Carroll Community College forms special police force www.privateofficer.com

 

WESTMINSTER, Md. May 22 2013 AP — Carroll Community College will soon arm some of its campus safety officers.
The school and the county sheriff’s office signed a memorandum of understanding formalizing responsibilities for the two forces on Monday after the college’s Board of Trustees last week voted to approve arming officers at its Westminster campus about 30 miles southeast of Baltimore.
It is our belief that having armed Special Police Officers will better protect the college community and our officers during critical situations on campus,” Executive Vice President of Administration Alan Schuman said in a news release.
The majority of the six full-time officers are retired law enforcement with experience carrying a firearm. They will be armed when the program is instituted in the next few months.
There have been situations when officers have been armed for a day when there was a perceived threat, but this would be the first time they would be routinely armed, according to Sylvia Blair, executive assistant to the president.
Under the agreement, the college’s Office of Public Safety and Security will have jurisdiction over minor property crimes, alcohol violations and disorderly conduct complaints. The sheriff’s office will investigate violent crimes, missing person reports and all drug violations.
“It allows the college and the sheriff’s office to work more closely in providing a safe environment for students attending school on the campus there and other activities, as well as sharing information and resources to improve public safety,” said Col. Phil Kasten of the sheriff’s office.

Using N.J. Special officers tempting school security option www.privateofficer.com

HACKENSACK, N.J. May 20 2013 (AP) — They get a little more than half the training of regular police officers, typically work part time for $15 to $20 an hour without benefits, and carry guns — and they might be patrolling the hallways of some North Jersey schools by the fall.
Special Law Enforcement Officers have been around for decades, bolstering police manpower at the Jersey Shore in the summer and conducting routine patrols for some departments in other parts of the state, including communities in Bergen and Passaic counties.
Now, as school officials struggle to expand security in an era of shrinking budgets and high-profile mass shootings, special officers are being considered for a new job. In one of several measures being considered across the state, law enforcement, municipal and school officials are discussing employing so-called Class II special officers in schools to provide security.
Police and school officials in Hackensack and Cliffside Park tell The Record (http://bit.ly/109p0mr) that they have had preliminary conversations about stationing Class II officers in school buildings. However, they said no decisions have been made, and the issue has yet to become the subject of a broad public debate. Elsewhere, officials in Manalapan recently hired two Class II officers to perform a variety of duties, including school security.
Joseph Abate, the superintendent of the Hackensack school district, said he would prefer to hire additional full-time school resource officers, but that Class II officers would be a more economical way to provide additional security in the high school and middle school.
“It is possible we’ll get a greater bang for the buck,” he said. “We could always use more security.”
Discussions about school security, including the use of special or retired police officers as security guards, have taken on new urgency since the mass school shooting in Newtown, Conn., in December. They come as budget constraints have forced police departments to reassign full-time school resource officers because they are needed elsewhere.
A report issued this month by Governor Christie’s task force on violence recommends a renewed emphasis on school resource officers, known as SROs, who receive a mandatory 40 hours of specialized training to work in schools and often develop a rapport with students.
Hackensack and Cliffside Park each have one full-time school resource officer, and school and municipal officials said the use of special police officers might enable them to expand security to additional school buildings while holding down expenses. Officials in Hackensack said the school district would be responsible for paying the officers for the time they are used in schools. In Cliffside Park, officials said they have yet to determine whether the school district or the borough would pay the special officers.
Last month, the Hackensack City Council approved the hiring of an unspecified number of Class II officers, who typically are limited to a 20-hour workweek and are required to turn in their guns at the end of the day. They would be added to a force that already includes 65 unpaid Class I officers, who are not authorized to carry guns. Known in the city as H-Cops, the Class I officers often are assigned to traffic control.
Class II officers receive much more intensive training than Class I officers — between 450 and 480 hours compared with about 100. That falls short of the 840 hours that Bergen County requires of regular police officers, although, like regular officers, they are required to complete a week of firearms training.
Hackensack’s new police director, Michael Mordaga, said Class II officers will be a “significant tool” for the city, patrolling high-crime areas and providing courtroom security, freeing up regular police for more important duties. He said they also could have a place in the city’s public schools. He said the decision to hire them was not driven by economics but acknowledged that cost was a factor.
“For the price of one police officer, we could get three,” he said.
Frances Cogelja, who has two children in the Hackensack public district, said she is undecided about the potential use of special officers in the schools and wants to hear more. She said she is concerned about school security, but also about the relative inexperience of most Class II officers.
“You want to see the district doing everything it can to keep students safe,” she said. “I don’t want to see a tragedy because that officer is quick to pull out a firearm.”
Blanche Stuart, president of the city’s African-American Civic Association, said she and other residents she has spoken with don’t yet know enough about Class II officers. “We need more details,” she said, adding that she would support adding Class II officers if they improve school safety.
Special officers are supervised by a police chief, just like regular officers — and unlike retired police officers who are hired as armed guards to provide security in school buildings. Class II officers have all the powers of regular police, but only while they are on duty. They earn between $15 and $20 an hour in some places, which is the pay range being discussed in Hackensack, and serve as unpaid volunteers in others.
Special police officers have used the jobs as springboards to full-time police work, including five former Class I officers from Cliffside Park who are now training at Bergen County’s police academy. New Jersey officials don’t keep track of the number of special officers employed across the state, but records show police academies trained 631 special officers of both classes last year, a 28 percent increase over the previous year.
State law bars police departments from replacing regular officers with special officers, allowing their use only as a supplemental force.
James Ryan, a spokesman for the state Policemen’s Benevolent Association, a union representing police officers, said his organization has seen only isolated abuses of the law. Officials with the PBA and the state Association of Chiefs of Police said they would prefer that Class II special officers be stationed in schools rather than retired officers or private security guards, who don’t report to a police chief.
Chief Donald Keane of the Cliffside Park police, who began his career as a special police officer, said he wants Class II officers to receive training as resource officers in order to work in schools. He said that would make them “an integral part of the school community rather than just an armed guard.”
But Keane noted that the law regulating their use includes restrictions that would make it difficult for them to function as school resource officers. Cliffside Park employs two Class II special officers, but state law allows just one of them to work full time. All Class II officers, with one exception per department, are limited to 20-hour workweeks.
A Cliffside Park school board member, Joseph Capano, said district officials have yet to decide how to proceed, but hope to have additional security measures in place for all of their schools by September. He said special police have been discussed, along with the use of retired officers.
Mordaga and Keane both said they would not favor using retired police officers to provide school security unless they are sworn in as special officers because retired officers don’t have full police powers and don’t report to a chief.
“How can you have anyone perform law enforcement duties and not be under a law enforcement agency?” he said. “That’s not even feasible.”
Richard Ney, the superintendent of both the Haledon and Manchester Regional High School districts, said $100,000 was set aside to hire a full-time resource officer for the high school this year after it went a few years without one. There are no plans for armed security at Haledon’s elementary school, Ney said.
Haledon officials decided years ago not to use any of the borough’s 22 Class II officers as school resource officers at Manchester because they are not much older than the students, said Mayor Dominick Stampone.
The governor’s task force warned in its report this month that stationing armed guards in schools could add to students’ anxiety about violence. However, it praised the use of school resource officers, saying they become part of the school community — teaching courses, for example — and gain students’ trust. It opposed the use of armed guards who don’t report to a police chief and noted that special police are not required to receive training as school resource officers.
The task force concluded that special officers or retired officers “may be a false economy” when compared with school resource officers.
Lt. Patrick Kissane of the Fort Lee police, who is the president of the state Association of School Resource Officers, said he believes Class II officers should be trained as resource officers if they work in schools. But he added that a special officer who lacks that training would be better than a security guard or retired police officer who reports only to school officials and not to a chief.
“We’d feel better about it than having a retired guy with a gun,” he said.

