The National Institute of Justice recently published an interesting paper entitled “Managing the Boundary between Public & Private Policing.”

Here is the link for this paper: https://ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/247182.pdf

As this article alludes to it has taken some time for Police Department around the world to accept the legitimacy of private security operations. This acceptance is in part, due to the significant influx of former law enforcement professionals into the ranks of private security and from a more reactive discipline to a proactive discipline.

The paper, which is authored by Malcolm K. Sparrow, Ph. D. delineates some of the similarities and differences between private interests and public interests. I would recommend the reading of this paper. The perspective provided is worthwhile.

Most of us, who have been around for a while, have seen the evolutions as well as various iterations of the reality. We have seen off duty police retained for private security assignments. We have seen on duty police officers retained for security duty for activities such as sporting events. We have seen a combination of both private security and law enforcement personnel for a wide realm of security assignments.

It is my belief that this teamwork is a win, win, win for all involved parties. This team work helps to build a more effective symbiotic relationship between both the public and private sector.

What do you think?