WAKEFIELD, A. (2008), PRIVATE POLICING - A VIEW FROM THE MALL. Public Administration, 86, 659-678.

doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2008.00750.
PRIVATE POLICING: A VIEW FROM THE MALL
ALISON WAKEFIELD
In many Western democratic societies the primacy of the police has begun to diminish with a pro-
liferation of alternative service providers, particularly within the private security sector. This raises
questions about how such bodies can best be mobilized and integrated within policing. This paper
reports findings from three ethnographic case studies of private security teams operating within
areas of semi-public space, to advance understanding of their nature and operations. It shows how
the character of security work is determined by vastly differing structural arrangements to those of
the police, but by a similar heterogeneity of function. While private security is seen to have a valid
place within the ‘extended police family’, it is depicted as a low status sector whose authority in
undertaking policing derives from the autonomy of other more powerful players. Future ethnog-
raphies, it is therefore argued, need to focus on the corporate users that govern its activities.
INTRODUCTION
Studies of police work have a long ethnographic tradition, generating a wealth of research
on the cultural characteristics of the police. Waddington (1999) draws our attention to the
diversity of police subcultures identified within the research literature, in which we see
distinctions being made between urban and rural police, ‘management cops’ and ‘street
cops’, community constables and officers on routine patrol, specialist groups such as de-
tectives or public order policing units, and officers of different genders or ethnic groups.
In illuminating these diverse occupational perspectives within a single profession, the
major contribution of this body of literature has been the uncovering of ‘a layer of infor-
mal occupational norms and values operating under the apparently rigid hierarchical
structure of police organisations’ (Chan 1997, p. 43). This has included the identification
of negative aspects of an occupational culture that has often been seen ‘as both a cause
of police deviance and an obstacle to police reform’ (Chan 1997, jacket synopsis). Through
their advancement of knowledge about the realities of police work, such studies have
provided an important contribution to the evolution of public policing.
The diversity of policing subcultures extends beyond the public police, however, to the
many non-police agencies now contributing to the delivery of policing. This ethnography
of private policing is intended to advance knowledge of the most basic characteristics of
private security work in recognition of its growing integration within policing. ‘Pluraliz-
ing’ trends, whereby in many Western democratic societies the primacy of the police has
begun to diminish with a proliferation of alternative service providers, are prompting a
reconfiguration of the policing task around an ‘extended police family’ (Home Office
2001) in which private security is becoming increasingly prominent. Such developments
have led many scholars to refocus their attention towards these other agencies (for a
general summary, see Wakefield 2003; for subsequent research on ‘bouncers’, community
support officers, neighbourhood wardens and security officers, see Hobbs et al. 2003;
Crawford et al. 2004, 2005; Button 2005). To date, however, little reference has been paid
to the cultural aspects of security work – aspects that reveal many of private security’s
defining features.
Alison Wakefield is in the School of Social Sciences and International Studies, The University of New South Wales,
Sydney.
Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

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660 ALISON WAKEFIELD
Two notable exceptions here are Rigakos’ (2002) detailed ethnography of a distinctive,
Toronto-based contract security company called ‘Intelligarde’, describing its operatives
as ‘parapolice’ to reflect their law enforcement oriented approach, and Button’s (2005)
case studies of the security arrangements in a retail leisure facility (‘Pleasure Southquay’)
and a manufacturer of defence equipment (‘Armed Industries’). Rigakos’ research draws
out the similarities of Toronto’s ‘parapolice’ to the contemporary public police in func-
tions and aspirations, arguing that ‘private and public can refer to little more than the
official designation of the policing service in question’ and that ‘this tells us very little
about their operations’ (p. 149, original emphasis). He questions the notion that ‘the
public and private police’ in late capitalist society have different goals, seeing them in
fact as having similar roles.
Button’s case studies better represent commercial security in the form that most of us
are familiar with, particularly in the UK where he conducted his work. His research em-
phasizes the low status that is commonly attributed to private security, supports mea-
sures to raise the occupational standards of persons who are afforded considerable
authority within their working contexts, and raises concerns about such authority, associ-
ated with ‘the challenge of private space being increasingly used as “public” space’
(p. 241). He nods to Rigakos’ findings in warning how ‘security officers could be even
more powerful if there was the desire to make full use of their legal and other tools linked
with a “parapolice” orientation’ (Button 2005, p. 241).
A particular contribution of both studies is their identification of core personality traits
of the security personnel in their samples, referred to later in the paper and seen as mani-
festations of the cultural values within the organizations important to our understanding
of the intrinsic nature of commercial security. This paper builds on their analyses by
providing a broader deconstruction of the security cultures at three research sites, incor-
porating the organizing features of security work and security functions as well as some
of the personal characteristics of the security personnel.
THE RESEARCH METHODS

As Van Maanen (1988) observes, the study of culture is intrinsically connected with eth-
nographic research, the approach that was adopted in the present study. The research
comprised ethnographic case studies of security work at three publicly accessible, com-
mercial facilities in England. The security arrangements at these centres were, in common
with the provisions at Button’s (2005) ‘Pleasure Southquay’ site, typical of private security
interventions that many of us, and particularly those of us living in urban areas, routinely
encounter in our social lives. The first of the (anonymized) research sites was the ‘Arts
Plaza’, a cultural centre in a major city that housed visual and performing arts and
licensed refreshment facilities. The second was the ‘Quayside Centre’, a large shopping
centre situated in a northern coastal town. The third was the ‘City Mall’, a retail and lei-
sure complex located in a northern urban centre, containing retail outlets for daytime
shopping, as well as pubs, restaurants and nightclubs.
A mix of methods was employed, beginning with 20 days of observation at each site,
during which I, as the sole researcher, accompanied security officers in the course of their
daily routines. I used this period to gain familiarity with the research environment and
its participants, gather background information and establish trust, credibility and access
so that, in the subsequent interviews, I could address more sensitive issues and follow
up any questions emerging from the observations. I conducted 59 interviews, speaking

© 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
PRIVATE POLICING 661
to many of the security officers, management personnel from the centres and the security
companies that supplied the officers, and representatives of the local police forces. Finally,
I examined documents such as duty sheets and log books that covered the observation
periods, providing a basis for comparison with the field notes.
THE CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PRIVATE POLICING

