Private vs. Public Policing Ethics

It is very clear that the private policing sector is growing rapidly even more so than the public policing sector. In general, to become a public police officer in Canada is rather challenging for most people. Individuals who want to be a public police officer go through myriads of checks, clearances, interviews, trainings, and above all they go through an emotional roller coaster. However, a lot of people choose private policing as a stepping stone in becoming a real police officer. The hiring process for the security guard position is a lot less stressful and a lot easier. The requirements are very minimal and it is not even comparable to real police training. I have noticed that security companies hire just about everyone for the position regardless of their age, gender, height, and weight. This could have good and bad sides. It is good in a sense that they are less discriminatory in their hiring process and seem to give people an equal amount of chance of getting the job. However, it could mean a bad thing as they might hire someone who is looking for that position for the wrong reasons. Van Buuren mentions about occupational values which could be equal to a corruption problem. For example, I have two friends who work in a certain security company (I prefer not to name the company). From what I have seen, they both like to work mainly special events such as concerts, and football games because they take cash from people who do not have tickets and lets them “slide in”. This is a pure corruption in my eyes. Also, Van Buuren talks about “Accountability” which doesn’t seem to affect the private policing sector on a same level as it affects the police departments. The private security guards go through a very minimal training and tend to overestimate their rights. I have been volunteering for the VPD for 5 years now and I have seen my fair share of misguided security guards who seem to think that they are the real police officers. Just like the Pivot society survey revealed, I have seen those security guards yelling and labelling homeless people (homeless looking people got yelled at too) and kicking them out of public spaces. It is a well- known problem, but nothing seems to be done in order to re- educate those rude security guards who seem to think that they are the “real deal”.

In conclusion, changing the legislation alone is not going to do anything unless the company trainings are developed further. These million different companies really should re- train their employees and make their selection process a bit harder.

References:

PIVOT Legal Society (2009). Security Before Justice: A Study of the impacts of private security on homeless and under- housed Vancouver Residents. 

Van Buuren, J. (2010). “Private Security Ethics: Reintroducing Public Values”, in M. den Boer & E. Kolthoff (eds) Ethics and Security. The Hague: Eleven International Publishing, pp. 165-187. 

 

The Ethical Concerns Surrounding the Commodification of Security

While the private security sector is not a new phenomenon, there has been rapid and substantial growth of the industry in recent years. Private security encompasses a number of various aspects of public order, crime prevention, and investigation. The private sector has experienced (likely the most significant) growth in systems technology development, however, private security personnel are what is most often equated with the term private security.

There is a tendency to conceptualise public and private security as two separate and largely divorces entities; however this view is not reflective of the reality of policing. Private security personnel outnumber public police officers worldwide (in British Columbia the ratio is approximately 2:1) and are retained by both private individuals as well as government bodies. With the expansion of the private security industry, and the blurred lines of the private and public sectors, there are a number of societal and political consequences to consider. Jelle van Buuren (2010) brings awareness to a number of the ethical concerns which have arisen from the concept of security as a commodity.

A key theme Buuren identifies is that of inclusion-exclusion. With security being viewed as a commodity, an industrial market approach is being taken – with a focus on maximising profits. Capitalising on security appears to be a far cry from the perception of security as a public good, and opens the door for a stratified level of distribution. Allocating security on the basis of generating the greatest profit is worrisome as those on the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum, who are already marginalised, are likely to become even more so as they do not possess the means to ensure the same level of security as the more affluent.

This distribution by market rather than need was apparent during a study, conducted by Pivot Legal Society, regarding the impacts of private security on marginalised residents in Vancouver during 2007. The report as well as the recommendations can be accessed here. The Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA) is publicly funded through property-tax and is managed by a non-profit group of property owners who are active in promoting business, tourism, safety, and street beautification in their business district. The improvement of business districts includes dispersing the considerable homeless and under-housed residents of Vancouver. The interests of the elite, who are able to buy security, are recognised with the dispersal of the homeless population –  those thought to be unsightly and contributing factor to the success of establishments in the district. Those of low socio-economic status are effectively barred entry/access to certain areas, which limits their participation to some degree in society, on the basis of presumed undesirable behaviour.

