|
|
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
When policing goes private |
|||||||||
|
As security forces grow there are
questions about accountability
Lights flashing, the patrol car creeps
to a stop in the darkened parking lot. |
|
Keep in
mind these officers responding to the parking-lot call aren't members of a
publicly funded police force. They're private security guards hired
by a property owner to protect land. Like health care and the environment, policing has become another public service moving towards privatization. According to a recent Law Commission of Canada report that examined the issue: "The line between what is public and private property - and who is responsible for policing public and private space - is becoming blurred." Many functions that were once the exclusive domain of public police forces are now being performed by private agencies." |
|||||||
| A8/ The Hamilton Spectator SPECIAL REPORT Monday, June 24, 2002 | |||||||||
| Private police | |||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
| Serving and protecting in a legal grey area By STEVE BUIST The Hamilton Spectator | |||||||||
|
Over the past 40 years, there has been an
explosion in private policing across North America. By the early
1970's, the number of privately employed security personnel overtook the
number of public police officers in Canada. "This
isn't new," says Richard Ericson, a law professor at the University of
British Columbia who specializes in policing issues. "This is a
phenomenon that's been developing for several decades. "Its
the same in all western countries, and it's not something you're going to
reverse as a trend. "It reflects the fact that, in general,
there is a downsizing of the state," he says. In Canada,
there are now twice as many private security officers as public police
officer. In the United States, there are eight times as many.
"There are definitely benefits to be had from privatization, and
there are definitely problems to be encountered," says Philip Stenning,
a criminology professor at the University of Toronto. "But
neither the benefits nor the problems will be properly considered until we
have a clearer idea of what privatization has already occurred. "People
are in denial about this," Stenning says.
"There's been an unwillingness to confront the extent to which policing
is already privatized." Examples of private policing are
everywhere these days - security guards in malls, sports complexes and
construction sites, condo buildings with secure entrances, hired security at
bars and nightclubs, in-house security at factories and office buildings,
airport security, even gated residential communities. "The
demand for security is greater than public police can meet," says
Christopher Murphy, a sociology professor at Dalhousie University who
specializes in policing. In 1998, four downtown business
improvement areas in Ottawa banded together and hired private security at
bars and nightclubs than there are public police on duty. In
Vancouver, merchants in Gastown recently won the right to have one metre of
sidewalk in front of their stores declared private property so that they can
use private security to force vagrants, prostitutes and panhandlers to move
on. "The issue is some people can afford certain kinds of
protection and other people can't" Ericson says. "Policing
is no longer just a public good, now its increasingly a private good.
"It's been brought into particular institutions and particular
spaces and there's a lot of ambiguity in that regard.
"It's a question of who can afford to have certain kinds of protection and to exclude certain kinds of people and what the implications of that are, "Ericson adds. I f there's been a blurring of the line between public and private policing, it's because there's also been a blurring of what spaces are public property and what spaces are private property. The past 30 years have seen the development of large parcels of land that may seem to be public spaces but are in fact private property - places such as Lime Ridge Mall, Toronto's Eaton Centre and Paramount Canada's Wonderland. "Basically, you can check your privacy at the door when you go into these places, just as I do when I go into your home," Stenning says. Interesting, private security officers have no grater powers under the law than the average citizen. According to the Criminal Code of Canada, anyone may arrest a person found to be committing an indictable offence and who is trying to escape arrest. B ut owners of private property - including homeowners - have the right, through trespassing acts, to arbitrarily establish the conditions by which someone can remain on their property. It's a powerful tool at their disposal, and it allows for invasions of privacy that aren't available to public police or allowed in public places. "The problem is that those powers of property owners were designed to protect private property - genuinely private property," Stenning says. "Those powers of private property owners are now being used by owners who are in charge of places that are essentially public places and they affect the public in ways they were never designed to. "The legal regime that applies there is the exact same legal regime that applies in your home," Stenning adds. "That legal regime was not designed for the regulation of places like the Eaton Centre." The vast West Edmonton Mall employs 50 private security officers - a force that's comparable to that of a medium-sized town - and they respond to about 40,000 "calls" each year. Property owners routinely use closed-circuit cameras to monitor every nook and cranny of their premises with little protest from the public, yet the issue of cameras being installed in public places generally provokes heated debate over privacy concerns. Property owners are also free to collect personal information to compile databases, or even post pictures, for example, of people who have been banned from the premises. Private security officers conduct date bases, or even post-pictures, for example, of people who have been banned from the premises. Private security officers conduct surveillance, make arrests, detain suspects and evict people - powers that we normally associate with public police forces. Yet private security officers