The challenge of interpreting ‘culture’ presented a dilemma in the analysis and pre-
sentation of findings. As Jenks argues, the concept ‘is at least complex and at most so
divergent in its various applications as to defy the possibility, or indeed the necessity,
of any singular designation’ (1993, p. 1). In exploring cultures within organizations,
many scholars have drawn attention to the diversity of occupational groups that may
be present in an organization. This has led to distinctions being made between the
broad ‘organizational’ culture of an organization, and the ‘occupational’ cultures or
subcultures found to characterize clusters of workers associated with its different
divisions, departments, work teams or professional groups (see Van Maanen and Bar-
ley 1985; Trice 1993; Schein 1996).
The police literature has focused overwhelmingly on the ‘occupational’ cultures within
the service, in recognition of the concentration of organizational power among the lower
ranks and thus the social importance of the constable’s role. As Wilson observes, ‘the po-
lice department has the special property … that within it discretion increases as one moves
down the hierarchy’ (1968, p. 7; original emphasis). In addressing a relatively under-
researched area, however, this analysis places an emphasis on illuminating the broader
organizational arrangements that provide a context for security work, as well as consider-
ing the nature of the work and how security personnel experience their roles.
The findings from the present study are set out according to three descriptive categories
advanced by Wolcott, conceived as ‘conceptual avenues’ for ‘capturing’ culture ethno-
graphically (1999, p. 91):
1. ‘Cultural orientation’ relates to ‘where the people being described are situated’, be it
in terms of their physical location, major activities or world view, and for the pur-
pose of defining the boundaries of ‘time, place and circumstance’ of the lives being
described (Wolcott 1999, p. 91; original emphasis).
2. ‘Cultural know-how’ covers the way in which those being described ‘go about their
daily activities’, that is, ‘what they do and what they make in order to do it’ (Wolcott
1999, p. 94).
3. ‘Cultural beliefs’ is, for Wolcott, associated with ‘knowing that’ (technical knowl-
edge of how to do things) as opposed to ‘knowing how’ to do something (reflecting
shared values).
In the above analysis, however, a broader interpretation of ‘cultural beliefs’ is employed,

based on common attitudes and characteristics, and reflective of Schein’s conception of
organizational culture as ‘the deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs’ that members
of an organization share (1985, p. 6). The three categories offer a framework for situating
ethnographic findings, as well as a basis for description of the cultures being investigated
and comparisons with those associated with police work.

Cultural orientation
To understand the context in which security work is carried out, it is important to
situate those being described in relation to the organizations in which they work, as
well as to other features that shape their working lives. In this section, the objectives
of security work, the organizational structures in which security personnel operate,
the territorial boundaries and temporal arrangements that shape and contain employees’
activities, and the types of people being recruited into security roles, are discussed
in turn.
Objectives
The general objectives of policing, and the specific objectives of the police, have been
much discussed within the police studies literature, particularly by those scholars con-
cerned to reflect the trends of pluralization. Bittner ’s (1974) historical analysis suggests
that, for him, ‘policing’ represents the broad regulatory processes of governments’ inter-
nal control. State-centred police historiographies, by contrast, reflect a much narrower
interpretation, implicitly associating policing with ‘what the police do’ (see Rawlings
1995). ‘Policing’ has subsequently been seen to embody a specific set of functions ‘directed
at preserving the security of a particular social order ’ (Reiner 1997, p. 1005), or a primary
function of order maintenance (Shearing and Stenning 1987). Most recently, however, it
has been reconceived by Johnston and Shearing (2003) as more of an overarching social
process, as a fundamental aspect of governance in which a diversity of agencies is engaged:
the ‘governance of security’.
Their pluralist interpretation invites the question as to how the respective objectives of
the police, and of private security, may be compared and contrasted. There are funda-
mental differences that frame their respective objectives in terms of the masters they serve
and the territorial, functional and legal scope of their mandates. For many, however, it is
the symbolic role of the police that distinguishes it from private security and other alter-
native policing bodies (see Loader and Walker 2001). For Manning, for example, policing
by the police ‘is an exercise in symbolic demarking of what is immoral, wrong, and out-
side the boundaries of acceptable conduct. It represents the state, morality and standards
of civility and decency by which we judge ourselves’ (1997, p. 319). Private security objec-
tives, by contrast, emanate from contractual relationships determining the instrumental
needs of those purchasing security services.
At the three centres in the study, management representatives were asked to describe
the objectives of their security personnel. For the manager of the City Mall, these were,
quite simply, ‘to protect the company’s property’, while at the other two centres a
greater emphasis was placed on satisfying the needs of the customer, with the duties
of the security personnel tied in directly with the broader commercial objectives of the
organizations. The deputy manager explained: ‘The public is our key thing, I mean,
making sure they have an enjoyable time. If it means changing security directives and
doesn’t mean it’s going to endanger anyone else whatsoever, we will quickly change
them’. This emphasis was echoed by the security manager at the Arts Plaza, who
reported:
being a security officer, you are now at this site doing customer care, and then as
security… let’s say the daily routine of a 12 hour shift, 90 per cent of that is going
to be customer care. Guiding people, supporting people, and helping them wherever
they can.

While the approach at the latter two centres was very different to that at the City Mall,
in all three cases private security personnel provided a service whose very character was
determined by the purchaser.
Structure
The Peelite model of public policing, which expanded through the English-speaking
world from the mid-19th century, was established in London in 1829, with a hierarchical
rank structure of commissioners, superintendents, inspectors, sergeants and constables.
Essentially, this bureaucratic model has remained, with the addition of further intermedi-
ate and senior ranks, characterized by a quasi-military command chain and strict rules
and regulations. Many scholars have drawn attention to the impact of the organizational
structure on the police culture, making distinctions between the cultures of the senior and
lower ranks or specialist units within the police service (see Waddington 1999). In addi-
tion, they have observed the effects of the group solidarities seen to result from the nature
of the job (such as shift work, exposure to risk, and hostility from citizens) (see Reiner
2000) and departmentalization (Kappeler et al. 1998).
The structural features that define and determine the character of private security com-
prise the employment arrangements of security personnel as well as their organizational
positions. The personnel at the Arts Plaza and the Quayside Centre were supplied by
contract security companies, referred to respectively as ‘Gatehouse Security’ and ‘Guard-
force’, while the City Mall team were employed ‘in-house’ by the property company that
owned the Mall. This meant that the ‘contractors’ belonged to external bodies with orga-
nizational characteristics, practices and objectives that were very different to those of their
‘client’ organizations. Their ‘clients’ or ‘users’ saw contracting as a cheaper way of gaining
a similar service, as the deputy manager of the Quayside Centre explained:
The advantage [of contracting] is very simple, I mean we’ve seen it … so many times
where companies like Birds Eye, ICI … had in-house security … but at the end of the
day when they had to get rid of them … there were gate-house guardsmen earning
£21,000 a year because their pay rise and incentive had to be linked with what was on
the factory; and then they realized they could call in a company and get it for eight
thousand a year, for the same benefits.
The organizational positions of the personnel at the Arts Plaza and the Quayside Centre
(see figure 1), compared with those of the City Mall officers (see figure 2), differed as a
result of these contrasting work statuses, as one of the many ways in which contract and
in-house security work produced different occupational contexts.
As indicated in figure 1, each of the contract security firms was hierarchical in structure.
Depending on the size of the contract, the companies were able to supply clients with
teams of personnel comprising up to five operational ‘ranks’ headed by a ‘site manager ’.
The organization of personnel in this way possibly reflected the transition of many police
and military personnel into the industry (Shearing et al. 1980) and thus the influences of
these sectors on private security, exemplified in the fact that the managing directors of
both companies had pursued prior careers in the police service. By contrast, the structure
of the smaller in-house security team at the City Mall, depicted in figure 2, was much
flatter.
The two organizational models led to different working arrangements and therefore
varying advantages and disadvantages for their workforces. One of the most fundamen-
tal differences concerned the differing relationships with the ‘user ’ associated with