PRIVATE LAW ENFORCEMENT NOT INCLUDED ON MEMORIAL WALL www.privateofficer.com

 

 

CHARLOTTE NC May 17 2013

Rick McCann

CEO-Founder

Private Officer International

Twenty seven states now allow statutory or commissioned private police officers including those who primarily work in private security but have full law enforcement authority.
Currently, when a private sworn law enforcement officer including those employed by private college police departments, are killed in the line of duty, they are not allowed to be included on the National Law Enforcement Memorial Wall in Washington D.C.
This honor is restricted to officers employed by municipal, county, state, federal or other recognized governmental law enforcement agencies.

A police officer is a police officer! Regardless of who signs their paycheck, each officer takes the same oath to enforce the law and to protect and serve.
In Washington D.C., Virginia and Maryland alone, there are thousands of sworn special police officers protecting schools, federal buildings, train stations and the public at large.

Many of our nation’s private colleges and universities are protected by sworn peace officers who have completed the same required training as their local police counterparts.

Private Officer International is currently auditing all security/public safety officer deaths that have occurred during the past fifty years and will compile a list of officers who qualify as law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty who should be included on the National Law Enforcement Memorial Wall.

If you know of any sworn college or private police officer killed in the line of duty, please email the officer’s name, date of death, location and circumstances to helpdesk@privateofficer.com.

We have also asked for a meeting with the National Law Enforcement Memorial board and started an on-line petition. http://www.change.org/petitions/national-law-enforcement-memorial-fund-include-private-police-officers-on-the-law-enforcement-memorial-wall

We ask that each and every one of you help us to change this injustice! This is an unfair and biased practice that needs to be changed immediately so that all sworn officers who die in the line of duty may be recognized for their sacrifice equally.

University of Rochester security officers to become peace officers www.privateofficer.com

 

Rochester NY May 16 2013 Beginning in October, 25 University of Rochester security officers will be on patrol as peace officers — authorized to carry batons and canisters of pepper foam as well as make arrests like police officers.
“It will give us the legal basis to take actions to better protect the campus community,” said Walter O. Mauldin, director of University Security.
But while their change in legal status permits them to carry firearms, they won’t be doing so.
Mauldin and the 25 officers are being trained as peace officers two days a week — for a total of 400 hours — at the Public Safety Training Facility on Scottsville Road.
The 25 officers designated as peace officers are part of UR’s Department of Security Services, which has a full-time staff of 123 officers.
In the fall, another 20 to 25 security officers will undergo similar training to be peace officers for UR.
This granting of additional powers grew out of recommendations made by an advisory Security Commission established in December 2010 and chaired by Ronald Paprocki, who is UR’s senior vice president for administration and finance.
The state law authorizing this change, approved late last year, permits these peace officers to carry a gun if they have an appropriate license.
“We don’t have any intentions of that,” said Paprocki.
Paprocki said that there has not been a significant increase in the number or severity of crimes on campus, but there has been an increase in the number of calls concerning tense situations.
In October 2010, UR’s Security Officers Association voted “no confidence” in Mauldin after injuries were suffered the month before by three security officers trying to stop fighting at a party on campus that turned rowdy.
Security officers can make citizen arrests if they witness criminal activity and they can conduct searches to protect university property, said Mauldin.
But as peace officers, they can make arrests and conduct searches like a police officer investigating a crime.
Both Paprocki and Mauldin said that peace officers can also make arrests in mental health cases, so security officers will no longer have to wait for police to arrive.

Security officers police the River Campus, the Medical Center, which includes Strong Memorial Hospital, the South Campus, Eastman School of Music and the Memorial Art Gallery. Officers are also assigned to patrol UR facilities in the Riverview and Brooks Landing areas as well as other UR properties.
UR’s campus statistics show that the largest number of possible crimes reported are for liquor law and drug abuse violations. In 2011 — the latest year UR’s statistics are available— there were 369 reports of liquor law violations, 133 reports of drug abuse violations, 13 reports of burglary and three reports of forcible sex offenses.
In January 2011, a UR student was fatally stabbed by another student at a fraternity party on the River campus. The student was charged with second-degree murder, but was found not guilty on grounds that he acted in self-defense.
Mauldin said that he is working out various agreements of understanding with local law enforcement agencies that will further define the responsibilities of the UR’s peace officers.

Source- Democrat and Chronicle

Patrick Henry Community College police force OK’d www.privateofficer.com

 

MARTINSVILLE, Va. May 3 2013 (AP) – Patrick Henry Community College has won approval to establish a campus police department.
The college received an affidavit certified by Henry County Circuit Court on Tuesday authorizing a campus police department.
Patrick Henry vice president Ron Epperly tells the Martinsville Bulletin (http://bit.ly/18cusLe ) that Gary Dove will serve as chief of the new department. Dove previously served as the college’s emergency planning coordinator. He’s a retired Martinsville Police Department lieutenant.
Epperly says another full-time officer will be hired.
The department will operate during business hours. Security guards will work on weekends and at other times when the college isn’t operating.

TN. bill could add campus police officers at private college and universities www.privateofficer.com

HENDERSON, Tenn. April 5 2013 – A bill making its way through the state legislature could make campus police a possibility for private colleges and universities throughout Tennessee.
It is sponsored by West Tennessee lawmakers, and would expand the private universities and colleges that are permitted to have police forces.
One of them includes Freed Hardeman University.
Students there said they feel safe on campus, but some extra security never hurts.
“We don’t have a lot of gates and fences to keep people off, but I feel fairly safe when I’m on campus,” said student Clay Leonard. “Henderson feels like a safe place though, too.”
The university said it is exploring the idea of having a campus police department, to be proactive with safety. It would allow faster response time.
“And that way when there’s incidents like we’ve had before, we don’t have to wait on the police, and a lot of people get interested and just start staring and they get distracted from what they should be doing,” said student Anna Hogan.
“Currently, under the program that we have now, security will respond to a situation that may occur on campus, and we in turn would have to notify the local law enforcement,” said Rodney Weaver, Freed Hardeman’s Director of Safety and Security.
Most students told WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News they want Freed to get its own police department – especially since it is so easy for just anyone to come onto campus.
“We have a lot of what ‘Freedies’ call ‘Townies’ that come on our campus and they drive around and they can be pretty reckless, and Freed people don’t like it very much,” Hogan said. “I feel like if we had our own police department that it would be stopped.”
Other students said they think current campus security is plenty.
“I don’t think we need an on-campus police department because with the two ex-policemen having experience, I think that’s good enough, and if something happened, they would catch the people,” said student Caneisha Turner.
University officials said if they were to get a campus police department, they would, of course, hire additional officers.
Right now they do not know yet how much it would cost, or if it will impact students’ tuition.
Source: WBBJ

Houston neighborhood turns to private security firm for protection www.privateofficer.com

HOUSTON TX April 4 2013 – A Houston-based company with offices in London and Dubai that helps protect cargo ships from pirates is now helping a southwest neighborhood protect itself against common thieves.

