Private Security's Purchase: Imaginings of a Security Patrol in a Canadian Residential Neighbourhood

Abstract

This paper explores a small residential private security program in an affluent Ontario neighbourhood in which individual residents hired a private firm to provide security patrols. Drawing primarily on in-depth interviews with program subscribers, this exploratory study examines consumers’ imaginings of the private security program and its context. Four key aspects of subscribers’ discourse – exclusivity, security, public and private patrols, and responsibility – are discussed. Through analysis of consumers’ understandings of these issues, we argue that the consumption of private security may be more complex and private security's purchase on the consumer imagination weaker than earlier theory and research has acknowledged. Based on these findings we suggest more research into private security consumption is required and that neighbourhood-initiated private security programs, especially those without state endorsement or support, are unlikely to proliferate in Canada.