Private policing is nothing new

‘Revealed: hidden government plans to privatise the police’, proclaims the Guardian headline this morning. The story is that, in an attempt to protect frontline services in the face of a 20 per cent cut in government funding:

‘West Midlands and Surrey have invited bids from G4S and other major security companies on behalf of all forces across England and Wales to take over the delivery of a wide range of services previously carried out by the police. The contract is the largest on police privatisation so far, with a potential value of £1.5bn over seven years, rising to a possible £3.5bn depending on how many other forces get involved.’

This would, of course, mark a major shift in the relationship between the police and private security firms — and will have serious implications for accountability. But, in reality, these private companies have long been engaged in policing. As Lucia Zedner, Oxford Professor of Criminal Justice, says:

‘The police, at first grudgingly and later with growing realism, if no little hostility, have conceded that they no longer walk alone… Despite their continuing ambivalence, the police have recognized that private security providers help to meet public and corporate demands for protection not readily satisfied under conditions of fiscal restraint.’

In fact, the number of private security employees had overtaken the number of police officers by as long ago as 1994. Several years before he became Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Ian Blair called for official recognition of this reality:

‘The police service should give up its indefensible claim to a monopoly on public patrol and, instead, position itself as the monitor and accreditor of a pluralist approach to patrol, performed by a mixture of professional police officers, Special Constables, local authority employees and private security patrols.’

The real news today, then, is not so much that private companies will carry out police functions – this has already been happening for decades. Instead, it is that such activities will be officially contracted out to them — and paid for — by the police.