Managing director(s)
Sales director(s) Operations director (Finance director)
Personnel manager Contracts/operations managers Training manager Controllers
Vetting staff Site managers Mobile patrol officers
Chief inspectors
Inspectors/senior supervisors
Supervisors
Basic grade security officers
FIGURE 1 The organizational structure of the contract security firms

Note: The upper tiers of the two companies’ organizational structures differed slightly, with Gate-
house Security comprising a managing director with three directors in the roles of sales, operations
and finance operating below him, while Guardforce consisted of a managing director and a deputy
managing director, supported by an operations director and two sales directors.
Source: A. Wakefield. 2003. Selling Security: The Private Policing of Public Space. Cullompton: Willan
Publishing, p. 140, reproduced with kind permission.
in-house and contract security: as permanent employees at the City Mall, the in-house
security personnel benefited from the employment protections that could allow for long-
term roles at the Mall. For the contractors employed at the other two centres, the continu-
ation of their placements could not be guaranteed: their employers could readily move
them to a new site to cover a different contract, particularly if a member of the client
organization expressed dissatisfaction with their performance.
Since all of the security officers at the Quayside Centre, and most of those at the Arts
Plaza, had served at those centres since they were first recruited by their companies, the
question was raised as to how security officers balanced their competing loyalties, given
that their positions within their client organizations could not be guaranteed in the long-
term. Participants were asked whether they identified more strongly with the security
Centre manager
Security supervisor
Basic grade security officers
FIGURE 2 Structure of the security arrangements at the City Mall

Source: A. Wakefield. 2003. Selling Security: The Private Policing of Public Space. Cullompton: Wil-
lan Publishing, p. 141, reproduced with kind permission.

companies or the centres, or equally with both, and it appeared that many had effectively
‘gone native’ at the centres: more than half of those at the Arts Plaza stated that they
identified most strongly with their clients. Similarly, at the Quayside Centre, all of the
officers with the exception of one identified most strongly with the client organization.
At both sites, the sentiment consistently expressed by the majority was that they spent
all of their time at the client site and rarely saw their company managers. As an officer
at the Arts Plaza said, ‘… if I do my job, great, the Plaza looks good. If I do it bad, the
Plaza looks bad. So I’m actually contributing to their little thing, keeping them going.
As for Gatehouse Security, it’s just a remote place where I did my training, it’s over there’.…
The lack of certainty of continuing employment at the Plaza served as a disadvantage of
contract work for those whose who became emotionally attached to their client organiza-
tions due to long-term work placements.
One of the main benefits of contract over in-house security work was the progression
opportunities that were available. The in-house personnel at the City Mall faced an
absence of senior positions into which they could progress. By contrast, for the security
officers at the Arts Plaza and the Quayside Centre, the steep hierarchy of the organization
offered the opportunity to progress along a structured career path. This was exemplified
in the background of the operations director at Gatehouse Security, who reported:
I did nine years with a previous company … started off as a uniformed security officer
and basically went through the ranks, to one of their area managers, and then I joined
Gatehouse about four and a half years ago, as one of the operations managers.
Like police work, working in contract security offers a clear career path; there was, however,
little evidence in the present study that the officers chose to follow this.
Territory
The spatial structuring of police work was an important element of Holdaway’s (1983)
sociology of the police, emphasizing the visibility of police work as police officers patrol
the public space that is known as their ‘ground’. His analysis also depicts their efforts to
establish ‘home territories’ – sites away from the gaze of the public and supervisory offi-
cers in which they could take a break – and draws attention to the taboos associated with
touching a police officer, seen as an invasion of his or her ‘body territory’ as conveyed
through the uniform.
‘Territory’ is equally significant as an organizing feature of security work. In the present
study, the three centres formed the operating territories or ‘ground’ of the security
personnel. Their activities and authority were largely confined within the boundaries
of the centres, as exemplified in the following remarks by the site manager at the
Arts Plaza:
We’re contracted to deal with security matters here only. The only time that there
would be an exception to that is if an officer was chasing a perpetrator of some crime
or other. Say a guy came in and stole a computer and ran off down the road with it
then the officer ’s perfectly within his rights to go and make an arrest cause … the
man’s guilty of an arrestable offence … But they’re actually only acting as members
of the public off-site.
The perimeters of the centres established the territorial divisions of the private security
personnel and the police, raising the question of how these boundaries were negotiated
by the two sectors. In practice, both sectors benefited from the support of the other, with

