After the “quiet revolution”: the self‐regulation of Ontario contract security agencies1

The first two authors contributed equally to the theoretical and substantive development of the article and lead authorship rotates with each paper derived from this research collaboration. For this particular article, the other two authors—Kelly Greenfield and Phil Boyle—contributed equally to the development, implementation and management of the survey methodology, and wrote the methodology section of the article. All the authors would like to thank Steven Hutchinson for his contribution to the completion of this work, as well as the reviewers for their helpful comments. Research for this article was supported by a three‐year research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Abstract

This article explores private security self‐regulation and client‐centredness by comparing the results of two surveys of contract security agencies in Ontario, Canada—one by Shearing et al. in 1980 and one by the authors in 2003. Comparative analysis reveals that the perceived adequacy of existing state regulation has increased while the adequacy of enforcement has decreased despite unchanged state regulation. There have been changes in the type of guard‐training agencies provide. Educational requirements for guards and the educational levels of private security managers have increased substantially over time. Changes in the training and increases in educational requirements are found to be positively associated with the provision of customized services to clients. Since 1980, agencies have diversified their client base across public and private sectors, and consumption sites have become more important among client types. Client‐centredness has become a key factor in agency self‐regulation since the “Quiet Revolution”.

Keywords:

• Private security
• Self‐regulation
• Training
• Education
• Consumerism
• History

Notes

The authors are all at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Correspondence to: Daniel O'Connor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario N9B 3P4, Canada. E‐mail: [email protected]

The first two authors contributed equally to the theoretical and substantive development of the article and lead authorship rotates with each paper derived from this research collaboration. For this particular article, the other two authors—Kelly Greenfield and Phil Boyle—contributed equally to the development, implementation and management of the survey methodology, and wrote the methodology section of the article. All the authors would like to thank Steven Hutchinson for his contribution to the completion of this work, as well as the reviewers for their helpful comments. Research for this article was supported by a three‐year research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

The survey commenced in 1976 and the results were published in 1980.

Regulation and accountability are usually discussed in tandem in the literature. Accountability is “any process which an entity, by virtue of a range of formal and informal controls, forces and practices, is encouraged to display the following traits: a willingness to have transparency of operation, a desire to have dialogue with those affected by its operations, and an ability to observe and correct errant activity” (Sarre & Prenzler, 1999). The assumption is that increased regulation can lead to greater accountability.

Other potential regulatory influences on the development of training and other standards within contract security agencies deserve mention. One is civil liability. In the United States, civil liability for negligent or inadequate training of guards became an issue for agencies in the 1980s as the courts began to recognize a lack of training as support for a course of action of injury caused by private security personnel (Moore, 1988: 106). That said, this development appears to have been more pertinent to American than Canadian jurisdictions (see Stenning, 2000: 342–343; Moore, 1988) during the period in question. This is consistent with the fact that, to our knowledge, there have not been, for example, publications circulated among Ontario contract security agencies that employ guards comparable to the Security Law Newsletter (Stenning, 2000: 343), a monthly survey of legal decisions that informs agencies in the United States of the decisions' implications for civil liability. It also fits with traditionally lower levels of litigiousness in Canada compared to the United States more generally. Nevertheless, as Stenning (2000: 343) notes, adherence to the standards created in civil lawsuit judgements is often essential to secure civil liability insurance. If such insurance is a condition of state licensing then civil liability will have greater importance. It is necessary to note, however, that if civil liability has become a greater influence in Ontario since 1980, this is consistent with our finding of the importance of client‐centredness among agencies as it pertains to self‐regulation since the level of civil liability may be itself highly dependent on the specific client with which a given security agency contracts and on the tailored contract itself. Other forms of regulation or accountability of potential importance include criminal liability, labour legislation and collective agreements, all of which deserve, but have thus far received, little empirical study (see Stenning, 2000).

While there is a minor review of the legislation currently underway (Ontario Ministry of Public Safety and Security, 2003), new legislation has been not been drafted, nor is it expected in the near future.

Token enforcement of private security has been responded to in other jurisdictions. For example, traditionally private security in Britain was left to a form of self‐regulation through trade associations. The Private Security Act (2001) introduced statutory regulation of sectors of the security industry by establishing a system for licensing security workers to be governed by a new regulatory body—the Security Industry Authority (Jones, 2003).