A listing of Business Improvement Areas (BIA) within the city of Vancouver, as well as Council reports detailing BIA budgets, can be accessed here.

During the study conducted by Pivot Legal it was found that homeless and under-housed people not only had more frequent interactions with private security personnel, but that these interactions were often problematic. As the lines of public and private policing have become increasingly blurred it appears that private security personnel are uncertain as to their limitations of power, and are routinely overstepping their authority. This is problematic as those who are most often in contact with private personnel are those who are most marginalised and who lack the resources to complain about/challenge such abuses of power.

Traditional mechanisms of oversight and accountability are not seen within the private security sector, which makes the complaints process even more challenging in instances of misconduct. No over-arching body exists overseeing all private security corporations nationally, let alone on a provincial level. As disciplinary action occurs in-house, one must make a complaint with the specific company the security agent is employed by.

Pivot Legal found during the course of their study that a number of those living in the Downtown Eastside were unaware of their rights surrounding private security – what exactly was within the scope of private policing powers. Many were unaware that their rights were being infringed upon, and those who did recognise the overstepping of authority were unsure as to how to go about making a complaint.

Van Buuren, J. (2010). “Private Security Ethics: Reintroducing Public Values”, in M. den Boer & E. Kolthoff (eds) Ethics and Security. The Hague: Eleven International Publishing, pp. 165-187.

Private Security Is For Visibility Presence

Private security officers are people who are hired to protect property, assets, or people. Their job is to don a uniform to show high visibility presence to deter crime or any illegal behavior in general from taking place in the first place. Private Security has greatly emerged over the past few years, and today we sit at approximately 140,000 licensed private security guards in Canada, where as there are only 70,000 police officers. The fact that there are twice as many private security officers than police officers can be very alarming as many people’s rights could be in jeopardy any given day. Private security nowadays covers a multitude of industries, large and small, all related to the provision of security services, investigations, crime prevention, order maintenance, intelligence collection and military services (Van Steden and Sarre, 2007, p. 226).

In December of 2007, the City of Vancouver authorized $872,000 to help fund the expansion of the Downtown Ambassadors Program which is a private security patrol project run by the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association. Pivot Legal Society, in 2007, asked 154 people from the Downtown Eastside to take part in a survey in regards to their interactions with private security guards. This research showed a lot of potential issues with private security officers such as:

• Only 12% of respondents to the survey said they had face to face contact with private security guards once a month.
• A third of the respondents claimed to have had face to face contact with private security guards 4 times or more a month.
• Many respondents also used the space provided to express they had face to face contact with private security guards “every day” or “all the time”
• The survey also identified a strong correlation between housing status and the frequency of interactions with private security guards as homeless people tend to be more frequent targets by private security guards.

The survey brought on a whole new spotlight on the private security industry as issues such as accountability and just the way private security companies run their organizations are brought into question. The survey as a whole outlines the many issues against having private security guards in charge of keeping the downtown eastside clean and making the businesses more attractive to customers. This ties into the “Inclusion-Exclusion” concept Van Buuren talk about as he says states that security pretty much is a commodity now and that it can only be “purchased” or used by the wealthy and the poor are left without any security. The rich are able to use private security forces to do their dirty work for them because they have the luxury of being able to afford it. This leads to the wealthy and poor being completely separated. This makes it look like as if we live in segregated communities – both controlled by the wealthy. This is also related to the concept of “Private Justice” as it reiterates how the wealthy and powerful people are segregated from society. However the concept also reveals how private security organizations, since “owned” by the rich and powerful people, have “private orders” given to them. This leads to unethical and illegal practices and complaints and such being handled internally, meaning the public won’t hear of it and nothing will be reported to the police – and if lucky the person the complaint is against might face some sort of consequences. The most interesting of concepts Van Buuren talks about is “Occupational Values” which describes how the private security industry hired personnel whom work solely for the client and does whatever the client says. Reason being that the people private security hire are not prepared for the type of work nor do they receive efficient enough training. Also the fact that the whole hiring process is very laid back, it often leads to people being hired who may have criminal records or even people deciding to join security for all the wrong reasons in the first place. The use of illegal force by the private security guards and the harassment and removal of the homeless people from public spaces from the PIVOT survey results are a perfect example for this concept.

