Private Security Public or Private

Private Security

Public or Private security system does those things that people do not wish to do for them-selves.

The work of police is constantly hectic, thrilling, unsafe and uninteresting. In any government, police are the most evident sign of power. General public depend on them to carry out a range of tasks, such as capturing criminals, averting crime, protecting the peace, upholding order, deciphering the law, making people feel good, recognizing the answers to various questions, and, on the whole, upholding things in a balanced way. In the words of Ramsey Clark, police officers have to be a "lawyer, scientist, medic, psychologist, athlete, and public servant." (The Police Component of Criminal Justice) According to Egon Bittner, the role of police can be explained as a reaction to something ought not to be happening, and something ought to be done about it right now. As the objective of police is so intimately attached to maintaining the status quo, they are, certainly, a conservative institution.

The fact that victorious achievement of police mission is steering on the way to an peaceful, almost utopian, society of former times, that is, a communal, crime-free society where people resolved minor disagreements serenely between themselves, does not mean that they defend the status quo at all costs or be short of any novelty. It is uncertain if societies like that ever existed, and arguable if the eventual function of policing is to put itself cleaned out; but the position is clear, that is, police are anticipated to do the unfeasible and always do it competently that too with restricted resources and the possibility of becoming a police state should not take place at any point of time. The concept of a free and open society has definite connection with the functions that police carry out. They must at all time be immaculate illustrations of the sensible use of power. The police have many authorities that include the privilege to know more information about general public than the average person needs to know and power to intimidate people around without any rudeness when it is required. The most important measure of how free and open a society is dependent on how intelligently, or sensibly, police use these powers.

However, police use up a lot of time managing routine happenings and poring over paperwork. Actual crime fighting is an exceptional activity, and there exists abundance of unsupervised time that permits for unrestricted decision making. The paradox is the lowest paid employees with the least amount of authority take the most important day-to-day decisions and they do most of the work too. There is a substantial debate over how to make police more efficient, how to use their flexible extra time, and what tasks should be given precedence. As an institute, police have been impermeable to many efforts of improvement. For instance, many people think that the military chain of command structure is dysfunctional for police work because it instigates fear, obstructs communication, and slows down good community relations. Efforts to transform the military structure have met with great confrontation. So far, nothing has been found that works at eliminating the last vestiges of politics from policing. (The Police Component of Criminal Justice) Further due to the increasing needs of security in the modern world, the public security system has been facing enormous challenges in discharging their duties which calls the need for private security system.

Private Security:

The federal, state, tribal and local law enforcement officials have been asked to tackle new demands after the effects of the September 11 attacks and at the same time maintaining the customary anticrime efforts. The law enforcement job has reacted greatly to this situation and that the society is secure today than it was four years ago. But this job is not easy. It has called for law enforcement to search for help and find new methods to safeguard and serve the society. It is significant to note that law enforcement agencies are not the only protective force functioning in towns and cities around the globe. Private-sector security is a huge and essential resource. (Building Partnerships between Private-Sector Security and Public-Sector Police) Private policing is modified policing financed by the guarded organization and not by public money. Many well-to-do areas and peripheries in America also have their own private police force. Private security services are generally categorized as contract or proprietary. Contract security is fee-for-service extra protection, like the one that is given at sporting events or celebrity security during a tour. Proprietary security is the continuous terms of an internal security staff, which work as the companies own security staff. The qualifications and wages of proprietary security personnel are usually higher than those of contract security officers. (The Police Component of Criminal Justice)

Studies on private security force staff show that there may be as many as 10,000 private security agencies having not less than 2 million private security officers in the United States. (Building Partnerships between Private-Sector Security and Public-Sector Police) Approximately, the private security sector is twice as big as the public law enforcement sector. There are four times as many employees, and expenditure is 73% higher than for public law enforcement. It is also an effective area making twice as much a decrease in crime that the public sector is up to. The private security has been categorized as one of the best growing industries in the country by the U.S. Department of Labor. In 1860, the first private agency was started as the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, and at present it has over 4000 separate agencies and a number of more bodyguard-oriented firms like Advance, Globe, Trojan, American Protective Services and Security Bureau. The activities of the big firms are anything from department store loss prevention to shopping mall, hospital and nuclear security. There are about 40,000 private detectors and investigators in the U.S. And an increasing number of bounty hunter firms. The government supports regular investigations of private security by means of reports written by Hallcrest Systems called the Hallcrest Reports. (The Police Component of Criminal Justice)

