Valour for Money? Contested Commodification in the Market for Security

Abstract

Scholars of security governance generally assume that the labour of private security officers can straightforwardly be transformed into discrete commodities. We argue, by contrast, that it is extremely difficult to commodify the labour of private security officers because their duties frequently require them to confront and work through both economic responsibilities (what does my contract say?) and moral obligations (what does my conscience say?). We substantiate this argument by exploring how heroic acts performed by private security officers preventing suicide attempts, intervening in violent assaults, orchestrating hazardous evacuations are celebrated through industry awards ceremonies. In so doing, we not only contribute towards the conceptualisation of security goods as contested commodities, but also facilitate a reappraisal of the market for security.

Privatizing Police Discretion—‘Private Security Criminal Investigations’ in Sweden

“…In terms of market accessibility providing security services is complex. Loader and White (2018) convincingly argue the labour of private security practitioners as suffering from "incomplete commodification". Accepting this connotation would sort (some of) the services provided by the private security sector with, for example, the trade in infants, human reproduction, sperm, eggs, embryos, human sexuality, human pain and human labour (Radin, 2001) stressing the complexity.…”

“…For private security criminal investigations this would not be a cause for concern if they were all carried out ethically and within the law, where the former pose dilemmas addressed by other scholars (see e.g. Loader and White, 2018) but not further explored here. Nonetheless.…”

Managing Risk and Preempting Immorality in Private Employment of Public Police

“…Moral tainting may inhere not in private security officers and firms, but in spaces, practices, and objects, they and public police doing paid detail security work encounter in the provision of this private (rather than public) security. This also threatens to damage police legitimacy since there may be some spillover not as easily avoided through the legitimation work in which contract private security engages (Loader and White, 2018). Except to occasionally claim that PEPP puts more officers out in 'public', albeit working for a private employer at any moment (Lippert and Walby, 2014), and thus available for emergencies should they arise, there is little effort by police departments to legitimize PEPP to the public.…”

“…Other work has revealed how private security work is deemed 'dirty work' (Lofstrand et al, 2015), including Hobbs et al's (2002Hobbs et al's ( , 2003 work on bar bouncers and how they both manage risk of violence and are themselves a source of risk to be managed (also see Hadfield, 2008). Other private security arrangements are revealed to be moralized, as Loader and White (2018) show in their account of industry award celebrations of heroism of private security guards that works as a kind of selflegitimization. Elsewhere Lofstrand et al (2017) similarly write on private security 'as a moral drama'.…”

The ‘three pillars model of regulation’: a fusion of governance models for private security

“…Moreover, one must factor in the public interest when considering the operation of private security staff. This idea is recognised in another article by Loader and White (2018) entitled 'Valour for Money'. Here the issue of commodifying the security market is problematised, but no real solutions are offered, and regulation is referred to as "lines in the sand" (p. 1401).…”