Dr Alison Wakefield describes the security sector as becoming more diverse and interesting – and a sign of that could be that this academic criminologist is part of it, writes Mark Rowe.
Meeting in London the day after the Security Institute AGM, she describes the meeting as positive and vibrant: “It’s amazing how the industry has evolved over the eight or more years I have been involved with it.” As she recalls, she started her PhD in 1996; that eventually saw publication by Willan in 2003 as Selling Security: The Private Policing of Public Space. She was editor with an Australian academic Prof Jenny Fleming of The Sage Dictionary of Policing, a compilation published last year. She is – to crib from her home page on the University of Portsmouth website – working on a textbook for Sage titled Security and Crime.<br><br>She says: “I’m very excited about the possibilities for research looking at the strategic areas of the [security] sector; each type of corporation has different security needs, buys different commercial security services. Those services evolve with the changing business environment and more global working; and security plays a big part in business’ strategic development, such as movement into overseas markets. There aren’t really enough researchers around to really capture the sophistication and scale of some of the developments. I find the private security industry a lot more exciting as a sector to study than the police, because it’s really a market rather than an organisation; it moves dynamically, where the opportunities are.”<br><br>She joined Portsmouth in January, from the University of New South Wales, Sydney. Previously she lectured at City University London and the University of Leicester, where she was when Selling Security came out; and she has worked in the City of London for audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers as a management consultant. While it ought not to have been a shock for me – her photo is on her home page – it certainly made a change to meet a young and attractive lady rather than the stereotypical middle-aged security man. (No offence, gents.) There is a stereotype – and like all stereotypes it has some truth – of criminologists, like other academics, as theorists who value big words above actually making sense. Interesting, then, that Alison is a member of the academic board of The Security Institute. In its work with the NHS on counter-fraud alone, Portsmouth can point to meeting industry halfway to give security and counter-fraud people qualifications related to their everyday work. As at other unis, Portsmouth’s risk and security management courses are taught by distance learning – in other words, you can hold down your job and put in the hours in your own time, and attend the uni for study weekends. It’s significant that Alison speaks of the first new graduates with first degrees in criminology choosing to progress to a masters degree in security management, with the aim of entering the security industry as graduates, rather than as Army or police leavers – the graduate route being more advanced in the United States than here. Another development: some security managers take distance courses, seeking to better themselves in their career. That’s fine; some find they catch the bug for academic study. Alison hopes that in a few years we’ll see security practitioners with the title of doctor. Portsmouth have launched a professional doctorate programme and one newly elected Security Institute director, Simon Dilloway (a specialist in financial crime and money laundering), is already working towards this.<br><br>I raise with her a point put to me by Ken Rogers; he queries if security companies are making as much use as they could of their local universities, and the academic work done. Alison has started interviewing heads of corporate security, and directors of commercial security companies, ‘capturing through the eyes of people in the sector exactly how the industry is developing; and particularly illuminating the scale of the industry’s contribution to global crime control’. I suggest that there’s a virtuous circle; progress in various places helps each other. The more security managers take and pass academic courses, the more academics see scope for study (and jobs?!); the more publications about security; the more it’s taken seriously, beyond the industry; the more that it’s seen as a career worth going into, hence more of everything. Alison speaks of improving the quality of careers information; internships, people in the industry already helping starters; and mentoring – all topics, we should add, that the Security Institute is getting its teeth into.<br><br>Her book Selling Security – and you can still ask Willan for it – stood out for taking private security seriously, taking time over it – she recalls being ‘in the field’ for two months at each of three unidentified sites. I mentioned to her, for instance, one subject that Selling Security mentioned that, to my knowledge, has never been covered elsewhere. It’s an article of faith that the social scientist does not give away who and where is studied; she recalled that she even avoided giving pseudonyms to her unnamed interviewees, in case it gave away an identity by allowing their various reported comments to be pieced together. That way, she was able with academic rigour – and distance – to look at private security from the (sometimes conflicting) points of view of officer, customer and public. If, then, she asks you, a corporate security person, if she can talk to you, you can be assured she is trustworthy. And the experience could be a learning one for you, besides her.<br><br>For more about Portsmouth’s BSc and MSc courses for fraud, security and risk managers, at the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies, visit –
