Privately paid public policing: Law and practice

Abstract

The public police's performance of policing services paid for by private individuals has not been the subject of significant empirical research. Case‐law and legislation in the United Kingdom permit the police to charge for services that fall outside the police's duty to protect the public; however, the scope of the police's duty is, in practice, determined by the police themselves, and need not extend to all services that are deemed necessary for public safety. Recent cases on the police's duty suggest that such ‘special police services’, often of the preventative kind that is commonly associated with private policing, are those that, if provided free of charge, would place a predictable yet unusual strain on local police budgets. A combination of coercions and incentives explain why some members of the public to pay for public, as opposed to private, policing services in these circumstances. While the spectre of a gradual privatisation of the public police through this process is a plausible one, it is equally arguable that privately paid public policing is a means of preserving the present level and mode of public policing.