wield these considerable powers outside of the same scrutiny that public police officers must face. "There is an issue of public accountability here." Stenning says. "If people are going to be subject to policing in what are essentially public places, there has to be some public accountability for what's being done, how it's done, who it's done to and why." Any interaction between a private citizen and a public police officer is covered under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, even if the public police officer is working off-duty for a property owner. But the charter doesn't apply to interactions between private citizens, which means that some actions carried out by private security officers - including detentions and searches - aren't subject to the charter. With public police forces, there are clear lines of governance and accountability. There are also mechanisms in place to handle complaints about the actions of police. Those same clear lines and mechanisms aren't in place on the private side of the equation. Most of the provincial acts governing private security are focused more on regulating the business side of the ledger - ensuring that firms have a license and that they're insured. Only New Brunswick automatically excludes a person with a criminal record from becoming licensed as a private security guard. Provincial statues also apply only to private investigators and private security companies that are contracted for work, not in-house security that is employed directly by a company or property owner. These statutes do not, however, establish independent oversight mechanisms that can be used to hold private security officers accountable for their actions," the Law Commission report says. "Without effective external oversight the safety of the public may be compromised." If it's true that there's an apparently insatiable appetite for more security, one solution to the accountability problem would be to just hire many more public police officers. Public policing is an expensive proposition, however. The total cost to the taxpayer to put one police officer on the street is estimated to be about $120,000. "If we want public police to do everything, we'd better be prepared to pay a whole lot more," Murphy says. "To grow public policing to meet all the needs would be exorbitantly expensive and a questionable use of talent." Public police officers are highly skilled and trained to deal with serious crimes and disorder problems, but we also expect them to provide us with the kinds of comforting services that don't really draw on their special skills - walking a beat, rattling doors, checking on properties. "Despite the talk about community policing, a lot of just plain being visible and available is increasingly seen as unproductive time because demands are for more serious kinds of crimes," Murphy says. "That's where private security firms believe they can play a role by working in conjunction with public police, not in competition. In Texas, the city of Amarillo has contracted a private security company to respond to alarm calls and patrol the downtown core in tandem with public police during peak hours. Private security handles minor incidents, and the public police are called in for more serious cases. It's an idea that's creeping north of the border. In Ontario, the Police Services Act was recently amended to allow municipalities to "adopt a different method of providing police services," rather than the traditional municipal or O.P.P. service. "Some private security executives have argued that this amendment allows them to bid on municipal policing contracts," the Law Commission report says. At an appearance before an Ontario government committee hearing on policing, the president of a Toronto-based private security company said it's time the private-model approach for service delivery in Ontario is direct at policing. "With the cost of police services being defined o the penny, shouldn't serious thought be given to the issue of the most cost-effective way to deliver community safety?" asked Ross McLeod, president of Intelligarde International Inc. Intelligarde made headlines recently when it was invited to submit a bid to provide policing services along with the Trenton and O.P.P. forces for the newly created municipality of Quinte West. "It is common sense to have the police focus on core competence issues for major crime, armed interventions and Criminal Code investigations," McLeod said. "But common sense also tells us that it is the relatively low police priority items that irritate the public and degrade the quality of public life in our communities: car break-ins, vandalism, break and enters." Not surprisingly, perhaps, those who represent public police officers are not eager to see any further encroachment on their territory. "It should be maintained in its current state," says Brian Adkin, a police officer for 29 years and now president of the Ontario Provincial Police Association. "W e see the line very clearly. We have a very distinct role, and they have their role." Some policing experts believe that at the very least, police service boards and commissions should assume responsibility for regulating and monitoring all policing activity, whether it's carried out by public forces or private security. "Right now, they exist in different solitudes," Murphy says, "sometimes competitive, sometimes collaborating when it's in their mutual self-interests. "The future hopefully will be a world in which there will be an integrated model where governments play a more aggressive role in setting standards and regulating activities." In the meantime, growth in use of private police continues. And, Murphy says, "People don't know whether to accept this development as inevitable." _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 'The issue is some people can afford certain kinds of protection and other people can't. Policing is no longer just a public good, now it's increasingly a private good. It's been brought into particular institutions and particular spaces, and there's a lot of ambiguity in that regard. It's a question of who can afford to have certain kinds of protection and to exclude certain kinds of people and what the implications of that are.' |
|||||||||