the deputy manager at the Quayside Centre reporting that contact with the police was
‘almost on a daily basis’. At the Arts Plaza and the Quayside Centre, the site managers
had previously served in the police service, and this undoubtedly helped to smooth inter-
agency relations. Police patrols were permitted in each of the centres, while the private
CCTV systems provided the security officers with the ability to observe well beyond the
centres’ boundaries, and responses to crime or the sharing of information and intelligence
brought the two sectors into contact.
In common with police officers, the security personnel operated under the continuous
gaze of the public and supervisory staff members. The establishment of ‘home territories’
was more difficult for the security officers, however, limiting opportunities for ‘slacking’
or deviant behaviour. The centres formed compact and highly monitored beats, with the
supervision of the security officers intensified by the presence of powerful closed circuit
television (CCTV) systems controlled by the supervisory personnel. Workers at each of
the centres described their feelings of being under constant scrutiny:
management and the … people working in control, they monitor … how we work.
They’re always watching us. They’re always watching how we work, how we behave.
They keep us … moving all the time … (security officer, Quayside Centre)
[we are monitored] by the camera system, no matter what we do and where we go, at
all times. Then it is monitored by the centre supervisor and manager. We also write
our own reports on incidents and they comment [on our actions] … having seen the
tapes. (security officer, City Mall)
[We are accountable to] everybody. Public on the floor, people in the box office, duty
house manager, inspectors, controllers, security site manager, Plaza security manager …
the only people we don’t take orders from is the cleaners …. (security officer, Arts
Plaza)
Such visibility placed a check on security officers’ exercising of discretion, revealing
marked differences in the allocation and use of power between private security and the
police organization. In common with the police patrol officer, the tours of duty of the
security personnel involved the continual exercising of discretion, as they responded
to requests for assistance by the public, and reacted to incidents in which the safety or
security of the centre or its users were seen as being at risk. Yet the level of formal and
informal supervision of the security officers ensured that, in the course of their decision
making, they were subject to far greater monitoring and control than police officers.
Holdaway’s (1983) notion of the ‘body territory’ associated with the wearing of a uni-
form has pertinence to security work, since uniform ‘style’ appeared to be a contributing
factor in officers’ demeanour. At the Arts Plaza and the Quayside Centre, the management
personnel had discarded traditional police-style security uniforms in favour of less formal
‘blazers and slacks’, designed to make the security officers appear more approachable to
visitors as part of the ‘customer care’ initiatives at these centres:
the customers, we were aware, didn’t like the official ‘I’m nearly a policeman’ look, so
we actually changed image totally at the beginning of this year into blazers and slacks.
Up until then that look was ideal because the Centre was quite wild … and now it’s
all calmed down … you can bring the image down into the softer look … people come
up and talk to them quite happily when they didn’t before …. (deputy manager,
Quayside Centre)

The City Mall officers, by contrast, retained the more authoritarian ‘police-style’ uni-
forms, including tunics and peaked caps, and this image was reflected in their more de-
tached style of policing. At intervals during their patrols, the security officers positioned
themselves on the Mall’s mezzanine balcony to oversee the public at a distance, as though
seeking to deter troublemakers rather than to welcome and assist customers. While al-
ways willing to respond to customer queries, their constructions of ‘body territory’
through uniform and manner were very different to the approach employed at the other
centres, allowing them to preserve their personal space.
Time
In common with police work, security work is structured by means of a shift system, an
approach that ‘tends to bind officers together ’ (Holdaway 1983, p. 116). The police ‘relief ’
system in the UK, described by Banton (1964) and Holdaway (1983) and still in operation
today, involves teams of officers rotating through a pattern of ‘early’, ‘late’ and ‘night’
shifts of approximately seven to nine hours in length, and rest days, as part of a 40-hour
working week (PA Consulting Group 2001; Home Office 2006). The daily and weekly
working hours of the security personnel, by contrast, varied between the centres and be-
tween contract and in-house security work.
Those working the longest hours were the contract security officers at the Arts Plaza,
who performed 12-hour day and night shifts with shift changes at 7 am and 7 pm,
working an average of 60 hours per week. They divided into three teams operating on
a rotational basis. At the Quayside Centre, the contract security staff worked an average
of 50 hours per week, made up of 10- and 12-hour shifts. The Centre’s three in-house
control room officers, however, worked an average of 42 hours per week. At the City
Mall, where the security officers were all employed in-house, the four officers on the
day shift worked 40-hour weeks and took turns in carrying out additional Sunday
shifts, while the night security officers performed 13-hour shifts in three-day blocks
interspersed with three rest days (averaging 43 hours per week). It was evident, there-
fore, that the working hours of the in-house security personnel were more comparable
with those of the police, while long hours characterized the working environment of
the contract security personnel.
People
Early research findings on the common characteristics of the police recruit (see, for ex-
ample, Van Maanen 1973; Reiner 1978) established a picture of the profession as attracting
ambitious, upwardly mobile candidates who found the interest and social utility of the
work appealing. Whether or not there is equally a ‘typical’ private security officer was
explored in the course of the case studies, taking account of the factors of age, gender,
nationality and career background to examine the diversity of the people working at the
three centres.
Among the officers at the Quayside Centre, there was a fairly even spread of ages, from
the late teens to the sixties, while most of those at the Arts Plaza were aged under 30,
and all officers bar one at the City Mall were aged over 30. The proportion of women
within the security teams varied from ten out of the 28 officers at the Arts Plaza (35.7 per
cent), to three out of 24 officers at the Quayside Centre (12.5 per cent) and no women in
the team of 10 at the City Mall. The security officers were British in all cases at the Quay-
side Centre, and in all but one case in the City Mall team, which included a Hungarian
officer. The Arts Plaza security team, by contrast, comprised 1 Moroccan, 2 Zimbabweans,

10 Britons and 14 South Africans, most of whom were working in the security industry
to raise money for travelling.
The officers’ working backgrounds were wide-ranging. Eight of those interviewed had prior
experience of security work (two from the Quayside Centre and three from each of the other
centres). Five had served in the armed forces (three from the City Mall and one from each of
the other centres), although none had experience in the police service. Many had previously
worked in other ‘unskilled’ roles such as factory work, waitering, retail and cleaning; some
had held skilled manual roles, including joinery, mechanics and case making; and a number
had served as managers in such fields as gold mining, the pub trade and undertaking. Levels
of educational attainment were not routinely explored, though it emerged that three of the
South African security officers interviewed at the Arts Plaza held university degrees.
The interviews revealed four main reasons why the officers had chosen to work in
security: money, redundancy, familiarity with the work or interest in the job. The opera-
tions director of the security firm operating at the Arts Plaza described his reasons for
joining the industry as a security officer as being typical within the industry: ‘Just as it
is for most individuals who come into this industry, it was a short-term solution, to either:
(1) a financial; or (2) an unemployment problem, but having said that I just stuck with
it …’. Despite modest hourly wages, working in security provided an opportunity to
save money as a result of the long working hours and overtime opportunities, accounting
for the popularity of the work among the South African backpackers. Three interviewees
from the City Mall reported applying to work there due to their previous experience of
security work, while those Quayside Centre officers who had cited the appeal of the job
itself referred to the ‘challenge’, the chance to ‘meet loads of people’, or the opportunity
to do ‘something like the police … dealing with crime’.
Looking to the future, a small number of officers in each centre expressed a desire to
move into security management or (in three cases) the police. More typically, however,
the interviewees expressed alternative aspirations or else none at all, wishing to remain
in their present role. In general, the lack of commitment to security careers was reflected
in a high turnover rate in the contract security teams at the Arts Plaza and the Quayside
Centre: in the two-month case study periods, seven officers resigned from the Arts Plaza
and six were recruited, and two resigned from the Quayside Centre with one recruited.
With some of the leavers moving into other security jobs, the security manager at the Arts
Plaza was probably correct in his observation that, ‘… someone will move around
[the industry] for an extra two pence per hour ’.
The variations in the interviewees’ personal characteristics and background suggested
that, across the three centres, there was no ‘typical’ security officer. There were, however,
common characteristics in each team, with the multi-national, mixed-gender team of
mainly under 30s at the Arts Plaza differing as a whole from the more mature, all-male
and mainly British group at the City Mall. It was not evident how much these team
‘profiles’ were by design, and how much due to local labour markets, but it is likely that
both factors came into play. Yet the reasons for moving into security roles, and plans for
the future, suggested that security work was viewed as a career occupation by relatively
few of the officers at the three centres, differing markedly from the depictions of police
work as a serious career in the studies by Van Maanen (1973) and Reiner (1978).
Summary
The research findings emphasize the similarities and differences in the orientation of
security work when compared with police work. The influence of police service methods