As Officer Leroy Bill patrols the streets for the Sharpstown Civic Association, he looks and sounds like a cop. “We’re looking for broke windows, and we’re looking for kicked in doors,” said Bill.

He and his fellow officers are certainly armed like cops and even have their own K-9 units. In reality, they are security officers for Seal Security, and they’ve been contracted by the subdivision since November.

“We actually patrol districts and subdivisions like this one to give them a little more security for their money,” said James Alexander, Seal’s director of operations. “The civic association used to contract with the constables office for a deputy to patrol the area, but now that it’s gone with Seal security, it has three to four officers patrolling the streets at any given time, and at half the cost. Also cut in half: the number of monthly burglaries.

When a young mother in the neighborhood was recently stabbed multiple times in front of her children, a Seal security officer was the first to arrive on scene.

“Our guy was on duty making a routine patrol.

He comes around the corner and was flagged down, sees the assault, draws his weapon and breaks it up,” said Jim Bigham, president of the Sharpstown Civic Association. Bigham says the measure has saved the association roughly $200,000, while giving residents added peace of mind. “It’s great. I feel a lot better,” said Sharpstown resident Donna Fain.

“Last month, my dad’s car was broken into, and I hear they’ve reduced the number of car break-ins by a significant amount.”
Source: KHOU

Bethune-Cookman University seeks to form campus police force www.privateofficer.com

DAYTONA BEACH FLA April 2 2013— Bethune-Cookman University could have its own independent police force in about five months, an autonomous law enforcement agency that would report to the school’s president — not the city’s police chief.

That’s the hope of top B-CU officials who have been talking to city officials and working on a proposed agreement they would like city commissioners to vote on within the next month.

“As we looked across the country at the number of violent shooters, the Board of Trustees felt we needed an added layer of protection,” said Cheryl Lawson-Young, B-CU’s crime prevention and compliance manager.

But the idea will have to pass muster with city commissioners and top city officials, some of whom rejected the same idea two years ago over concerns with setting an improper precedent and liability for the city if it allowed the formation of a separate force of sworn officers in the middle of Daytona Beach.

Mayor Derrick Henry met with B-CU officials about the idea a few weeks ago, and he said he liked what he heard.

“I’m excited about the possibility,” he said. “We’d put up the necessary guidelines to protect the city. I think it would help us and the college.”

Daytona Beach Police Chief Mike Chitwood declined to comment on the idea, and City Manager Jim Chisholm could not be reached for comment. Chisholm opposed the idea when it first came up.

B-CU’s proposal was modeled on the University of Miami’s 44-year-old agreement with Coral Gables. Back in the late 1960s, Coral Gables entered into an agreement with the private south Florida school to let the university set up its own police force at the university’s expense.

No other private Florida colleges have such an agreement, city and B-CU officials say, but state law allows public universities to establish their own police forces without asking anyone’s permission.

The idea now for B-CU is to form a partnership with the city that would make the campus officers an autonomous, self-supporting division of the Daytona Beach Police Department. The new force could save the city money and free up Daytona Beach police officers who respond to incidents on campus hundreds of times a year, college officials say. The arrangement would also allow campus police to make full arrests immediately, rather than only restraining suspects until police arrive as they do now.

“It gives us a little more control over what we do here in terms of policing,” said B-CU President Edison Jackson. “It is a good proposal. I’m certainly in support of it.”

Jackson said it’s about keeping the school’s roughly 4,000 students safe, and helping them to feel safer. He said the proposed agreement calls for using the same standards as the Daytona Beach Police Department, and putting liability fully on the shoulders of B-CU.

Jackson said the idea is being suggested again because “there’s a new spirit of cooperation” between the city and college.

Until early 2010, B-CU had private security guards who were mostly unarmed and working under contract. Now the school has armed security officers who are employees of B-CU. The private force includes officers who formerly worked for city police departments, and it has an organization that includes a chief and lower ranks.

The school’s uniformed security team includes 30 public service officers who are unarmed as well as 13 officers who are armed, Lawson-Young said. The officers patrol the main campus as well as the school’s nearby properties.

They are the eyes and ears of the campus, 24-7, 365,” Lawson-Young said, explaining the officers routinely circulate both inside and outside buildings.

They can restrain and handcuff someone if they’re a harm to themselves or others, she said. But the campus officers do not arrest anyone, they have no facility in which to hold someone and they can’t transport them to jail, she said.

They use police radios, and call Daytona Beach police for help when it’s needed, she said.

Campus officers also can’t process a crime scene, and they only guard the area, she said.

If commissioners agree to the proposed new partnership, all that would change. B-CU officers would be granted all the powers of Daytona Beach officers, but the difference is they would be limited to campus properties unless requested to assist off campus, Lawson-Young said.

The chief of the current B-CU security force, Mel Williams, sent a letter to city commissioners this week that outlined how the city could benefit from the arrangement.

In 2012, Daytona Beach officers responded to about 340 calls for service at B-CU properties, Williams wrote in the letter. If campus officers could have handled those calls, it would have freed up Daytona officers to concentrate on other things around the city, he said.

Williams said he didn’t compile the work hours Daytona police devoted to his campus or the financial impact to the city. But he did point out that allowing his security force to become a department of sworn police officers was a value of nearly $464,000 annually to the city.

That’s the amount the city would have to spend to hire 13 new officers — the same number of officers the university has now as armed guards — at the Daytona Police Department’s base salary of $35,673. The tally doesn’t include benefits.

The new proposal is very similar to the idea city officials wound up killing two years ago, Lawson-Young said. She said a draft of the new proposal has been volleyed between B-CU and the city’s legal department, but City Attorney Marie Hartman said this week the only thing she’s seen recently is a Feb. 21 letter from B-CU informing her the college wants to renew the idea.

The campus officers would be employees of B-CU, which would pay for their salaries and benefits as well as all training, vehicles and equipment. The city Police Department would vet people applying for positions on the new police force, but Williams would be in charge of hiring and firing, Lawson-Young said.

Under the current draft proposal, Williams would answer to Jackson, not Chitwood, she said. But written reports would wind up at the Daytona Beach Police Department, she said.

“There’d be no blindsiding,” she said.

