scholarly journals Citizens’ Views of Private Security Guards in Hungary: A Preliminary Analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
László Christián ◽  
Mahesh K. Nalla
Keyword(s):  
Emerging Markets ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Preliminary Analysis ◽  
Private Security ◽  
State Funding ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
The Public ◽  
Security Guards ◽  
The World

One of the features of emerging markets is the potential for an expanded role for the private police – a substitute crime prevention strategy in times of rapid decline in state funding of public police, has become commonplace in countries around the world. While much research has explored the citizens’ assessment of police officers, we know little about how the public perceives private security guards (PSGs). In this paper, we assess the citizens’ perceptions of private security guards. Drawing data from 800 citizens in Budapest, Hungary, we assess if factors such as citizens’ contact experience and their perceptions about the guards’ professionalism, imagery and civility influences their views about their obligation to obey private police officers. Findings of policy implications are discussed.

Public Regulation of Private Security: A Statutory Analysis of State Regulation of Security Guards

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (9) ◽  
pp. 891-908 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Klein ◽  
Craig Hemmens
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Private Security ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Security Guards ◽  
Public Regulation ◽  
Security Industry ◽  
Private Security Industry

Security guards outnumber police by almost 3 to 1, and this discrepancy has been growing steadily since the latter part of the 20th century. Security guards perform many of the same functions as police officers and may even carry weapons, but to what extent do states regulate the private security industry? This article compares the change in state regulation of private security, in particular the requirements for hiring security guards. The provisions of the states as of 1982, 1998, and 2015 are compared and evaluated. We are interested in determining what threshold requirements the states have seen fit to establish for employment in the security industry, and whether these threshold requirements provide adequate protection for the public.

A Statutory Analysis of State Regulation of Security Guard Training Requirements

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-356
Author(s):  
Michael S. Klein ◽  
Leah Ruiz ◽  
Craig Hemmens
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Private Security ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Training Requirements ◽  
Security Guards ◽  
Security Industry ◽  
Security Guard ◽  
State Statutes ◽  
Private Security Industry

Security guards outnumber police by almost three to one, and they perform many of the same functions as police officers and many even carry a firearm, but to what extent do states regulate the private security industry? Prior research has examined state statutes regulating security guard hiring requirements; this article builds on this research by examining state statutes regulating security guard training requirements. This article compares the change in state regulation of security guard training since 1999. We are interested in determining what threshold requirements the states have seen fit to establish for training in the security industry and whether these threshold requirements provide adequate protection for the public.

Policing the Police: Independent Investigation for Victoria

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
State Party ◽  
The Public ◽  
Independent Investigation ◽  
The World ◽  
Civil And Political Rights ◽  
Effective Remedy ◽  
The Right

In Victoria, complaints against the police made by members of the public are predominantly investigated and determined by serving police officers. Such police-dominated complaints mechanisms are widely considered to be ineffective, and are being increasingly abandoned the world over. With reference to the obligations imposed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, this article critically examines Victoria’s police-dominated complaints mechanism and argues that it violates the right to an effective remedy contained in article 2 paragraph 3 of the Covenant. As a constituent state of a state party to the Covenant, Victoria is obliged to give effect to the Covenant’s obligations, and so must create an independent police complaints mechanism tasked with investigating complaints made against the police involving allegations of breaches of the Covenant’s protected rights.

Shadow Soldiering

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maya Mynster Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Emerging Markets ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Global South ◽  
Private Security ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Global Security ◽  
The Public ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Security Companies ◽  
Security Contractors

Contemporary warfare depends on private security contractors from countries in the Global South. In Sierra Leone, this dependency has produced emerging markets for private military and security companies (PMSCs) seeking to recruit cheap, military-experienced labor. This article explores how demobilized militia and soldiers in Sierra Leone negotiate categorical divides to make themselves employable for private security contracting in Iraq. Based on 19 months of fieldwork tracing militia soldiers as they move between shift ing security constellations, the article introduces the notion of “shadow soldiering” to explain the entanglements of public-private spheres and the blurring of boundaries between the visible and invisible that characterize these constellations. While scholarly work on PMSCs has increasingly highlighted the public-private interconnectedness, the article contributes an ethnographically informed perspective on how security contractors on the ground interpret such entanglements and how global security dynamics intersects with the local, everyday practices and processes that facilitate the supply of contractors.

