Constraints on the growth of private policing: A comparative international analysis
| Date | 01 August 2019 |
| Author | Matthew Light,Anne-Marie Singh |
| Published date | 01 August 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480617733727 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480617733727
Theoretical Criminology
2019, Vol. 23(3) 295 –314
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1362480617733727
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Constraints on the growth of
private policing: A comparative
international analysis
Anne-Marie Singh
Ryerson University, Canada
Matthew Light
University of Toronto, Canada
Abstract
While much has been written on private security expansion in a few English-speaking
industrialized democracies, less is known about why the industry does not develop
uniformly around the world. We propose some hypotheses about constraints on
private security growth in other settings, based on three comparative case studies in
authoritarian states (Russia and Georgia), developing countries (Guyana and Trinidad)
and non-‘Anglosphere’ industrialized democracies (continental Europe). In authoritarian
states, private policing is more politically sensitive than in democratic states, sometimes
resulting in more draconian restrictions on it. In developing societies, despite widespread
fear of crime, potential consumers sometimes favour in-house measures over private
security firms and electronic devices. In developed democracies, variation in private
security growth reflects regulatory, institutional and ideological differences between the
Anglosphere and continental Europe. We conclude that constraints on the private security
industry’s growth potential are more significant than many scholars have acknowledged.
Keywords
Comparative criminology, policing, private security, Russia, theory development
Introduction
On a recent visit to Georgetown, Guyana, where she spent her childhood, Anne-Marie
Singh was struck by the lack of a professionalized private security industry in this
Corresponding author:
Anne-Marie Singh, Department of Criminology, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada.
Email: singh@crim.ryerson.ca
733727TCR0010.1177/1362480617733727Theoretical CriminologySingh and Light
research-article2017
Article
296 Theoretical Criminology 23(3)
developing South American country. Stabroek Market—the city’s largest, which also
serves as its main taxi rank and ferry dock—had no visible private or public police pres-
ence. Likewise, access to the private members club where she stayed was controlled by
a non-uniformed guard in a sentry post inside the property, who manually operated a
large metal gate that served as the only access point. Observing similar security arrange-
ments in many homes of well-to-do Georgetown residents, Singh reflected that the pre-
dominant forms of privatized security in Georgetown differed sharply from those in most
contemporary scholarly studies of the industry. In particular, there was much less of a
corporatized guard sector, or even perimeter security technologies, than she expected
based on such studies. Moreover, the security business had not clearly evolved beyond
the level she recalled from the 1970s.
Through this anecdote, we draw attention to a gap in private policing studies. While
much has been written on the origins, nature and growth of private security, far less is
known about why the industry, and particular segments of it, does not develop equally
everywhere. Dominant explanations for its expansion include rising crime, or fear of
crime and feelings of insecurity; corrupt or ineffective public policing; changing prop-
erty relations, including the ‘mass private property’ hypothesis; the decline of informal
social control; and neo-liberal reframing of state and private sector responsibility for
security. However, few studies have asked why a commercialized security industry flour-
ishes in some countries, but not in others, including in some where such putative predic-
tors of growth are present. The absence or underdevelopment of a private security
industry cannot be explained simply by pointing to the inverse of the factors listed above,
at least not without further investigation. Moreover, simply deploying all these factors
together as explanations makes it difficult to sift out the relative weight of particular
causes. In fact, private security development exhibits much more variation than is cur-
rently recognized in most theoretical studies (but see Goold et al., 2010; Jones and
Newburn, 1999; Ungar, 2007). Rather than considering cases in light of existing theories,
we aim for comparisons that promote the development and testing of new hypotheses
(Lijphart, 1971: 691).
Drawing together a range of scholarship, this article highlights variation in private
security development in two authoritarian states, (post-Soviet Russia and Georgia), in
two English-speaking developing Caribbean countries (Trinidad and Tobago and
Guyana); and in several Western European democracies. Post-Soviet authoritarian
regimes, we suggest, constrain private security through repressive policies unlikely in
established democracies. Trinidad and Guyana illustrate why private security in develop-
ing countries may not always follow the same corporate or even professional path as in
developed ones. Finally, in Western Europe, we note more significant variation in private
security growth than is usually perceived within the ‘Anglosphere’, due to regulatory,
institutional and ideological differences between the UK and continental states.
In taking this wide-ranging approach, we are informed by studies of the ‘comparative
case approach’ from criminology (Campbell and Schoenfeld, 2013) and political science
(Collier and Mahoney, 1996; Geddes, 1999; Kaarbo and Beasley, 1999; Lijphart, 1971,
1975) that suggest new avenues for explaining private security development. In particu-
lar, the existing literature largely focuses on a few countries—primarily the UK, the
USA, Canada and South Africa—with a robust private security sector. Selecting cases
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