International Journal on Criminology Volume 4, Number 2, Winter 2016 | Page 122

International Journal on Criminology
of them in their legislation. On the other hand, there are states which allow state
structures to employ private security. These include Monaco, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
the UAE, Liechtenstein, Sweden, and Switzerland according to the UNODC list, but
also the majority of other European countries, as well as Canada and the United States.
This use of private security under state contracts leads to difficulties that are shared
by states. The local police forces of Great Britain (notably Lincolnshire, the West
Midlands, and Surrey) face strong opposition to the outsourcing of certain public
duties. 16 The same is true in the Swiss Confederation, where certain cantons are trying
to outsource aspects of the transfer and supervision of detainees. Belgium has also
quite recently (in 2013–2014) allowed legal persons governed by public law to employ
private security for certain cultural or sporting events. As for the United States, each
state establishes its own position on the matter, so that divergence is even internal
within countries that have a federal structure.
Case by case, it is the coordination between state forces and private security—
“security co-production”—that demonstrates important signs of difference between
states. The crossing of certain red lines is fraught, whether it concerns the presence
of private security on public roads, or operational coordination between state forces
and private security. Of note nonetheless, beyond operational divergences, is the
emergence, in Europe at least, of a new discourse on the matter, that of “eyes and
ears”. This encompasses the Italian protocol of cooperation Mille occhi sulle città (“a
thousand eyes on the city”), a 2010 initiative from the then Minister of the Interior,
Roberto Maroni, 17 as well as the Spanish authorities’ exhortation for private security
personnel to become “the eyes and ears of state forces,” 18 or the interpretation by the
Belgian press of the employment by certain communes of private security companies
in the fight against burglary as being “extra eyes and ears on the ground,” 19 which is
a genuine European trend in the making. In France, the expression was used for the
first time by the Director General of the National Gendarmerie, Jacques Mignaux, in
2013. 20 It also entails problems when some municipalities wish to see it happen too
quickly. 21
16
Jacques De Maillard. “Les dynamiques récentes de la police et de la sécurité privée en Grande-
Bretagne,” Sécurité & Stratégie, n° 13. June 2013/September 2013. pp. 19–25.
17
Interministerial Delegation on Private Security, Rapport de mission “La sécurité privée en Italie”
24–25 juillet 2012, pp. 21 et seq.
18
An expression used by the head of the Unitad Central de Seguridad Privada (UCSP) of the National
Police (cf. Interministerial Delegation on Private Security , Rapport de mission “La sécurité privée
en Espagne” 6–8 juillet 2012, p. 21.
19
“La police appelle des agents de sécurité en renfort,” July 5, 2012, http://www.rtl.be.
20
Jacques Mignaux. “Le regard porté par la gendarmerie sur la problématique sécurité publique-sécurité
privée,” In Sécurité privée, enjeu public, eds. Pierre Brajeux, Éric Delbecque, and Michel
Mathieu. (Paris: Armand Colin, 201), 177.
21
In August 2015, the mayor of Biarritz, for whom private security officers are “extra eyes and ears
on the ground”, was forbidden from employing private security to monitor public roads (http://www.
sdpm.net/2015/08/gardiennage-de-la-voie-publique-a-biarritz-la-prefecture-retire-son-autorisation.
html).
121