Legitimacy, professionalisation and expertise in public sector corporate security

Abstract

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.