International Journal on Criminology Volume 5, Number 2, Winter 2017/2018 | Page 8

Contractual Issues in Private Security
1. HISTORICALLY, “CONTRACTUALIZATION” IN SECURITY
HAS BEEN A FACTOR IN PROFESSIONALIZATION.
Contractualization is not just a condition and a characteristic of private security.
It lies at the origin of a specialized, professionalized security service
sector in which private and public forms of this specialization coexist. In the
Middle Age and the outset of the modern period in Europe, “the duties of the judiciary
and police were, to a large degree, exercised by the wealthy classes. [ ... ] The
major problem with these non-professional police systems was the social cost they
placed on those who had to put them into practice. [ ... ] Little by little, informal systems
were established which bestowed police duties on individuals, paid for by the
wealthy classes, who were required to carry them out in return for their payment
of a flat-rate tax.” 2 Similarly, in the United States, somewhat mercenary contracts
between landowners and possess to provide security in large rural areas developed
the same way, with “spatial constraints revealing an early form of the professionalization
already taking place in European cities.” 3 At this point in history, contractualization
was a path towards the publicization of security, although only in part, as
it also continued to develop, in parallel, between private actors.
This movement towards contractualization, as a specialization which allowed
a private security market to emerge, was continuous, although more rapid in certain
periods than others, and increasingly affected companies rather than private
citizens, wealthy individuals, and landowners, with part of the market’s initial contractualization
eventually becoming “social contracting”—that is, public security:
“The outsourcing of these services—which began in the 1950s and escalated in the
1990s—enabled a huge growth in ‘contract security,’ that is, in services offered by
individuals and groups, organized as independent companies. These specialist security
organizations formed the basis of a genuine security industry, which now
had financial relationships with the consumers who had become their customers.” 4
Contractualization refined and clarified the definition of private security, particularly
in the Anglo-Saxon world, and, more broadly, has had an impact on regulation ...
2. DO CONTRACTUAL ISSUES ONLY CONCERN
“CONTRACT SECURITY”?
From a terminological point of view, this conference’s title might appear somewhat
redundant if we look beyond our borders: particularly in the Anglo-
Saxon world, private security is simply what is meant by the term “contract
2 Jobard, F., and J. de Maillard. 2015. Sociologie de la police. Politiques, organisations, réformes, 23.
Paris: Armand Colin.
3 Ibid.
4 Valcarce, F. L. 2007. “La mercantilisation de la sécurité. Rôles de l’Etat et de l’initiative privée dans
la constitution des marchés de la surveillance en Argentine.” PhD diss., Université Paris 1 Panthéon-
Sorbonne, 92.
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