There tends to be a notion that private security guards have little accountability when they go beyond their authority and engage in unethical behavior. Which in my opinion can be true due to many factors such as some believing they are being underpaid for the type of work they are doing so they go to extents to either prove themselves or simply don’t care about the consequences. Some don’t realize that they have just as much authority as a regular citizen but instead they feel like they can control people and take away some of their rights. The most common being that the second one throws on a uniform they feel as they have more power than regular citizens and that they can do whatever they want to fulfill their duties. Having worked in the security industry myself, I can honestly say that there have been times I have crossed the line due to the so called “more power” I felt I had over a regular citizen at the venues. However what people fail to realize is that sometimes citizens try to belittle private security guards by taunting them for being “wannabe cops” which eventually leads to someone acting out of frustration. However, in conclusion I do agree with Van Buuren’s take on the problems of the private security industry as I read through the concepts put forward I couldn’t help but recall everything I have either done or witnessed in my time as a security guard.

References:

PIVOT Legal Society (2009). Security Before Justice: A study of the impacts of private security on homeless and under-housed Vancouver residents. 

Steden, R. van and R. Sarre (2007), “The Growth of Private Security: Trends in the European Union”, Security Journal, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 222–235.

Van Buuren, J. (2010). “Private Security Ethics: Reintroducing Public Values”, in M. den Boer & E. Kolthoff (eds) Ethics and Security. The Hague: Eleven International Publishing, pp. 165-187.

ethical concerns of public policeman

My blog post will review normative consequences of private policing, particularly its ethical concern and outcomes. I will attempt to explain these practices in terms of ethics behind private policing and I will also use my own experience as a Downtown Ambassador to give a perspective on the behaviors of a public policeman.

One term that caught my eye in the readings Ethics and Security was ‘uniform justice for all’. This term was used in the context of how a lack of consideration for such topics was rife in public policing bodies. Private policing has a mandate to ‘limit participation’ and exclude on the basis of ‘assumed good or bad’ creating an idea held by themselves and those they police, that security is about exclusion and gates. Private policing is said to lack of any overall ethical goal in their practice. This is because someone has paid for them to patrol their property and not for ‘public good’. Do the young security guards, who unknowingly take up the task of perceived public good, know of the impact they are having on their own ethical standing? The answer is no.

My experience as a public policeman, working for the downtown ambassadors was a good one. I was called to business to apply soft pressure in order to remove unwanted characters from the premises. At no point did I ask myself whether or not what I was doing had any impact on the persons I was policing. The orientation in becoming a security guard involved what not to do such as use any force, try and police in public space and searching people. This way of training did not lend to any ethical matters or concerns that might be involved in being a public policeman. I believe if such instruction would give it would cause a different outlook in the security guards. They might begin to see themselves as the one who polices and is responsible for the security of others instead of the guy called to shovel out the drunks.

Is the answer to having public security held accountable to crack down on legislation and impose large fines for any violation? Should security guards be held accountable at the individual level? I thing before we make any huge sweeping changes in legislation, we need to inform the people doing the job of policing. Instead of focus what is ‘wrong’ during the orientation into becoming a private policeman and effort should be made to teach the young security guards what their job really entails. By instilling in them certain ideas around security and what the term really means, private policing agencies can be sure that human rights violations and the like will be much less likely, as the potential perpetrators will know why what they are doing is really wrong.

Food for Thought: Representations and Accounts of the Toronto 2010 G20

In this unit, we are studying deviance and accountability in the context of public order policing. Our case study is the Toronto 2010 G20.