The contract security agencies were represented by individual agencies such as Burns International Security, but also the Association of Investigators and Guard Agencies (CGSB, 1992) established in 1965. Significantly, this association's charter was taken over and modified by the Council of Private Investigators‐Ontario (CPIO) in 1994, effectively ending this association's representation of the guard sector of the contract security industry (see CPIO, 2003).

Some jurisdictions have mixed forms of state and industry self‐regulation. For example, some governments in consultation with private security representatives, clients, as well as public interest, academics and consumer groups have consensually established minimum industry standards. The CGSB standards were created in this manner (CGSB, 1992).

Though open to all contract security agencies operating in Canada, only 25 such agencies are listed on the CGSB's “Qualification Program List” as agencies that have demonstrated they adhere to the CGSB standard: 17 are branch offices of the Commissionaires and 5 are branch offices of the transnational security agency Securitas. The Commissionaires, in particular, has a long history of serving public‐sector clients exclusively (see Lippert & O'Connor, 2003). In addition, two of the remaining 3 agencies are located in Canada's national capital, Ottawa, the home of many federal government departments that contract with security providers for guard services. While a widespread and direct influence seems doubtful, it should be noted that these guidelines may well have indirectly influenced industry standards of training and education by serving as the basis for the development of community college courses and creating a model that some agencies and their public‐ and private‐sector clients sought to emulate in their contractual arrangements. The extent of this indirect influence remains unclear and is consistent with the central claim of this article that client‐centredness is related to agency‐level self‐regulation.

The notion of an industry ombudsperson also has been noted (Sarre & Prenzler, 1999).

We intended to use a list of licensed security agencies provided by the licensing branch of the Ontario government for sampling purposes. Despite initial interest on behalf of the branch, after considerable effort it became evident that this was not feasible due to the time required to obtain such a list. The alternative sampling method described above was therefore used.

Of the 78 agencies excluded from the sampling frame, 36 could not be contacted after three attempts and 24 stated they were not licensed. In addition, 15 telephone numbers were out of service and three agencies declined to provide the requested information.

Three additional caveats need mention. First, the Shearing et al. (1980) report was based on personal interviews rather than a mail‐out survey. However, because many questions were kept the same for our 2003 survey, there is no reason to think the format difference would have skewed results in a particular direction. Second, despite our best efforts, including contacting an original author of the Shearing et al. (1980) report, we could not locate the original data set (if it still exists) with which to compare. Data were available in table format in the 1980 report on a single variable basis; however, without the original data set, more sophisticated multivariate statistical analysis than that presented in this article was impossible. Third, we excluded private investigator agencies from our 2003 sample and from the data contained in tables in the 1980 report.

Dillman's method provides an outline for survey administration designed to increase response rates by attending to the details of the process, including employing personalized information letters, providing incentives and the repeat use of reminder letters.

As noted, this may also be a result of the sampling frame used.

In a recent study of a private security agency in Ontario, Rigakos (2002) found that almost all private security recruits have aspirations for careers with the public police as their ultimate goal. Consistent with this “wannabe culture” (Rigakos, 2002: 126), and because of increasing training and educational requirements for public police in Ontario (see, e.g., De Lint, 1998), many private security officers may set out to meet these public police recruitment standards by undertaking additional preparatory training and education on their own. This culture is supported by the security agency because placements with the public police are seen to buttress the image of the agency in terms of their “commitment to professional law enforcement” (Rigakos, 2002: 126). While the extent of this wannabe culture is not well documented, security agency support for this culture is consistent with agency self‐regulation.

To be sure, the minor review of the existing Ontario legislation currently underway focuses on three broad areas: training; licensing; and standards for uniforms, vehicles and equipment (Ontario Ministry of Public Safety and Security, 2003: 2). The discussion paper that accompanies the review is promoting “mandatory and consistent basic training” at least as an area of discussion (Ontario Ministry of Public Safety and Security, 2003: 7). Yet, consistent with our findings above, the review also “recognizes that some companies have established their own training programs” (Ontario Ministry of Public Safety and Security, 2003: 7). Conspicuous by their absence in this review, however, are mention of minimum education requirements outside of the training context; more resources or measures for increasing enforcement beyond tokenism; or in lieu of increased enforcement, creation of a private‐public body to police the industry (see Ontario Ministry of Public Safety and Security, 2003). The government under which this review was initiated was defeated in an October 2003 general election. It remains to be seen whether this review will be a priority of the new provincial government or result in legislative reforms of any kind.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daniel O'Connor

The authors are all at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Correspondence to: Daniel O'Connor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario N9B 3P4, Canada. E‐mail: [email protected]