Pazzona, M. and White, A. (2024) Size matters: measuring the private security industry in the United Kingdom. Crime Prevention and Community Safety, 26 (3). pp. 333-346. ISSN 1460-3780
Abstract
The private security industry has become a central feature of the plural policing landscape in the United Kingdom. As such, it has received considerable attention in both academic and policy circles. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, there remain notable question marks over its precise size and shape. With this in mind, the article draws upon data from the Security Industry Authority and the Office of National Statistics Business Register and Employment Survey to measure the sector along three key dimensions: the number of private security officers, the number of companies and turnover. This novel methodological approach reveals a complex and contested picture of what the sector looks like at a fundamental level and, at the same time, allows for a reassessment of commonly deployed indicators such as growth rates and the ratio of private security officers to police officers during key time periods such as the Covid-19 pandemic.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 The Author(s). Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Keywords: | Private security; police, size; growth; Covid-19 |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of Law (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 11 Jul 2024 11:07 |
Last Modified: | 09 Sep 2024 08:26 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Palgrave Macmillan |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1057/s41300-024-00213-8 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:214687 |