Security Officers and Policing

Powers, Culture and Control in the Governance of Private Space

Mark Button

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Année: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317057994
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Jura
• Sous-sujet: Öffentliches Recht

This volume examines how and to what extent security officers make use of`legal tools. The work identifies these tools and draws on two case-study sites to illustrate how security officers make use of them as well as how they fit in broader security systems to secure compliance. The study also examines the occupational culture of security officers and links them into the broader systems of security that operate to police nodes of governance. The book provides insights for researchers and policy-makers seeking to develop policy for the expanding private security industry.

Chapter 1

Power, Authority and the Security Officer: Under-researched and Under-estimated?

Introduction

Changing structures of governance, policing and security have meant that the primary human protective resource in many places has shifted from the police to security officers (as well as other non-police personnel) (Johnston and Shearing 2003; and Crawford and Lister 2004a). In undertaking these functions security officers can draw on a wide range of resources (or tools as Mopas and Stenning call them) to secure the outcomes necessary for their role, that include legal rights, uniforms and weapons amongst others (Mopas and Stenning 2001). These ‘tools’ potentially provide security officers with significant power, although relatively little is known about how security officers use them, if at all. This chapter will explore the research and scholarship on security officers and their powers, examining the sources of power, the extent of their use and abuse, amongst other issues. This chapter will also briefly examine the much more extensive literature on police powers, because this provides clues for researching security officers. Before embarking upon this, however, it is necessary to briefly explore what is meant by power as this will aid an understanding of the legal powers of security officers.

What is power?

Power has been the subject of much debate. At the base level it seems a relatively simple concept: the ability of A to get B to do something they otherwise would not do. This is only part of the picture, however, and this first dimension, as Lukes (1974) would call it, forms the foundations of less visible forms of power. For Lukes there are another two dimensions to power, the second of which, involves a critique of the first and is where A prevents an issue of conflict from emerging so that B still pursues a course of action that if that issue had arisen B might have pursued differently. As Lukes (1974, 20) writes,

...the two dimensional view of power involves a qualified critique of the behavioural focus of the first view and it allows for consideration of the ways in which decisions are prevented from being taken on potential issues over which there is an observable conflict of interests, seen as embodied in express policy preferences and sub-political grievances.

Such power was also recognised by Foucault (1977) in Bentham’s panopticon, where a prison constructed to enable the surveillance of prisoners without them knowing if they were been watched meant conformity was the only option for them. The third dimension provides a further critique of the earlier two views and is a consideration of ways in which potential issues are kept out of decision-making so as to influence the decision-making of an actor, without them even realising it. In this case it would be a scenario where A pursues a course of action because B has created an environment which means A will follow that course of action without realising B wanted that to occur. In short it is the creation of social structures that encourage a course of action that the subjects are not observably aware of. Such social control measures that exist are extensive and have been explored by Cohen (1985) in broader society.

To put these in a security context if a security officer asks a ‘youth’ to leave a shop when they do not wish to and they do, that could be considered as an example of the first dimension of power. An example of the second, might be where a security officer’s mere presence leads a ‘youth’ not to enter the shop when they want to. The third dimension could be illustrated by a ‘youth’ not even wanting to enter the shop because sub-consciously they have been influenced not to do so, hence the behaviour of the ‘youth’ had been influenced without there been any observable conflict.

Another analysis of power that distinguishes the more opaque side is Dowding’s (1996) distinction between ‘outcome power’ and ‘power over’ or ‘social power’. Dowding defines them as,

Outcome power = the ability of an actor to bring about or help to bring about outcomes. Social power = the ability of an actor deliberately to change the incentive structure of another actor or actors to bring about or help to bring about outcomes (Dowding 1996, 5).

Thus a security officer has the power to make a citizen’s arrest in certain circumstances – an outcome power. They also possess a wide range of social powers varying according to their skill and the social environment they work within. Social power is recognised as being an important concept, as it reflects the ability of an individual to make x happen by manipulating the social environment. This might be at one extreme the threat of coercion to more subtle tactics of influencing the incentive structures of an individual. For example a security officer who wants to make a trespasser leave private property could at one extreme threaten to physically remove them if they refuse to leave. Alternatively the officer could persuade the trespasser to leave by threatening legal action or to call the police.

By its very nature, then, social power is a much more complex concept and also more difficult to measure than outcome power. In the case of security officers an analysis of their legal powers can be undertaken to list their outcome powers. With social power it varies between individuals and according to the social environment. The types of resources that determine the degree of social power include factors such as knowledge, legitimate authority, incentives available to offer and reputation (Harsanyi 1976a and b, cited in Dowding 1996). These could also be reapplied as potential sources of power for security officers.

This brief overview of power has illustrated the complexities of power and inparticular the more opaque sides. These help in understanding the power of security officers because they show that one has to do more than identify what legal tools they have available to them. It is important to examine the security officer in the social environment in which they work and how they achieve outcomes. Indeed as the next section reveals, studies of police powers have also delved into the more opaque side in-order to secure the fuller picture of the power of the police.