You have an option for this unit’s ‘food for thought’ question – you may respond to question 1 or question 2.

Food for Thought Question 1

Prepare a written response to Gord Hill’s depiction of the events surrounding the Toronto 2010 G20, from the Anti-Capitalist Resistance Comic Book (excerpt distributed in class) Your response should provide your impression of this representation of the G20, comments on ‘issues arising’, and a reflection on aspects of police deviance and accountability depicted.

Food for Thought Question 2

Watch the CBC Fifth Estate documentary “You Should have Stayed at Home”.

Prepare a written response to the documentary. Your response should provide your impression of this representation of the G20, comments on ‘issues arising’, and a reflection on aspects of police deviance and accountability depicted. Your response should include commentary on the implications of the title statement – ‘you should have stayed at home’.

Responses should be submitted by the end of the day on April 5.

Analysis Of Private Security Ethics To The Case Study Of Private Policing

Analysis Of Private Security Ethics To The Case Study Of Private Policing

Private policing overtime has been growing much faster than public law. The growth of private policing is expanding extremely fast and has less requirements than public law. Today you can spot private security members anywhere you go. For example, a security guard at a construction site has a job to make sure that no one trespasses on the construction site at night. Private security also provide protection, patrolling/scanning areas and can be hired personally to protect oneself from danger. Private security is all around us and is expanding very rapidly.

Pivot Legal Society conducted a survey, which developed a lot of new information about private policing and their affects on the homeless residing in the Downtown area of Vancouver.  It was found that the private security was abusing their power against the homeless. The homeless were mistreated by private security in many ways for example: having the homeless moved off of public property such as sidewalks, as well as conducting illegal searches, and engaging in profiling where they specifically looked for homeless citizens that looked like they were on drugs of any sort. The private police in Vancouver were out of line mainly due to the fact that many rights of the homeless citizens were broken.

Jelle Van Buuren focused on private security ethics as wells as the values of the public. By using his study we can analyze the issues that were brought up in the report created by Pivot Legal Society. Van Buuren talks about the concept of “Rolling Out The State,” this is the change of policing system in which the public police forces once provided almost all policing services, to one in which policing services are provided by a range of public and private agencies (Van, J. 2010). This is important, because we once had Vancouver Police controlling much of Vancouver and providing policing. But now in Vancouver there is more private security than normal officers.For example, my friend he works for a private security organisation and without much training he is able to provide safety for the public. Not only do these officers have less training than the VPD, but they don’t have the same power as them. So when private police go out on the field they shouldn’t be asking the homeless to move off public property or even be searched that isn’t their job. Another concept Van Buuren focuses on “Occupational Values,” this is what we call corruption in private security. For example, instead of looking out for the safety of the public and doing their job as needed. They rather focus on themselves and do things that will benefit them. For the VPD one needs to go through many clearances, which may not be the case for private security. Also, being trained properly and finding the best officers for the job separates the VPD from the private security. Lastly Van Burren speaks about, “Accountability,” private security is a single organization depending on the name of the organization such as, Paladin security. They are bound by the judicial system, but there is little reliable proof that it is effective (Van. J, 2010). Even though the private security organizations have been breaking many laws there hasn’t been much going on to fix the problem, because the judicial system hasn’t been providing just actions.

In conclusion, even though private security is much larger in numbers than public police there are many flaws in the system. With the help of Van Buuren a better analysis of the Pivot Legal Report could be drawn. It helps raise the issue that private police still have some issues in their system and need to be fixed before they can move forward. Private security have been focusing on the homeless in Vancouver Downtown much more than any other members of society, this profiling is causing a problem for many homeless citizens that are being treated unlawfully.

References:

PIVOT Legal Society (2009). Security Before Justice: A study of the impacts of private security on homeless and under-housed Vancouver residents. 

Van Buuren, J. (2010). “Private Security Ethics: Reintroducing Public Values”, in M. den Boer & E. Kolthoff (eds) Ethics and Security. The Hague: Eleven International Publishing, pp. 165-187. 

