We examine the establishment of municipal corporate security (MCS) departments in 16 of Canada’s ... more We examine the establishment of municipal corporate security (MCS) departments in 16 of Canada’s most populated cities. Exploring its upload into municipal governments by drawing on analysis of freedom of information requests, municipal government documents, and interviews, we demonstrate how MCS has become part of urban policing and security networks, as well as how knowledge and technology from the private security and insurance industries is transferred into municipal government through MCS. Engaging with sociologies of networked security governance, security consumption, and risk management, we argue that MCS contributes to the securitization of cities through asset protection, risk and liability management, employee surveillance, and order maintenance. We discuss how the work of MCS is animated by a discourse of urban threat, showing how MCS practices in Canadian cities blur the line between policing and securitization. In conclusion, we consider the implications of our analysi...
In this article, we examine the spatial regulation of homeless people by National Capital Commiss... more In this article, we examine the spatial regulation of homeless people by National Capital Commission (NCC) conservation officers in Canada's capital city, Ottawa. We explore NCC officer practices by analyzing occurrence reports obtained through access to information (ATI) requests and interview transcripts. We contend that policing of NCC parks is organized according to a logic of dispersal. Dispersal policing aims to preserve an aesthetic for public consumption and ceremonial nationalism, entails specific temporalities, and is actuated through a public/private policing network. We argue that “dispersal” more accurately conceptualizes the spatial regulation in this case compared with alternative concepts (ie banishment) and thus supplements existing typologies of spatial regulation. We conclude with a discussion of these typologies and of the worth of ATI for future research on urban policing and regulation.
This article explores types and topics in corporate security work by developing a new typology al... more This article explores types and topics in corporate security work by developing a new typology along five dimensions – public/private, in/outsource, oversight, work type, and certification/training and personnel selection. Using this typology reveals emerging trends (such as decommodification or insourcing), challenges (such as accountability and oversight) and benefits (a greater range of legal and other powers) related to corporate security. To illustrate this typology’s value, as well as the limits of existing literature, the article considers findings from research on a nascent public, in-house, government form of corporate security: municipal government corporate security offices in Canada. We conclude by discussing decommodification or insourcing as well as expert certification and training and what these trends mean for scholarly debate about corporate security.
This article examines issues of legitimacy, professionalisation and expertise in two understudied... more This article examines issues of legitimacy, professionalisation and expertise in two understudied domains of public sector security provision: municipal and university corporate in-house security. To illustrate how security managers conceive of expertise and to assess the implications of security industry professionalisation for legitimacy, we analyse findings from a study of corporate (or in-house, proprietary) municipal and university security teams in Canada. Our inquiry demonstrates that security personnel in both domains increasingly act as knowledge brokers in security networks, interacting with public police and other authorities for reactive investigations and preventative initiatives. We show how public sector corporate security units index their narratives of legitimacy to claims about expertise and professionalism. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of our findings for understanding security networks and professionalisation of security personnel.
Corporate security units have emerged in municipal governments across North America. They resembl... more Corporate security units have emerged in municipal governments across North America. They resemble corporate security units found in private corporations, yet they are publically funded. Presently little is known about how the work of municipal corporate security units differs from that of public police, private contract security, or corporate security in the private sector. Though previous research has examined attitudes of public police toward private contract security, and vice versa, corporate security attitudes have been overlooked, as has how public sector corporate security personnel compare themselves to their counterparts in private corporations. This article extends analyses of legitimation work' of security and policing agents by examining what MCS personnel claim about public police, private corporate security, and private contract security. We show that MCS personnel claim the public police officers have a different skill set and possess limitations that MCS units o...
Use of automated licence/number plate recognition (‘ALPR/ANPR’) technologies in Canada and Austra... more Use of automated licence/number plate recognition (‘ALPR/ANPR’) technologies in Canada and Australia raises significant policy questions for privacy advocates and criminal justice practitioners. The proliferation of mass surveillance through ALPR/ANPR also presents several conceptual puzzles about the links among criminal justice data flows, individual privacy and state responsibility in this actuarial age. In this article, we use case studies of ALPR/ANPR in Canada and Australia to examine privacy as a technique for governing road traffic surveillance. We explain our findings in light of Harcourt’s (2007) argument against the use of actuarial prediction and ‘hit rates’ that are rationalised as the chief measure of law enforcement activities and effectiveness. Finally, we question the regulation of surveillance technologies such as ALPR/ANPR through current Canadian and Australian information privacy laws, with specific focus on privacy by design (‘PbD’), a strategy that favours imp...
