Private security and the politics of accountability

Abstract

This chapter examines four key mechanisms for holding private security to account: criminal law and civil law, market self-regulation, critical public discourse, and statutory regulation. Market self-regulation, like criminal law and civil law, therefore holds the private security industry to account in the same manner as any other private enterprise. The chapter presents the analysis within the broader academic literature on the accountability of private security. It discusses the key accountability mechanisms on either side of the liberal democratic paradox, looking first at those which regard private security as an ordinary private enterprise, before moving on to those which regard private security as a usurper of an inherently sovereign function. Finally, the chapter explores the contradictions which run through the different accountability mechanisms, thereby undermining the notion that represent rational solutions to the problems associated with private security provision.