Private security’s accountabilities within polycentric assemblages

ABSTRACT

This article will reflect on the multiple ways in which private security can, and is, being held responsible and accountable to the public (and other security providers), in formalised, polycentric, or nodal assemblages. Drawing on empirical research conducted on plural policing partnerships, the article will show that private security is influenced by market forces, but that this is part of an interwoven, layered, formal-informal system of accountabilities – most of which are bottom-up and relational, rather than top-down and legislated. In fact, drawing on the work of John Braithwaite, we show that horizontal or circular forms of accountability (or accountabilities) play a large role in aligning the private sector to the public interest or common good within pluralised environments.

KEYWORDS:

• Private security
• polycentric
• nodal
• accountability
• hybrid
• plural policing

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Julie Berg

Julie Berg is a senior lecturer in criminology at the School of Social and Political Sciences, and an Associate Director of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research (SCCJR), at the University of Glasgow. She is also a senior research fellow in the Global Risk Governance Programme at the University of Cape Town. Her research interests include plural or polycentric security governance; the adaptations of pluralized policing to new global and local harms; and the impacts of new and advanced technologies on collaborative and pluralized policing.

Clifford Shearing

Clifford Shearing holds Professorships at the Universities of Griffith, Cape Town and Montreal. He also holds an appointment at the University of New South Wales as a Visiting Professorial Fellow. His research is focused on the emergence of new ‘harmscapes' and responses to them. He co-leads the Evolving Securities Initiative, a network of scholars and security professionals exploring responses to new harmscapes. Recent books include: Criminology and the Anthropocene, Routledge, 2017 (ed with Holley); Security in the Anthropocene: Reflections on Safety and Care, Transcript, 2017 (with Harrington); Criminology and Climate: Insurance, Finance and the Regulation of Harmscapes,  Routledge, 2020 (eds with Holley and Phelan).