NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN POLICING

1
NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN POLICING

• Plural policing ,the mixed economy of policing
  and the extended police family

2
NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN POLICING

• OUTLINE
• The introduction of Community Support Officers
  (CSOs)
• The growth of alternative policing provision from
  the private sector

3
COMMUNITY SUPPORT OFFICERS

• Background
• Introduced as part of the Police Reform Act 2002
• The bobby on the beat
• Estimated 24,000 CSOS by end of 2008 in 43
  forces
• A key role in the provision of neighbourhood
  policing (ACPO)

4
COMMUNITY SUPPORT OFFICERS

• HMIC Thematic Report 2001 Open all Hours
• The publics desire for greater levels of foot
  patrol
• A gap between public desire for visible patrol
  and police service ability to provide that
  function
• CSOs introduced as a means of increasing the
  visible presence of the police via foot patrol
• Reassurance and police effectiveness (Dagleish
  and Myhill 2004)
• Increased levels of foot patrols the most
  effective

5
COMMUNITY SUPPORT OFFICERS

• Aims
• Part of the extended police family
  Specials-Traffic wardens
• A visible presence
• Helping to reduce publics fear of crime
• To reinforce not replace other methods of
  policing (ACPO 2005)
• To deal with low level disorder
• Those patrolling being accessible and familiar
  (HMIC 2001)

6
COMMUNITY SUPPORT OFFICERS

• Limited power
• Power to demand a name and address of someone
  suspected of committing an offence
• To detain them for 30 minutes pending arrival of
  police officer
• Power of confiscation. Alcohol/cigarettes
• Merseyside Police, until recently, not granted
  powers further exams/training required
• Annual salary of approx 16,000
• No rank structure/promotion
• Resignation running around 8 nationally (2005/6)

7
COMMUNITY SUPPORT OFFICERS

• Jones et al (2005)
• Impact of CSOs in Liverpool
• Police have always resisted anything that
  encroaches on their so-called autonomy
• Policing on the cheap

8
PRIVATE SECTOR POLICING PROVISION

• The public police service has been dethroned
  and is no longer a monopoly provider (McLaughlin
  2007)
• A rebirth of private policing (Johnson 2003)
• Crawford 1999 The Local Governance of Crime
• The development of a centralisation process from
  1950s/1960s
• Focus on detection rather than prevention
• Increasing competition between agencies of CJS
• A situation of state overload
• Agencies such as police become overloaded and no
  longer fulfil expectations

9
INDEPENDENT INQUIRY OF THE POLICE FOUNDATION AND
P.S.I. 1996

• Examines roles and responsibilities of the police
  service. 3 major features to social context of
  policing
• Steep increase in reported crime since 1950s
• Growth of public concern about crime
• A growth of government expenditure on policing
  during 80s/90s.Despite this police seen as
  ineffective

10
BAYLEY SHEARING 1996- THE FUTURE OF POLICING

• Government reappraises its strategy for dealing
  with crime control
• Policing now being widely offered by
  institutions other than the state, most
  importantly by private companies on a commercial
  basis and by communities on a voluntary basis
• The reassurance gap

11
THE GROWTH OF PRIVATE SECURITY A THREAT TO THE
PUBLIC POLICE?

• A growth in private sector policing
• Gradual and overt
• Not exclusive to Britain
• In USA the use of private security more pervasive
  and established
• In USA private security involved in computer
  fraud, industrial and commercial surveillance,
  anti-bugging, anti-terrorist executive protection

12
JOHNSON THE REBIRTH OF PRIVATE POLICING 1992

• Security Industry can be divided into three
  categories
• Physical/mechanical-security gates, locks etc
• Electronic- installation of CCTV, alarms,
  electronic locking systems etc
• Staffed services Patrol guarding services, cash
  transportation, monitoring CCTV, responding to
  alarm systems etc

13
JONES AND NEWBURN 1998 PRIVATE SECURITY AND
PUBLIC POLICING

• Increase in private security since 1960s
• Recent developments
• Private security via Aviation and Maritime
  Security Act 1990 expanded into policing the
  prevention of terrorism
• Sea Link use private security
• Searching harbour areas, ships, persons and
  property
• Private security searches passengers/luggage at
  airports

14
PRIVATE SECURITY AND PUBLIC POLICING

• Private security is responsible for policing
  defence establishments, prisoner escort duties
  and the running of prisons
• Private security in public spaces such as
  hospitals, universities and even police premises

