Violent encounters with private security guards in Sweden: mapping the juncture between public and private policing

Abstract

ABSTRACT The aim with this article is to expand the understanding of current forms of professional arrangements that regulate coercive policing practices at the street level. The empirical material consists of in-depth interviews with individuals who have had violent encounters with security guards. Departing from experiences of being brutalised, the study engages with the moment when the police enter the narratives. The analysis highlights that the police can reinforce the authority of the security guards, but also [counter]balance their violence. There are occasions when the interviewees perceive that the police side with them, a matter that challenges simplified understandings of public and private policing agents exercising sovereign control in a unified way. The argument advanced is that the division of labour between the professional actors in some instances opens a window of opportunity where the police are positioned to decide whether they should implement either coercive or more consensual governing techniques.