Another provision of the proposal calls for Daytona officers needing to let the college know if they wanted to come on campus, she said.

In addition to the mayor, Lawson-Young said she and other school officials have met with three of the six city commissioners so far, giving each of them a full briefing.

City Commissioner Carl Lentz met last week with B-CU leaders on the proposal, and he said he’s the one who suggested the college do the cost-benefit analysis that Williams compiled. Lentz said he’s not ready to say if he’d support the idea, but he said he’d be interested in a deal that would at least maintain the same level of service and save the city money.

City Commissioner Rob Gilliland has not met with college officials on the matter yet, and he said he’d like to review the proposal before he does. He said he has concerns about liability and campus police pursuits spilling over into other parts of the city.

“I think there is a deal to be struck, but not exactly like Coral Gables’ agreement,” Gilliland said.

But before any deals are signed, Gilliland said he wants to slow down, study the idea and have public discussions. B-CU wants a new police force fully operational by the fall semester, but Gilliland doesn’t see a way for that to happen until 2014.

City Commissioner Pam Woods said B-CU could try to go the route that public universities did in Florida years ago, winning enabling legislation at the state capitol that allows them to set up their own police forces.

But Lawson-Young said the university isn’t interested in pursuing legislation in Tallahassee to try to set up the private police force, nor is the school interested in only using Daytona Beach police officers when they’re off duty from the city force.

But the university would consider making the deal a pilot program of three to five years, she said.

Source: Daytona Beach News-Journal

University of Rochester creates police force www.privteofficer.com

Rochester, N.Y. March 30 2013 — For the first time in the University of Rochester’s history, there will be sworn officers providing security for school’s campuses.
On Thursday, 25 men and women were sworn in as peace officers — establishing the university’s first law enforcement agency.
The men and women will now begin a five month training program to get their certification.
“We have had a long standing desire to achieve peace officer status,” explained Walter Mauldin, the university’s director of security services. “It would provide us with tools to respond more quickly, effectively.”
Peace officers have expanded authority compared to regular security staff. For examples, they have the ability to make arrests based on probable cause, conduct proper warrantless searches and take custody of firearms. They are also able to have access to governmental criminal information systems to use during their investigations.
The officers will also make mental health arrests which Mauldin says is a valuable authority to have because of Strong Memorial Hospital.
“We have a lot of situations where an individual may be at or near the university, particularly our medical center,” he explained. “They are experiencing mental health stress and sometimes that stress can manifest in ways that someone needs to step in and take action to by bring them in voluntarily or by mental hygiene arrest so they can be checked out.”
University officials say the need for peace officers wasn’t in response to an increase in the number of crimes or the severity of crime. However, a 2010 assessment of the university’s security found that there was an increase in calls for service by the security department in which there was potential for a confrontation.
The peace officers are allowed to carry batons and pepper foam but will not be carrying firearms or tasers.
Mauldin says the peace officers will be working in partnerships with local police departments like Rochester and Brighton and also the New York State Police and the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. However, in other ways, having peace officers would allow university security to rely on other law enforcement agencies less.
“They have been great about [helping with investigations] but they are very, very busy themselves,” Mauldin said. “So we’re going to see things happen very, very quickly in some regards to get to the development of leads and in some cases apprehensions where it may not have been possible as quickly before.”
Mauldin says there is a possibility of training more peace officers in the future.
Peace officers will patrol the River Campus, the medical center, the south campus, Eastman School of Music and the Memorial Art Gallery.
Source: WHAM

More citizens turning to private cops for protection www.privateofficer.com

CAMDEN, N.J. Feb 22 2013 — In an office in a sleepy town in southern New Jersey, Harry Glemser’s phone rang. With no buxom secretary to take a message, he answered it himself.
It was a dame, looking to hire a private eye.
But this was no scene from a noir novel. The woman was calling because someone in a car kept lurking in her driveway, the engine running, when her husband wasn’t home. She’d called the police, but they couldn’t help. She hoped Glemser could.
Detectives like Glemser across cash-strapped states have been getting more calls like these as cities and towns cut their police forces to contend with deep budget cuts. New Jersey alone lost 4,200 officers from 2008 to 2011, according to the Policemen’s Benevolent Assn., which tracks the state’s most recent data. As police focus more on responding to crime rather than preventing it, private detectives and security firms are often taking on the roles that police once did, investigating robberies, checking out alibis, looking into threats.
“The public is frustrated by the police,” said Glemser, a retired cop of 63 whose gold chains, white hair and bulky body might make a stranger worry he’s on the wrong side of the law. “The citizenry is quick to say that the police don’t do anything for them. They should be saying the police can’t do anything for them because of this budgetary issue, this manpower problem, this directive we have that came down from the chief.”
Private detectives are just one piece of the private sector security and policing services that people are increasingly turning to as they worry about crime. The U.S. private security industry is expected to grow 6.3% a year to $19.9 billion by 2016, according to a study by security research group Freedonia Group Inc. Even some in the public sector are trying to tap into the industry to save money; one Tennessee power department laid off security officers last year and replaced them with security technology and private contractors.
In California, where many cash-strapped cities cut police budgets during the recession, residents are turning to detectives, security firms and even the Internet.
After police cuts in Oakland, resident Dabney Lawless encouraged 400 neighbors to sign up on a website so they could send alerts to one another when they noticed suspicious people around; she also pays extra to an alarm company to drive through the neighborhood. Ron Cancio, the manager of a Stockton security firm, said that since the city’s budget battles, residents often have called his firm for minor complaints, because they know he’ll respond more quickly than the police.
Of course, not everyone can afford private police help.
Roger Arrella, the owner of TSInvestigations in Corona, said he’s getting a lot more calls from people who say police won’t help them in investigating burglaries, suspicious suicides or identity theft. But once they hear his rates, which are around $150 an hour, they usually balk.
“We get the phone calls — people are upset that someone broke into their house, or stole their car, and the police aren’t doing what they should be doing,” he said. “But then you tell them the price, and they say, well, maybe it’s not worth it to me.”
It’s another facet of how income inequality is playing out in America — as cities are forced to cut their budgets, even police protection is more accessible to those with cash.
“Wealthy neighborhoods are buying themselves more police protection than poor neighborhoods,” said Samuel Walker, emeritus professor of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the author of 13 books on policing.
Latch Raghu, for instance, hired a private eye after his 1986 Buick Grand Regal National, worth $100,000, was stolen in Belleville, N.J. Though police had access to street cameras and Raghu had some ideas as to who might have stolen it, he couldn’t get the case moving. Raghu hired Joseph Blaettler, an ex-cop who runs East Coast Private Investigations of New Jersey.
“The police came and took reports, and I went to them a week and a half later, and they weren’t doing anything,” Raghu said. “I had to take steps of my own.”
Inequality has always been present: Millionaires hire bodyguards, rich neighborhoods pay for private security patrols. But this budget crisis makes the difference even more pronounced, Walker said.
“We’ve never had budget crises like this — it’s a whole new situation,” Walker said. “It’s entirely possible people just stop calling the police because they don’t expect anything, or take more protective measures, or don’t go out.”
Nationally, employment in local government jobs, which includes police departments, has dropped 4% since 2009 (this sector excludes education jobs). Many states didn’t start cutting police budgets until the scope of their budget problems became evident, in 2009.
Employment in investigation and security services, on the other hand, started ticking up in early 2009, and has grown 5.1% since then, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The decline in police funding means cities such as Camden have to pick their battles. The city broke its own record last year when it had 67 murders.
“With our budget cuts, obviously, we have to treat things like triage,” said Robert Corrales, a spokesman for the city. “We handle the more pressing situations before routine traffic stops or speeding tickets.”
At times, police and private detectives can be antagonists, such as when private detectives are hired by defendants to go over police work and figure out where law enforcement might have missed evidence, or didn’t follow through on a case.
Recently, a mother called Blaettler, begging him to get her son out of jail, where she said he was being held for a murder he didn’t commit. Blaettler found evidence about the man’s alibi that the police hadn’t followed up on, and helped the man get out of jail, leaving police without a suspect.
But other times, police and private detectives work together.
Police netted the driveway lurker with Glemser’s help, for instance. Once he got off the phone with the woman, Glemser settled in outside the house for an old-fashioned stakeout.
The next time the car lurked in the driveway, the woman’s husband was home. He called the police, who had started paying attention because Glemser had alerted them to his work. They tracked down the bad guy by his license plate number.
Glemser took on her case for free, something some detectives are doing in this age of austerity.
In another case, Glemser headed into Camden — one of the most dangerous cities in the country — to find a prostitute who had warrants out for her arrest. Police weren’t arresting her, though, and her mother hired Glemser to bring her home. The private eye posed as a john, asking others for the woman named Christine, until he found her and brought her home. Her mother has checked her into rehab.
“I didn’t feel like the police were going to help me any way at all,” said Christine’s mother, Joanne, an administrator who lives in Milford, Pa., and wanted the family’s last name kept private while her daughter goes to rehab. “In Camden, they have so few police now, and there’s so much violence and drug problems, they just push it all under the rug.”

