Managing Risk and Preempting Immorality in Private Employment of Public Police

Abstract

This article examines risk management and moral regulation of private employment of public police (or PEPP). Drawing on a study of 104 North American police departments and analysis of interviews with police and private employers, police policies and procedures, and police assignment logs, we first identify PEPP contexts. We then argue that risk management is as much of as by public police officers. This risk management is sometimes preempted by moral regulation of police officers focused on objects, spaces, and suspect employers and which partially aims to preserve police legitimacy. We then discern four means of managing risk: department-coordinated assignments, officer reporting for superior assessment, private user liability insurance for temporarily hired officers, and opportunistic third-party commercial brokers. The article makes an empirical contribution by exploring risk management and moral regulation of PEPP and a conceptual contribution by lending more understanding to risk management and moral regulation in sociolegal studies.