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Article Excerpt
Introduction
The security guard, the "cop" in the "rent-a-cop" equation, is the object of habitual contempt due to inevitable comparison with the better-screened, trained, and remunerated police officer. Both have been the subjects of extensive study. But what of the "renter"? Why would one "rent" a "cop" who is held in such low regard? Despite sustained scholarly attention given to private security, and notwithstanding the discursive influence of the explanatory trope of "consumerism," how consumers imagine private security remains largely unexplored. To begin to remedy this neglect, this article explores consumers' understandings and knowledge of a private security (2) program in an affluent residential neighbourhood in an Ontario city. Borne of a contractual arrangement between a private security firm and individual homeowners, the program operates under private auspices using private providers (Bayley and Shearing 2001) and is the first of its kind in Canada. (3)
Drawing primarily upon in-depth interviews with neighbourhood residents, in this exploratory study we investigate how this program emerged and how its integral facets and context are understood. Four key aspects are discussed: exclusivity, security, public and private patrols, and responsibility. In relation to these we then consider theoretical claims from the governmentality literature regarding "advanced liberal" notions of "governing through community" and "responsibilization" (see Rose 1999; O'Malley 2004: 72) and from the private security literature regarding assertions about the acceptance of the "free rider" (Noaks 2000) and commodified security's attractions to consumers (Loader 1999). We argue that consumers' imaginings of this program and its context raise some doubts about these interrelated assertions. However, we argue there is evidence of a fleeting "node" of governance (Johnston and Shearing 2003) present in this context. The current study suggests that private security's purchase on the consumer imagination may be weaker or more elusive than previously assumed and that further research is required. Befitting these findings, we suggest that as presently constituted, this kind of neighbourhood-based private security program has a limited future in Canada.
Private security in theoretical perspective
The private security sector has grown considerably in North America and Europe since the mid-twentieth century, but especially in the last three decades (Shearing and Stenning 1981; Jones and Newburn 1995; de Waard 1999). In Canada, between 1991 and 2001, Sanders (2005) reports that employment in the private security and investigation industry increased by 69%. Consisting of more than the traditional activities of night watchmen and "private eyes," in Canada private security has burgeoned in domains as varied as the deportation and detention of migrants (Pratt 2005), airport passenger screening (Lippert and O'Connor 2003), and the policing of economic crime (Williams 2005).
Thus, private agents currently participate in virtually all aspects of policing, but perhaps the most visible move into the public police's domain (Jones and Newburn 1998: 59) are uniformed patrols in residential areas. In Britain, by the mid-1990s, 20 such patrols were known to be operating (Jones and Newburn 1998: 60); by 2003, there were at least 47, although the residential market was still "reasonably small-scale and locally based" (Crawford and Lister 2006: 168). While no reliable numbers are available, residential patrols have been active in the U.S. from at least the early 1990s as well (see Davis 1992; Walsh, Donovan, and McNicholas 1992; Pastor 2003). In Canada, private security has only recently adopted this role.
