In search of security

To address the disjuncture between policing and the regulatory and legal environment, the Law Commission recommends that all levels of government review laws, regulations and policies to assess their impact for all forms of policing and to foster the best possible policing arrangements. [...] By the middle of the 20th century, the almost automatic reaction of people confronted with certain kinds of “trouble” was to “call the police.”1 While it was always recognized that the police needed the support and help of the public, “policing” came to be thought of as simply what the police do, rather than as a more integrated task to which a variety of public and private groups and individuals [...] On the contrary, conceptualizing the responsibilities of policing in terms of public police versus private security fails to appreciate the fact that different nodes of policing are more often than not overlapping, complementary and mutually supportive.6 The range of organizations that are engaged in policing form a continuum. [...] Even at the most public level, the job of policing is shared by a network of different organizations and office holders appointed and recognized at all three levels of government.7 The effective, efficient and economical deployment of these policing agencies to achieve policing that reflects the public interest, therefore, requires a coherent policing policy and a high level of coordination and co [...] For example, concerns have been expressed about the democratic accountability of public police, particularly in the area of recognizing and responding to citizens’ complaints and concerns with the over-policing of minority groups.11 At the same time, the rapid expansion of private security means that governance and accountability mechanisms in this context, although they exist, are still evolving.