Private Security In The Nineteenth Century

The moment human beings could understand that there is a difference in “this is mine” and “that is yours,” the theory of private security began. The earliest recorded examples of private security were in the thirteenth century where they wealthy individuals would hire private security personnel to protect their land and families. This type of security spread all over the world and when the industrial revolution began to have international relevance, so did the crimes and crime prevention methods as well. Early in the nineteenth century in England, a bill was passed which enforced law enforcement to enhance their private security force flexibilities. The private security industry in the United States began shortly after the English bill
was passed in the mid-nineteenth century with a man named Allan Pinkerton who began the private security agency called the Pinkerton Agency. Although primary employment for the Pinkerton Agency was the booming railroads crisscrossing the country, his security forces even branched out into espionage during the Civil War, hired by President Abraham Lincoln (Hubpages, 2009). Swiftly there after its federal acknowledgment, the use of private security was planted into every aspect of society. Its continual evolution may be greatly understood by explaining the main factors of its significant growth, its developing professional function, and its interrelationship with today’s criminal justice system. The significant growth of private security began in the end of the nineteenth century and was very established by the launch of the twentieth century.
In the United States World War I brought a high demand for private security to guard industrial plants, warehouses, oil, and gasoline installations, railway facilities, and port facilities against sabotage and espionage (Axelrod, 2014, p. 24). The Great Depression and World War II drastically caused a fluctuation in the need for its specialized services, but after the second World War, the sustained increased amount of private security measures being utilized all over the country became an economic necessity. After World War II, the use of private security increased to over 10,000 professional establishments in the United States utilizing private security services. In the twenty and twenty-first century, private security is performed in almost every type of economic profession through almost twenty different types of security. Since that time, a clearer purpose and function of private security has been adopted. The purpose of private security is to serve as a non-governmental, private-sector practice of protecting people, property, and information, conducting investigations, and otherwise safeguarding an organization‘s assets (ASIS International, 2009). With such a broad range of cliental, its function within its professional capacity throughout history excelled all over the United
States. Professionally, private security throughout the last two centuries continues to close the gap between governmental law enforcement and its current credentials. It is currently promoted and supported by many different large federal and governmental campaigns and is reaching new heights of respect through reliable training and education certifications. Corporations are viewing private security as such an important asset that their annual financial balance statements are reflecting separate allocations for the service. It is promoted by such organizations as ASIS (which has a membership of more than 30,000 security managers), the Academy of Security Educators and Trainers (ASET), the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety (IAHSS), the National Association of School Security Safety and Law Enforcement Officers (NASSLEO), and the Security Industry Association (SIA) (Fischer, Halibozek, & Walters, 2013). Since the 1980’s, these associations combined with the private security corporations have enhanced their production by provided safer, up to date, physical and technological services all over the United States. This makes the private security industry a very valuable asset to the legal aspects of law enforcement and forms a fluent path of interrelating to other criminal justice system components. Private security and public law enforcement share many of the same goals and may be viewed as interrelated.
They both serve in preventing crime, identifying criminals, and ensuring the security of society. As there are two private security practitioners for every one sworn law enforcement officer, effective partnerships can act as a much needed force multiplier (COPS, 2014). The FBI is currently expanding its private security innovative enterprise. The intent is to influence and increase positive relations with residential communities through private security agencies to provide informative material on how to protect against, prevent, and respond to criminal acts, terrorist attacks, and security breaches. This type of collaboration with private sector security businesses led to a record arrest total in 2010 of 202 people, some of whom were the world's top cyber criminals, according Gordon Snow of the FBI's cyber division (Agadoni, 2014). Its overall support has also continued through its historical use of the World Wars with deployed partnerships with the Department of Defense in many different logistical and operational matters. Many different branches of service used private security companies in the United States last several conflicts as passive defensive security which allowed more military service members to be engaged in offensive operations. The use of these private security guards or contractors to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the human
rights violations in which they have been involved have been the focus of international attention (Gomez del Prado, 2013). In 2009, the Department of Defense employed 218,000 private contractors (all types) while there were 195,000 uniformed personnel (Gomez del Prado, 2014). Conversely, private security guards have a more critical role in homeland security and public safety than ever before. Every day, they are responsible for the protection of critical infrastructure, intellectual property, and millions of lives. Throughout the past and present history of war and the continual evolution of technology, the need for private security continues to increase. Its purpose is proving to be an asset of invaluable results in both peacekeeping and international conflict. The legal statutes of the entity create an intangible service of significantly intelligent business planning and supervision. How it interrelates to other criminal justice system components is creating jobs for Americans while bringing the subject of crime prevention to a social stance of positive intuition and production. The national and international uses of private security agencies are steadily rising. Their expenditures are becoming more and more productive as economic status continues to develop into a service based society. This will allow the private security industry to continue to serve and protect into the future.