Undoubtedly, due to its growth, private security has received sustained scholarly attention (e.g., Boutellier 1999; Rigakos and Brodeur 2005). For some time, scholars have understood private security's documented growth as inexorably tethered to the proliferation of "mass private properties" (Shearing and Stenning 1981; 1983). More recently, however, "mass private property" has been reconsidered (Jones and Newburn 1999) and then reconfigured as "communal space" to account for private security's advance into quasi-public spaces (Kempa, Stenning, and Wood 2004). This development has been accompanied by recognition of increased "marketization" and a new "client-focused logic" among the public police (Loader 1999; see also Ericson and Haggerty 1997: 340-345). Thus, policing and security provision are increasingly understood to have undergone "fragmentation" (Loader 1997; Jones and Newburn 1998) and "multilateralization" (Bayley and Shearing 2001). It is now assumed that an assortment of agents and agencies operating in myriad sites, referred to as "nodes" that are not always traceable back to the state, presently authorize and execute these practices (Johnston and Shearing 2003; see also Cooley 2005). (4)
These changes seem consistent with the rise of what is called ah "advanced liberal" mode of governance that foresees the state divesting much of its "steering" and "rowing" capacity to non-state agencies and agents (Wood and Shearing 1999: 316; see also O'Malley and Palmer 1996). Security provision, including crime prevention, is said to manifest as a "responsibilization strategy" through which non-state agencies and individuals become "partners" in preventing crime and securing spaces (O'Malley 1992; Garland 1996; O'Malley and Palmer 1996; Lippert 2002). Much of this is to be accomplished through appeals to "community," which emerges as a key space of thought and action (Crawford 1994; 1997; see also Rose 1999; O'Malley 2004: 72). Such "responsibilization" is assumed to accompany the emergence of new programs that anticipate citizens who seek "to 'enterprise themselves,' to maximize their quality of life through acts of choice" (Rose 1996: 57). It advanced liberalism attempts to govern through "the regulated choices of individual citizens" (Rose 1993: 285), consumer choice and perspective would seem vital to its workings (Valverde, Levi, Shearing, Condon, and O'Malley 1999: 20; Rose 1999). Thus, largely consistent with these claims drawn from the governmentality literature is work that asserts a cultural shift towards the market consumption of security has occurred (Loader 1999), that security has become commodified and been rendered more accessible for consumption by those choosing to purchase it. Yet, it remains unclear whether "advanced liberalism" and/or "consumer culture" perspectives fully capture that which is occurring in this realm. Given the apparent import of consumer choice to advanced liberalism, overlapping claims about the rise of consumer culture in relation to security, and longer-standing calls to explore private security consumption from a purchaser's perspective (see Spitzer 1987; Johnston 1992; see also Rigakos 2002), there is surprisingly little empirical research in this area.
Previous Research
Previous inquiry into the perspectives of security consumers is lacking either empirically or theoretically. For example, applying Zygmunt Bauman's insights, Loader (1999) discusses the security consumer's view in elaborating possible attractions of the security market. These include satisfaction from defeating the criminal element, the freedom to choose one's own needs, and the avoidance of obligations to the state by providing for oneself. Unfortunately, these compelling claims are not founded upon empirical evidence (see also Spitzer 1987).
Noaks (2000) conducted a survey of subscribers and non-subscribers in a neighbourhood residential patrol program in a British city. The patrol in question began on private streets, expanding to public housing areas in response to residents' demand. Subscribers accorded high priority to crime prevention through an enhanced street presence, one that public police were apparently unable to provide. This study revealed satisfaction with the patrol among subscribers and a lack of disdain for non-subscribers ("free riders") who benefited from the service. However, beyond a discussion of the relationship between private security and public police, this study's theoretical implications remain largely unelaborated.
The present study examines a similar service in Ontario but in a way that seeks to overcome empirical and theoretical limitations by more directly considering consumers' understandings of security in light of theoretical claims. In so doing, this study also offers a rare glimpse of the perspective of relatively wealthy consumers--a notoriously difficult segment to access in social research more generally--whose significance here rests in their privileged position to satisfy their needs in the marketplace. These consumers are most financially able to exercise their choice to purchase private security. The vast literature on the privatization of public services (on policing specifically, see Bayley and Shearing 1996; Crawford and Lister 2006), suggests this population segment is most apt to abandon the public provision of services for private offerings and then seek to circumvent obligations to contribute to public services in the form of taxes. In turn, the corresponding diminishment of state revenue is understood to jeopardize the quality of public services. These consumers' understandings may be the harbingers of things to come and closer inspection of their discourse is warranted and overdue.
Method
Qualitative methods were used to explore the security program's emergence and residents' understanding of its features and context. Research procedures included neighbourhood site visits in 2004, 2005, and 2006, collection of program marketing materials, (5) review of media accounts of residents' claims about the program, and personal interviews with residents. (6) We used interviews to explore consumers' understanding and knowledge--their imaginings--in a way that survey questionnaires, such as those used by Noaks (2000) and Walsh et al. (1992), could not. Open-focused interviews...
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