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Private police or special police are types of law enforcement agencies owned and/or controlled by non-government entities. Additionally, the term can refer to an off-duty police officer while working for a private entity, providing Security police, or otherwise performing law enforcement-related services. Officers engaging in private police work have the power to enforce the law. However, the specific authority they have, and the terms used for it, vary from one place to another.
In jurisdictions that allow private police, private police may be employed and paid for by a non-governmental agency, such as a Railway police, Port police, Campus police, nuclear facilities, and hospitals and other "special police" but they are peace officers or law enforcement officers who are commissioned, licensed, and regulated by the state. They are required to swear an oath to uphold the laws of the state where they are commissioned and follow the same regulations peace officers / law enforcement officers must abide by. The main difference between a private police officer and a regular police officer is who is signing their paycheck and their jurisdiction.
Many people confuse private police with Security company, which is separate or arguably a subset. Security officers are regulated by the state, but generally do not have police powers, such as the ability to arrest on a warrant, or issue citations and summons for misdemeanor offenses. In contrast, most private police are sworn police officers employed by private entities, or even small governmental departments (such as library police, etc.).
Even though private police departments receive their commissions from the state (or counties, municipalities, etc.), they are generally not considered government actors.
Private military companies providing law enforcement services may be referred to as private gendarmeries or private civil guards, due to their more militarized nature.
Police CPI Ltd is a private company, (not the police) wholly owned by the Mayor of London, that runs a monopoly over what crime prevention products the real police are allowed to promote. The annual mayors office report claims they are a not for profit BUT they have £4 million of tax payers money in their bank. To get their products approved, whether they work or not, suppliers have to pay this private company.
Some states give local officials the ability to appoint special police officers with specific duties, either to assist local law enforcement or to provide assistance during an emergency. These officers may or may not be commissioned police officers, but generally have the same privileges and immunities as police officers. For example, some municipalities appoint special police as security for the municipal buildings and airports, freeing up commissioned police officers for general police duties. Special Police officers can be public officers (such as the WMATA Special Police in DC), or private officers, (such as the Metro Special Police Department's Special Police Officers).
Railroad police are sometimes classified as special police, but other times are recognized as fully-commissioned police officers under the Ombudsmen's Act, granting them multi-state jurisdiction.
The use of public police officers under private pay has become more and more contentious, as it is felt to be unfair competition against private security firms.
Government entities may employ private security personnel via contract, while others have their own security departments. Sometimes these officers have special police commissions, and some do not.
Security personnel can also take on auxiliary functions of police duties, such as administrative work, which constitutes a signification proportion of the workload of officers. It has been argued that police, who cost more than private security guards, are overqualified for such auxiliary duties because of their extensive training. One study found that outsourcing such functions to private contractors could reduce police forces’ operational expenditures by between 17% and 20% in the Canadian province of Quebec. The same study cited similar measures in the UK, which led to reductions in both crime rates and public expenditures on police.
Until 2003, Oxford University both had a private police force, who had standard constabulary powers within 4 miles of any university building. In 2002, a group of local traders in Oxford wrote to Evan Harris, a local Member of Parliament, requesting the removal of the police powers of the Constables over citizens who were not members of the university. They argued that the Constables were "not accountable to any public authority" and described their role as an "anachronism".
After a policy review by the University Council in 2003, the Oxford University Police was disbanded when it was decided that it would be too expensive to bring the force up to the required standard of training and implement a multi-tiered complaints procedure.
Private police officers are different from , who generally do not have arrest powers beyond a citizen's arrest if they have probable cause to do so. Private police officers are generally required to be licensed the same as a regular police officer and have the same powers as a regular law enforcement officer (even if sometimes limited to the properties they are assigned to protect).
A specific type of private police is company police, such as railroad police. In some cases, private police are sworn in as government employees in order to ensure compliance with the law, as in the Kalamazoo, Michigan-Charles Services contract, which lasted 3 years. Private police services are sometimes called "Subscription-Based Patrol." The largest private police forces in the United States are the railroad police employed by the major Class I railroads.
In 1737, George II began paying some London and Middlesex watchmen with tax money, beginning the shift to government control. In 1750, Henry Fielding began organizing a force of quasi-professional constables. The Macdaniel affair added further impetus for a publicly salaried police force that did not depend on rewards. Nonetheless, in 1828 there were privately financed police units in no fewer than 45 parishes within a 10-mile radius of London as the governmental London Metropolitan Police was just beginning.
James F. Pastor addresses the disadvantages by analyzing a number of substantive legal and public policy issues which directly or indirectly relate to the provision of security services. These can be demonstrated by the logic of alternative or supplemental service providers. This is illustrated by the concept of "para-police." Para-police is another name for private police officers. Many public safety agencies use auxiliary police officers, who are part-time sworn police officers. Some also use reserve police officers, who are hired on an "as needed" basis, with limited police powers. These officers are typically called to duty for special details or events. In contrast to auxiliary and reserve officers, private policing is a relatively new and growing phenomenon. However, there are historical precedents such as the watchmen of medieval and early modern England and the Santa Hermandad of medieval and early modern Spain. These eventually became government-funded police, but some were originally privately organized.
There are several key distinctions between these options. Briefly, the distinctions relate to the level of police powers associated with the officer, the training levels required for each officer, the funding sources for the service provision, and the contractual and liability exposures related to each supplemental arrangement. Each alternative or supplemental service has its own strengths and weaknesses. The use of private police, however, has particular appeal because property or business owners can directly contract for public safety services, thereby providing welcome relief for municipal budgets. Finally, private police functions can be flexible, depending upon the financial, organizational, political, and situational circumstances of the client.
Under anarcho-capitalism, citizens would not have to fund police services through taxation. One argument against such a policy is that it would disadvantage the poor, who could not afford to spend much money on police. Thus, some more moderate libertarians favor issuing to each citizen, granting them a certain amount of money to hire a private police company of their choice at taxpayer expense.
Murray Rothbard notes, "police service is not 'free'; it is paid for by the taxpayer, and the taxpayer is very often the poor person himself. He may very well be paying more in taxes for police now than he would in fees to private, and far more efficient, police companies. Furthermore, the police companies would be tapping a mass market; with the economies of such a larger-scale market, police protection would undoubtedly be much cheaper."
Public police are limited in size by the political jurisdiction, although some local public police forces already contract with national private firms for specialty services, such as maintenance of communications equipment, for which it would not be economical for them to hire a full-time government employee.
Ultimately, some people see the potential for a “dual system” of policing—one for the wealthy and one for the poor—and others see the provision of private security as the primary protective resource in the contemporary United States.
In Florida, Critical Intervention Services patrols neighborhoods and has deployed lethal force before. They have limited power, like other private security agencies in the state, regulated by Florida Statute 493.
There are regulatory mechanisms for private police, specifically the commissioning bodies of those agencies (such as the state's POST board, etc.). Additionally, people have the ability to file lawsuits more freely, as these officers are not protected by the sovereign immunity doctrine that defends municipal/governmental police personnel. In Florida, complaints can be made through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Additionally, private police could be perceived as having a conflict of interest. For example, in Canada there are private police who serve the railways, namely the CN and CP Police. The conflict of interest became apparent when CP Police were sent to investigate an accident at CP, and the railroad ordered one of their officers to stop investigating and refused to provide information to that officer.
Private police, as conceptualised by Elizabeth E. Joh, would typically focus on loss instead of crime; preventive methods rather than punishment; private justice (such as firing or issuing trespassing warnings to ) rather than public court proceedings; and private property rather than public property.
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