and values was evident in, for example, the hierarchical structures of the contract security
companies, the organization of the work by means of the shift system, and the usage of
police style uniforms at the City Mall. The prior police careers of the managing directors
of both security companies in the study, and their site managers at the Arts Plaza and
the Quayside Centre, undoubtedly served to sustain such influence and help foster posi-
tive inter-agency working at these two centres. The extent to which former police officers
are represented in the security industry remains an area for investigation, though
these preliminary findings suggest that this crossover typically begins at the lower
management ranks.
These similarities are, however, superficial: the findings illustrate the very different
structural arrangements as well as underlying values of the two sectors. Driven by the
demands of the marketplace, the private security sector is governed by, and highly adapt-
able to, private interests, holding no ‘symbolic’ social role and entirely instrumental
in character. The three security teams were confined to narrow operating territories – in
contrast with the wide jurisdictions of police officers across the public and private
spheres – and were closely monitored within these settings. Furthermore, with the work-
ers being subject to considerably less favourable terms and conditions than police work,
there was little evidence that many considered security work to be a serious ‘profession’,
and were taking advantage of the opportunities for progression in the industry.
Cultural know-how
This category relates to what security officers do, and how they do it. It provides a break-
down of the tasks undertaken in the course of the work, drawing out six core functions
associated with security work at the three centres. The relations between the security per-
sonnel and the public are also examined as an aspect of the practice of security work.
Functions
The functions of the police, or those of ‘policing’ more generally, have been subject to in-
tense discussion within the policing literature. Jones and Newburn observe a tradition in
many academic studies to analyse ‘what policing is in terms of what constabularies do’
(1998, p. 10, original emphasis), presenting a comprehensive definition of policing for the
purpose of a functional comparison between policing agencies. They describe the activity
as: ‘those organised forms of order maintenance, peacekeeping, crime investigation and
prevention and other forms of investigation – which may involve a conscious exercise of
power ’ (p. 18), and conclude that there is substantial overlap between the activities of
the different policing bodies.
The intensity of the debate about the functions of policing relates in part to the hetero-
geneity of police work, articulated so clearly in Banton’s (1964) early ethnography.
Recording tasks in the police officer ’s daily routine as diverse as serving a summons,
‘receiving a wallet that someone found’, ‘collecting particulars about a motor accident’
(p. 21) and responding to ‘a complaint about a dog barking at night’ (p. 25), he observes,
‘One of the most striking features of this account is the great variety of tasks performed
by policemen’.
The observation periods at the three research sites revealed a similar diversity of tasks
undertaken by the security personnel in the course of their continuous patrols of the
buildings, or their monitoring from control rooms of cameras and radio systems. These
tasks, detailed in table 1, are divided into six categories that embodied the core functions
of the security personnel in the three centres:

1. ‘housekeeping’ (helping to maintain safe and well-kept environments within the

buildings in a similar way to a caretaker);
2. ‘customer care’ (serving as contact points for customers needing assistance);
3. ‘preventing crime and anti-social behaviour ’ (consisting of preventative patrols or
escorting of staff, as well as the monitoring of the visiting public);
4. ‘enforcing rules, and administering sanctions’ (telling people to desist from prohib-
ited behaviours and asking non-compliers to leave);
5. ‘responding to [crime and non-crime] emergencies and offences in progress’;
6. ‘gathering and sharing information’ (including CCTV recording and report-writing).
The ticks shown in table 1 show that, in spite of the differences in emphasis and style
of security across the three centres, there were few variations in the nature and range
of guarding duties that were carried out. It was evident that the multi-faceted roles of
the security personnel had as many similarities with the work of a warden or caretaker
as that of the ‘bobby on the beat’, and involved much more than simply ‘policing’. The
first two functions reflect an emphasis on keeping the buildings safe and providing a
comfortable and welcoming environment for the visiting public, highlighting the mun-
dane aspects of security as well as its association with private interests. The customer
care function in particular emphasized how even the most obscure of tasks could be as-
signed to the security officer if they served the purpose of keeping customers satisfied,
with security personnel routinely being diverted to such activities as fetching wheelchairs
or even – at the Quayside Centre – donning a padded bear costume and entertaining
visiting children.
The rest of the functions, associated more closely with the officers’ ‘policing’ func-
tions, illustrate their preventative approach to the activity, involving concentrated
surveillance by means of foot patrol and CCTV monitoring, and a readiness to respond
instantly to any signs of disorder, crime or non-crime emergency. Their ability to do so
was reinforced by a legal right (as bestowed by the property owners) to impose the instant
sanction of exclusion against any perceived miscreants, so that the problems of crime
and disorder could be displaced outside the boundaries of the centres. While their
imposition of exclusion sanctions fell short of discouraging poor consumers to visit the
premises, the exclusion figures for the research periods detailed in table 2 showed that
at the Quayside Centre individuals identified as ‘known offenders’ were extensively
targeted; ‘vagrants’, drinkers and people who were begging were those most commonly
removed from the City Mall; and young people playing or loitering were targeted at all
three sites to a lesser extent but particularly at the Quayside Centre. The use of exclusion
as a means of sanitizing the centres from distasteful or annoying behaviour, or eliminat-
ing the risks of past offenders re-offending, further emphasizes the security officers’
responsibilities to help construct appealing environments in the centres that were free
from apparent threat or nuisance.
Relations with the public

