Shifting Demographics and Changing Crime Trends

Discuss About The Growth Of The Private Security Industry.

Quite different meanings of the concept of privatization are present in different societies. It needs to be noted that as compared with the privatization of other state in business, the notion of privatizing criminal justice and security is much less ambitious in its scope and has much more potential in symbolism. This can be particularly true regarding certain aspects of criminal justice system like youth detention centers or private prisons. But in the field of policing, traditionally a major role has been plagued by private interests. The private security industry that has been broadly described as the industry that is devoted to preventing crime, is set to grow significantly during the next decade. The reason behind this growth is that it will be ensured by immutable social forces that this industry develops, probably more than any other industry or field of employment.

Privatization refers to the act of transferring ownership of particular property or business operations from a government organization to privately owned entity and also the transition of ownership from publicly traded company to privately owned company.

To start with, along with other industrialized nations, Australia is shifting towards an information society from an industrial society. More than 60,000 people in the Australia will be working with information like programmers, clerks, accountants, insurance, lawyers, bankers etc. As a result of this trend, significant implications are present for the private security industry (COAG, 2005). It has been expected by the experts that industry is going to witness significant growth as more and more organizations from the private and public sector will be hiring security firms for the protection of their most valuable asset, which is information. Another related but generally overlooked social trend is the fast pace of social change, which also needs to be mentioned. Electronic data transfer, computers, genetic engineering and space satellites, all are created such a world where conceptual space (that is increasingly connected by electronics and biology) instead of physical space is becoming prevalent. As a result of these changes as well as related social changes, will have a significant impact on the agenda related with the nature of work and also the ways in which the members of society are going to relate with each other and to authority (CRC, 2008).

For example, how can the police considers censoring the often ingenious but explicit pornography that is present across the electronic mail systems like Viatel? Similarly police find it difficult to keep pace with sophisticated computer hackers that breach, financial records on data banks. Under these circumstances, the question arises, the police can be described as the most suitable agency for investigating the theft of body parts for donor surgery. Such electronic and genetic crimes will become common in near future (Centre for International Economics, 2007). All the police forces have been trying to change in order to be the dynamic regions, but they have to face a lot of obstacles that are common in any large bureaucratic organization. Some of these obstacles include resistance to change by certain sections of bureaucracy, the size of the organization and the rules related with recruiting that generally deny a rightful place to the specialists in the hierarchy of the organization (Ferguson,et al., 2011).

Rise of Self-Help Movements

In this way, a void exists, while dealing with the new types of crime. This file can be filled by private security agencies and innovative public authorities, who are not going to be like them to offer relatively favorable resolution for the persons having cutting-edge technology, for their services. Another trend is related with the fear of crime and crime itself. At this point it needs to be stated that the people in Australia are not overwhelmed by crime. It is true that there has been a rise in certain offenses like car theft, breaking and entering offenses and serious assault (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012). However, the murder rate in Australia has remained relatively constant during the last 15 years. Irrespective of the crime trends in reality, the fear related with crime, has outstripped the reality related with the growth of crime due to several reasons (Australian Crime Commission, 2008a). However due to certain reasons like higher rate of youth unemployment, drugs, and a significant rise in the number of weapons in the community, it can be expected that property offenses including armed robbery, are going to increase significantly in the future. The result is that public policy will be overstretched. Consequently, there will be an increase in the demand from the private sector to take on the responsibilities that the earlier the responsibilities of the police (Australian Institute of Criminology, 2013).

However, it is unfortunate that the number of crime will be exaggerated by the public as well as the private police in their efforts to achieve more state and corporate funds for security and policing. This stress on exaggerating crime will be further increased as a result of opportunistic political parties, who want to win votes on the issue of law and order (Allard and Prenzler, 2009).

At the same time, it is also significant to consider general social and economic trends. As these trends have reinforced public spending cuts in community services and at the same time maximized what can be called as “self-help” movements.  The other generally speaking during the last two decades, the expenditure is available to police forces have increased considerably in reality (Button, 2012). However in the future, it is unlikely that the situation is going to continue. As a result of the rising cost of policing and in view of the indefinite fiscal crisis faced by the government in Australia, the police exhibited in Australia will be under pressure to justify their budgeting requests (Australian National Occupational Health and Safety Commission, 1999). Therefore, instead of activity, productivity will be the hallmark of the success of the police.

Impact on Police and Public Organizations

The proliferation of initiatives taking place in public as well as private sphere will lay stress on “self-help” movements and as a result, the areas traditionally handled by the police will be reduced. For example, there has been a rising specialist agencies like the NSW Anti-Corruption and Drug Enforcement Agencies, Independent Commission Against Corruption, the National Crime Authority and so on (Harvey, 2012). Apart from it, several public and private organizations are also considering to set up their own crime prevention and investigation teams. For example, a crime prevention unit has been set up recently by Telecom. The Federal Aviation Corporation and their security operations were also streamlined. Similarly, fraud investigation units and security personnel are being established by some of the banks (Australian Security Industry Association Ltd., 2013). The situation reflects the “self-help” philosophy adopted by community movements like Neighborhood Watch. These organizations believe that they can do it better than the police. However the fact that there may not be necessarily successful in doing so is beside the point (Hucklesby, 2011). As a result of the increasing funds for police forces, and moved towards privatization, as well as the decentralized movement for controlling state organizations, there has been a trend of maximizing a bleak and private security development at the expense of police forces.