Research Agenda: Police Brutality

Recently, “police brutality” has become a major issue around the world. However, there is not a large amount of data on police brutality in Canada. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_brutality, police brutality is defined as the “wanton use of excessive force, usually physical, but potentially in the form of verbal attacks and psychological intimidation, by a police officer.” The police have the right to use “reasonable force”, if it is essential to make an arrest, uphold order, or for reconciliation matters. Usually, most police brutality goes un-reported, most police brutality is focused against minority groups or otherwise weak populations, some police expect citizens to automatically obey to police authority and a few officers are prolonged offenders, who are accountable for an inconsistent number of brutality complaints. Though, how much force is applicable under certain conditions can be debateable. When an officer uses more force than needed, he, or she is violating the law.

Firstly, I propose to conduct a survey on police officers. This will give me an idea of what is occurring with the police and how police brutality can be reduced. I would give the police officers from B.C. a random and anonymous survey to complete. I would get the police officers to complete an agreement scale type of survey. A question on it could be, “in the last 6 months, have you engaged in excessive force to uphold order?” They would get to choose from strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree. If they agreed to this, at the bottom they would have to write what occurred in that, or those situations.

Moreover, I would also conduct a survey on the general public of British Columbia. I would give them a random and anonymous survey to complete as well. They as well would complete an agreement scale type of survey. A question on it could be, “in the last 6 months, have you been a victim of police brutality?” They as well would get to choose from strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree. If they agreed to this, they would have to write out what occurred in that situation in time.

Furthermore, when I have gotten the two parties to complete the surveys, I would then gather my evidence and present it.

To close, although this is a simple strategy, it would give me a good idea of what is going on because it is a random sample of people, who are anonymous, so results would not be biased. My study will show how much force is used by police officers, but it will also give us an idea of where the police can improve on with excessive force with the general public and how often it occurs. This research would be cost effective and the funding could also be a good way for proper training for police officers and how to deal with individuals better. This is why my study should receive funding.

Reference:

• Police Brutality. In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 25^th, 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_brutality.

An Analysis of the Pivot “Security Before Justice” report in context of private security ethics

Private police can be considered as law enforcement bodies that are owned and controlled by non-governmental organisations or entities. Beginning in the late 1990’s growth in public law enforcement began to decline and there was a boom in the private security industry. In the contemporary era private police greatly outnumber public law enforcement officers by twice as much in developed countries such as United States, Canada, South Africa and various other countries, as governments around the world outsource their security functions to private policing organisations.Today, private security firms are increasingly involved in providing personal bodyguards, patrolling industrial facilities, various commercial establishments, office buildings, transportation facilities, recreational complexes, entire shopping districts and residential neighbourhoods. In modern crime-ridden societies wealthy citizens and business owners prefer using private police as they utilise a proactive, prevention-orientated approach to deal with crime rather than the traditional method of engaging in reactive policing.

In Canada, the City of Vancouver allocated $872,000 on December 13 2007 to fund the development of the Downtown Ambassadors Program, a private security patrol project administered by the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association. In the same year the Pivot Legal Society conducted a survey as well as two focus groups on 154 residents in order to shed light on the experiences of those living on the margins of society and it raised certain issues on democratic policing, accountable governance and respect for human rights as well as practice standards, oversight and accountability within the private security industry. Some of the key issues highlighted through this research were that there were frequent interactions between the private security guards and residents of the Downtown Eastside especially homeless and under-housed residents, private security guards were increasingly overstepping their legal boundaries by compelling residents to move from public property, the illegal use force against marginalized groups, the lack of accountability regarding private security guards and controlling access to public and private property by employing certain tactics such as informal bans and “profiling”.