Source: LA Times

NC court weighs rules for private college police www.privateofficer.com

RALEIGH, N.C. Feb 14 2013 — Elon University’s lawyers want the state Supreme Court to rule campus police shouldn’t be subject to a North Carolina law requiring transparency though officers have arrest and other powers.
The high court hears arguments Wednesday in a case involving the responsibilities of campus police at private colleges.
A former Elon student contends state law requires campus police to produce all information related to the arrest of a fellow student.
Elon’s lawyers say that police powers don’t obligate a private college to act like a city police force or other public institution.
The Supreme Court addressed private college police in 2011, ruling that Davidson College can keep its own force because the school is not so closely aligned with a religious denomination that it mixes church and state.

Illinois Supreme Court rules subdivision police can detain drivers www.privateofficer.com

Springfield IL Jan 28 2013 The homeowners associations responsible for managing subdivisions across the state have the power to enforce their own traffic rules through a private security force, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled Friday, overturning a lower-court ruling that found they could be unlawful.
Former DuPage County prosecutor Ken Poris sued LaSalle County’s Lake Holiday Property Owners Association after he was pulled over for speeding in 2008 by a vehicle with flashing lights
A uniformed officer wearing a badge and duty belt took his driver’s license and Lake Holiday membership card back to his squad car and wrote him a $50 speeding ticket. The man wasn’t a police officer but a homeowners association employee with little police training and no state certification.
Last year, an appeals court found that the association could not stop and detain drivers for violating homeowners association rules. The court found that Lake Holiday could be found liable for Poris’ false imprisonment claim and that the association’s use of amber-colored flashing lights on its squad cars was unlawful.
But the Illinois Supreme Court on Friday reversed each of those findings, ruling that Lake Holiday was allowed to enforce its bylaws against residents and that courts “generally do not interfere with the internal affairs of a voluntary association.”
“We can discern no logic in allowing a private homeowners association to construct and maintain roadways but not allowing the association to implement and enforce traffic laws on those roadways,” Judge Robert Thomas wrote.
Poris, who asserted that only sworn officers had the authority to pull over drivers and that the association police were also stopping and ticketing drivers who did not belong to the Lake Holiday association, said he was disappointed with the opinion.
“I think it’s going to have possibly some real serious consequences,” Poris said.
Poris said he believed the ruling expanded the definition of probable cause, making it easier to stop someone on private property. “Now every homeowners association can basically set up their own enforcement group and those people are allowed to make stops,” he said.
Lake Holiday’s attorney Bruce Lyon said the association, which encompasses 2,000 single-family lots, was pleased with the ruling.
“They’re happy that the court has agreed that they do have the ability to allow them to keep the area safe for all of the families and kids who live there and not allow people to speed with impunity,” he said.
He said the association has not enforced the speed limit for about a year as the appeals process worked its way through the courts. While the case was a first for the Supreme Court, Lyon disagreed that it would make it easier for drivers to be pulled over on private property.
“I believe what this ruling really does is reiterate the rights of a private association to contract with its members when those members agree to those rules,” he said.

Source-tribune.com

Molina CA Proposes Hiring Private Security to Fill Cuts In Sheriff Patrols www.privateofficer.com

Molina CA Jan 25 2013 Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina suggested Tuesday that private security patrol services be hired to fill in where sheriff’s patrol cars have been cut.
A move by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to suspend overtime has cut patrols in unincorporated areas, according to Molina and fellow Supervisor Don Knabe.
Molina accused Sheriff Lee Baca of “(pulling) the rug out … from under unincorporated areas.”
In areas near South and East Whittier, for example, patrols were cut from 12 cars per day to six, she said.
Baca said the overtime cut was necessary to close his department’s budget gap, and defensible given a big drop in the crime rate.
“We’re not out of our recession as a county,” Baca told the board. “We have the lowest crime rate we’ve had in 40 years.”
The overtime budget was suspended as of Jan. 13, but the board just learned of the suspension Friday, according to Knabe.
The sheriff’s department is responsible for providing patrol services in unincorporated areas, while 42 cities and other agencies pay the county for patrol services. The patrol budget represents 17.6 percent of the department’s total $2.69 billion budget.
Molina said the board had allocated money to ensure that residents in unincorporated areas receive the same level of services as those in cities that contract for law enforcement.
Baca said he couldn’t make the overall cuts demanded by the board last year without cutting services.
“You cannot ask me to continue to provide the same amount of services with less money,” Baca said.
Molina ultimately suggested private patrols as an alternative – a proposal Baca expressed skepticism over – and Chief Executive Officer William Fujioka said he would look into the cost.
The board voted for an independent firm to be hired to conduct a forensic audit of the sheriff’s department budget.
Molina also said an earlier audit of the department – requested during budget discussions last year – would show that Baca is charging jurisdictions for services that he is not legally allowed to bill for under a state law called the Gonsalves code. That audit could be out as early as Friday, according to Molina.