Another trend that is present in this regard is related with the way in which the public and private land use is facing changes. There has been a rise in the number of large commercial shopping centers which cover acres and acres of prime land in the city and suburbs. These developments also result in causing major problems of trying public safety. As a result of the privatization of land space, there are certain special problems related with security that need particular expertise. Although it is possible for the police to develop such an expertise, but it is likely (particularly in view of the past experience) that developers and the management of these commercial centers will need their own security personnel for handling these issues that arise within the center. It has been seen that generally there is an increase in the incidents of robbery in the communities surrounding shopping centers. Therefore, the police have to deal with these issues, and in this way. It is further reinforced that the public-private division criss-crosses policing as well as land use.

In this way, the factors that are responsible for the rapid growth of private security industry can be described as follows. The first is the move from industrialized to information Society. The second factor is the rise in crime and the fear of crime. The third factor is the cuts being made in public funding and the move towards “self-help”. The fourth factor is the fast pace of land development for private commercial purposes.  

Under the circumstances, it can be said that the private security industry in Australia appears to be very much like the public policy as it was present in most of his country’s nearly 40 years ago. A classic example of this approach can be seen in the case of United States, where a city mayor was asked why he had appointed a particular person as the chief of police, and he replied that the new chief of police was his personal tailored for several years and as he was a good tailor, the mayor was sure that he will also prove to be the chief of police. When private policing started in Australia as well as America, generally personnel were hired guns were working for their employers. Therefore it can be stated that there is little doubt that in the early days of private policing, there were demands from private interests for more order, a defense against the organizations with whom they had ideological conflicts or which were considered as the against the capital interests.  

Regardless of the amount of training and regulation, it is not possible to inhibit the employers from using their own security personnel. However, these training and regulation can help in controlling criminal and unstable individuals from working in the industry that is increasingly coming in contact with the large number of people. Therefore, in spite of the potential for corporate sections of industry to become politicized, most of the security personnel are going to be involved in mundane jobs of protection and business security mainly for middle-class houses and clients. The anti-intellectual attitude that can be seen in several parts of security industry also needs to be addressed. Corporations, individuals and government agencies are probably not receiving value for money in several aspects of this work. By adopting an intelligent or scientific approach towards the issue of security, a systemic identification of risk is possible, as well as the meticulous collection of relevant data and applying the most recent and effective methods of controlling the crime. Some experts have pointed out that situational prevention of crime can offer a lot of security. However, it appears that there is little knowledge, let alone the application of the techniques of situational crime prevention by the private security personnel in Australia. Such a situation is particularly depressing, in view of the fact that most of the security personnel are involved in dealing with small and sometimes insignificant “incremental crime” like shoplifting, vandalism, incivility, that have been stated by experts “to feed upon each other and in this we become a significant problem in aggregate”.

In the end, it can be stated that although certain security organizations that have changed their approach from militaristic, law enforcement paradigm towards the professional managerialism, there are a large number of members of the security industry was still show deviance and a lack of professionalism. Although the Australian States have significant differences in regulations that govern the private security industry, a large number of security personnel are not accountable publicly and have not received a good training. Under these circumstances, a compelling argument is present for the police to control effective and efficient registration procedures for the persona from the security industry. Apart from it, although the training should be provided by the industry itself, but the training standards should be legislated by the government.

References

Allard, T., & Prenzler, T. (2009) A Summary Analysis of Police Deaths in Australia: Implications for Prevention. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice, 33(1), 61–81.

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). (2012). 2011 Census of Population and Housing, Customised Data Report, Table 1: Count of Employed Persons by Selected Occupations. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Australian Crime Commission (ACC). (2008a). Annual Report 2007–08. Canberra: Australian Crime Commission.

Australian Crime Prevention Council. (2012, June). A Case Study in Valuing Crime Prevention Outcomes: The National Motor Vehicle Theft Reduction Council. Newsletter, pp. 1–4.

Australian Institute of Criminology. (2013). Australian Crime: Facts and Figures 2012. Canberra: AIC.

Australian National Occupational Health and Safety Commission. (1999). Work Related Fatalities Involving Emergency Service Workers in Australia, 1989–1992. Sydney: Australian National Occupational Health and Safety Commission.

Australian Security Industry Association Limited (ASIAL). (2013). Expenditure on Private Security in Australia, 2012–2013. Sydney: Australian Security Industry Association Limited.

Button, M. (2012). Optimizing Security Through Effective Regulation: Lessons from Around the Globe. In T. Prenzler (Ed.), Policing and Security in Practice (pp. 204–220). Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

Centre for International Economics. (2007). Harmonisation of Private Security Industry Regulation. Report to the Federal Attorney-General’s Department. Canberra: CIE.

Council of Australian Governments (COAG). (2005). Special Meeting on Counter-Terrorism, 27 September. Canberra: Council of Australian Governments

Crime Research Centre (CRC). (2008). Evaluation of the Eyes on the Street Programme. Perth: Crime Research Centre, University of Western Australia.

Ferguson, P., Prenzler, T., Sarre, R., & de Caires, B. (2011). Police and Security Officer Experiences of Occupational Violence and Injury in Australia. International Journal of Police Science and Management, 13(3), 223–233.

Harvey, A. (2012, September 24). False Security, ABC 7.30 Report. Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Hucklesby, A. (2011). The Working Life of Electronic Monitoring Officers. Criminology and Criminal Justice, 11(1), 59–76