Lecture 10 Plural policing Rowe Introduction to Policing

Lecture 10 Plural policing ©Rowe, Introduction to Policing SAGE 2013

Introduction This lecture explores the growing importance of the private sector to current debates about policing and police work and the development of complex networks of agencies involved in crime prevention, patrol work, investigation, and reassurance policing in the UK and beyond. The objectives of the lecture are to: • Explain why academic and policy debates have focused on the role of the private sector in policing; • Examine the development of a mixed economy of policing and the idea of the ‘extended police family’; • Consider the implications of pluralisation for the conceptualisation and governance of policing. ©Rowe, Introduction to Policing SAGE 2013

Introduction Popular and political discussion of policing has focused narrowly on the powers and practices of the public police. However, academic interest in policing in Australasia, North America, Britain and elsewhere has become increasingly concerned with the pluralisation of policing. Bayley and Shearing’s (2001: 1) review of contemporary policing developments led them to suggest that the processes of pluralisation outlined in this chapter fundamentally transform policing: This involves much more than reforming the institution regarded as the police, although that is occurring as well. The key to the transformation is that policing, meaning the activity of making societies safe, is no longer carried out exclusively by governments. Indeed, it is an open question as to whether governments are even the primary providers. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, policing has been “multilateralized”: a host of nongovernmental groups have assumed responsibility for their own protection, and a host of nongovernmental agencies have undertaken to provide security services. Policing has entered a new era, an era characterized by a transformation in the governance of security. ©Rowe, Introduction to Policing SAGE 2013

Introduction Early debates about private policing questioned : • the role and the extent of those engaged in ‘policing for profit’ (South, 1988), • the proper regulation of the private security companies • what relation they should have with the public police. These continue to be key questions for those interested in policing in the 21 st century but they have been supplemented by discussion of more recent forms of ‘hybrid’ policing that engages a range of private, public and voluntary agencies at the local, national and international level. The austerity measures applied to public police services in the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review led to debate about the nature of ‘frontline’ policing. The possibility of further privatizing functions has been a key element of these debates (Surrey and West Midlands police). The lecture examines the development of private policing and other aspects of the pluralisation debate relating to third party policing and ‘multi-agency’ partnerships. In particular, analysis of the diverse ‘nodes’ engaged in policing indicates that ‘policing’ is an emergent property of the complex network of relations that exists between agencies. ©Rowe, Introduction to Policing SAGE 2013

Dimensions of Pluralisation Figure 1 indicates the five dimensions of the emerging plural policing identified by Loader (2000) Policing by government: the traditional publiclyfunded police; by government below government policing beyond government through government above government Policing through government: activities coordinated and funded by the government but delivered by agencies other than the police service; Policing above government: transnational policing activities coordinated by international agencies; Policing beyond government: activities funded and delivered privately by citizens and corporations; Policing below government: voluntary and community activities, self-policing, and vigilantism. ©Rowe, Introduction to Policing SAGE 2013

Private Policing The nature and extent of private policing One indication of the size and scope of private policing is the membership of the British Security Industry Association (BSIA), the main professional body that represents private security companies. Company Members of British Security Industry Association, 1995 -2011 600 494 500 515 541 540 549 542 539 540 524 503 418 400 327 345 332 347 376 292 200 100 0 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Source: British Security Industry Association ©Rowe, Introduction to Policing SAGE 2013

Private Policing The BSIA identifies various sectors in which its members operate, including access control, the protection of cash in transit, CCTV, information destruction, security guarding, and the manufacture and distribution of security equipment. Collectively, the total turnover of BSIA member companies is £ 4. 33 billion. Button (2002) reviewed various estimates of the size and scope of the sector and suggested that, in the early years of the 21 st century, there were around 317, 500 staff and a turnover of £ 5. 5 billion. Many employees are engaged in the manufacture, retail and installation of security products and so not fulfilling traditional policing-functions.

Private Policing Explaining the growth of private security • In a period of austerity private sector provision in criminal justice have been promoted in terms of efficiency and effectiveness that might deliver services at a reduced cost to the public purse. • The demand for private security industry services has been fuelled by public insecurity about levels of crime and disorder, as public perceptions have not recognised falling crime rates since the mid-1990 s. • Wider societal trends have meant that the individuals spend considerable proportions of their working and social lives in private venues rather than public spaces. • Putnam (2000) and Young (1999) have argued that the privatization and atomisation of contemporary life has undermined collective identities that underpin the public provision of some goods and services. • Not only has consumerism generated the space – in some cases, literally the physical space – in which private security can flourish it has also allowed for the commodification of security. • Private citizens are reminded of the importance of looking out for their own, and this has been encouraged by manufacturers and retailers intent on catering to the existential need for security • The increasing role of the private sector in the provision of policing mirrors developments in other areas of the public sector, as role of the state has been ‘hollowed out’ as governments have retreated from direct provision in a host of sectors. ©Rowe, Introduction to Policing SAGE 2013