Reiner ’s (2000) seven core characteristics of the police include the trait of ‘isolation/
solidarity’ to illustrate their sense of collegiality and mutual support in the face of social
isolation from a sometimes hostile public. The research provided an opportunity to
explore whether the security officers displayed a similar detachment from the members
of the public they were responsible for policing – both the supposedly ‘respectable’ cus-
tomers whom the centre managers wished to attract, and those perceived as troublemakers

TABLE 1 The six core functions of the security personnel

Function Duty Arts Plaza Quayside City Mall
Centre
Housekeeping Foot patrols ˉ ˉ ˉ
Storage and control of keys ˉ ˉ ˉ
Energy-saving e.g. turning off lights ˉ ˉ ˉ
Keeping access roads clear ˉ ˉ ˉ
Reporting of breakages and hazards ˉ ˉ ˉ
Deployment of cleaning and maintenance staff ˉ ˉ ˉ
Performing fire drills ˉ ˉ ˉ
Control of background music ˉ ˉ ˉ
Management of car park and collection of ˉ
payments
Setting up and dismantling of displays ˉ
Customer care Provision of information, in person or by ˉ ˉ ˉ
public address
Recording and storage of lost and found ˉ ˉ ˉ
property
Reception duties ˉ
Stewarding of special events ˉ ˉ
Provision of wheelchairs to customers ˉ ˉ
Dressing as Centre mascot ˉ
Response to other customer requests ˉ ˉ ˉ
Preventing crime Foot patrols and maintaining a visible presence ˉ ˉ ˉ
and anti-social Locking and unlocking of premises ˉ ˉ ˉ
behaviour Reporting/securing insecure tenant property ˉ ˉ ˉ
Access control ˉ ˉ ˉ
Setting and unsetting of alarms ˉ
CCTV surveillance ˉ ˉ ˉ
Cash escort duties ˉ ˉ ˉ
VIP protection ˉ
Enforcing rules and Asking people to desist from ‘anti-social’ ˉ ˉ ˉ
administering behaviour
sanctions Exclusion of persons from the centres ˉ ˉ ˉ
Imposition of bans or injunctions ˉ ˉ ˉ
Responding to Response to fire and burglar alarms ˉ ˉ ˉ
emergencies and Evacuation of building ˉ ˉ ˉ
offences in Summons of and liaison with emergency ˉ ˉ ˉ
progress services
Provision of first aid/alerting ambulance ˉ ˉ ˉ
Arrest of offenders ˉ ˉ ˉ
Searching for lost children ˉ ˉ ˉ
Response to abandoned bags/suspicious ˉ ˉ ˉ
packages
Response to incidents of nuisance behaviour ˉ ˉ ˉ
Response to other non-crime incidents ˉ ˉ ˉ
Response to crime incidents or security risks ˉ ˉ ˉ
Gathering and CCTV monitoring ˉ ˉ ˉ
sharing Form-filling ˉ ˉ ˉ
information Security networks within the centres ˉ ˉ ˉ
Informal liaison with the police ˉ ˉ ˉ
Providing information to police investigations ˉ ˉ ˉ
Source: A. Wakefield. 2003. Selling Security: The Private Policing of Public Space. Cullompton: Willan Publishing,
p. 166, reproduced with kind permission.
or offenders. In the case of the former, the ‘customer care’ emphasis of the security
roles at the Arts Plaza and the Quayside Centre appeared strongly to guide the security
officers’ relations with the visiting public, and at all three centres the relationships with
such visitors were generally unproblematic. There were, however, some exceptions

TABLE 2 Reasons for exclusion

Reason for exclusion Arts Plaza Quayside Centre City Mall Total
Named regular offender(s) 1 194 – 195 (65%)
Drunk/drinking/vagrancy 3 33 36 (12%)
Undisclosed 5 12 1 18 (6%)
Children/youths playing or loitering 3 11 2 16 (5.3%)
Associates of ‘known offender ’ – 11 – 11 (3.7%)
Argumentative or threatening 2 4 2 8 (2.6%)

behaviour/fighting
Begging – – 4 4 (1.3%)
Bringing a bicycle into the Centre – 4 – 4 (1.3%)
Bringing a dog into the Centre – 3 – 3 (1.0%)
Suspected of theft/attempted theft – 1 1 2 (0.7%)
Trespass on service areas – – 2 2 (0.7%)
Smoking cannabis – 1 – 1 (0.3%)
Indecent behaviour 1 – – 1 (0.3%)
Total 12 (3%) 244 (81%) 45 (15%) 301
Source: A. Wakefield. 2003. Selling Security: The Private Policing of Public Space. Cullompton: Willan Publishing,
p. 178, reproduced with kind permission.
among the officers at the Arts Plaza who felt that, as security personnel, they were
looked down on. Two South African employees, both graduates, found this particularly
difficult to deal with:
In South Africa it’s only the top 10 per cent, 15 per cent of the people in the schools,
that finish school, that actually go to university … I’m used to being seen as maybe
level with someone else, not being looked down upon. And they definitely do look
down on us here.
I feel sometimes … from management, not security but the Plaza, and especially from
… the patrons coming in, they treat you like you was shit. And because they just look
at you and you’re just a security guard.
While their statements were not echoed by officers at either of the other centres, a Quay-
side Centre officer ’s comments emphasized how customer care principles required a po-
lite, ‘customer is always right’ approach to the ‘respectable’ visitor even in the face of
rudeness. He complained: ‘The legitimate shoppers, the average person’s all right. Man-
ners needs a lot to be brushed up on, they haven’t got manners nowadays, and we‘re
watching our p’s and q’s and they don’t give a damn’.
It was more common for officers to express prejudices towards those visitors who were
regarded as troublemakers or thieves. Thus, at the Quayside Centre, the so-called ‘known
offenders’ were commonly referred to as ‘scrotes’, which meant, according to one security
officer, ‘shoplifters, troublemakers.… Anybody really that either shouldn’t be in … the
Centre or we know they are lifting and can’t prove it yet. Anybody that doesn’t fit the
bill of a normal human being …’. At the City Mall, the term used for the same visitor
group was ‘scum’, while no such blanket term came to light during the research at the
Arts Plaza. Yet for the Quayside Centre and City Mall officers, a common enemy had
been identified in the ‘scrote’ or the ‘scum’ – labels that allowed the security personnel
to place a range of disorderly or disobedient centre visitors under common headings, and
unite in their antipathy towards them.

