves deeply in crowd policing. As can be seen from Table 11.4, the police dispatch on average one police officer for a crowd of 1,300–1,400 people. Public police presence is therefore more symbolic than practical. Typically there has been little co-ordination between the public police and the private security guards or volunteers involved in controlling the event. However, a recent tragic accident opened up

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Table 11.4 The total number of police officers mobilized and total annual crowd size

Size of crowd i(n thousands) Number of officers mobilized (in thousands)

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

710,152

710,017

702,050

668,872

657,197

510

513

547

523

512

Source: National Police Agency 2 ( 004)

the debate on the quality of private security and the effectiveness of public police supervision over the industry in relation to crowd control. In July 2001, hundreds of spectators fell over a footbridge during a fireworks display, resulting in 247 injuries and 11 deaths. Subsequently, in December 2004 a police officer and a director of a private security company were sentenced to imprisonment for two-and-a-half years. The charge against them was homicide by misadventure. This was the first time that a Japanese police officer had been held criminally liable in relation to an accident occurring during crowd event policing. In this case, the police had had riot police deployed in the area surrounding the venue, but did not mobilize them, considering that policing within the event space itself was the responsibility of the promoter. The promoter, the local city hall, had hired a private security company but did not instruct them in detail. The private security company planned the policing of the event, but merely relied on a copy of a plan used in the past. After the prosecution of the police officer concerned, the National Police Agency sent a circular to all prefectural police headquarters instructing that forces should in future appoint an officer above the rank of inspector to provide guidance on crowd policing plans produced by the private policing sector. At the same time, the Agency confirmed that guiding event promoters in planning crowd policing, as well as planning their own policing contingencies for such events, are now to be interpreted as the public police’s legal duty. The 2004 revision of the Private Security Industry Act further aimed to uplift the quality of private security guard services by obligating Public Security Commission to provide additional training opportunities in this area. As mentioned earlier, one part of the plural policing patchwork that is currently not regulated is Japan’s apparently burgeoning private investigation industry. Recent police estimates suggest that there are well over 5,000 private detective agencies in Japan, while the National Investigators Association of Japan (NIAJ) believe there may be more than 10,000 M ( cNeill 2004). To illustrate the growth of this sector, the Galu Detective Agency began as a four-person operation in 1990, to become an 800-strong nationwide franchise fifteen years later. In a country where the divorce rate

230


has been rising, much of the PI industry’s work is centred on relationship break-ups (wakare saseya). However, it would appear that locating missing persons, often bankrupts or bad debtors, also accounts for a sizeable proportion of their workload. As with the private security industry a quarter of a century earlier, there have been a number of scandals, in this instance involving blackmail, breaches of privacy and links between detective agencies and organized crime. As a result pressure for a nationwide licensing system has grown considerably, attracting cross-party support in the Diet (Japan’s parliament), and indeed the Japan Investigative Business Association (Nihon Chosagyo Kyokai)has been lobbying for legislation to curtail the activities of the shadier operators o(Yshida 2005).

Explaining the growth of commercial security in Japan In explaining the growth of commercial security in Japan, how applicable are Western academic arguments to the Japanese context? Shearing and Stenning (1983: 46)have argued that the rapid increase in m ‘ ass private property’, a phenomenon peculiar to capitalist economies, has promoted the growth of the private security industry. As Jones and Newburn (1998)argue, the Americanized shopping mall is becoming common on the other side of the Atlantic, and this is also the case on the other side of the Pacific, although so-called superstores are not as popular in Japan. According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry in 1998, while the proportion of the retail outlets staffed with fewer than four clerks was declining between 1988 and 1997, the proportion staffed with more than ten clerks rose from 6.5 per cent in 1988 to 10.5 per cent in 1997. During the period between 1991 and 1997, the total number of retail outlets showed a constant decline, while the number of larger-scale retail outlets increased by around 15,000. Retail shops in Japan now enjoy not only bigger floor space but also longer operating hours. The number of retail outlets operating more than 16 hours increased by slightly less than 20 per cent between 1994 and 1997. Retail outlets with greater floor space and longer operating hours are more likely to contract out their in-store security and equip themselves with security alarms and CCTV surveillance systems. Japan’s ubiquitous 7–11 type franchised small corner shops are especially well kitted out with security appliances as recommended by the public police and their headquarters start-up plans. Obviously the ‘mass private property’thesis does apply to Japan, albeit not exactly in the context of property with the physical magnitude of its North American counterparts. Bayley and Shearing (1996)have emphasized that the deep distrust of big government in the North American legal culture is mirrored by mistrust of the public police. Their proposition is that citizens opt for smaller government where possible and that this tendency articulates well with the development of the private security industry. Is it possible to detect that

