Relations between police and private is the central topic of this scientific publication.
Abstract
In the last few years, under the influence of various circumstances, the demand for the private security industry has increased in Serbia. The aim of this research is to examine the extent and quality of cooperation between members of the public and private security sector as the mutual perception of its members because their relations are important for establishing a safe environment for citizens. The survey was conducted from February to June 2019 using a questionnaire among 190 police officers and 178 security personnel. The results of this research showed that mutual relations between the private security personnel and police officers are satisfactory, but also that members of private security look at these relations from a brighter side and have a very positive attitude towards members of the police, while members of the police view these relations more negatively. The results of this research can be used for planning campaigns to improve the relationships between police officers and security personnel.
Conclusions
Serbia is among the last countries in Europe in which legal acts regulating the fieldof private security were adopted. In fact, private security is still in its early develop-ment stages. This also affects the development of the relationship between the policeand private security, as this research has shown. These relations are not bad but arestill not at the level that the professional, as well as the general public, would likethem to be. Members of private security look at those relations with more optimism,while members of the police have a more realistic view of the problems that accom-pany those relations. Police officers do not perceive private security as equal part-ners and do not have much confidence in their work. Due to all the above, it is neces-sary to take certain measures to improve these relations. One of the measures couldbe the abolition of the monopoly of the Serbian police on the control and regulationof the work of private security. It is necessary to leave certain levels of control toprivate security itself, and for certain segments to remain under the jurisdiction ofthe police. The conduct of examinations for obtaining licenses for private securityshould be organized in such a way that the commissions are of mixed composition.It is necessary to significantly increase the number of classes for training mem-bers of private security, to improve their knowledge and skills, but also to get themacquainted with the duties of police officers. It is recommended that representativesof the police, with extensive experience, and the Chamber of Private Security com-pose training programs together, as this would improve the training plans. Privatesecurity should promote its work in public, in campaigns similar to those conductedby the police to bring their work closer to the citizens, and sometimes, it would bedesirable to include members of the police in them. Joint training could also help toimprove relations, it would improve the knowledge and skills of participants, allowthem to exchange experiences, and in that way gain a better picture of each other.Also, in the training programs of police officers, it is necessary to include one seg-ment that refers to the rights and obligations of members of private security, becauseit is necessary for situations when they are engaged in mutual tasks, which will bemore and more in the future.The limitation of this research is that it was only conducted on the territory ofSerbia, with a relatively low number of respondents who completed the question-naire, and not in a larger number of countries. Having in mind the imbalance inthe sampling of participants (objective and mentioned reasons) that created the biasbetween the smaller group (178) of security personnel participants against the largergroup of (190) police officers participants, we compared the obtained relative valuesof results. However, the findings of this research can help us assess situations andimprove police and private security relations, as a basis for further research, espe-cially in developing countries in transition, but also in countries where there is along tradition of private security.
How to cite
Reference – Janković, B., Cvetković, V. M., Milojević, S., & Ivanović, Z. (2021). Relations between police and private security officers: a case study of Serbia. Security journal. doi:10.1057/s41284-021-00289-z
