Private Policing
Private Policing
Introduction
The reasons for increase in private police are: there has been an increase in mass private property, communities that are gated and shopping malls. The other reason is that those people with property have an increased fear in crime and the government is unwilling to money on protection of the police. This fear of crime among people with property was accelerated by from change from authoritarian rule to democratic rule. Thirdly, a higher priority on patrol that is visible has been placed by private police than public police and this help in deterring crime through their presence. (Chaiken, 1987).
Discussion
Private policing has various advantages which include; decrease in rates of crimes, public police has been spurred by the private police to improve their services and this has happened through competition, another benefit is that private police patrols presence frees up the public police and they can be able to be involved in activities of crime fighting that are more specialized. There are also disadvantages of private police which include: there is a possibility of division of the nation in two camps i.e. the poor and the wealthy. The wealthy have the ability to prevent themselves from crime employing private police while the poor have to depend on the services that are limited of the public police.
Another disadvantage is that traditional boundaries have been blurred by private policing between the private and the public space, the private businesses and communities invite the public police in their property and require them to enforce infractions of law which is that are petty and that would usually not be a concern to them. Another area of concern is private police lack of public accountability. There are familiar and formal mechanisms that are in existence around the world to ensure that the public police are accountable of their action but the mechanisms of accountability for the private police are not understood well and usually emanate from private institutions and not public institutions. (Reiss, 1988).
Private policing embraces an array of an arrangement of protective services that is wide, it includes, investigators of missing persons, meter maids, intelligence gatherers of the industry and union strikebreakers. In South Africa, the industry of private security consists of five sectors and they include: Guarding, security of in house, Private investigators and consultants of risk management, security of electronic and hardware, and finally the armed response. The guarding sector looks after the commercial and residential buildings, schools, institutions that are governmental, complexes of shopping and protection of goods in transit.
In house security sector is comprised of operations of security within businesses, security of electronic and hardware includes alarms installers and other devices of alarm and finally the armed response puts in place alarms in businesses or homes although in this case, owners of business and home also pay security companies that are private to check on the alarms when there is a detection of signals of alarm to send guards that are armed to the scene. In Mexico, a high increase in cases of assaults spurred the designing and implementation of policies of bank security. A lot of banks have hired private companies to provide security services inside the system of banking. The role of the private police is to guard the bank branches interior. They are not allowed to have any working relationship with clients of bank or public police.
Public police in modern democracies are accountable to different groups in different ways. These groups include; managers of cities, governors, ombudsmen, etc. Through the internal integrity and command structure, they are internally accountable. (Chaiken, 1987). The lines of accountability of public police to control their behavior are grouped into three categories: Internal controls, state control and social control. Internal controls includes policies of behavior, integrity or investigative units, training and administrative oversight. State controls include checks by manager of cities, review boards of citizen complaints legislative committees, criminal prosecution, etc. Social controls include checks by media, suits of civil liability, community organizations oversight and monitors of human rights oversight.
Private police have accountability to their clients e.g. property or business owners while the public police have accountability to the community through structures of the government. Also, private police are accountable to associations of trade through industry standards for qualification of employees or through regulations. Organizations of security that do not conform to standards of the industry may loose their trade organization membership. In bid, there were five mechanisms of internal accountability to control the officer’s behavior and they include: it is a must for officers to pass exams that are written each year as part of review annually and these exams test their code of conduct knowledge and their duties on procedures of patrol. Secondly, merit is granted or denied to the officers on bases of their performance. (Sarre, 1994)
Thirdly, patrol officers are under surveillance of the system of the closed circuit television and s the officers are aware that their activities are observed and that any infractions can be kept and viewed at a later date. Fourthly, complaints against officers are investigated by the assistant director and complaints that are serious are taken to the executive director. Fifthly, the last internal mechanism is that the officers are accountable to the board and public safety committee of BID whereby each of them can review any operation of security aspect. The BID officers have several external accountabilities which include: courts accountability whereby y they are accountable to civil and criminal courts when an officer injures someone or is charged with offenses that are criminal.
Another accountability is that of business services departments whereby these departments review the BID conduct throughout the BID’s life. Clients accountability is whereby the when the clients have complaints, they can go to the headquarters of the BID or district attorneys office. Metro Tech is accountable for corporate clients as well as to the merchants. Another accountability is coverage of the media. Programs of security have accountability to the press. (Reiss, 1988).
In South Africa, the police have internal accountability. The reaction officers are checked by the supervisors to make sure that they are presentable and sober. Before issuing of the guns, they are checked first and then shift instructions are given. A quick action is taken against guards that involve themselves in misconduct. Monthly bonus is lost by officers for small transgressions and careless driving. Transgression that are serious e.g. not adhering to the policy of the company or damage to property or people maliciously result to procedures of disciplines that could lead to dismissal. Sentry company incentive system of rewarding good work. It has award for the officer of the month and award for excellent services.
There is also external accountability where the police are accountable to the public. They are accountable to the market force and to their clients. Market forces accountability is satisfying when the service that is provided has effects on the companies of security and their clients. Companies have set standards that ensure that the public is provided with professional services. The security officers are accountable to the board of security officers. This board deals with complaints about abuses in the industry. Several factors limit the board’s ability to handle the complaints effectively. (Chaiken, 1987).
Security companies have accountability to associations of trade whereby the company must obey various rules and meet certain standards. The trade associations attempts to check and enforce these standards by doing an investigation on the complaints and carrying out random checks. The trade association set standard that is higher than those of board of security officers. The trade association, SAIDSA has high standards that have helped in improving practices in the industry. The security officers have media accountability and there have been many reports of media indicating abuses involving security guards or security companies that are private.
Another accountability of private police is through criminal prosecution whereby the public report the abuses of private security to the police and press charges against the security personnel or the company. Another accountability is through action which is civil. Legal remedies have played a great role in regulating private companies. Another accountability is that of directly to the community. Security companies try their best to create good relationships with the society e.g. involving in police forums in the local community, participation in councils that are composed of local citizens and police that assist the police in settings strategies and priorities. (Sarre, 1994)
In Mexico, the measures to mitigate organizational and institutional liability include: the law of public security which gives instructions to the fiscal police to monitor the administration of PBI. Public security national program is another way of providing accountability of police. It makes the police first to be accountable to their supervisors and then to the corporation of police to which they belong to. The PBI is also under the Act of accountability, of public servants. Also the securities are usually under supervision to control their behavior. To ensure that the guards are well behaved, the managers of branch check on their behaviour.They give punishments to those guards who do not carry out services according to specifications. The banks have established systems of incentives in order to improve the performance of the guards. (Reiss, 1988).
Conclusion
Private police have much accountability. Controls which are governmental play a role which is limited but the private firms are able to develop internal controls. Strong incentives help those firms to prevent their officers to have law suits filed against them and also to avoid embarrassment to their customers. Private security officers are accountable to civil liability, investigation of crime and different requirements of public reporting. There is an importance of aligning external and internal incentives among services of private policing. When this is done, these incentives can be effective in governing the public police behavior. To align those incentives, the government must ensure that the private police employers: provide their officers with training, document a review annually of performance of each officer, are subject in court to civil liability for their officers misconduct, maintain their officers records of their movement and also involve themselves in associations that are professional and that certify the compliance of the firm with the standards of the industry. All these safeguards can enable the police to avoid misconduct. (Chaiken, 1987).
References
Chaiken, M. & Chaiken, J. (1987): Public policing: privately provided. Washington: NIJ.
Reiss, A. (1998): Private employment of public police. Washington: NIJ.
Sarre R. (1994): The legal powers or private police. Australia: Pluto press.
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