Police powers

There is an extensive literature on police powers. Broadly it can be divided into legalistic works describing what police (and other state officials) powers are (such as Feldman, 1996; Zander, 2003; and Jason-Lloyd 2005) and studies into their use (see, Dixon 1997 for overview). Such is the wide range and amount of literature on police powers it would not be possible to provide a comprehensive overview in the space available in this book. However, some of the research conducted on police powers provides important insights for a study of security officers.

Attitudes to police powers have also changed over time. Up until the eighteenth century the legal powers of constables were very complex and their power stemmed more from the office of constable rather than legal powers. By the eighteenth century, however, with the changing nature of the state, society and policing, changes in this conception emerged. In response to challenges to the authority of constables, the Constables Act 1750 was passed which gave legal immunity to constables acting under a magistrate’s warrant. In the famous judgement of Lord Chief Justice Camden in 1765 in Entick v Carrington he stated, ‘[i]f it is law, it will be found in our books. If it is not to be found there, it is not law’ (cited in Dixon 1997, 55).

This marked the beginning of putting police powers into the law books. However, even by the formation of the ‘new police’ in 1829 there were few special powers given to the police. Five years previously the Vagrancy Act had created a wide range of deviant acts, which had a power of arrest attached that could be used by any citizen; such powers, however, would be of much greater use to a constable. Thus the view of police officers as nothing more than ordinary men doing what any good citizen would do had a strong basis at this time. By the 1960s, however, this view – which still prevailed even in the 1962 Royal Commission – did not reflect the growth of special police powers and what in reality the police actually did vis-à-vis ordinary citizens in terms of policing. As Choongh (1997) has argued where the police have not possessed a legal power they have simply assumed them when necessary. He argues,

...the police tightened their grip over the suspect by simply assuming powers which the law denied them. This process of expanding their powers by engaging in unauthorized practices was accompanied by a co-ordinated police effort to legitimate and authenticate their actions by persuading judges, politicians and the public that what they were doing was necessary in order to curb crime. They did this by denigrating rules designed to protect suspects, claiming that they only knew what had to be done to apprehend and convict criminals, and by putting themselves forward as a professional body who could be trusted to respect the freedoms and liberties of law abiding citizens (Choongh 1997, 12).

Thus for many hundreds of years formal legal powers were not what gave the constable power to achieve objectives, it was holding the office of constable that gave him the authority to achieve them. It is only with the changes in state society relations that it became necessary to begin to write down and then gradually extend the powers a constable possessed. An important issue that arises from history is the importance of the ‘office of constable’ in securing compliance and consent. This authority that the office of constable provides still exists today. The police are able to secure compliance and consent through a wide range of strategies one of which is merely being a constable. This consent is extremely important in the relationships between police and society as will shortly be discussed.

The legal powers of police officers do not present the whole picture, as securing consent is also widely used to secure objectives. As soon as consent is achieved by a police officer the legal relationship also changes. No longer is it a relationship between an official of the state and a citizen, rather prima facie between two citizens (Dixon 1997, 90). This also means that many of the obligations that are required of a police officer exercising legal powers are not required when consent is gained. This means in many situations the rights of suspects disappear, records do not have to be kept, to name some examples.1 Consent is therefore very important as it gives not only power to the police, but also in many cases a much less regulated power. As Dixon (1997, 90) has noted,

Some of the consequences of ‘consensual’ encounters are that statutory requirements for the exercise of powers do not apply (so that, for example, a suspect can be searched without reasonable grounds for suspicion), record-making is unnecessary (rendering supervision more difficult), and the rights of the suspect do not have the protections which are corollaries of the exercise of legal power.

By their very nature it is also possible for police officers to secure consent through a number of strategies. Police officers are frequently viewed by members of the public as authoritative figures who possess power (Loader 1997). The fact that constables were able to exercise powers up until 1750 with little legal clarity on what their powers actually were, is testament to the long history of the authority of the office of constable. The perception of constables as authoritative and powerful still continues today. It is interesting that a study of the Wandsworth Parks Police (who are constables but only in the context of local authority bye-laws) found that of 40 arrests during 1994 only 4 related to the bye-laws. It was concluded that most of the other arrests (90 per cent) were unlawful (Goodwin 1996). The fact that constables were able to undertake these arrests can largely be explained by their image as police constables. It is unlikely that ‘park wardens’ would have been able to achieve the same results.

The use of language is another important strategy used by the police. Often police officers will ask ‘What have you got in your bag?’ rather than ‘Open your bag so I can search it’. Thus they are asking a question rather than forcing them to do something. Dixon (1997) describes examples from New South Wales in Australia where officers have never had to say ‘You are under arrest’. Instead they say ‘You are going to have to come back to the station’.

The threat of use of legal powers, arrest, search warrant etc is yet another strategy used by police officers. One of the most common areas in which this occurs is related to searches of premises. Often police officers will threaten to come back later with a search warrant if they aren’t allowed in. These same strategies are also often used in relation to searches and asking suspects to come to the police station to help them with their enquiries.