scholarly journals Training for War: Academy Socialization and Warrior Policing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha J Simon
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Police Training ◽  
Field Work ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Moral Necessity ◽  
One Year ◽  
Ethnographic Field Work

Abstract The role of the police in the United States is a topic of contentious debate. Central to this debate is a binary that constructs police officers as fulfilling either a protective, community-serving role, or an aggressive, crime-fighting role. The most recent iteration is reflected in the warrior-guardian construct, which conceptualizes officers as both initiators of, and defenders against, violence. This article examines how the warrior-guardian framework shapes police training, and highlights how this construct is itself gendered and racialized. I draw on one year of ethnographic field work at four police academies and 40 interviews with police officers and cadets to argue that police training is an organized effort to condition officers to conceptualize their relationship with the public as a war. Three components constitute this framing: (1) instructors construct an evil, unpredictable enemy; (2) cadets are taught to identify their enemy in gendered and racialized ways; and (3) cadets are encouraged to adopt a warrior mentality. I show that cadets are taught to view the world in a way that pits them against an enemy, pushes them to conceptualize their enemy as a man of color, and to think about violence as a moral necessity.

scholarly journals People Watching People Watchers: 'The Law Enforcement Company' for watching over those who come to see and be seen on the 'Urban Beach'

2002 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Mann
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Private Security ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
Times Square ◽  
The Public ◽  
Security Guards ◽  
Public Square ◽  
New Public ◽  
The Law

This article presents my own personal narrative, in the existemology of a new but mostly deserted 'urban beach' right at downtown Toronto's epicenter. The new public space called 'Dundas Square', designed as 'Times Square North', forms Toronto's new civic center, around an urban beach theme with waterplay fountains, that rise and fall continuously, to create a beautiful and restful atmosphere of pounding surf. The space is policed by Intelligarde-International, which describes itself as 'The Law Enforcement Company'. The use of private security guards in an allegedly public space creates some unique problems in accountability and reciprocity in visibility. Unlike the lifeguards of a traditional beach, who are themselves young, playful, and part of the swimming community, Intelligarde alienates itself from the community through an authoritarian desire to be free of accountability. Citizens who go to the urbeach to see and be seen, can be thought of as 'people watching people'. But unlike lifeguards at a traditional beach, who often help novice swimmers be comfortable in the water, Intelligardes are 'people watching people watchers' from a distance. The problem of private security in public space is twofold: (1) a private 'law enforcement company' is not subject to the same checks and balances as public lifeguards; (2) the double entendre of the words 'private security' is fulfilled. Not only is law enforcement of life in the public square privatized, but also the security guards enjoy a privacy (i.e. lack of accountability) that their 'citizens' (the surveilled) do not. This article describes my attempts at using "Times Square North" for its intended purpose, and the resulting problems that point to a need for participatory equiveillance.

Private Security in Nairobi, Kenya: Securitized Landscapes, Crosscurrents, and New Forms of Sociality

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 30-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Dobson
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Private Security ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Security Guards ◽  
Critical Security Studies ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Anthropological Literature ◽  
The City

Abstract:This article documents some of the forms of sociality engendered by the massive and growing presence of private security guards around Nairobi, Kenya. A focus on violence and the logic of an ideal of the use of violence in critical security studies literature obfuscates these networks in a similar way to idealizations of public space and the public sphere in anthropological literature on private security and residential enclaves. By looking at the close ties guards maintain with their homes in rural areas of Nairobi and the associations they make with people such as hawkers, it becomes clear that their presence in the city is creating new sets of valuations and obligations all the time. These forms of sociality are not galvanized by the threat of violence that the guards evoke; rather, they are engendered alongside and at cross-currents to the idealized, securitized landscape.