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degree of distrust in Japanese society in 1970s and 1980s when the private security industry was growing significantly year on year?The answer is in the negative. As mentioned earlier, Bayley (1976)himself was astonished by the amicable relationship between police and local community in Japan and singled it out as the clue to successful policing. According to Tanaka (1980), Japanese trust in the police as protectors of civil liberty was actually quite high in those days. The self-confidence among the police force was also high. Ames (1981: 1)observed that t‘(h ) e Japanese police pride themselves on being the world’s best’. However, as has already been suggested, in contemporary Japanese society, these sentiments no longer have the same resonance. It is becoming apparent that more and more Japanese – including senior Japanese police officials – consider that responsibility for community safety cannot be left solely in the hands of the public police. According to a survey conducted by the National Police Agency (National Police Agency of Japan 2004), 3 94.9 per cent of respondents considered that community safety cannot be maintained only by the police. To complement this perceived policing vacuum, 78.3 per cent of respondents opted for ‘self-protection’, 51.6 per cent thought it would be useful to extend crime prevention activities by volunteers, 47.7 per cent urged other administrative organizations to share the burden, 42.3 per cent relied on crime prevention education in schools and workplaces, 33.3 per cent demanded crime-resistant urban planning, and 28.6 per cent thought expansion in home security systems to be important.4 Apparently Japanese people now show no reluctance to rely on the services of the private security sector and this marked change in attitude towards personal security could be a hidden driver behind the steady expansion of the private security industry in Japan. Jones and Newburn (1998: 98)have pointed out that there is a widely accepted understanding that fiscal constraint has led directly to the rebirth of private security. This proposition might be expected to apply to contemporary Japan where the budget on the police has been decreasing. In the fiscal year of 2000, the budget on the police in Japan was approximately 3,864 billion yen. In the fiscal year of 2003, it dropped by more than 5 per cent to 3,637 billion yen. However, during the same period the number of security guards was fluctuating and the number of private security companies was decreasing as Table 11.5 indicates. It is hard to draw firm conclusions from these figures. As can be seen, economic growth and rising crime cannot be isolated as single causal factors in the industry’s expansion. Even in years when the number of crime reports was relatively unchanged, both the number of private security companies and guards were exhibiting a steady rise. Likewise, in the years of and immediately following the collapse of Japan’s b ‘ ubble economy’, the industry still continued to expand, despite the economic downturn. Similarly, the Japanese situation does not sit easily with the proposition that fiscal constraint necessarily leads to further growth in the private policing

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Table 11.5

Number of crime reports since 1970 and number of private security companies and guards since 1975

Year

Number of crime reports

Number of companies

Number of guards

1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2001 2002 2003

1,279,787 1,234,307 1,357,461 1,607,697 1,636,628 1,782,944 2,443,470 2,735,612 2,853,739 2,790,136

n/a 1,682 2,907 4,009 5,633 8,154 9,900 9,452 9,463 9,131

n/a 71,333 113,527 170,023 246,970 358,416 422,851 446,703 436,810 459,305

Source: National Police Agency of Japan

sector. In addition, as has already been stated, in spite of the decrease in the national police budget, police officer establishment has actually increased by thousands every year since 2002 (4,500 in 2002, 4,000 in 2003, 3,150 in 2004), with the aim of putting more police officers in the community. This means, at least at street level, Japanese society should be experiencing more visible police patrolling and, arguably, feeling less insecure. Therefore, while it is difficult to draw any firm conclusion from the figures presented above, it is the case that academic arguments from the West do have some validity in explaining the rise of the Japanese private security industry, even if they do not fit perfectly with the Japanese situation. The answer to the recent expansion in the sector may be closely associated with the nature and extent of the public police’s workload. It may therefore be useful to consider the functioning of the koban system, which hitherto has been regarded as something of a community policing exemplar.