Obviously, if these data are correct, then private security officers are a huge vital resource that can help law enforcement agencies in satisfying the assignment. Retired police officials also join the private security sector. For instance, one retired FBI agent, a specialist in counterintelligence, is currently working for a detective agency concentrating on employee background checks. An earlier director of a state police agency at present has a security division for a major bank. For instance, the Amtrak Corporation Police Department which is a large, private-sector police force, functions closely with many federal, state, county, and local agencies to make sure of the security of Amtrak's passenger and freight rail lines. In colleges and university campuses, private-sector police and security agencies safeguard millions of stakeholders, and are having joint relationships with the nearby city and county police agencies. Obviously there is enough data at hand to know that private-sector security can bring about a considerable amount of skills and resources to stand on issues like public disorder and terrorism prevention and reaction. (Building Partnerships between Private-Sector Security and Public-Sector Police)

Advantages of Private Security:

Many private security agencies are very sophisticated in their appliance and making the usage of high-end technologies. They also have huge quantities of critical intelligence information. (Building Partnerships between Private-Sector Security and Public-Sector Police) A wide range of small-scale inspection equipments are used by private security firms and are making increased use of new generation equipments on the basis of digital technology and biometrics. This new technology is very much suitable for electronic information storage and retrieval systems. Digital cameras that can supply data directly into a PC, making explorations for specific actions, faces and recognizing features much quicker, easier and even automatic, are used instead of the common video camera. Though they are very costly, biometric technologies, like iris and retina scanners, fingerprint and hand profilers, voice and facial recognition systems, have already found a footing in the security industry. (Security Vs Privacy)

Look at the market for security alarms. In the year 1970 the sales of alarms was enhanced to around 11%. But during the year 1990 the growth of alarm sales increased to 15%. Again while in the year 1970, one percent of the U.S. homes were linked to central alarm systems, this was increased to one in ten homes by the year 1990. And this trend also has increased by 2000. Further the sales of other electronic equipments for the purpose of controlling access, detecting intrusion, and protecting vehicles, in link with closed-circuit television, metal detectors, x-ray devises, and other security technology has also been increased. (The Benefits of Privatized Crime Control)

Kush Wadhwa, European director of the International Biometric Group estimates that as of today, rich people who buys a house spends 25% of the property value on security systems. He states that the conventional methods of home security like an alarm system and doorman are now replaced with more high-technology security. One big cause for the demand on modern hyper security is that a lot of cool stuffs are becoming easily available. Developments in computers have made programming robots easy for non-experts. Security systems can be toggled to holiday mode with a touch of a button to mechanically show the previous two weeks' lighting and curtain movements, showing the existence of owners. Paul Rose, director of U.K. based security firm Icon Connect says that these are extremely complicated behind the scenes, but on the surface it's easy to use. When compared to the earlier days, the security products can be relied. Private homeowners prefer to depend more on devices they can control themselves and depend less on the state to protect them, in an age of terrorism. (Home, Secure Home)

