Employment staffing surveys tell us there are roughly 823,000 police officers in the United States. According to Joseph Samuels Jr., past president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, their could be as many as two million private security officers serving their respective employers in this country as well (see below). That amounts to nearly three times as many private security officers protecting persons, places and things compared to their public counterparts. The idea of using private security as a force multiplier for law enforcement could greatly enhance the quality of police service provided to a community.
The merging of public and private protection services has a long and distinguished, but rocky, history in our country. From Alan Pinkerton's "private eyes" protecting President Lincoln in the 1860s, the Railroad Police of the 1880s, to nuclear security provided today by private contractors for the U.S. Department of Energy, the blending of public and private security efforts have been synergistic for specific functions, but not for general policing. Why?
A study published by the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance (September, 2005) argued there are two reasons that account for limitations by law enforcement to use private security more in an enforcement assistance role:
- Mistrust Throughout the later part of the 20th Century both the police and private security have viewed themselves as having different goals. The police protect citizens while private security safeguards the assets of businesses.
- Misunderstanding Neither law enforcement nor private security really understands each other's capabilities. Instead, the police view private security as being under trained, ill-equipped and poorly led, whereas private security views police coverage as limited, if at all noticeable, due to funding.
Contrary to the superficial reasons why both entities fail to work more cooperatively, there are numerous advantages as to why they should:
- Authority The police have what private security often lacks. The police can take criminals into custody and invoke the legal system.
- SheerNumbers Private security can deploy many officers to secure one location whereas law enforcement cannot.
- Communication Law enforcement obtains privileged information through secure methods of communication from various intelligence assets, and this information could be shared with their private counter-parts.
- Technical Ability Private security often uses better or specialized technology to enhance their protective abilities. This technology can help the police in evidence recovery, surveillance, etc., depending what the service is.
- Creative Problem Solving Analytical functions within the private sector are common for competition within the marketplace. Policing has difficulty obtaining the services of analytics again, due to lack of funding. The sharing of this resource can better equip the beat patrol officer with identifying the underlying issues causing crime.
The report continues to list the advantages of drawing on each others' strengths, but if your police chief or security director wanted to form a partnership, what steps would they take?
- Both must approach the issue of preventing crime for their city or business with a serious, committed attitude.
- Form a system, center or other mechanism to share criminal intelligence information in a timely manner.
- Create Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) that clearly describe how information will be shared, to whom, and under what circumstances data may be withheld. MOUs should also address coordinating emergency response, and legal issues.
- The police should train private security forces in community policing techniques in order to identify crimes and suspicious activities.
- When possible, conduct exercises to gauge the effectiveness of collaboration before a real situation emerges.
The era of a distinct, total separation of services between the police and private security is gone. Their spheres of operability continue to increase and intertwine with one another. When roughly 85% of our nation's infrastructure is privately owned, this mandates that the police and security have to work cooperatively in order to best effect crime prevention.