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Raising the bar: Professionalism and service delivery standards within New Zealand’s contract private security industry

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Abstract

The remarkable growth of private security has re-shaped New Zealand’s policing landscape. However, despite its growth, little is known about its professional standards and service delivery or indeed the licencing system designed to ‘police’ and improve them. Notwithstanding the burgeoning security governance literature, there is a limited amount of research that captures practitioner perceptions of their own industry. This article makes an important contribution to that limited research by presenting the findings of two New Zealand-focused studies that together throw much needed light onto an industry on which so many New Zealanders now rely. Drawing on the perceptions and practical experience of those at the front-line of service delivery, the first provides a first-hand ‘insider’ view of industry standards and professionalism. The second examined industry standards through an analysis of all 2011 security licence applications and approvals. In combination the studies highlight the challenges faced by the new regulatory framework in raising standards and reducing risk.

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Notes

  1. 1925 security guard licences (companies) and certificates of approval (CoAs) (employees) were issued in 1976. Official figures from the PSPLA show that at December 2012, over 22 600 private security licences and CoAs were issued. Official licencing data rather than industry-based estimates provides more confidence in the figures and avoids some of the inaccuracies of other ‘ratio-based’ estimates. Police numbers are calculated using the official ‘HR Scorecard’. In December 2012 it reported 8887 equivalent full time sworn staff (NZ Police, 2012, p. 1).

  2. This includes crime scene investigation, public patrols via local authority contracts to perform asset protection and visible deterrence, event security, guarding police detainees, courtroom security, prisoner transport, and local by-law enforcement (see Bradley and Sedgwick, 2009).

  3. In addition to the traditional clientele this includes central and local government agencies, schools, universities, hospitals, shopping centres, malls and sports stadia (see Bradley and Sedgwick, 2009).

  4. The Private Investigators and Security Guards Act (1974) introduced licencing for security companies and employees and imposed a minimum experience (3 years) criterion. The 2010 Act replaced this with mandatory training for the guarding sector (contract property and personal guards, and contract and in-house crowd controllers/door supervisors). The PSP & PI Bill was first introduced in September 2008 by the Labour-led Government, retained by the National-led Government, first read in May 2009, considered by the Justice and Electoral select committee, reported back in March 2010, read a second on 7 September 2010, a third time on 15 September, received ‘royal assent’ on 20 September 2010 and came into force in April 2011.

  5. An initial sample came through the NZSA and a smaller number through the New Zealand chapter of ASIS. Both promoted the research. The sample size increased (snowballed) via recommendations made by participants and other contacts.

  6. Focus groups/interviews were held in Auckland, Hawkes Bay, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, lasted between 80 and 120 min, were digitally recorded and transcribed, and included company owners/directors, senior managers, shift supervisors, owner/operators and officials from the PSPLA and the CIPU.

  7. Subsection four of the 1974 PI & SG Act divided licences into two broad categories ‘Private Investigator’ and ‘Security Guard’, and further divides Security Guard into five sub-categories/licence classes: (A) security guard; (B) security technician (alarms/safes); (C) security technician (cameras); (D) security consultant; and (E) monitoring. The 2010 Act reduced these classes to three (Property Guard, Security technician and Security Consultant) and added two new classes (Personal Guard and Crowd Controller). Private Investigators were not considered in this research.

  8. The Register of licenced companies includes the number of certified employees ‘attached’ to each company licence. Calculating the size of companies was a case of counting the number of certificates issued under each licence.

  9. Licences are issued to companies or individuals operating as sole traders. CoAs are issued to employees.

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Bradley, T. Raising the bar: Professionalism and service delivery standards within New Zealand’s contract private security industry. Secur J 30, 349–366 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/sj.2014.34

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