Author: Alison Wakefield
ISBN No:
Review date: 14/06/2026
No of pages: 0
Publisher: Published by Willan Publishing. ISBN 1 84392 049 2. 252 pages. Visit www.willanpublishing.co.uk
Year of publication: 11/09/2012
Brief:
Is your guarding in a customer care or military style? In-house or contract? Whichever, a new study lays bare the strengths and weaknesses of private security.
Security officers low-paid, given a little training (and that on the job), and yet facing a police-like range of diverse and difficult tasks - the core of Alison Wakefieldโs book does an important job, laying out how private security gets done. She accompanied security staff at a retail mall, a leisure complex and a cultural centre in an unnamed city. Her research dates from 1998, but what trends she found - such as co-operation, however informal, with police - have become only stronger under the Labour Governmentโs crime and disorder partnerships. Three security operations welcomed this stranger (a former special constable, but otherwise not with a security background) into their โculture of friendly and often lewd banterโ. Itโs a world of small perks (โunsaleable goods from the mallโs retailersโ).
What difference will the Security Industry Authority-led regulation make to these sites? one wonders. One site had mostly South Africans, in contract guarding as a stop-gap while they travelled the world. (How will they take to a £190 licence for three years - when they are moving on long before then?) Those foreigners passing through were glad of the long shifts and working weeks - 12 hours and an average of 60 respectively. To be fair, other sites with in-house officers had much lower working hours, 40 a week. In-house guarding for now is not being licenced, but Wakefield describes one of the contract guarding operations with in-house control room operators. An obvious future anomaly?
As for training, contract staff did receive โa basic grounding in a standard set of core skills before they were permitted to work alone at their client sitesโ . By comparison, the in-house staff (in the words of one) โgot flung in at the deep endโ and no-one checked if newcomers got taught bad habits. On that reckoning, the priority in law should not have been โbadโ contract guarding but โnot quite so bad - safely left until laterโ in-house guarding! Also, contract firms are more alert to the latest trends - in uniforms, and customer care, for instance - than a in-house security manager in the job a long time. A couple of officers, Wakefield found, were โengaged in nationalist groupsโ. One met a friend, in the British National Party, who spoke of a clash with Asians. She does not say incidentally whether the nationalists were in-house or contract staff. The officers spoke of low pay and respect - โthe only people we donโt take orders from is the cleanersโ - in contrast to their varied and demanding work. In all, this book is ammunition for the likes of the Security Institute (whose manned guarding guidelines were featured last month). To the SI, the real issues holding back guarding will not be addressed by an SIA licence. Those issues are: pay; hours; and conditions (thereโs no sick pay for contract guards, Wakefield finds, for instance). Whatโs most disturbing for the guarding industry is that, in Wakefieldโs words, the (again unnamed) contract guarding firms and in-house site she studied were if anything seen as upper-end of the market. Yet none of them to Wakefield were โexemplaryโ. Left unsaid is the question: where does that leave the rest of the market?
At least by talking to the officers Wakefield shows there is no such thing as a stereotypical security person. They join Security because they were made redundant, or the rewards are (relatively) good, or because they particularly like some part of the job. Itโs welcome that Wakefield doesnโt buy academic prejudice against CCTV and Security as over-mighty. She shows quite the opposite: security officers must get a multitude of decisions right, at once - whether to exclude shoplifting โscrotesโ, or a granny for bringing in a dog, or denying a man from the baby-changing room (in the ladiesโ room). The guard force, and the site they patrol, risk bad publicity in the press, and complaints from customers (and lost clientele). Security staff, then seem sat upon (to repeat, โthe only people we donโt take orders from is the cleanersโ).
The book gives plenty of examples of partnership work with the police. Informal contacts seem to matter (whether a police CCTV liaison officer dropping by the control room, topping up the stock of tapes; or the site manager, a former police officer, knowing the local law enforcers). The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and various initiatives since merely tap into whatโs on the ground. But all those who speak of a โpolice familyโ should note that there are limits. Private security at a centre does its bit for the wider community - watching suspicious men outside a youth disco, ready to report suspects to the police, for instance. But private security is part of a mall or leisure centreโs overall management - liaising on fire alarms, cleaning, suspicious packages, you name it. They are not the police. And in the case of one site open 24-hours with a nightclub, neither private security nor police have much control over the late-night anti-social behaviour - urinating in public and the like.
The first part of the book - about background and theory - you can safely skip. The book gets interesting once Alison Wakefield introduces her case studies of private security at three unnamed leisure and shopping centres. Her honesty is refreshing: she was at the start of her research sceptical about private security, and hence (in as many words) admits she was less than explicit with the security companies about what she wanted to research (guarding operations approached by researchers: beware!). She adds: โI found my assumptions and views seriously challenged, however, and developed an empathy towards the security officers who, I came to believe, were generally professional and efficient in their work practices in relation to the wages they received and the conditions in which they worked. The nature of the work was much broader than I anticipated and I was impressed by the officersโ omnicompetency.โ One comes away from the book well aware of the deficiencies in guarding - but thatโs balanced by an admiration for the tough jobs well done by those at the rough end.