Summary
The analysis of the security functions at the three centres emphasizes a similar heteroge-
neity of activities, but very different underlying objectives, when comparing security
work to public policing. The diverse and sometimes obscure tasks performed by security
officers are indicative of their instrumental role in serving the requirements of their
customers to create appealing commercial environments. The ‘policing’ element of their
role, closely associated with this overarching aim, is therefore based on generalized sur-
veillance of the visiting population and targeted intervention against the deviant few. The
working culture of the security personnel appeared to endorse such a strategy, with the
officers routinely taking care of ‘respectable visitors’ – even the ill-mannered – and view-
ing the deviant as the common enemy.
Cultural beliefs
The final category in the analysis, that of cultural beliefs, is concerned with the common
attitudes and values of the security personnel. The research paid limited attention to these
aspects of the culture of security work, examining the training of security personnel as
an aspect of their socialization, and a number of the personal characteristics displayed.
Training
Van Maanen (1973) documents the lengthy recruitment and induction process for police
officers that today continue to be central to their socialization into police work (see HMIC
2002). By contrast, the introduction of the new security officer into the working environ-
ments of the three centres was found to be extremely short. Within a competitive mar-
ketplace, the appointment process was as brief as possible, although the contract security
companies claimed to undertake detailed reference checks in accordance with the re-
quirements for accredited industry standards. Since the empirical research was carried
out, a statutory licensing system for security personnel has been implemented in England
and Wales, with the vetting process for each individual incorporating a criminal record
check. Similarly, the training process was limited in order to ensure that new officers
could be deployed as quickly as possible. For the contract security companies, industry
standards in Britain at the time of the research required that new security officers re-
ceived two days’ classroom-based training, and a subsequent two days of ‘on the job’
instruction. After this point they were considered ready to work as fully trained officers,
so that their socialization really began as they worked as colleagues alongside longer
serving workers.
The in-house security officers at the City Mall and in the Quayside Centre control room
were not subject to these basic training requirements, however. They received their full
training ‘on the job’ from their colleagues, in practices and procedures that had been de-
veloped on site and were not associated with any formal industry standards, as exempli-
fied in the following comments:
you are expected to use your common sense … I went straight onto nights. I was shown
the alarms, etcetera by [the supervisor] at 6 pm. Also the two other lads you work with
show you what to do for a month, and you work the 6 pm shift for that time with the
other lads bringing you up on the CCTV … (security officer, City Mall)
Both forms of training relied on ‘on the job’ instruction so that new security officers were
quickly taught the ways of more experienced colleagues. The brevity and, in the case of
the in-house security officers, lack of structure in the training of the security personnel

ensured that they were not subject to the intense socialization over a sustained period of
time that was documented by Van Maanen (1973) in relation to police work.
Personal characteristics
Building on Skolnick’s (1966) depiction of the police officer ’s ‘working personality’, Reiner
(2000) presents seven core police characteristics, first advanced in the initial 1985 edition
of his book. While there is an urgent need for a new analysis of police traits in light of the
many reforms that have occurred in the service over the last two decades, Reiner ’s famous
typology offers a basis for exploring the personal characteristics of the security officer.
The first of Reiner ’s police characteristics, ‘mission – action – cynicism – pessimism’,
depicts the ‘subtle and complex intermingling’ of a sense of mission, ‘hedonistic action’
and ‘pessimistic cynicism’ (p. 90) seen to result from police officers’ constant exposure
to criminality and its effects. Rigakos found a similar commitment to ‘law enforcement
ideals – “good pinches”’ (2002, p. 127) among the ‘parapolice’ in his study, identifying
a ‘wannabe’ law enforcement culture, with most of his officers aspiring to police ca-
reers. These observations support his assertion that the modern private police are not
so different to the contemporary public police. Yet this was not echoed in Button’s
(2005) two case studies, in which he describes more of a ‘wannabe somewhere else or
doing anything else’ outlook, explained in part by the security officers’ regular ‘moans
and bravado relating to working conditions’ (p. 228). In the present study, while few
of the officers sought law enforcement careers, and high staff turnover suggested dis-
satisfaction with the challenging working conditions, the main similarity of outlook
with Reiner ’s first characteristic concerned the security officers’ readiness to engage in
law enforcement tasks. This was reflected in their keenness to collaborate with the po-
lice in a number of ways, including the sharing of information and intelligence both
informally and through formal partnership arrangements, and articulated as prefer-
ences for ‘crime fighting’ over the more mundane aspects of their roles. One officer at
the Quayside Centre commented:
[Our manager] says this often enough, we’re not here for the shops [to deal with shop-
lifters], we’re here for the centre to keep it safe, but personally I’d rather be here for
the shops than standing around mopping up spillages or whatever else.
For Reiner (2000), the nature of police work is also seen to promote an attitude of ‘suspi-
cion’, encouraged through the training process. Such a perspective was embodied in the
security officers’ approaches to surveillance within the three centres, echoing findings by
Button (2005). Many members of the public who fitted risk profiles, who were observed
engaging in ‘anti-social’ behaviour, or who were identified as ‘known offenders’, were
the focus of continuous surveillance and targeted intervention in the drive to maintain
orderly and inviting leisure environments.
Reiner ’s third trait of ‘isolation/solidarity’ relates to police officers’ feelings of ex-
ternal criticism, coupled with the close working relationships that result from such
factors as shift work and shared exposure to danger. Rigakos (2002) identified a simi-
larly close group solidarity among the security officers in his study, seen to be associ-
ated with the constant fear in the job, and Button (2005) found a strong camaraderie
and culture of communal drinking at one of his two research sites. In this research,
some evidence of hostility to sections of the visiting public has been presented, yet
there were few signs of a strong internal solidarity within the teams. The high turnover
rates previously described hindered the development of a communal culture, so that

