POLICING: RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE FORMS (FROM ALTERNATIVE POLICING STYLES: CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES, P 203-228, 1993, MARK FINDLAY AND UGLJESA ZVEKIC, EDS. -- SEE NCJ-146911)

• NCJ Number: 146924
• Author(s): C D Shearing
• Date Published: 1993
• Length: 26 pages
• Sale Source: Kluwer Law International
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: Italy
• Note: This is a modified version of the paper published as "The Relation Between Public and Private Policing" in "Modern Policing," P. 399-434, 1992.

Annotation

This paper examines the nature, characteristics, and scope of private policing and its relationship to its public counterpart.

Abstract

"Policing," as the term is used in this paper, refers to the preservation of the peace, that is, to the maintenance of a way of doing things where persons and property are protected from unwarranted interference so they may do their business safely. The author identifies three conceptions of the private/public policing relationship: state-centered, laissez-faire, and pluralist. Under the state-centered view, private policing is a precursor of modern public policing due to the absence of a state strong enough to provide credible assurances of peace. The laissez- faire framework accepts and countenances privatization without government obstruction and a coordinated system of public and private policing that integrates the activities of state of corporate guarantors of peace. The pluralist conception envisions a new corporate pluralism in which corporations cooperate and coordinate with each other and the state as relatively autonomous guarantors of peace. The emerging conceptions of public and private policing foster an image in which corporate governments exist alongside state governments to provide security. This carries the potential for more consensually based local control processes but also the possibility of corporate access to information about most aspects of citizens' lives. 132 footnotes