Source-city news service

New Zealand considers contracting private security to enforce vehicle safety www.privateofficer.com

 

New Zealand Oct 30 2012 The government is considering law changes that will pave the way for private warrant of fitness (WOF) inspectors to pull over vehicles, says Associate Transport Minister Simon Bridges.

Mr Bridges told TV3′s The Nation that under new reforms cars would only need a WOF annually rather than every six months.

“Randomised” roadside checks could also be carried out by private companies, contracted by the government, to check the safety of cars. Currently, only police can conduct roadside checks.

Annual rather than six monthly WOF checks would increase road safety, if accompanied by more roadside checks, which was a smarter way to do it, he said.

But Dogandlemon.com editor Clive Matthew-Wilson says the government’s WOF changes are part of a larger plan to let commercial vehicle fleet operators issue their own in-house safety certificates.

“It is alarming to think that rent-a-cops on low wages could start pulling over perfectly legal vehicles which already have warrants of fitness,” he said.

The changes were not about saving motorists time and money, but were being driven by commercial operators, who want to eliminate independent safety inspections and save money, he said.

The Ministry of Transport’s discussion paper on the changes says larger trucking businesses may be well placed to self-certify their WOFs.

“The public should be very afraid,” Mr Matthew-Wilson said.

“Trucks make up only 2.5 per cent of the vehicle fleet but cause 15 per cent of all road deaths.

“As far as the commercial fleet operators are concerned, deregulation simply means more profits.

“As far as the public is concerned, deregulation often means disaster.”

The government’s figure of motorists saving up to $245 million a year through WOF reforms would only happen if regular WOFs were abolished entirely, he said.

Source:NZCity News

NC Special Police Officer Crashes After Falling Asleep www.privateofficer.com

 

 

MATTHEWS, NC Oct 4 2012 - A special police officer drifted off the freeway early Wednesday morning after falling asleep, and crashed into a grove of trees.

Debris from the patrol car was found yards away from where the vehicle ended up, parked alongside the embankment of the off ramp after colliding with a tree.

Matthews Police said the special police officer was driving along the outer loop of I-485 around 3am, when he dozed off behind the wheel.

The car drifted off the road, and slammed into a tree at the East Independence interchange.

The back bumper of the car was ripped off, as well as damage along the driver’s side.

The officer was checked out by Medics on the scene, but was not hurt according to Matthews officers.

There’s no word on if any citations will be issued.

“Special” police officers are contracted law enforcement officials who work for companies.  They have police powers only on the property they are hired to patrol.

Source: WBTV

Alabamians wonder if use private companies for enforcement reasonable www.privateofficer.com

 

Montgomery AL Oct 2 2012 In Prichard, a South Carolina-based traffic enforcement company has offered to pay for police officers to issue tickets and split the fines with City Hall.

In Warrior, a subsidiary of a Virginia-based debt collection company audits businesses for delinquent taxes, and splits the business licenses fees it recovers with the city.

And in Harpersville, an Atlanta-based private probation company has been blasted by a state judge for being a part of a “judicially sanctioned extortion racket.”

Among local governments, privatization and outsourcing are not new things. For decades, communities have turned to private companies to provide services such as garbage collection or to manage utilities such as water. But in recent years, cities and counties throughout Alabamahave begun outsourcing of a different kind – one that delegates power and authority over citizens.

Private companies have pitched these arrangements with promises of reduced expenses and larger, newer revenue streams, and for many local governments, those promises couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. Privatization can reap generous rewards, such as in Center Point, where a traffic enforcement camera contract with Arizona-based Redflex Inc. has become the city’s second-largest source of revenue after sales taxes.

Nationally, municipal revenues have fallen each of the last six years, according a report issued last month by the National League of Cities.

“Cities have been making significant cuts to their budgets for several years now, and that trend will continue,” writes Michael Pagano, the Dean of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who coauthored the report. “These are serious times for cities and their residents. Difficult, but manageable, financial hurdles for cities will remain for the foreseeable future.”

In short, cities are hurting financially, and in council chambers and county courthouses, private contractors have offered to help. Private probation companies, tax collectors, private traffic enforcement – they are the first to arrive in a national wave of privatization that delegates government authority over people like you.

But with these arrangements come new questions about civil rights and due process.

“If you get a Sheriff of Nottingham who his carrying out the law in an abusive way, you can vote him out of office,” says Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union.  “The public can’t vote out a CEO of a company.”

In the lingo of privatization advocates, Semmes in South Alabama is a “start-up city.” The nascent western suburb of Mobile incorporated earlier this year, and in June the city elected Judy Hale its first mayor.

When building a city from scratch, the earliest challenge can be jump-starting the kinds of city services older cities take for granted. Municipal privatization provides an answer, says Leonard Gilroy, the director of government reform at the Libertarian-leaning Reason Foundation. Why create a planning and engineering department or a revenue department from the ground up, when you can hire one virtually from the phone book?

In recent years, the poster child of start-up cities has been Sandy Springs, Ga., a place that despite its population of more than 90,000 people has just seven city employees outside of the police and fire departments.

“Sandy Springs demonstrates that there are very few things that a city does that cannot be successfully accomplished through public-private partnerships,” Gilroy said.

Semmes, however, has only about 3,000 people and is not yet ready for its own police force. Its fire department is still volunteer, and in its first budget, the city has planned for a third fire station.

But before it could have any of that, Semmes needed something that has drawn the ire of public sentiment since the Bible – a tax collector.

The city turned to Birmingham-based Revenue Discovery Systems. RDS is a subsidiary of Virginia-based PRA Government Services. Together, they have more than 250 client cities and counties in Alabama, and more than 750 nationally.

According to Gilroy, outsourcing services traditionally provided by the government lets new cities avoid legacy costs, such as underfunded pension plans and long-term debt that have hamstrung older communities.

But while start-up cities like Semmes find big savings from contractors like RDS, the businesses on the other end of the multi-jurisdictional audits can find themselves fighting for their survival.

In the fall of 2005, the Washer and Refrigeration Supply Co. in Hoover had already been hit hard. Hurricane Katrina had destroyed the company’s Mobile distribution center, an almost $2 million loss, when the company got more bad news. It was being audited for local taxes – not by a local government, but by a private company on behalf of 143 different city and county governments.

RDS found that the Washer and Refrigeration Supply Co. owed about $60,000 in taxes, interest and penalties to four of RDS’s clients.

At first, the Washer and Refrigeration Supply Co. agreed to pay, even though it disagreed with the assessment, the company’s lawyer Charles McCallum says. With the losses from Katrina, an expensive legal fight just didn’t seem like a smart business decision. But when the company fell behind on a payment plan, RDS placed liens against the owner’s private property. That’s when the owner, David Smith, decided to sue.

“Taxation is such an inherently governmental function, and Alabama is the only state that allows both private auditing and private collection of taxes,” McCallum said. “There is one big loser and that’s the taxpayers.”