Another common strategy of police officers in securing consent is to exploit the suspect’s ignorance. In a survey of 2,000 officers, 79 per cent claimed suspects rarely knew their rights. Of those that claimed they knew their rights, officers would then often resort to ‘bamboozling’ the suspect by claiming they have the authority to do something or threatening arrest. In a study by Lidstone and Bevan (u.d.) they found that 32 per cent of recorded searches in two force areas were undertaken through consent and that in most cases this ‘consent’ was gained in situations of duress, when the suspect was unlikely to be aware that they could refuse.

Perhaps one of the most significant issues that enables police officers to secure consent is the implied guilt of the suspect if they don’t agree to their requests. Thus if they are asked to empty their pockets, if their house can be searched or if they will come to the police station to ‘help with enquiries’, in many cases suspects will, for fear of appearing guilty if they don’t.

Overall what the extensive research on police powers reveals is the ability of police officers to exercise considerable power without using their legal powers simply by securing consent. If power can be achieved without recourse to legal powers then for those occupations engaged in policing who do not have any or as many special legal tools, they could potentially exercise power through securing consent. Thus not only will it be necessary to assess the legal powers of private security officers it will also be essential to examine the relationship between private security officer and those they police in various situations.

Security officers’ powers

There has been relatively little research into the legal powers of private security officers internationally and virtually none in England and Wales.2 The research which does exist has mainly focused upon what legal powers security personnel possess (Braun and Lee 1971; Stenning and Shearing 1980; Sarre 1994; Jason-Lloyd 2003; and Sarre and Prenzler, 2005), public perceptions of private security officers’ powers (Mopas and Stenning 1999), the regulation of their powers and accountability mechanisms (Scott and McPherson 1971; and Button 1998; and Stenning 2000), and security officers’ knowledge of their legal powers (Kakalik and Wildhorn 1971d).

The literature on the legal powers of private security officers generally shows no special powers given to them through legislation (although there are a few exceptions to this that will shortly be discussed). Much of the research, however, does suggest that private security personnel do derive power from a variety of other sources. These include various legal sources (most commonly from property law, contract law and employment law), through the wearing of uniforms and carrying weapons to name some. Mopas and Stenning (1999) describe the various sources of power as ‘tools of the trade’. This term will be used to examine some of the many sources of power for security officers.

Legal tools

There are a wide variety of legal sources that give powers to private security officers. First there are some security officers working in specialist locations who have been given special legal powers to search, as in courts in England and Wales. Second there are powers that all citizens possess which security officers make greater use of, such as the right to make a ‘citizen’s arrest’. Finally security officers working on private space or policing those in employment relationships can often derive powers from property, contract and employment law. As South (1997, 107) has argued,

Ordinary citizens are in fact routinely in positions where private security personnel may search them (airport security), exclude them (shopping malls), place them under surveillance (CCTV), evict them (nightclubs) and so on.

Some of these ‘legal’ tools used by security officers will now be explored.

Special legal powers

There are some security officers that possess special statutory powers, although this is relatively rare. For instance research in the USA has illustrated many private security personnel who are deputised by the local police (Braun and Lee 1971). In Canada Stenning and Shearing (1979) have shown the many private security staff possess ‘peace officer’ status, which gives them additional powers. In some countries security personnel are given special powers that do not amount to ‘police powers’. For instance in Finland private security officers have the right to remove from property they are guarding someone who does not have the right to be there (Allen 1991). There is also a protection of the security officer of an offence of ‘violent behaviour towards a security officer’.

There are also some a-typical security personnel that have been given special legal powers. Prison custody officers working in private prisons and prison escorts in England and Wales possess similar powers to public sector prison officers under the Criminal Justice Act 1991 and Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (Jason-Lloyd 2003). Security officers working in courts also possess special powers of search and the Police Reform Act 2002 has provisions to give security staff working for accredited community safety schemes a range of special powers (some of the powers of these type of officers will be examined briefly in Chapter 3). Some security officers also possess special powers under private/hybrid legislation and local bye-laws. For instance the New Covent Garden market security force have powers to enforce the provisions of the Road Traffic Act 1972 – although they were found to hardly use these powers (Jones and Newburn 1998).

The legal powers of private security officers working at Immigration Detention Centres has also raised some interesting debates. When detention centres were first contracted out to the private sect...

Table des matières

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Table of Legislation and Cases
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Power, Authority and the Security Officer: Under-researched and Under-estimated?
• 2 Researching Security Officers
• 3 The Legal Tools of Security Officers in England and Wales
• 4 Nodes of Governance: Pleasure Southquay and Armed Industries
• 5 ‘Knowledge is Power?’: Security Officers’ Understanding of their Legal Tools
• 6 Universal Legal Tools: Consent, Coercion and Commonsense
• 7 Select Legal Tools: Compliance, Consent and Commonsense
• 8 Occupational Hazards: Too Many Masters, Isolation and Abuse
• 9 ‘I’m a Security Guard Get Me Out of Here!’ The Cultural Characteristics of Security Officers
• 10 ‘Big Fish in Little Ponds’, Security Officers and the Policing of Private and Hybrid Space
• Bibliography
• Index