most of the security officers across the three sites had served in their jobs for less than
two years. At the Arts Plaza, a South African clique had formed, however, as one officer
described:
the other South African guys are quite nice … even if someone else in the room is quite
rude, like if an English guy is in the room, we can also speak Afrikaans and say what
we have to say. Maybe that groups us all together. Some of us have troubles with some
of the English guys, not getting along with them that good ….
At the Quayside Centre there appeared to be a more unifying culture of banter and joke
playing which, the officers explained, was typical of the local factory culture within which
many of them had previously worked. For example, for one security officer at the end of
his last day in the job, not only was he thrown in the Centre’s fountain, but a condom
was attached to his exhaust pipe and a dead fish secreted in the chassis of his car!
The small team at the City Mall appeared to be the most cohesive with the lowest turnover
of personnel: four out of the ten had over ten years’ service, and one officer reported:
‘there’s a close-knit community within the centre’.
The fourth, fifth and sixth of Reiner ’s (2000) core police traits are ‘conservatism’,
associated with right-wing leanings and moral conservatism; ‘machismo’, encompass-
ing displays of such behaviours as sexism and sexual posturing; and ‘racial prejudice’,
all alluding to an old-fashioned, male-dominated culture. Such characteristics are
echoed in Rigakos’ (2002) ethnography of the private security officers employed by
‘Intelligarde’, a company that had faced accusations of racist practices in the local
press, with a ‘macho occupational culture’ that ‘treats its female security officers dif-
ferently than it does its male employees’ (p. 97). Button (2005) also identified behav-
iours of machismo and sexism, highlighting ‘the importance of masculinity’ in the
‘male dominated uniform orientated culture’, reflected in views that ‘female security
officers were not as effective and secondly a pre-occupation with sexual prowess’
(p. 215).
In the present study, a number of expressions of racism by three officers within the
Quayside Centre team were observed. One officer described an incident when a black
youth had damaged his eye with a laser pen directed at his eye, reporting, ‘it’s turned
me into a terrible, terrible racist’. Two of his colleagues admitted connections with a local
nationalist group, and the three of them regularly joked around together making Nazi
salutes. No evidence of racist attitudes or behaviour was uncovered at the other two
sites, although disgruntlement at perceived sexist attitudes within the working environ-
ment was expressed by two female officers at the Arts Plaza. One complained that the
management personnel favoured ‘attractive women’ over male staff members, reflected
in their appointment practices and indeed articulated to me by the security manager.
The second felt that opportunities for women to progress within the contract security
industry were limited due to widespread sexism, citing the proportion of senior female
staff in her own company as well as that of her previous employer. The occasional dis-
plays of machismo at the City Mall included regular misuse of the CCTV systems by
the all-male, night-time team at the City Mall. In quiet periods the technology was used
to zoom in on attractive or scantily clad women or to film ‘humorous’ incidents for the
amusement of their manager the next morning, which included a recording of two young
women urinating in the Mall’s loading area.
The final police trait identified by Reiner is one of ‘pragmatism’, seen to embody a
‘down-to-earth, anti-theoretical perspective’ that eschews ‘innovation, experimentation

or research’ (2000, p. 101). On such matters, it was difficult to draw comparisons between
a profession that is well known for its resistance to change (see Chan 1997), and a contract
security industry driven by the profit motive in which security personnel are afforded
little room for manoeuvre, reflected in the breadth of tasks required of security officers
as well as the intensive monitoring and supervision that they faced. Perhaps the best ex-
ample of this type of ‘pragmatism’ being employed in practice was the traditional, ‘mili-
tary’ model of security adopted at the City Mall, while the contract security teams at the
other centres demonstrated the latest security trends in their ‘customer care’ approach.
Otherwise, data to illustrate the pragmatic trait were limited.
Summary
This section has depicted a weaker early socialization process for the security person-
nel in comparison with that of the police, and examined the applicability to the security
officers of Reiner ’s (2000) typology of police characteristics. The limited findings,
drawing on a selection of examples rather than providing a systematic measurement
of the seven personality traits, underline the need for further research in this area,
looking beyond comparisons with police characteristics in light of the marked func-
tional differences between security work and police work and different working
experience in general.
CONCLUSION
This analysis depicts a number of cultural features of private policing that have hitherto
been little discussed within the police studies literature, to contribute to debates about
the role of private security and how it can be mobilized most effectively and ethically
within the extended police family. It illustrates the markedly different structural arrange-
ments associated with private policing when compared with the public police, based first
and foremost on contractual relationships with those whom it serves. These are very
much in contrast to the police service’s symbolic role in establishing society’s behavioural
boundaries and effectively its rights to security.
The research offers brief evidence of private security and the police being engaged
collectively in the ‘governance of security’, while providing separate discussion of the
broad objectives being served and the tasks routinely undertaken by the security per-
sonnel – including the exclusion of ‘undesirables’ from the three centres. While such
exclusionary duties call into question the benign and consensual implications of such
diversity of provision, the need to separate analytically the roles of the corporate users
of security, and those providing the services, must be emphasized. It is the former which
determine the character and duties of security personnel and, importantly, bestow their
powers, with the growing prominence of private security closely associated with the
expanding corporate ownership of communal spaces. The pervasive monitoring and
supervision experienced by the centres’ security personnel is an indicative feature of a
low status sector whose authority in ‘governing security’ derives from the autonomy
of other more powerful players. I would disagree with Rigakos (2002), therefore, that
the ‘public and private police’ have similar roles, due to the vast differences in their
organization and objectives. Yet in terms of what they actually do, there are considerable
similarities in their respective, heterogeneous functions, and valid places for both within
the extended police family.

Future studies might apply Wolcott’s descriptive categories to other segments of the
private security industry that are rising in prominence. In this research they have been
employed to depict the organizational characteristics and main organizing features of
security work (cultural orientation), what the workers do and how they do it (cultural
know-how), and the socialization of personnel and the characteristics they display (cul-
tural beliefs). These themes offer a simple and repeatable analytic model. Yet the real gap
remains in our knowledge of the corporate user of security, as the boundaries of state
and corporate governance become increasingly blurred, pointing to the need for innova-
tive ethnographies within this neglected sphere.
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Date received 1 June 2006. Date accepted 28 September 2006.


WAKEFIELD, A. (2008), PRIVATE POLICING - A VIEW FROM THE MALL. Public Administration, 86, 659-678.

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WAKEFIELD, A. (2008), PRIVATE POLICING - A VIEW FROM THE MALL. Public Administration, 86, 659-678.

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doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2008.00750.

PRIVATE POLICING: A VIEW FROM THE MALL

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

THE RESEARCH METHODS

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

THE CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PRIVATE POLICING

In the above analysis, however, a broader interpretation of ‘cultural beliefs’ is employed,

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

Sales director(s) Operations director (Finance director)

Personnel manager Contracts/operations managers Training manager Controllers

Vetting staff Site managers Mobile patrol officers

Basic grade security officers

FIGURE 1 The organizational structure of the contract security ﬁrms

Basic grade security officers

FIGURE 2 Structure of the security arrangements at the City Mall

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

1. ‘housekeeping’ (helping to maintain safe and well-kept environments within the

Relations with the public

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

TABLE 1 The six core functions of the security personnel

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

TABLE 2 Reasons for exclusion

Argumentative or threatening 2 4 2 8 (2.6%)

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

Date received 1 June 2006. Date accepted 28 September 2006.

Public Administration Vol. 86, No. 3, 2008 (659–678)

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