Municipal policing: time to re-evaluate the koban system? Notwithstanding the size of the manned guarding sector, in the Japanese context, municipal policing – in terms of the patrol function – is synonymous with Japan’s emblematic koban system. The koban police box is the smallest unit in the public police organization. It has been estimated that in urban areas you are never more than seven blocks away from one, and in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police area almost a quarter of all police personnel are posted in koban, the vast majority holding police officer (junsa)and police sergeant (junsabucho) rank. Traditionally koban officers are referred to as omawarisan, an affectionate but respectful title that means literally h ‘ onourable Mr/s go-around’. Koban vary in size and construction, blending in

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where they can, especially in shopping and enertainment districts and in close proximity to railway stations. The t‘ ypical’ koban is a two-storey building with resting facilities upstairs and an office below, staffed on a 24hour basis by officers working on either a three- or four-shift rota.5 As has already been discussed, the system has long been portrayed in celebratory terms, renowned for its friendly ‘service to the citizen’orientation, and regarded as an unquestioned model of reassurance policing. This long promoted thesis has emphasized the image of friendly omawarisan dispensing directions and advice, patrolling on foot and pedal cycles, visiting households, shops and business premises on their beat and maintaining uniquely close contact with their local community, thus exerting a positive influence on both crime control and fear of crime levels (Aldous and Leishman 2000). However, the official Attitude Survey on Police Boxes and Residential Police Substations (Kokumin no koban chuzai ni kansuru ishiki chosa) conducted by the National Police Agency in 2004 revealed otherwise. Regarding local koban officers, about 85 per cent of respondents neither knew their names nor recognized their faces. One in seven (14 per cent)respondents did not even know where the nearest koban to their residence was, while fewer than a quarter (23 per cent) of respondents were s‘ atisfied’ with the policing service provided by koban. Among the reasons cited for dissatisfaction were lack of patrol (62.6 per cent); often no officer present in koban 3 ( 8.7 per cent) a( phenomenon referred to in Japan as e‘ mpty koban’ ( aki koban);) lack of home visits by officers (23.2 per cent) and incapability in problem-solving by police (16.5 per cent). Field research conducted on koban in Tokyo during 2002–2003, by researchers including the first-named author of this chapter, identified a number of issues surrounding the current use of the system that appear to reduce the time spent on patrol and thus the visible presence of police officers on the street, and may also explain to some degree the evident decrease in public confidence and satisfaction. Firstly, there appeared to be an over-concentration by officers on timeconsuming non-emergency matters. The Japanese police have long promoted the koban as a kind of citizen service centre and, from the fieldwork, it appeared that this self-appointed image has become a serious restraint on the everyday operation of the koban in terms of its patrol function. To uphold the people-friendly image, officers observed responded to every kind of non-emergency request, including providing detailed directions to restaurants, handling lost and found property and even ringing up credit card companies to cancel lost/stolen cards on behalf of customers. During the research, such requests were never denied. In so doing, the officers seemed to be sacrificing patrol time. By generating so many calls for non-emergency assistance, the koban can be viewed as absorbing a disproportionate amount of policing time. Secondly, morale among koban officers appeared rather low. There are several reasons for this. The koban is regarded as a place that one should