Smith’s lawsuit could, if it is successful, block RDS from doing business in the state. It alleges, among other complaints, that RDS has violated the Alabama Constitution of 1901, which forbids local governments from delegating taxing authority, and that the company has violated the Alabama Taxpayer Bill of Rights by collecting taxes on a contingency basis.

“We have studied it and we feel we are in complete compliance with the law,” the company’s attorney, Robert Rutherford said. What’s more, he says, the lawsuit does not question whether the Washer and Refrigeration Supply Co. should have paid the taxes RDS discovered.

Officials from RDS say that Alabama law has given it a clear set of guidelines for how to conduct its business.

“In Alabama we charge by the hour, whether we find nothing, something or a lot of something,” said Mike Pelone, president of RDS’s parent company, PRA Government Services.  “If we spend 10 hours on an audit, we bill for 10 hours at a rate that’s agreed to in the contract. And that’s all there is.”

According to Pelone, Alabama’s tax laws are among the most clearly defined in the country, and the RDS uses the Alabama Taxpayer Bill of Rights as the basis for all its service agreements.

One of the authors of that law, Bruce Ely, a partner at Bradley, Arant, Boult and Cummings, now says it does not go far enough. During the 1990s, the Legislature tried to regulate companies like RDS in, but those companies evolved around the weaknesses in legislation, he says.

“Unfortunately, I think private auditing firms are here to stay,” Ely says. “What the 1998 act did was to build fences around them. I think we need to look back at the 1998 act and see if there are things that can be tightened up. I think that is something we can do in the next legislative session. “

Many of Ely’s clients are companies fighting tax auditing and collection companies in court. Large businesses can defend themselves, he said, but the law as it is now does not protect small businesses from errors or abuse.

“It is confusing for any taxpayer who is not sophisticated and does not have a huge budget for legal fees,” Ely said. “The thing that frustrates me is that a lot of these clients are small businesses and they can’t afford to litigate one of these cases in circuit court.”

Kennon Walthall, COO and senior vice president at RDS’s parent company PRA Government Services, said that the company welcomes further regulation from the state.

“We want it,” Walthall said. “It kind of sounds crazy, but more regulation is better for us because it makes things black and white. There is no gray.”

Source:AL.com

Cape Fear Community College creating campus police force www.privateofficer.com

 

 

Wilmington NC Sept 27 2012 Cape Fear Community College started the process Tuesday to get its own campus police force.

Trustees in CFCC’s administrative and personnel committee approved the creation of a campus police force at their Tuesday meeting. That approval is pending approval from the full board, which meets at 4 p.m. Tuesday.

The motive behind creating a campus police force, said Camellia Rice, the college’s vice president of business and institutional services, is to get “more manpower on campus.”

“Our campus is wide open,” she said. “Anybody in the world can walk in on our campus. Anybody can walk in one of our buildings.”

A campus police force would replace the college’s current security, which is contracted out through a national firm called J4S, said David Hardin, spokesman for the college. J4S security officers are on CFCC’s downtown and north campuses 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But school officials said that wasn’t enough for the fifth-largest community college in the state.

“Your security guards here, the only thing they can do is talk to somebody and go call for help,” said Frank Sells, interim president of the college. With a campus police force, “you’ve got a responder who’s qualified and trained and knows how to respond to things.”

Establishing the police force would not be an overnight thing, said Ken Pearce, CFCC’s director of institutional services. The school would have to get state and federal approval and would work out agreements with the Wilmington police and the New Hanover and Pender county sheriff’s offices.

Rice estimated that establishing a full campus police force could take anywhere from three to five years. Until then, the college would combine the new campus police officers with private security.

The college is currently spending $700,000 to contract out its security through J4S, Rice said. She couldn’t give a definite estimate for the price of a campus police force. But the state legislature recently began allowing colleges to use a percentage of the state budget to pay for security, she said. To do that, the college this year increased the parking and security fee that students and employees pay, and those funds would go toward the police force, Rice said.

The college already contracts with the Wilmington Police Department to put one resource officer on the downtown campus and with the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office to put a resource officer on the north campus. That contract will likely remain when the college establishes its own force.

Dan Wilcox, CFCC’s assistant director of campus safety, said the college decided to create its own force instead of using the Wilmington Police Department to maintain more control of its own security.

“Of course, the WPD doesn’t have the manpower to cover this entire college,” Wilcox said.

Augusta Technical College establishes police force www.privateofficer.com

 

Augusta GA Sept 27 2012 A student who is smoking on the Augusta Technical College campus or a trespasser wandering the hallways now has a bigger police force to answer to.

In the past, the campus was patrolled by three off-duty Richmond County sheriff’s deputies working special assignment for the school.

But in July the school established its first-ever Augusta Technical College Police Department with one chief and one full-time officer, who will still work with the three special duty deputies. The two officers were sworn in earlier this month by Augusta Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge Daniel Craig and now have full arresting power.

“We’re not here to be an oppressive force,” Officer Jerri Jennings-Joly said. “We’re here to facilitate a safe and secure environment for the students to learn.”

Chief Mike Anchor said he saw a need for the college’s own department because the deputies sometimes had to be called off campus for a city-related call and the campus was left without security. Between Anchor and Jennings-Joly, and the three deputies, there is now an officer with arresting authority on campus at all times.

Jennings-Joly and Anchor were Richmond County road patrol deputies before coming to Augusta Tech. Anchor left the sheriff’s office in 2008 to become Augusta Tech’s director of security, safety and environmental. Jennings-Joly joined the school full time in July.

Augusta Tech is the 13th of Georgia’s 25 technical colleges to establish its own police department, according to Mike Light, a spokesman for Technical College System of Georgia.

He said a recent boost in technical college enrollment in Georgia spurred a need for more security. Between 2008 and 2011, enrollment increased 30 percent to 195,000 students in state technical schools.

Since 2011, enrollment has dropped by about 20,000 students, but Light said about five colleges still established their own police forces in the past few years.

“It’s definitely a sign of growth that we’re getting these police departments on campus,” Light said. “With more students walking around, there is more need for security.”

Although they are now prepared, Anchor said Augusta Tech is lucky to have few crimes. Last year, there were about six misdemeanor thefts, one stolen vehicle and no arrests.

Most incidents the officers deal with are violations of the school policy and student code of conduct. The officers spend a lot of time patrolling the campus and catching students who are violating the no-smoking policy or nonstudents who sneak on campus to use the computer labs.

When they do find violators, Anchor said, his goal is more than punishment. He wants to connect with students to help them understand the rules.

Anchor said he learns their names, asks why they were acting out and explains why rules are in place.

“I get to actually be in the role of an educator by talking to young people,” Anchor said. “I get to be the role of mentor and talk to people who don’t really know what they want to do with their lives.”

Jennings-Joly said the switch from road patrol to campus cop was a welcome change. The two said dealing with domestic disputes and violent crimes can be draining.

“Here you’re working with the same kids on a daily basis, so it’s not just handle the call and be gone,” Anchor said.