The most deluxe new apartments are now being built with top-of-the-range ultra-modern security systems as a main selling point. At the Knightsbridge, a posh London development opening this autumn, two $36 million penthouses are safeguarded on all sides with infrared motion detectors. In the front doors the owner's body-temperature fingerprints are required to get entry. All mail will be secretly checked for traces of poisons and bomb materials. Robot guards are also made use of. In Japan, Sohgo Security Services has a sample robo cop called Alskok that makes use of infrared beams to find burglars, and then fires them with a paint gun. Tokyo-based Secom has just started leasing out Robot X for $2,700 a month. Robot X, which is a meter tall and 118 kilos, rounds on a set of six strong wheels. If it gets hold of a stranger with its motion detectors, it releases a thick cloud of smoke, roars with prerecorded warnings and can run after the stranger at 10 kilometers per hour through the remote control. Israeli company Steadicopter has just launched a fully mechanical unmanned helicopter, the first to be give to residents. The helicopter, which is 2 meters-long, and 15-kilo in weight copter, which is priced at around $150,000, will be available to the wealthy people mainly in land-rich Australia by the end of the year. Steadicopter uses a software map and can be encoded to make its rounds along certain conduits, at certain heights and at specific times of day, and it sends out live camera recording to a base station. (Home, Secure Home)

Now we shall look at some studies which show the importance attached to private security. A statistical study conducted in the year 1992 which dealt with comparing public and private security in 124 Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas by a senior advisor to the National Institute of Justice-- Edwin Zedlewski, adds to the advantages of the private security system. The study was able to derive the result that adding more resources to private security helped to reduce crimes while adding resources to public security system did not seem to reduce crime. This should not be of any surprise, because private entrepreneurs in comparison to public bureaucrats are under tremendous competitive pressure to find out new methods to improve their products and services, which is inclusive of discovering new methods to build upon community cooperation. Private entrepreneurs and the public whom they work for should deserve much of the credit for reducing crime levels. (The Benefits of Privatized Crime Control) study conducted in the year 1997 was of the opinion that around 24 million Americans lived in limited-access condominiums, apartments and cooperative societies. Apart from that private residential societies which has large amounts of single and/or multiple family homes on private streets, are also significantly provided with security as a single selling point. The 1997 figures consider the amount of people in gated communities of around eight million. What do these customers think that they are getting? The example of Starrett City, which is a huge 153-acre complex in the high-crime East New York section of Brooklyn, enables to understand the popularity of such societies. By the period of the 1980s around 20,000 racially and ethnically diverse communities which were enormously middle-income residents lived in its 5,881 apartment units in 56 buildings. In the year 1986 a study was conducted by Penn State criminologists Edwin Donovan and William Walsh who were of the opinion that Starrett City residents had more chances to report crimes to their security staff than citizens in general are, and still Starrett City had only about 6.57 reported crimes per 1000 population, in comparison to 49.86 for the 75th precinct where Starrett City is situated. During the time of the study, Starrett City had a private security system comprising of 54 people; who included 34 officers having general patrol duties, a 6-officer K-9 unit, and a 5-officer unit which patrolled their area in civilian clothes. Other communities which adopted the private security also have seen real improvement in security. Another example is that of a private security agency in Florida, namely the Critical Intervention Services which provides security to apartment complexes for low-income tenants. The crime dropped by an average of 50% after CIS secured a complex. (The Benefits of Privatized Crime Control)

Disadvantages of Private Security:

In spite of the several advantages associated with private security, it has its disadvantages as well. Affiliation between the private and public sectors have made vast developments in other areas of policing-in the investigation of computer-related crimes. Operation Cooperation, a joint venture between the IACP and the American Society for Industrial Security, has helped explain the likely value found in public-private affiliation. But, there are also some major variations among public- and private-sector security and policing agencies. At both state and national levels, certification and training for public-sector police officers in the past three decades has become both meticulous and consistent. (Building Partnerships between Private-Sector Security and Public-Sector Police)

Public Policing has retained a pattern of training and education that is not offered by the private security industry. (Private Security Vs Public policing which will it be?) Though many excellently qualified people work in private security, the greater part has less training and instruction than public police officers. Inside the ranks of private sector security, there is a broad range of minimally trained and qualified officers at one end, and highly qualified and trained officers at the other. (Building Partnerships between Private-Sector Security and Public-Sector Police) In most states, for instance, to become a private security officer, little more than a weeklong training course and a practical firearms expertise test are required. The average training period for a security guard is four days. This seems to be inadequate when compared to the general training given to public police. Public policing has got a system of in-house and outer inspection, which is not present in the private security industry. (The Police Component of Criminal Justice)