scholarly journals On the Threshold: The Story of School Security Guards in Israel

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Raz Shpeizer
Keyword(s):  
Main Tool ◽  
Document Analysis ◽  
Private Security ◽  
Research Interest ◽  
School Security ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Security Guards ◽  
Security Services ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Spread

The global spread of neoliberalism has brought with it an increase in practices of outsourcing and subcontracting, and, consequently, the flourishing of private security services which rely on them.  In Israel, these trends, combined with the unique security climate, have encouraged the development of a distinct sub-sector of private security in the form of school security. The rise of private security services has generated research interest. Most studies, however, focus on socio-economical aspects rather than on security guards' personal perspectives. This tendency is even more pronounced regarding school security guards and, to date, no studies have been carried out in Israel examining their viewpoint. This study aimed to address this lacuna by bringing in school security guards’ voice in order to learn from and about them. The study’s approach was qualitative, and the main tool was semi-structured interviews, accompanied by observations and document analysis. The study's findings reveal that the world of Israeli school security guards is informed by one fundamental quality. This quality is liminality, and it colors their experiences, perceptions, and professional relations. Israeli school security guards are always on the threshold: between belonging and not-belonging to their workplace; between commitment to and alienation from their work; between being needed yet disrespected. The paper suggests that this liminality is connected to the global socio-economical changes, and furthermore, it expresses a central aspect of Israeli society, which swings between two incompatible ethe: the security ethos and the neoliberal ethos.   Received: 18 October 2020 / Accepted: 5 December 2020 / Published: 17 January 2021

Understanding the patterns of PPP renegotiations for infrastructure projects in Latin America

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 271-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimas de Castro e Silva Neto ◽  
Carlos Oliveira Cruz ◽  
Joaquim Miranda Sarmento
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Political Connections ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
American Experience ◽  
Short Period ◽  
The World ◽  
State Region ◽  
Planning Concept

The increased use of public–private partnerships (PPPs) around the world to build infrastructures and provide public services has led to several concerns. One of the main pitfalls of PPPs is an abnormal frequency of renegotiations, especially renegotiations occurring during the first years of contract. The Latin American experience has been the most relevant in terms of research on PPP renegotiations. Using the literature on PPP renegotiations in the Latin American context, this article focuses on the analysis and discussion of renegotiations. We use the experience from Brazil, at the State (region) level, of PPPs and renegotiations. From 2006 to 2016, Brazil developed 42 PPP projects in several sectors. From these, 27 were renegotiated at least once. We found a high number of renegotiations within a short period since the start of the contract for the first renegotiation to occur. The motives for renegotiations are mainly perceived from the public sector, particularly failure in planning, concept, and bidding. Electoral periods and the political connections of shareholders also have an impact on renegotiations. Based on the Brazilian experience, we drawn some policy implications.

Resilience of public and private security providers: a state-of-the-art literature review

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 126-140
Author(s):  
Vanessa A.S. Laureys ◽  
Marleen Easton
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Private Security ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Research Activity ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Security Guards

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the empirical literature on the resilience of public police officers and private security guards in stressful situations involving threats, violence, accidents or death. This paper studies the definitions of resilience used in these professions, identifies trends in applied research methods and examines the main topics addressed in previous research. Design/methodology/approach A scoping review was carried out, with searches in Web of Science and Google Scholar, as well as a secondary manual screening in Dutch academic journals. Based on this review, 33 empirical studies were included in the current paper. Findings First, it was revealed that a clear-cut definition of resilience applied to public police and private security guards is currently lacking. Second, predominantly quantitative designs were found to be used in the selected studies. Third, the 33 empirical studies provided insights on four main topics: demographic factors, personal characteristics, interpersonal aspects and resilience training programs. Remarkably, this scoping review did not find any empirical research on the resilience of private security guards. Originality/value This study systematically integrates the findings of empirical research on the resilience of security providers to stressful situations. The documentation of research activity, gaps and inconsistencies in the literature offer direction for future research in this relatively new field of study.

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