Jelle Van Buuren describes the ethics involved with private security and its various implications in “Private Security Ethics: Reintroducing Public Values”. His studies can be used to analyse the issues raised in the case study report prepared by the Pivot Legal Society. Van Buuren highlights the fact that the rise of the private security industry has certain normative implications as it can influence the culture, norms and values embedded in security practices which can have a profound effect on society. The process of “Inclusion- Exclusion” can occur as a result of this impact. Private security serves the interests of the wealthy and ruling elites and they tend to remove the marginalised parts of the community from public spaces which are occupied by the wealthy. As private policing is primarily concerned with proactive policing involving the prevention of crime and disorder they regulate entry, limits participation and excludes people on the basis of profiling. These exclusionary private policing tactics are deployed to clean public spaces by concentrating the disorderly conduct outside the city centre. Private security guards employed by business owners in the Downtown Eastside resorted to these same exclusionary tactics of “profiling” to clean public and private spaces in order to make business establishments more attractive to customers. The concept of “Private justice” devised by Van Buuren in context of the normative ramifications of the private security industry, explains that the rich and the powerful are insulated from society by private security practices giving rise to “private orders”. A private justice based system is formed running in parallel to the public judicial system and the private sector resort to discrete and illegal methods to settle internal problems. This notion explains the harassment and removal of “panhandlers” and other marginalized groups from public corners in the Downtown Eastside by private security guards such as Paladin guards which were in clear violation of the law. The concept of “Insecurity as a Profit Maker” proposed by Van Buuren explains that the security industry transforms risk, government failure and public fear into opportunity in order to preserve the profitability of the security market. The constant encounters and confrontations that occur in the downtown eastside between private security and marginalized groups such as the homeless, panhandlers etc can be perceived as a lack of security or a threat to private business interests  in the area and instil fear in business owners, thereby promoting the business interests of the private security firms. Van Buuren points out that though private security organisations can be held accountable through state regulation, industry self-regulation, civil liability, labour laws, contractual liability and accountability through the market, there is no reliable evidence that demonstrates the effectiveness of these factors. The PIVOT legal society report on private policing clearly demonstrates that none of the private security officers were held accountable for their crimes and none of the above factors were helpful in holding the responsible private security organisations accountable. Van Buuren’s notion of “Occupational Values” describes the private security industry as being lacking in norms and values, incompetent, corrupt and always focused on the wishes of the client rather than on public values. The lack of training, hiring of personal with criminal histories etc by certain organisations can degrade these values further. The illegal and unethical behaviours that are characterized in PIVOT’S report of the Downtown Eastside such as the illegal use of force by Paladin security, the removal of marginalized groups from public space, the various security firms gaining confidential information on certain individuals from the police etc can be attributed to the lack of Occupational values put forward by Van Buuren.

The concept of “Rolling out the State” coined by Van Buuren deals with the multiplicity of governance authorities and explains that security governance is maintained by a wide range of private and public authorities and the relations between public and private policing range from coordination, indifference and co-production to hostility. This notion can be used to analyse the events that transpired in the PIVOT report regarding the Vancouver Police Union’s plan to launch court action against the city’s decision to expand the private Downtown Ambassadors program run by Genesis Security. Though there were tensions and hostility between the two organisations, an informal level of cooperation was reported between The Vancouver Police Department and Paladin Security, with confidential personal information of individuals being shared between the two of them. This reinforces Van Buuren’s view by portraying both a mutually beneficial and a hostile relationship that exists between public policing organisations such as the Vancouver Police Department and private organisations such as Paladin and Genesis Security, in the Downtown Eastside.

In conclusion, Van Buuren’s theories gives us insightful information on some of the reasons for the alleged and reported incidents of illegal and unethical behaviour committed by private security which was depicted in the PIVOT Legal Society Report on private security in Vancouver. It raises certain issues regarding the moral standards, oversight and accountability within the private security industry.

References:

PIVOT Legal Society (2009). Security Before Justice: A study of the impacts of private security on homeless and under-housed Vancouver residents. 

Van Buuren, J. (2010). “Private Security Ethics: Reintroducing Public Values”, in M. den Boer & E. Kolthoff (eds) Ethics and Security. The Hague: Eleven International Publishing, pp. 165-187.

