Security management academic Dr Mark Button talks to Mark Rowe about his current research direction – into fraud – and what students have to offer the private security industry.
Besides the papers and books on a large desk, Dr Mark Button has more books including some of his own on shelves. On a side desk is a PC that he shows his online fraud hub, password-protected, on the Institute of Criminal Justice part of port.ac.uk. As one of (newly-retired) Labour MP Bruce George’s former assistants, and now at the University of Portsmouth, Mark Button has researched and written regularly about the security industry – how and why it’s regulated, and in terms of occupational culture; the way that guard forces at shopping malls and factories do their jobs, things that may be taken for granted, but give insight into the ABC of security work. It’s not a well-trod field, and the path he’s taking is even less so; the study of fraud. So for whoever takes on the subject, there’s scope. How resilient is the UP to fraud? How much fraud is there – is it on the rise? Do the public and private sectors counter fraud differently, or better? These are among questions Mark Button is hoping to answer, for one thing by sending out a questionnaire to at least offer a snapshot of how well UK plc is doing. He suspects that parts of the private and public sectors alike are not doing enough to counter fraud. In a recession, he adds, generally property crime goes up: “What we have found in this recession so far, property crime has not gone up, but fraud has. I think fraud is the weak link, for a number of reasons; it isn’t detected, it isn’t investigated enough, the police don’t take the interest and if you are prosecuted, the sentence you get will be much weaker. There’s a huge temptation for many to commit fraud.” In a climate of cuts, there’ll be more angry people in workplaces. And for criminals looking for lower risks, credit card or other fraud means less time in prison than for robbing a bank, even if you are caught. <br><br>One of the first works arising from the National Fraud Authority was the study into victims of fraud, commissioned from Mark Button at Portsmouth. As Mark recalls, the study showed the human impact of fraud, still described by some as a victimless crime. Even assuming that people have their money returned, Mark spoke of ‘some quite horrendous examples of what can happen’. He gave the example of one credit card victim, months later, being arrested on suspicion of downloading child pornography; in the eyes of neighbours and peers, that man’s reputation was ruined. People lose savings; relationships break up. ‘I don’t think that’s truly recognised, particularly when you look at sentencing.’ If a bank robber threatens violence, you may well see the CCTV footage on BBC’s Crimewatch; not so likely, if the crime resulted from someone emptying your account by using your passport. Mark Button adds: “We have this huge mis-match between these two types of incidents, which ultimately have the same outcome; someone walking into the bank, walking out with money they aren’t entitled to.”<br><br>So I ask, isn’t it outrageous that police have washed their hands of theft from bank accounts?! Mark Button suggests that banks will look into how much blame lies with you for the crime, so it might not be as easy to get your money back if stolen or defrauded. Police are driven by key performance indicators, and apart from the City of London force, have not been taking fraud seriously. He advocates a national fraud police – which, ideally, the City of London Police should morph into, properly resourced, and working with various partners. <br><br>His online ‘hub’ has some 500 counter-fraud specialists registered. There you can tap into definitions, the laws such as the Fraud Act 2006 and the new Bribery Act, links to bodies with their own guidance documents, such as the Fraud Advisory Panel; even videos of fraud cases from the media. Portsmouth is not the only university to offer counter-fraud, let alone security management distance learning academic courses: Teesside and Nottingham Trent do fraud, to name two. Portsmouth has just short of 200 people on fraud-related courses, whether a BSc or a masters degree. The majority may come from the public sector: local authorities, the enormous Department of Work and Pensions, or the National Health Service; and, increasingly, from insurance companies; besides some police officers and accountants. Mark Button and colleague Alison Wakefield – her office is down the corridor – also teach what you could call ‘traditional’, 18 to 21-year-old, criminology students. Crime, for such students, is interesting, and indeed many may be fascinated by the forensic side, as seen in CSI-style dramas on the television. While you will always find some criminology students there for the serial killer side of the subject, Mark Button does report students are showing interest in going into security management by going on to a masters after their first degree; or using their criminology degree as a way of entering the police service. Portsmouth University has a relationship with Surrey Police; other universities and forces have something similar, for an overlapping of course work. But, he admits, there aren’t a lot wanting to go into private security and counter-fraud, ‘probably largely just ignorance’, Mark Button puts it down to. As with so many conversations about how to raise the profile and professionalism of private security, it rather boils down to culture; or everything affecting everything else; if we had more CSI-style private security dramas on TV, more young people might want to enter private security as a first career, and so demand courses. Certainly it’s not that counter-fraud or security management is lacking in interest or career potential. <br><br>Is it I ask that security is one of those occupations that requires you to get some life experience under your belt and come at it after a stint in the police or Army? Not so. Most occupations offer routes for graduates; there’s nothing in security or fraud that is so complicated that it’s not open to the 21-year-old university leaver. Rather, Mark Button suggests, the model of private security as a second career has become a self-perpetuating model; having come from a military or police career, when security managers recruit, they look for the same sort of people. Mark Button does see that breaking down; more are coming through the ranks to security management, which he welcomes. This is not to knock ex-police or military people; but rather to point to another way; postgraduates taking a masters degree and picking up experience through part-time work as a door superviser or steward. It’s important, he feels, that such young people find a position in private security as a career for the long term. As for any prejudice that criminology or other students seeking security jobs would be immature, Mark Button makes the point that students these days are not only working in the long summer vacation, but mostly working 20 hours or more a week, alongside their degree studies; on a door for instance, whether in the city or a student union bar, or stewarding at a football club on a Saturday afternoon. That’s besides what you could call the traditional student working as a static guard and using the shift to catch up on book-reading. Students, Mark Button argues, are much more rounded and know of the real world. A security employer ought to grasp at these workers; they have gone out of their way to get the SIA licence, and have become used to dealing with some quite difficult situations, and some unsocial working hours. And, if they have got a good degree and funded their masters study, and security is an industry they want to work in: “These people should be given a chance.” While talking about The Security Institute – Mark Button has helped on the academic side – he points to the institute’s work towards chartered status; part of the requirement will be for a fair number of security managers to have graduate-level qualifications. Just as managers take a masters degree to learn the whys of their job – going beyond the hows – there is, to be sure, a practical side; you want MSc after your name to help you get a better (or any?) job. More subtly, if you are talking with HR managers, accountants and so on in your organisation, the more educated you are, the more capable you are of holding your own in the 101 workplace situations. The academics like Mark Button, too, gain from having masters students who seek and can apply ideas. We walk from his office to Gunwharf Quays, the former naval dockyard now a regenerated area, all shops and tourist restaurants, apartments and the Spinnaker landmark. It’s a classic semi-public space where you’re much more likely to see private security than police; and indeed we see a uniformed Gunwharf guard on one of those two-wheeled, self-balancing electric vehicles, as driven in the Hollywood movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop. We chat about the likely public sector cuts including the police. An idea Mark Button aired in his last, 2008 book, Doing Security<br>Critical Reflections and an Agenda for Change, was of communities banding together on a co-operative model to pay for their policing. While co-operation has a long and noble history within the labour movement, its time may have come in terms of private security in this decade of stretched public services and rising opportunities of crime. <br><br>About Dr Mark Button: He is Reader and Associate Head (Curriculum) at the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies at the University of Portsmouth. He was a Portsmouth parliamentary candidate for Labour in 2005. His next book (with Portsmouth colleagues) is due to be about fraud and white collar crime.
