NCJ Number
216789
Journal
Crime, Law and Social Change Volume: 45 Issue: 3 Dated: 2006 Pages: 165-184
Date Published
2006
Length
20 pages
Annotation
Based on a survey of security entities in a metropolitan area, this paper examines the nature of security networks, defined as "a set of institutional, organizational, communal, or individual agents or nodes that are directly or indirectly connected in order to authorize and/or provide security for the benefit of internal or external stakeholders" (Dupont, 2004; Shearing and Wood, 2000).
Abstract
The survey found that although the primary functions of public policing are law enforcement and order maintenance, it is embedded in a broader security network, which it helps to shape both intentionally and incidentally. The broader security network of an area, however, develops its own answers to the problems of crime, insecurity, and safety, without depending on the public police to define and respond to their security problems. At times, providers of private security attempt to marshal the resources of public police to address private security interests. The public police, on the other hand, do not seem to be so proficient in using the resources of private security to enhance the broader goals of public safety. Survey respondents belonged to 47 separate organizations, which taken together, employed 17,480 people and provided security as a public service, including a municipal police service with 3,900 officers. A few large private security companies offered guard services and employed just over 1,000 people. These respondents were embedded in a broader network of security nodes, but they constituted a representative sample of the various organizations encountered by the researchers. Respondents were questioned on nine variables that pertained to the nature and frequency of contacts with other security entities. 2 tables, 3 figures, 6 notes, and 46 references