Private Security and Public Policing
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Private Security and Public Policing by Trevor Jones and Tim Newburn Oxford: Clarendon Press (1998) ISBN: 0 19 826569 7 (xiv + 288 pages, hb, £40.00)
Reviewed by David S. Wall This book is a very timely addition to the debate over the relationship between public and private policing. A debate that has, perhaps for too long, tended to rely upon a body of literature that helped to define the genre, and yet a decade or so on, is still waiting for a detailed empirical investigation. This study is useful because it places the earlier works of Shearing and Stenning1 under a UK spotlight and seeks to put empirical flesh upon Johnson’s important2 work, whilst also placing it under the same critical eye. Jones and Newburn begin their study by reviewing the state of the sociology of policing and find it wanting. They are especially critical of the tendency, especially in the earlier policing literature, to ‘conflate policing with what “the police” do’ (p 27). Consequently, they argue that this functional reductionism fails to take proper account of the very broad range of policing functions that the private police/security sector performs. So, they seek to provide an answer to Johnson’s3 request that a conceptual framework is developed that will deal with the broader range of policing activities without isolating those carried out by the public police. The authors then go on to explore both the meanings and the usefulness of the terms ‘public’ and ‘private’, which they find to be problematic, particularly with regard to the sectoral and spatial boundaries of private policing. Moreover, they note that although the sectoral boundaries (who provides the policing services) overlaps with, but is analytically different, from the spatial boundaries which determine where the services are provided. Furthermore, they also note that these distinctions are further confused by the fact that many private policing bodies actually have public functions: what Johnston has termed ‘hybrid policing bodies’. However, they conclude on this issue, that whilst the terms have their limitations, they are the best that we have and should therefore be retained, if only because of the common usage of the terms. Moving from theory to practice, Jones and Newburn then go on to map out the contours of the private security industry in the UK with a view to exploring the phenomenon that Johnston has dubbed the ‘rebirth of private security’. They found, perhaps uncontroversially, that private security has become a massive industry in the UK, employing as many as a third of a million people. However, of greater significance were two findings. First, although there was some growth in the industry, the reasons for it were diverse. Secondly, this growth had taken place steadily over a much longer period than was anticipated, perhaps as long as 40 years. The findings from their subsequent case study of policing in Wandsworth suggest that these apparent idiosyncrasies within the growth of the sector were caused by an increase in the numbers of those employed in tar
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