ABSTRACT Previous sociolegal research has neglected how the work of corporate security agents is ... more ABSTRACT Previous sociolegal research has neglected how the work of corporate security agents is enabled and constrained by legal knowledges. This article explores how legal knowledges shape the work of municipal corporate security (MCS) agents in Canadian cities. MCS offices are a new development in municipal governments. By drawing on analysis of freedom of information requests and interviews with MCS managers and staff, we investigate how legal knowledges shape MCS practices in Canadian cities, with a focus on trespass law, licensing law, litigation, labor law, privacy law, and workplace violence legislation that converge in MCS offices. MCS agents must interpret, translate, and apply these laws in their municipal jurisdiction or urban problem space to confront the defining element of the urban milieu—nuisance—but also to mitigate the risks. Interpretation and use of numerous laws by MCS staff constitute a distinctively urban way of governing through legal knowledge.
... the NCC in Ottawa had a mandate of “beautification” through land development (Gordon 1998). .... more ... the NCC in Ottawa had a mandate of “beautification” through land development (Gordon 1998). ... We are not reporting on the legal consciousness of homeless people (but see ... Instead, ourempirically grounded study attempts to understand the complexity of dispersal policing in ...
Abstract: Although cameras have been appearing for some years in the streets, shopping malls, air... more Abstract: Although cameras have been appearing for some years in the streets, shopping malls, airports, train stations, arenas and even convenience stores and taxi-cabs, no one has undertaken a systematic survey of what's happening in the Canadian context. A new report, prepared by the Surveillance Camera Awareness Network (SCAN), offers some of the history of camera surveillance in Canada, the driving forces behind the trends, the deployment of cameras in specific sites and some of the issues, such as the effectiveness ...
Walby, K. and R. Lippert. 2015. ‘Why Criminal Justice Scholars should study 21st Century Corporat... more Walby, K. and R. Lippert. 2015. ‘Why Criminal Justice Scholars should study 21st Century Corporate Security’. Criminal Justice Matters, 98/1: 24-26.
We examine the establishment of municipal corporate security (MCS) departments in 16 of Canada’s ... more We examine the establishment of municipal corporate security (MCS) departments in 16 of Canada’s most populated cities. Exploring its upload into municipal governments by drawing on analysis of freedom of information requests, municipal government documents, and interviews, we demonstrate how MCS has become part of urban policing and security networks, as well as how knowledge and technology from the private security and insurance industries is transferred into municipal government through MCS. Engaging with sociologies of networked security governance, security consumption, and risk management, we argue that MCS contributes to the securitization of cities through asset protection, risk and liability management, employee surveillance, and order maintenance. We discuss how the work of MCS is animated by a discourse of urban threat, showing how MCS practices in Canadian cities blur the line between policing and securitization. In conclusion, we consider the implications of our analysi...
In this article, we examine the spatial regulation of homeless people by National Capital Commiss... more In this article, we examine the spatial regulation of homeless people by National Capital Commission (NCC) conservation officers in Canada's capital city, Ottawa. We explore NCC officer practices by analyzing occurrence reports obtained through access to information (ATI) requests and interview transcripts. We contend that policing of NCC parks is organized according to a logic of dispersal. Dispersal policing aims to preserve an aesthetic for public consumption and ceremonial nationalism, entails specific temporalities, and is actuated through a public/private policing network. We argue that “dispersal” more accurately conceptualizes the spatial regulation in this case compared with alternative concepts (ie banishment) and thus supplements existing typologies of spatial regulation. We conclude with a discussion of these typologies and of the worth of ATI for future research on urban policing and regulation.
This article explores types and topics in corporate security work by developing a new typology al... more This article explores types and topics in corporate security work by developing a new typology along five dimensions – public/private, in/outsource, oversight, work type, and certification/training and personnel selection. Using this typology reveals emerging trends (such as decommodification or insourcing), challenges (such as accountability and oversight) and benefits (a greater range of legal and other powers) related to corporate security. To illustrate this typology’s value, as well as the limits of existing literature, the article considers findings from research on a nascent public, in-house, government form of corporate security: municipal government corporate security offices in Canada. We conclude by discussing decommodification or insourcing as well as expert certification and training and what these trends mean for scholarly debate about corporate security.