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just pass through occasionally in one’s career path. Normally if an officer is promoted to a higher rank, they will be posted initially to a koban. One senior police officer interviewed said that almost 90 per cent of newly promoted officers would receive such an assignment. The underlying rationale is t‘ o experience from time to time the most important job in the police force and keep one’s state of mind afresh’. However, police officers stated that ‘good ones’ will soon ‘go up’ to the police station and ‘work inside’. During the research, seemingly ‘good ones’ were stationed in koban only for several months. Another reason affecting morale is that koban officers, although fully vested with the legal powers of a sworn officer, are virtually not supposed to exercise these to their full extent. Inside the Japanese police, there seems to be tacit understanding that koban officers are inferior to officers i‘nside’in terms of their legal knowledge. Therefore, koban officers cannot apprehend anyone without permission from i‘nside’, which generally means officers in the criminal investigation division. Sometimes they are not allowed even to discuss their legal judgment openly or report cases in detail. This understanding, concerning the power balance between uniformed koban officers and detectives appeared from the fieldwork to be shared among groups s( uch as delinquent youths)who have frequent contact with the police force. Because koban officers are habitually prohibited from exercising their discretion over the use of their policing powers, as a matter of fact, they voluntarily withhold such power even when its use might be deemed necessary or desirable. Lastly, the effectiveness of Japanese policing on the street could be diminishing for another reason as well: the Japanese police population – like Japanese society generally – is rapidly ageing. According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Force (Table 11.6), the biggest age bracket among the force was 51 to 55, and the second largest from 46 to 50 as of 1 April 2003. As the Japanese police have (so far)no early-retirement package and firing public servants is rare in Japan, most police officers remain in the force until the compulsory retirement age of 60. Some older police officers are no longer fit for certain policing duties such as street patrol due to their weakened physical condition. In addition, they may tend to employ an old-fashioned rather confrontational style towards the public that could lead to trouble. Older rank-and-file police officers also have limited or no re-training opportunities. During the field research, seemingly younger officers were observed to take on more duties partly as a consequence of these two reasons. As a conclusion to this section, the current operation of koban appears to have had certain adverse effects on Japanese public policing and levels of confidence in it. Officers stationed in koban do not fully exercise the policing powers conferred upon them, and frequently they cannot be out on patrol mainly due to the koban’s self-appointed image, as a kind of ‘omnibus’service centre. At the same time, when officers are out on patrol and away from their posts, there is widespread public dissatisfaction with

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Table 11.6 Age profile of Tokyo Metropolitan Police officers (1 April 2003) Age

Number of officers

18–20 21–25 26–30 31–35 36–40 41–45 46–50 51–55 56–60 Total

389 3,115 5,092 4,221 4,787 5,056 6,942 8,141 3,471 41,214 officers

Source: Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department

the e‘ mpty koban’ phenomenon. We would suggest that it is time to reappraise the merits and demerits of the koban system. At least it could be argued that having so many small unit police stations does not necessarily increase the visibility of public policing in Japanese streets, and could actually be contributing to the further development of and demand for the services of the private security industry.

Facing the future: the (re)emergence of responsibilization Traditionally, Japan has been viewed as a socially cohesive, orderly and virtually self-policing society. However, changing family, lifestyle and work patterns, not to mention increased social mobility and urban anonymity have made it difficult for koban officers to retain the continuity of contact that may once have been possible. Nowadays, it cannot be denied that Japan cannot function without private policing services, and continued changes in Japanese society, not least its rapidly ageing population, may well accelerate this tendency. People see public police officers patrolling less and less frequently and this could have heightened the general sense of ambient insecurity that now seems as palpable in Japan as in other jurisdictions discussed in this volume. Public scepticism about the capacity of the public police to protect them has led to the purchase of private security equipment and services to fill the vacuum. The public police too are increasingly turning to technology to plug perceived gaps in service provision, such as the installation of videophones in police posts to ameliorate the aki koban situation (Japan Times, 23 November 2003). As private policing becomes further embedded in Japanese society and replaces areas of public policing, ironically, as we have seen, the public police have acquired a new set of tasks, namely the policing of private policing. It

236


would appear that, in Japan as elsewhere, when the public police endeavour to load-shed, some time down the line, they will end up l‘oad-loading’. Concerns regarding privacy and illegal use of surveillance technology by sections of the private detective industry in Japan will inevitably lead to new legislation, further adding to the public police’s regulatory workload in the near future. Mobilizing and utilizing latent and existing policing power more effectively is an important theme in contemporary Japan, a prominent strand of which relates to ‘responsibilization’ and partnership initiatives. The 2004 Fiscal White Paper for Japan was subtitled The life and community that can be improved by solidarity among people – the road to the new concept of public services (Japan Times, May 22, 2004). This document calls for greater co-operation between local government and the not-for-profit sector and maps out an agenda for increased community service by ordinary members of the public. In relation to crime prevention and community safety, there is considerable evidence of the public police in Japan actively encouraging citizens to assume more responsibility for their own security. There are estimated to be around 2,000 volunteer citizen patrol groups in Japan, including even one media report of a stable of Sumo wrestlers undertaking nightly crime patrols in the high-crime Edogawa district of Tokyo (Karube 2004). The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department even uploaded its crime-mapping system on to its website (www.keishicho.metro.tokyo.jp)in an effort to make citizens more aware of crime hotspots and provide them with useful risk management information. Much of the discussion of policing in Japan has tended for too long to focus on the ‘uniqueness’ of its situation and in particular of the koban. However, it is apparent that, while acknowledging its distinctive cultural characteristics, many of the issues surrounding the plurality of Japan’s policing patchwork clearly have a strong resonance with the policing challenges facing other developed countries in Europe, America and Australasia s( ee for example Newburn 2002). The inclusion of Japan in future comparative research on community safety and plural policing can only benefit the pursuit of shared understanding and solutions, in our increasingly globalized and interconnected world.

