Private Security Public or Private Term Paper

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One big cause for the demand on modern hyper security is that a lot of cool stuffs are becoming easily available. Developments in computers have made programming robots easy for non-experts. Security systems can be toggled to holiday mode with a touch of a button to mechanically show the previous two weeks' lighting and curtain movements, showing the existence of owners. Paul Rose, director of U.K. based security firm Icon Connect says that these are extremely complicated behind the scenes, but on the surface it's easy to use. When compared to the earlier days, the security products can be relied. Private homeowners prefer to depend more on devices they can control themselves and depend less on the state to protect them, in an age of terrorism. (Home, Secure Home)

The most deluxe new apartments are now being built with top-of-the-range ultra-modern security systems as a main selling point. At the Knightsbridge, a posh London development opening this autumn, two $36 million penthouses are safeguarded on all sides with infrared motion detectors. In the front doors the owner's body-temperature fingerprints are required to get entry. All mail will be secretly checked for traces of poisons and bomb materials. Robot guards are also made use of. In Japan, Sohgo Security Services has a sample robo cop called Alskok that makes use of infrared beams to find burglars, and then fires them with a paint gun. Tokyo-based Secom has just started leasing out Robot X for $2,700 a month. Robot X, which is a meter tall and 118 kilos, rounds on a set of six strong wheels. If it gets hold of a stranger with its motion detectors, it releases a thick cloud of smoke, roars with prerecorded warnings and can run after the stranger at 10 kilometers per hour through the remote control. Israeli company Steadicopter has just launched a fully mechanical unmanned helicopter, the first to be give to residents. The helicopter, which is 2 meters-long, and 15-kilo in weight copter, which is priced at around $150,000, will be available to the wealthy people mainly in land-rich Australia by the end of the year. Steadicopter uses a software map and can be encoded to make its rounds along certain conduits, at certain heights and at specific times of day, and it sends out live camera recording to a base station. (Home, Secure Home)

Now we shall look at some studies which show the importance attached to private security. A statistical study conducted in the year 1992 which dealt with comparing public and private security in 124 Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas by a senior advisor to the National Institute of Justice-- Edwin Zedlewski, adds to the advantages of the private security system. The study was able to derive the result that adding more resources to private security helped to reduce crimes while adding resources to public security system did not seem to reduce crime. This should not be of any surprise, because private entrepreneurs in comparison to public bureaucrats are under tremendous competitive pressure to find out new methods to improve their products and services, which is inclusive of discovering new methods to build upon community cooperation. Private entrepreneurs and the public whom they work for should deserve much of the credit for reducing crime levels. (The Benefits of Privatized Crime Control) study conducted in the year 1997 was of the opinion that around 24 million Americans lived in limited-access condominiums, apartments and cooperative societies. Apart from that private residential societies which has large amounts of single and/or multiple family homes on private streets, are also significantly provided with security as a single selling point. The 1997 figures consider the amount of people in gated communities of around eight million. What do these customers think that they are getting? The example of Starrett City, which is a huge 153-acre complex in the high-crime East New York section of Brooklyn, enables to understand the popularity of such societies. By the period of the 1980s around 20,000 racially and ethnically diverse communities which were enormously middle-income residents lived in its 5,881 apartment units in 56 buildings. In the year 1986 a study was conducted by Penn State criminologists Edwin Donovan and William Walsh who were of the opinion that Starrett City residents had more chances to report crimes to their security staff than citizens in general are, and still Starrett City had only about 6.57 reported crimes per 1000 population, in comparison to 49.86 for the 75th precinct where Starrett City is situated.

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During the time of the study, Starrett City had a private security system comprising of 54 people; who included 34 officers having general patrol duties, a 6-officer K-9 unit, and a 5-officer unit which patrolled their area in civilian clothes. Other communities which adopted the private security also have seen real improvement in security. Another example is that of a private security agency in Florida, namely the Critical Intervention Services which provides security to apartment complexes for low-income tenants. The crime dropped by an average of 50% after CIS secured a complex. (The Benefits of Privatized Crime Control)

Disadvantages of Private Security:

In spite of the several advantages associated with private security, it has its disadvantages as well. Affiliation between the private and public sectors have made vast developments in other areas of policing-in the investigation of computer-related crimes. Operation Cooperation, a joint venture between the IACP and the American Society for Industrial Security, has helped explain the likely value found in public-private affiliation. But, there are also some major variations among public- and private-sector security and policing agencies. At both state and national levels, certification and training for public-sector police officers in the past three decades has become both meticulous and consistent. (Building Partnerships between Private-Sector Security and Public-Sector Police)

Public Policing has retained a pattern of training and education that is not offered by the private security industry. (Private Security Vs Public policing which will it be?) Though many excellently qualified people work in private security, the greater part has less training and instruction than public police officers. Inside the ranks of private sector security, there is a broad range of minimally trained and qualified officers at one end, and highly qualified and trained officers at the other. (Building Partnerships between Private-Sector Security and Public-Sector Police) In most states, for instance, to become a private security officer, little more than a weeklong training course and a practical firearms expertise test are required. The average training period for a security guard is four days. This seems to be inadequate when compared to the general training given to public police. Public policing has got a system of in-house and outer inspection, which is not present in the private security industry. (The Police Component of Criminal Justice)

Further Private security corporations do not disburse the salaries and payments found in the public police sector. Poor salary and payment provisions in the private security field do little to increase professional standards. Superior levels of pay and payments are connected directly to performance problems, human resource issues and the requirement to magnetize the best applicant. There are other problems also, with police officers moonlighting in private security, and matters over the few constitutional restrictions that private security operates in. The idea of reduced public accountability effectively aggregates many worries about private security. (The Police Component of Criminal Justice)

As security firms are private corporations they contend straight with other such organizations. The communications systems set in public policing are far better than those in the private sector. The private sector is in bits and does not think about national data base approaches and national standards. (Private Security Vs Public policing which will it be?) Private security system cannot match the Public Police system in any respect. Public policing makes use of complex local, provincial, national and international computer-based data systems to guarantee efficient police communications. These data banks offer entree to any public police law enforcement officer or member of that service who require such information. Professional organizations under government control like forensic science and other quasi-judicial bodies assist these systems. Private security firms do not have such entree except local police organizations prefer to offer it and that means that there is a requirement for new standards in the convention and use of security firms in a public policing role. (Private Security Vs Public policing which will it be?)

The disadvantages could be summed up as that with less amount of training and less exposure to real law enforcement authority of arrest, search and seizure, the private security system is not able to perform the tasks and responsibilities that the public police do daily. The societies the public security system serve would not allow leaving these important aspects of justice to private security who do not have the required amount of training or the necessary level of experience or knowledge to successfully carry out the law enforcement tasks which are becoming.....

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