This article examines issues of legitimacy, professionalisation and expertise in two understudied... more This article examines issues of legitimacy, professionalisation and expertise in two understudied domains of public sector security provision: municipal and university corporate in-house security. To illustrate how security managers conceive of expertise and to assess the implications of security industry professionalisation for legitimacy, we analyse findings from a study of corporate (or in-house, proprietary) municipal and university security teams in Canada. Our inquiry demonstrates that security personnel in both domains increasingly act as knowledge brokers in security networks, interacting with public police and other authorities for reactive investigations and preventative initiatives. We show how public sector corporate security units index their narratives of legitimacy to claims about expertise and professionalism. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of our findings for understanding security networks and professionalisation of security personnel.
Corporate security units have emerged in municipal governments across North America. They resembl... more Corporate security units have emerged in municipal governments across North America. They resemble corporate security units found in private corporations, yet they are publically funded. Presently little is known about how the work of municipal corporate security units differs from that of public police, private contract security, or corporate security in the private sector. Though previous research has examined attitudes of public police toward private contract security, and vice versa, corporate security attitudes have been overlooked, as has how public sector corporate security personnel compare themselves to their counterparts in private corporations. This article extends analyses of legitimation work' of security and policing agents by examining what MCS personnel claim about public police, private corporate security, and private contract security. We show that MCS personnel claim the public police officers have a different skill set and possess limitations that MCS units o...
Use of automated licence/number plate recognition (‘ALPR/ANPR’) technologies in Canada and Austra... more Use of automated licence/number plate recognition (‘ALPR/ANPR’) technologies in Canada and Australia raises significant policy questions for privacy advocates and criminal justice practitioners. The proliferation of mass surveillance through ALPR/ANPR also presents several conceptual puzzles about the links among criminal justice data flows, individual privacy and state responsibility in this actuarial age. In this article, we use case studies of ALPR/ANPR in Canada and Australia to examine privacy as a technique for governing road traffic surveillance. We explain our findings in light of Harcourt’s (2007) argument against the use of actuarial prediction and ‘hit rates’ that are rationalised as the chief measure of law enforcement activities and effectiveness. Finally, we question the regulation of surveillance technologies such as ALPR/ANPR through current Canadian and Australian information privacy laws, with specific focus on privacy by design (‘PbD’), a strategy that favours imp...
ABSTRACT Previous sociolegal research has neglected how the work of corporate security agents is ... more ABSTRACT Previous sociolegal research has neglected how the work of corporate security agents is enabled and constrained by legal knowledges. This article explores how legal knowledges shape the work of municipal corporate security (MCS) agents in Canadian cities. MCS offices are a new development in municipal governments. By drawing on analysis of freedom of information requests and interviews with MCS managers and staff, we investigate how legal knowledges shape MCS practices in Canadian cities, with a focus on trespass law, licensing law, litigation, labor law, privacy law, and workplace violence legislation that converge in MCS offices. MCS agents must interpret, translate, and apply these laws in their municipal jurisdiction or urban problem space to confront the defining element of the urban milieu—nuisance—but also to mitigate the risks. Interpretation and use of numerous laws by MCS staff constitute a distinctively urban way of governing through legal knowledge.
... the NCC in Ottawa had a mandate of “beautification” through land development (Gordon 1998). .... more ... the NCC in Ottawa had a mandate of “beautification” through land development (Gordon 1998). ... We are not reporting on the legal consciousness of homeless people (but see ... Instead, ourempirically grounded study attempts to understand the complexity of dispersal policing in ...
Abstract: Although cameras have been appearing for some years in the streets, shopping malls, air... more Abstract: Although cameras have been appearing for some years in the streets, shopping malls, airports, train stations, arenas and even convenience stores and taxi-cabs, no one has undertaken a systematic survey of what's happening in the Canadian context. A new report, prepared by the Surveillance Camera Awareness Network (SCAN), offers some of the history of camera surveillance in Canada, the driving forces behind the trends, the deployment of cameras in specific sites and some of the issues, such as the effectiveness ...
Walby, K. and R. Lippert. 2015. ‘Why Criminal Justice Scholars should study 21st Century Corporat... more Walby, K. and R. Lippert. 2015. ‘Why Criminal Justice Scholars should study 21st Century Corporate Security’. Criminal Justice Matters, 98/1: 24-26.
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