Notes 1 2

3

Approximately 1 US dollar =105 yen Keisatsu-cho or National Police Agency (2004) Keisatsu-hakusho or White Paper on Police, p. 96, Keisatsu-cho Seikatsu-Anzen-kyoku Seikatsu-AnzenKikaku-ka or National Police Agency Community Safety Division (2004)Heisei 15 nen ni okeru Keibigyo no Gaikyo or General Situation surrounding the Private Security Industry. K ‘ okumin no Kouban Chuzai ni kansuru Ishiki Chosa or The Attitude Survey on the Police Box and Residential Police Substation. The survey was conducted in March 2004 and the number of the respondents was 2,148.

Japan 4 5

237

Multiple choice question Four shifts are adopted only in Tokyo because policing duty is so heavy there.

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Tanaka, S. (1980) Shimin-hogaku no Keisei to Tenkai, Tokyo: uYhikaku. oYshida, R. (2005)L ‘ DP moving to clamp down on private eyes’, Japan Times, 20 March.

Index

African governance: complex pattern 195–7; state-directed decentralization 195 Albuquerque, C. V. 147 anti-social behaviour policing 46 armoured couriers 21 Australia 169, 187–8; crime rates 170–71; diversification 185; privatization 185–6 Australia, private/public security services 174–80; growth statistics 174–6; historical context 169–71; licensing system 176–7, 178–9 Tables; outsourcing 179–80; public sector security 177 Australia, specialist agencies 180–85; anti-corruption 181, 183–5; environmental protection 181; equity 181; impact 187; National Crime Authority 180, 185; targets/functions 180–81, 182–3 Table; units/programmes 185 Australia, state policing 171–4; community policing 171; corruption 172–3, 181, 183; critiques 186–7; executive independence 172; female recruitment 173–4; outsourcing 179–80; personnel 171 Table; problem-orientated policing 171–2 Australian Federal Police 170 Australian Protective Service 177, 179 autonomous non-state auspices 191, 192–3 auxiliary officers 37, 46 Baker, B. 195 Bayley, D. 9, 224, 230, 231 Bittner, E. 102, 106 border guards/special guards 81–2 Bordua, D. 105 Braithwaite, P. 193 Brazil 139, 163–5; historical context 140–42; levels of crime 140–41; municipal involvement 153; national

security plans 153; nongovernmental bodies 152–3; penal populism 139; punishment mentality 159, 163–4 Brazil, private security 153–8; car armouring 154–5; death squads/extra-judicial killings 158–60; employment 155–7; gated communities 161–3; growth rate 154; regulation 155, 157–8, 164–5; segregation/fortification 160–61 Brazil, public policing 142–7; democratization 146–7; effectiveness 143–4; federal police 142; and human rights 145–6; MinistÈrio P˙blico 151–2; municipal police 143; national security plans 153; ouvidorias 150–51; regulation 147–52, 164–5; state military police 142–3, 148–9 Button, M. 40 Caldeira, T. P. R. 140 Canada 126; contract proposals 136; public private policing 135–7; recruitment of women 135 Canada, private security 134–5; oversight 134–5; statistics 135 Canada, quasi-state bodies 130–34; business improvement areas/associations 133–4; Canadian Air Transport Security Authority 131–3; Corps of Commissioners 130–31, 132 Fig., 133; paid duty policing 133–4 Canada, state policing 126–30; expenditure 127–30; First Nations policing 127; levels 126–7; municipal forces 127; officer numbers 127–8; regionalization 128–9, see also Royal Canadian Mounted Police car armouring 154–5 Castells, M. 212, 215

