The Borderline between Private and Public Security

Abstract

A few years ago, a White Paper was published by the Confederation of European Security Services (CoESS) with the collaboration of the Institut National des Hautes Études de Sécurité (INHES) on the security market of the European Union. The authors identified several reasons why public and private security providers in the member states share the market and why they are bound to cooperate for the public good, that is, the security itself. However, the states’ law enforcement capacities cannot cover all security demands of the public due to the finite (mainly budgetary) resources that always set capacity limits hence congestions in the assignments of police services occur from time to time. Private security operatives fill into the supply gaps occurring in a fragmented security landscape in Europe. Due to the variables in the market share, countries made their patterns in public and private security components, the statutory frameworks, and the traditions concerning the role played by the commercial security sector in overall security provisions. Here a typology may be formed from the clusters of countries following alternative approaches, respectively. There is a border zone between the two sectors. The exclusive public security domain gives way to areas of common interest and moves on to where private security takes precedence, and public actors only play a supervisory role. This article examines the boundary zone in multiple approaches, attempting to stipulate the red line between the two security elements.