As a further sign of the degradation facing UK society, a force of privately run security guards have hit the streets of Britain to pick up the slack left behind by policing cuts. The Community Safety Scheme, that was originally set up in 2002, has laid relatively dormant over the past few years. However as the MET face a 20% cut in the police budget, over 400 security personnel in London alone have been granted controversial power over regular citizens.
Whereas traditional private security have no legal authority to enforce the law over any British citizen, the Government have quietly granted security companies working for councils, hospitals and private establishments some of the same powers as fully qualified police. These include the power to issue fines, confiscate alcohol or tobacco, direct traffic, stop vehicles and even demand somebody’s name and address, which for the police themselves is a gray area.
During an interview on the Politics Show, John Tully of the MET Police Federation raised some pertinent points about the privately funded scheme: “For us we need to know the benefits of that…where is their training coming from, what regulation are they going to have?”
The police in our country have been granted the duty by Queen, Government and People to protect and serve our nation under law. Policing is a public service paid by our tax money.
A private security firm is a business owned by private individuals seeking to make a profit by lending its services primarily to other corporate businesses; such as shopping centres, sporting events, bars etc. Their job is to make money; your bobby on the beat’s job is to protect the people and keep the peace under the rule of law. Technically anybody can declare themselves a private security company, just like anybody can open a local shop. There are huge implications for accountability.
Although many will agree that policing in Britain is going downhill, as social unrest increases, rookies still have to undertake 30 weeks of intensive training and 2 years on the job work experience. This new scheme will only implement a maximum of one week’s training. Not a very encouraging prospect.
The rise of citizen journalism has exposed a worrying trend of private security overstepping the mark. A quick look at the Youtube channels of popular activists Charlie Veitch or Danny Allen show a string of unnecessary confrontations and even assaults, instigated by poorly trained little Hitlers.
These private firms have time and time again proven they are incapable of moral or even lawful actions.
A shocking report in the
Guardian notes that:
High street names including Boots, TK Maxx, Tesco and Debenhams are employing private security firms who have demanded more than £100 from people accused of shoplifting goods worth a few pounds without proper legal authority, according to Citizens Advice.
In 67% of 300 cases analysed, the goods were worth less than £20, and in 79% of cases they were recovered in store for resale – but the average demand was £147.69 including the costs of “dealing with the incident” as well as the goods stolen.
Of course private security is nothing new. In a report published by the
EU Observer last year, it was been revealed that seven
EU countries have more of a private security presence than they do real police.
Hungary tops the list with 104.97 private guards per 10,000 inhabitants compared to 39.94 police officers. The pro-private ratio is the second heaviest in Romania (49.84 private guards versus 25.62 policemen), followed by Ireland, Poland, Finland, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Slovenia.
Italy, Spain, Malta, Denmark, Belgium and Lithuania have the lowest levels of private policing.
The most populous EU countries tend to have the largest private security ‘armies’ overall, with 170,000 private guards in Germany, 165,000 in Poland, 160,000 in France and 120,000 in the UK. Romania (107,000) and Hungary (105,121) give the big countries a run for their money. But Turkey has the biggest private security corps in Europe with 257,192 personnel.
In January 2010, WideShut editor Keelan Balderson led a successful campaign against the introduction of private security in the small market town of Spalding. The scheme was intended to allow guards to patrol the streets beyond corporately owned property. As well as exposing the absurdity of the scheme, which would have required citizens to pay a fee for guards that had no authority to do anything but call the police if they witnessed a crime like any citizen, collusion between the local press was also exposed.
Ross Band one of the burly security guards, who was featured shown in the Jan 19th local Free Press newspaper, was also quoted as an impartial citizen in the Jan 14th
Guardian newspaper, professing what a wonderful idea the scheme would be.
Corporate property itself is always expanding, and with the privatization agenda under Government cuts, it appears private security will only increase.
The corporate world already controls the Government, now those superficial reigns are being handed directly to them. Private prisons utilizing slave labour, and supermarkets offering to build police stations in return for backhanded planning permission, are also being implemented as part of the austerity measures.
It all boils down to one thing. Bankers want more money.