240

Index

centralization/decentralization: national contraints 72–4; state-directed decentralization 195; UK 36 Chevigny, P. 141 civilianization 4 commercial security 4, 6 commodification 4 common law comparisons see roman law community policing: Australia 171; France 74; UK 37; US 109, 112–13 community safety 74; Japan 231 community support officers 37 Confederation of European Security Services 23 corruption 172–3, 181, 183–5 Crawford, A. 41 criminology, comparative analysis 2 Cunningham, W. 111 death squads/extra-judicial killings 158–60 decentralization see centralization/decentralization Drahos, P. 193, 194 Drucker, P. 193 Dutch Police Monitor 2003 16 environmental protection 181 Ericson, R. 51 European Unionsecurity services 23 extra-judicial killings 158–60 female recruitment 135, 173–4; gender, employment growth by 69 fortification 160–61 Fourth World 215 France 55, 74–5; public/private, comparisons 62–4; public/private, growth comparisons 65–6 France, private security: age, employment growth by 68–9; agents under state control 60–61; community safety role 74; companies 61–2; constraints on privatization 73; educational level, employment growth by 70–71; foreign nationals 71–2; gender, employment growth by 69; geographical distribution, employment growth by 70–71; occupational classifications 59–60; risk assessment role 73–4; status, employment growth by 66–8; trends 64–5

France , public policing: dualistic structure 55–6; gendarmerie 57; inquisitorial context 56; municipal police 57–8; national police 56–7; proximity policing 58–9 gated communities 161–3 Geller, W. 113, 118 globalization: of crime 118; and state governance 193 governance see African governance; state governance governmental agencies 4–5 Greece: history 77–8; municipal policing 89–90; state primacy 93–4 Greece, private security: employees 86–7; investigation agencies 87; legislative framework 88–9; structure and size 85–7 Greece, public policing: expenditure 91 Fig ; Financial Crimes Enforcement Unit 83–4; Hellenic Coast Guard 84–5; Internal Affairs Directorate 82–3; Ministry of Public Order 79–80, 81–2, see also Hellenic Police; Hellenic Police Haggerty, K. 51 Heijder, A. 28 Hellenic Police: accountability 79–80, 82–3; border guards/special guards 81–2; implementation of amalgamation 80–82; officers 86 Table; political background 78–9; primary role 90–93, see also Greece, public policing; Greece, public policing Hobbes, Thomas 190 Holston, J. 140 Hoogenboom, A. B. 18 Howard, John 185 Huggins, M. K. 163, 164 human rights 145–6 Japan 222; responsibilization 235–6 Japan, private security: and community safety 231; companies/guards 226 Table, 227 Table; crime reports 232 Table; economic factors 231–2; reasons for growth 230–32; regulation 227–30; size of industry 225–7 Japan, public policing 222–4; establishment figures 223; image

Index

241

shift 224; koban system 222, 224, 232–5; municipal 232–5; Occupation reforms 222–3; workload changes 224, 225 Table Johnston, L. 50, 192 Jones, T. 51, 230, 231

nodal governance: multi-nodal environment 212–13; nodal levels 194, 196–7; state governance 214–15 nodal levels 194, 196–7 Norris, C. 39

Kaldor, M. 140 Klockars, C. 106 koban system 222, 224, 232–6

Odom, H. 116 Olowu, D. 191 ontological insecurity 8

Lane, R. 104 Lino, P. R. 147 Loader, I. 4, 212–14

Paes-Machado, E. 147 Papakonstantis, G. V. 80 Patten Commission 213 Peel model 99, 105 penal populism 139 pluralization: comparative analysis 1–3; definitions 1, 4–5; responses 8–10; and state governance 191–2; trends 6–8 policing: definition 3–4; resources 6–8 policing commissions 213–15 popular policing 205–7 private governments 192–3 privatization 44–5; Australia 185–6; France 185–6; national contexts 72–4; UK 44–5 problem-orientated policing 171–2 public auxiliaries 37, 46 public policing, resources 6–8 punishment mentality 159, 163–4