Private Policing Regulating the private security industry Private policing, internationally, has been subject to ‘regulatory pluralism’ embracing voluntary, statutory, and market-based forms of control (Stenning 2000). Before the introduction of the Private Security Industry Act 2001 the regulation of private policing in Britain was left to the market mechanism and voluntary membership of bodies such as the BSIA and the International Private Security Association (IPSA). George and Button (1997) reviewed international approaches to the regulation of the private security sector and identified five models, moving from the least to the most intrusive: • a ‘non-interventionist’ approach, with no statutory requirements • a ‘minimum narrow’ approach that requires limited checks on personnel working in specific roles • a wider approach that requires minimum regulation of the whole sector • a model that requires the comprehensive regulation of a narrow range of personnel • a wide range of regulations are applied across the sector. ©Rowe, Introduction to Policing SAGE 2013

Private Policing Private-sector discipline in the public police Private-sector discipline in the police service has been apparent in efforts to promote resource efficiency, by employing lower-cost civilian staff to perform tasks previously assigned to officers or by ‘contracting out’ services such as cleaning or catering Guidelines to police services suggests that there are types of police activity that can be considered as above and beyond routine duties and so might be subject to charge. Policing events now has an enormous range of scale to consider. From local festivals to Grand Prix; from lower league football to the FA Cup final - all are events which need consideration. In general, the police service exists to police local communities and its resources are structured to achieve this. Few would argue that part of this involves policing small scale events, as part of the role of visibility and public reassurance. But, this is far removed from policing 70, 000 supporters in Manchester converging on a small locality to watch a football match, or over 100, 000 people attending a 3 -5 day pop festival. ACPO (2012: 10) Part of the remit of PCCs is to commission services (for example for victims) and promote greater diversity in terms of local providers. In other parts of the criminal justice system this has been supplemented with the free-market discipline apparently offered by the policy of ‘contestability’. ©Rowe, Introduction to Policing SAGE 2013

Third Party and Multi-agency Policing policing activities have come to be shared by a broad range of agencies within the public sector that have not traditionally been conceived of in terms of policing, particularly in multi-agency community safety partnerships. An early example of third party policing, in the British context, were efforts developed in the early 1980 s to tackle racist harassment in public housing by the inclusion of clauses in tenancy agreements that made such behaviour grounds for eviction. More recently efforts to tackle low-level offending and incivilities through civil actions in the form of antisocial behaviour orders and voluntary agreements have greatly accelerated multi-agency policing in Britain. Third parties have contributed to the provision of high-visibility policing in the form of Police Community Support Officers and local authority neighbourhood wardens. ©Rowe, Introduction to Policing SAGE 2013

Third Party and Multi-agency Policing Plural policing entails not only a proliferation in terms of the range of providers, but also an expansion of legal and regulatory technologies used to deliver security and reassurance, beyond crime control or law-enforcement in traditional terms. • the 2002 Proceeds of Crime Act • Universities are required to police the citizenship of students and to report to the Border Agency ©Rowe, Introduction to Policing SAGE 2013

Networks of policing Increasingly policing is better conceived of as a process arising from developing relations between the host of public, private and ‘hybrid’ agencies integrated in partnership arrangements Johnston and Shearing (2003) argued that networked security in Britain has developed along five key paths: 1. the state is no longer definitive in the face of private sector activity 2. controversies over the relation between private and public interests 3. the focus of policing networks is increasingly future-oriented, seeking to limit and reduce opportunities for crimes to be committed and/or identify those individuals who might be particularly criminogenic 4. security governance is increasingly conducted at a distance by lay people and commercial operators 5. security becomes embedded into the routine responsibilities of a wide-range of actors working in various capacities that have not traditionally had crime-control or lawenforcement dimensions. ©Rowe, Introduction to Policing SAGE 2013

Rebirth or New Paradigm? Three important factors that suggest that the pluralisation thesis has been over-played (Jones and Newburn, 2002) • First, the long history of private policing activity demonstrates that the state has never been a monopoly provider. Policing arrangements have always been plural. • Second, many agencies are only lightly engaged in networks of policing and community safety, and that these continue to be dominated by the public police. • Thirdly, while new managerialism has transformed the conduct of police work, private sector discipline has not debunked entirely a public sector ethos. ©Rowe, Introduction to Policing SAGE 2013

Conclusion to conclude that since not all is new, nothing is, misses some important points of difference between the pre-police era and the contemporary period, for example, technological advances and globalization. Moreover, the role of the nation-state provides for a distinctive context compared to earlier periods: it continues to play an important role in terms of regulation that its 18 th Century counterpart did not. The ‘regulatory state’ might have a more narrow role than it once enjoyed, but it should not be assumed that it has lost power as it has relinquished various functions, since it has often assumed a central role in regulating those providers who have entered the spaces it has recently vacated. contemporary networks are more complex than previous arrangements and consideration of policing as a social process is eclipsing analysis of the police as one agency among many. ©Rowe, Introduction to Policing SAGE 2013