Research Proposal for Police Brutality

Over the years, police brutality has become more and more visible in the public eye. The term “police brutality” was first used in the New York Times in 183, when policeman McManus allegedly clubbed his prisoner, Michael Maher. Brutality, by definition, is savage cruelty. Police brutality is the excessive use of force by police. This force is usually physical, but can also be in the forms of verbal or psychological intimidation. Excessive force can be any kind of unneeded force, above what is legally necessary to use.

Police brutality is an area of research that needs to be expanded, since there is so little research on this, so that we can better understand how common it is and to help us find better solutions to deal with this brutality. I propose to do research combining surveys and case studies from police officers. It will determine how often and why police officers may be involved in brutality. I will begin by taking a sample of police officers from all major cities in British Columbia, and I will be giving them an anonymous survey.

On this survey, the first question will be “In the last 3 months, have you ever engaged in any kind of force against a subject, whether it be excessive or justified?” If the answer to this question is yes, they will then be asked to briefly describe all situations in the last 3 months, stating what force was used, and what the subject had done to receive this force. They will then be asked to rate each situation into an excessive force category, or a justified force category.

After the survey portion is done, an in-depth case study will be done. Each case will be ranked on a scale of 1-5, 1 being ‘more force would be acceptable in this situation’ and 5 being ‘way too much force was used in this situation’. These results will then be compared to how the police officers ranked themselves.

My study will not only determine how often and how much force is used and to what extent, but it will also determine how police officers view the force they have used. With this research, we can use to develop training strategies for police officers on how to deal with force, and how to use force properly, which is why my study should receive funding.

References:

Punch, M. (2009). Police Corruption: Deviance, accountability and reform in policing. New York, New York: Routledge.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_brutality

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/0/27/the-3-basic-types-of-descriptive-research-methods/

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F101FFF3D5A1A738DDDAA0A94DE405B8385F0D3

Food for Thought: Deviance and Accountability in the World of Commodified Social Control

We are spending a week (alas, only one) studying police deviance and accountability in the context of private policing or ‘commodified social control’.

Here are the abstracts for our two classes:

 One of the most pressing issues driving research on police deviance and accountability is the ongoing ‘pluralization’ of policing associated with the expansion of the private security field and the blurring of boundaries between public and private policing. The governance framework for private security – from recruitment and training to accountability and oversight – is multifaceted and uneven. In this class, we will examine forms of deviance associated with private policing, drawing on the PIVOT Legal Society report on private security in Vancouver.

Reading: PIVOT Legal Society (2009). Security Before Justice: A study of the impacts of private security on homeless and under-housed Vancouver residents. 

and

In this class, we will concentrate on the debates surrounding accountability for private policing and security. We will consider the differences between approaches that regard private policing as a commodified ‘club good’ and approaches that regard it as part of a broader ‘public good’. We will discuss the issue of values and ethics in the context of private security and consider accountability and regulatory mechanisms associated with private policing in Canada.

Reading: Van Buuren, J. (2010). “Private Security Ethics: Reintroducing Public Values”, in M. den Boer & E. Kolthoff (eds) Ethics and Security. The Hague: Eleven International Publishing, pp. 165-187.

 Food for Thought:

For this unit, I would like you to apply the ideas developed by Van Buuren in his analysis of private security ethics to the case study of private policing in the DTES prepared by Pivot. How can we use Van Buuren’s analysis to make sense of the findings of the ‘Security Before Justice’ report?

This is an open-ended question, and you can focus on themes that seem most important to you. There are a few points to bear in mind:

• Remember – you are writing a post about two readings, but you must prepare it in a way that it is understandable to persons who have not read the material. Be sure to ‘unpack’ and clarify concepts. Provide citations where appropriate.
• Do not attempt to be exhaustive, or to work through the readings point-by-point. Give both texts a thorough reading, take note of key points, and write your post about these.

This post is due by the end of the day on March 26.