Macauley, F. 147–52 Macauley, S. 191, 192 Maguire, E. 103 mass private property 7–8, 230 meta-regulation 191 Miller, P. 191 Minnaar, A. 203 Monbiot, G. 193 Morris, N. 113, 118 municipal policing: France 57–8; Greece 89–90; Netherlands 24; UK 45; US 98 neighbourhood wardens 46 neo-liberalism 7, 191, 192 Netherlands: city wardens 23; coodination/integration 28–30; municipal policing, regulatory bodies 24; neighbourhood watches 24; regulatory/investigative bodies 25–8; special police forces 24–5; state intelligence services 25 Netherlands, police: accountability/control 14–16; income generation 18; Internal Investigation Department 15–16; organization 12–14; outsourcing 17–18; public satisfaction 16; reforms 16–18; regional boards 14–15 Netherlands, private security 18–19; armoured couriers 21; central alarm respondents 20–21; functions/size/scale 19; private investigators 21–2; regulation systems 22–3; security guards 19–20; technical equipment services 21 networks of policing 50–52 Newburn, T. 51, 230, 231 Noakes, L. 51

regionalization: Canada 128–9; Netherlands 14–15; UK 36 regulation 147–52, 155, 157–8, 164–5 regulatory state 191 Reiss, A. J. 105, 106 responsibilization 235–6 Richman, D. 120 risk assessment 73–4 roman law: common law comparisons 72–3; inquisitorial context 56 Rose, N. 191 Royal Canadian Mounted Police 126–30; local/provincial contracts 127, 129, see also Canada, state policing rule-at-a-distance 191 segregation/fortification 160–61 Shearing, C. 7–8, 9, 50, 111, 192–3, 230 Shearing, L. 192 Sherman, L. W. 105

242

Index

Simula, P. 62–4 social policy, neo-liberalization 7 South Africa, integration of policing 208; Cape Town CID 210–212; networked assemblages 208–210 South Africa, municipal services 199–201, see also South African Police Service; state governance South Africa, private security: popular policing 205–7; regulation 204–5; sector activities 203–4; size/scale 202–3, 204 Fig ; state directives/insecurity 201–2; unauthorized 205–7 South African Police Service 197–9; civilian/political direction 197–8; community policing 198; internal challenges 199; performance culture 198–9; size/composition 199 state governance 190–94; autonomous non-state auspices 191, 192–3; indirect 190–91; multi-nodal environment 212–13; nodal governance 214–15; non-binary conceptions 193–4; and pluralization 191–2; private governments 192–3 Stenning, P. 7–8, 192–3, 230 Tanaka, S. 231 Taylor, T. 111 translation thesis 195 United Kingdom 34; anti-social behaviour policing 46; local authority investigation/enforcement roles 47; municipal policing 45; neighbourhood wardens 46; networks of policing 50–52; patrol services 45; public auxiliaries 37, 46; special police forces 48–50 United Kingdom, private security 37; employment/firms/market size 40–41, 42 Table; explanations for sector growth 43–5; investigation 39–40; privatization 44–5; regulation 42–3; security equipment 39; staffed services 38–9 United Kingdom, public policing 34–7; auxiliary officers 37, 46; centralization trends 36; civilianization 37; community support officers 37; jurisdictions 35–6; popular support 35; regional forces 36; trends 41–2

United States 98, 120–21; case priority 119; globalization of crime 118; hierarchy of resort 119–20; integration of policing forms 118–20; Office of Homeland Security Funding 107; private/public balance 107, 111–12; zero tolerance/crackdowns 109 United States, federal agencies 113–14; functions 117–18; internal obligations 116; reorganization, post 9/11 114; sanctions 114–16, 117; specific remits 115 United States, municipal police 106–7; community policing 109, 112–13; crime control/prevention 109; differential stops 108; Office of Homeland Security Funding 107; policing-regulatory groups 113; private/public functions 107; and technology 108; zero tolerance/crackdowns 109 United States, police system 98–9; accountability issues 104–6; civilianization 103; definitions 99–100; demand-led 101–2; employment trends 102–4; estimation of numbers 100; ethnic composition 105; features 98–102; localization 99, 103–4; organization issues 104–6; political issues 104–5; powers 100–101; role of violence 101; salary structure 100; telecommunication links 101, 105; transnational policing 106; types of police 102; variety within organization 103 United States, private security 110–113; composition/mode changes 112; personnel trends 110–111; private/public balance 107, 111–12; semi-private space 111 vigilantism 205–7 Wacquant, L. 141 Wakefield, A. 44 Walker, S. 106 Weber, Max 190 women recruitment 135, 173–4; gender, employment growth by 69 zero tolerance/crackdowns 109

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