15
Growth of private provision in the in UK

• Rowe 2008
• The Private Security Industry Act 2001 and
  regulation- Standards/codes practices
• (BSIA ) The British Security Industry Association
• Membership more than doubled in the period from
  1988 to 2005
• 116,000 members in 2005 from 51,000 in 1988
• Collectively the total turnover from membership
  companies is 4.33 billion

16
PRIVATE SECURITY AND PUBLIC POLICING

• Shearing and Stenning Private Policing 1998
  point to the increase in mass private property
• Leisure complexes, shopping malls, residential
  complexes, manufacturing complexes
• Crawford(1999) refers to these as zones of
  private governance
• Such zones involve the application of civil law
  not criminal law
• Lower burden of proof
• Sores use banning and injunctions to deny access
• Public have no automatic right to enter public
  spaces of shopping mall

17
BAYLEY AND SHEARING 1996- THE DILEMMA FOR THE
PUBLIC POLICE

• Increased demands are placed on public police
• They are stretched so thin they fail to deliver
• In April 2005 Chief Constable of Nottingham,
  Steve Green complains re lack of resources
  leaving his force overstretched
• The worrying issue for public police is that
  private police outnumber public police in most
  developed countries
• In Britain there are more than twice as many
  non-police employees

18
PRIVATE SECURITY AND STREET PATROLLING

• Increase in growth of residential areas
• We have seen how New Right policies have
  encouraged more efficient services/competition
• Crawford (1999) points out that in a New Right
  (neo liberalist) approach potential victims are
  seen as rational choice actors
• Free to make choices re personal safety

19
NOAKS PRIVATE COPS ON THE BOX- A REVIEW OF
PRIVATE SECURITY IN RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITIES 2000

• Subscribers to private schemes experience a
  greater sense of direct ownership with regard to
  their local crime situation which serves to
  counter the perceived non-responsive mode of the
  police

20
THE IMPACT ON AREAS WHICH CANNOT AFFORD PRIVATE
PROVISION

• Bottoms and Wild (2001) The Doughnut Effect
• Crawford (2001) Spacial Apartheid Islands of
  neglect which serve to extend inequalities

21
MIKE DAVIES CITY OF QUARTZ 1990

• Los Angeles
• Affluent areas
• Armed response signs
• Gun toting private police
• Electronic surveillance
• In Watts a Panoptican shopping mall is
  surrounded by staked metal fences and a
  substation of LAPD in a central surveillance
  tower

22
TWO FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS THAT WILL AFFECT PUBLIC
POLICING

• The public police will be exclude from areas
  policed by private security. Examples- Liverpool
  Albert Dock, Clayton Square shopping centre,
  Trafford Centre
• The increase in vigilantism which according to
  Johnson (1996) occurs on poorer residential
  estates

23
THE POLITICAL RESPONSE TO THE GROWTH OF THE
PRIVATE SECTOR

• ACPO (1990s) The creeping privatisation of the
  police service
• Police Federation (1990s) Wrong to make a
  profit out of the criminal justice system
• State response- contracting out frees up the
  police to do the jobs that really matter to the
  public
• Ian Blair as Chief Con of Surrey (1998) argued
  patrolling would be done in greater numbers by
  private security
• ACPO in report to Home Affairs Select Committee
  point to corruption/crime committed by private
  security
• A reluctance from public police to work with
  private security

24
SOME CONCLUDING COMMENTS

• Jones and Newburn (2002) Private Security and
  Public Policing
• Not a fragmentation of public police
• Growth in citizen led policing
• Lowe (2002) The Thinning Blue Line
• If unchecked the way is open to less scrupulous
  private security companies
• Protection racketeers in uniform
• Regulation is a key concept
• Ignoring marginalised groups will have dire
  consequences
• ACPO must consider practical solutions rather
  than placing obstacles to progression

25
Concluding comments

• Shearing and Johnson (2003) argue that the growth
  in private security reinforces social
  inequalities since the poor are not able to buy
  the same level of protection as more affluent
  communities
• This raises the possibility that existing public
  police might become a provision of last resort,
  offering an inferior service to those unable to
  afford private provision
• Rent-a-cop !!!
• The renting of police officers to councils
• Liverpool 2002 12 officers rented to patrol city
  centre at cost of 350,000
• Essex police Officers to police private party _at_
  45.40 per hour (Button 2002)