Across the globe, from mega-cities to isolated resource enclaves, the provision and governance of security takes place within assemblages that are de-territorialized in terms of actors, technologies, ...norms and discourses. They are embedded in a complex transnational architecture, defying conventional distinctions between public and private, global and local. Drawing on theories of globalization and late modernity, along with insights from criminology, political science and sociology, Security Beyond the State maps the emergence of the global private security sector and develops a novel analytical framework for understanding these global security assemblages. Through in-depth examinations of four African countries – Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and South Africa – it demonstrates how global security assemblages affect the distribution of social power, the dynamics of state stability, and the operations of the international political economy, with significant implications for who gets secured and how in a global era.
The Sensation of Security
explores how private security guards are a permanent,
conspicuous fixture of everyday life in the Brazilian city of Rio
de Janeiro. Drawing on long-term ethnographic ...research
with security laborers, managers, company owners, and elite global
consultants, Erika Robb Larkins examines the provision of security
in Rio from the perspective of security personnel, providing an
analysis of the racialized logics that underpin the ongoing work of
securing the city. Larkins shows how guards communicate a
sensação de segurança (a sensation of security) to clients
and customers who have the capital to pay for it. Cultivated
through performances by security laborers, the sensation of
security is a set of culturally shaped racialized and gendered
impressions related to safety, order, well-being, and cleanliness.
While the sensação de segurança indexes an outward-facing
task of allaying fears of crime and maintaining order in elite
spaces, it also refers to the emotional labor and embodied worlds
that security workers navigate.
Twilight policing Diphoorn, Tessa G
2015., 20151020, 2015, 2015-10-20
eBook
South Africa boasts the largest private security sector in the entire world, reflecting deep anxieties about violence, security, and governance.Twilight Policingis an ethnographic study of the daily ...policing practices of armed response officers-a specific type of private security officer-and their interactions with citizens and the state police in Durban, South Africa. This book shows how their policing practices simultaneously undermine and support the state, resulting in actions that are neither public nor private, but something in between, something "twilight." Their performances of security are also punitive, disciplinary, and exclusionary, and they work to reinforce post-apartheid racial and economic inequalities. Ultimately,Twilight Policinghelps to illuminate how citizens survive volatile conditions and to whom they assign the authority to guide them in the process.
The legitimate use of force is generally presumed to be the realm of the state. However, the flourishing role of the private sector in security over the last twenty years has brought this into ...question. In this book Deborah Avant examines the privatization of security and its impact on the control of force. She describes the growth of private security companies, explains how the industry works, and describes its range of customers – including states, non-government organisations and commercial transnational corporations. She charts the inevitable trade-offs that the market for force imposes on the states, firms and people wishing to control it, suggests a new way to think about the control of force, and offers a model of institutional analysis that draws on both economic and sociological reasoning. The book contains case studies drawn from the US and Europe as well as Africa and the Middle East.
The past two decades have witnessed the rapid proliferation of private military and security companies (PMSCs) in armed conflicts around the world, with PMSCs participating in, for example, offensive ...combat, prisoner interrogation and the provision of advice and training. The extensive outsourcing of military and security activities has challenged conventional conceptions of the state as the primary holder of coercive power and raised concerns about the reduction in state control over the use of violence. Hannah Tonkin critically analyses the international obligations on three key states - the hiring state, the home state and the host state of a PMSC - and identifies the circumstances in which PMSC misconduct may give rise to state responsibility. This analysis will facilitate the assessment of state responsibility in cases of PMSC misconduct and set standards to guide states in developing their domestic laws and policies on private security.
Security Supervision and Management, Fourth Edition, fills the basic training needs for security professionals who want to move into supervisory or managerial positions. Covering everything needed ...from how to work with today's generation security force employees to the latest advances in the security industry, Security Supervision and Management, Fourth Edition, shows security officers how to become a more efficient and well-rounded security professional. Security Supervision and Management, Fourth Edition, is also the only text needed to prepare for the Certified in Security Supervision and Management (CSSM) designation offered by International Foundation for Protection Officers (IFPO). The IFPO also publishes The Professional Protection Officer: Practical Security Strategies and Emerging Trends, now in its 8th edition. * Core text for completing the Security Supervision and Management Program/Certified in Security Supervision and Management (CSSM) designation offered by IFPO * Contributions from more than 50 experienced security professionals in a single volume * Completely updated to reflect the latest procedural and technological changes in the security industry * Conforms to ANSI/ASIS standards
Focusing on four East European polities—Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania—this book examines the dynamics and implications of processes of commercialization of security that have occurred ...following the collapse of communist regimes. These processes have been central to post-communist liberalization, and have profoundly shaped those states and their integration into European institutional structures and global economic and political circuits. They have also affected—and been shaped by—the behavior and power of regional and global actors (e.g. European institutions, regional and global corporations) in Eastern Europe. By virtue of the fact that they combine in complex ways local, national, regional, and global dynamics and actors, processes of security commercialization in the former Eastern bloc can be seen as instances of “glocalization.” Several aspects of security commercialization are particularly important. To begin with, private actors—specifically private security companies (PSCs)—have been reconstituted as partial agents of public power. As such, they have come to be systematically involved in performing security practices traditionally associated with the state. In addition, a potent commercial logic has come to permeate public security institutions. This has led to redefinition of the relationship between the state and its population in ways that defy conventional wisdom about the role of the state, and pose difficult normative challenges. More broadly, processes of security commercialization in Eastern Europe, which involve important performative dimensions, have led to the emergence of complex, hybrid networks of security providers that transcend domestic/international, public/private boundaries and behave, in many ways, as entrepreneurs.
Private security governance has gained increased attention from the government for the governance mechanism but still remains fragmented. This paper attempts to clarify the governance of private ...security by government through a systematic review of literature. The review process contributed to four themes which addressed three major trends. First is the response of government toward the governance objective, set by either public actors or in collaboration by both public and private actors. Second is the coordination mechanism adapted by the government in handling multiple governors from public and private security industries. Third is the regulatory mechanism of the private security industry adhered to by the government.
Abstract
Much writing in comparative criminology on the punitive turn and developments in Western penal states has focused on how the state provides security to its citizens. However, the number of ...private guards exceeds those of police officers in many European countries, and private security services carry out numerous law and order tasks. Our paper links the literature on private security with comparative penal policy studies. It explores how the cross-national variance in the relative importance of public and private security—which we term ‘the security balance’ – can be explained by quantitatively analysing data on public and private security in 23 European countries from 2009 to 2018. We contribute to the literature on crime and politics by highlighting the significant role of private security in today’s balance of security provision.
South Africa suffers from pervasive gender-based violence that finds expression in, amongst others, domestic and intimate partner violence, rape, sexual harassment, and femicide. While the government ...and civil society organizations have implemented various measures to combat gender-based violence, the private security sector has traditionally been overlooked in prevention and mitigation strategies. This qualitative study set out to determine how private security can partner with the South African Police Service and community organizations to assist in the fight against gender-based violence. Data were collected from 12 managers of 5 private security companies operating in Pretoria East, South Africa. The participants stated that their companies receive calls related to domestic violence daily, but that they are often unable to meaningfully intervene because the sector does not have specific guidelines and policies on how to assist in such cases. Nevertheless, where possible private security officers aim to defuse the domestic conflict, ensure the physical safety of victims, and support the police when arrests are made. Since security companies have more resources (vehicles and personnel) than the police, they are frequently first to respond when called upon to intervene in domestic violence. The study suggests that, in addressing the gap in policy, the private security sector can be a vital partner in the fight against gender-based violence