At the end of her eight-hour shift, Jennings-Joly patrols the parking lot outside the cosmetology building to make sure students get safely to their cars.

She said her main priority is student safety, but there is a sense of pride that comes with being the founding officer in the college’s first police department.

“I’m just happy to be here and be a part of the building of the police department,” she said.

source-augusta chronicle

Detroit mall aims to form private security force www.privateofficer.com

 

DETROIT, Mich Sept 23 2012 - Private security guards will be able to take matters into their own hands after they become private security police at the Tower Center Marketplace in Detroit.

“We’re not replacing the police, we’re assisting,” said Dawan Thurmond. Thurmond would have been able to stop a tow truck driver and arrest him for taking off with a trailer if he was private security police detail, but as a security guard he does not have that power.

“We want to secure the property or the individuals until police arrive,” said Thurmond.  Sometimes Detroit police do not make it to the mall until it is too late and the bad guys are gone.  Manager Herb Strather said people will not come to the mall anymore if they do not feel safe.

“If the police cannot protect a building that is two blocks from them when there is an alarm, how can we possibly expect them to protect us,” said Strather.

The security guards will need new training and the mall will have to receive a license from the state to be a private security police detail.

“We cannot survive unless we bind together, join together as a community and come up with new ways with which to protect ourselves,” said Strather.

Currently there are 13 other private security police agencies in the state including ones at theDetroit Medical Center and Fairlane Town Center.

Tower Center Marketplace will expect mall businesses and some of the residents in the area to pay a stipend to help pay for the private security police agency if they go forward with the idea.

Source: WXYZ

Use of private police continues to grow www.privateofficer.com

 

 

DAYTON OH SEPTEMBER 20 2012

For more than thirty years, some states have given private security limited police authority for special events, or commissioned them with arrest authority while conducting security business on private property and while that authority was limited and only granted in a few states, private policing is fast becoming a hot button and being well received in a number of states.

About twenty eight states have current state statutes allowing security personnel the same authority as a municipal police officer or a deputy sheriff while “on private property”. Some states also recognize the formation of private police departments, often used in hospitals, private colleges and corporate settings.

Some of these states like South Carolina and North Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia,Massachusetts, Ohio and New York also allow for these private police officers to write citations, conduct motor vehicle stops, execute warrants and transport their own prisoners to the nearest magistrate.

In a news article today in the Dayton Daily News, this reporter writes:

Peace officers who work separate from traditional city and county forces are playing a significant role in Ohio law enforcement, providing what one police chief calls a “necessary” service.

Those officers, whose ranks are growing, are employed by organizations such as hospitals, colleges, airports and even a regional transit authority.

The Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission can certify 24 types of peace officers, who reach that distinction after finishing a minimum of 579 training hours and securing a position at an authorized agency.

Qualified peace officers can make arrests, write criminal citations, apply for warrants and carry guns.

As of last week, there were 33,603 peace officers in Ohio, including employees at the most well-known agencies: city police and county sheriff’s offices. That is a 12 percent increase from 2009.

Many of those officers work for company – or area-specific police departments certified by the state. Municipalities also have the power to grant a “special peace officer” distinction to qualified officers who serve businesses such as banks, hospitals and amusement parks that don’t have state-recognized police departments.

Officials and observers say that a variety of officers is necessary to patrol complex and crowded areas that would significantly strain city or county departments.

“It’s not only helpful, it’s necessary,” said Richard Biehl, Dayton police chief, who began his career as an officer at the University of Cincinnati.

Officers can work for police departments at entities ranging from the Ohio Department of Taxation and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, to port authorities and metropolitan housing authorities. The latest addition to the list is gaming agents for the state’s casinos.

“We’re not the bouncers,” said Karen Huey, the Ohio Casino Control Commission director of enforcement. “We’ll be working in a covert capacity and also have certain powers.”

The number of private security officers in Ohio also has increased, from 21,420 in 2010 to 25,453 as of last week. Their requirements include passing a background check and an examination and paying a licensing fee. To carry guns, security officers must pass firearms training.

Some are concerned that the growing number of agencies and officers could make accountability difficult.

“If we’re entrusting people to protect our community, we need to be sure they are able to do their jobs adequately,” said Mike Brickner, spokesperson for ACLU of Ohio. “And if they’re not, can we hold them accountable?”

State officials said their biggest concern is making sure officers are thoroughly trained under the same system. They can handle incidents like car break-ins and other minor incidents while aiding other agencies in more complicated investigations.

“Our job is to make sure when officers do get certified they are in the best position to serve the public safely and admirably,” said Robert Fiatal, executive director of the Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission. “We constantly review curriculum as well as lesson plans to make sure we’re doing that job.”

Forming Departments

The Greater Cleveland RTA formed a police department in the late 1970s and employs 134 officers with a budget of about $12 million. As the only regional transit authority in the state with a police department, the unit patrols the RTA’s property, including its trains and buses.

A main benefit of an entity-specific department is the ability to mobilize quickly.

“I was talking to an agency in another city, and the response time (from city police) to an incident on their buses is very poor,” said John P. Joyce, chief of the Greater Cleveland RTA police. “The police who would be responding are very busy.”

Grandview Medical Center undertook the police department certification process three years ago; Chief David Miller said it helps the department, which serves other properties in the Kettering Health Network system, recruit talented officers. Because it can now commission its own officers, the Grandview police can recruit directly from one of the Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission-certified programs or other departments, Miller said.

“I’ve been at this for 38 years, and the number one reason people give for why they do this is to help people,” Miller said. “In this field, we get to live that every day, and we can do it in a lot of different places.”

Some of the entities that employ their own peace officers, such as park districts, hospitals and colleges, serve a number of visitors, which can create a variety of issues

“The more crowded together they are, the more ornery they get,” said Jim Campbell, executive director and chief ranger for the Clark County Park District.

Ohio law allows municipalities to form agreements with organizations including banks, hospitals and amusement parks that have not received state certification as police departments to employ OPOTC-trained personnel as special police officers. Julian Davis used to sign those agreements as the City of Day-ton’s director of police. About three years ago, he joined Miami ValleyHospital as director of security and moved forward with a plan to increase the training and authority of its security staff.

Davis said the hospital formed an agreement with the city allowing his officers to be special police officers. He requires that they be OPOTC-trained and receive a commission from a state-recognized department.

“We have over 6,000 employees who work here, and we have a patient population that exceeds 500 more often than not,” Davis said. “We have a lot of activity here. It’s like a small township or city.”

The same could be said for Kings Island, which has the ability to employ special police officers as an amusement park that exceeds an annual attendance of 600,000. It mixes special police officers with security guards to patrol its grounds.

“It certainly gives those folks the ability to take care of some of their own problems,” said Ron Ferrell, the City of Mason police chief and former executive director of OPOTC. “Timeliness may be an issue, so it’s helpful for everyone to have people with authority on site.”

Continued Attention

Sinclair Community College, one of the state’s approved peace officer training academies, enrolls four classes per year with about 24 per class. Training coordinator Ellis Willis said he gets significant interest from military veterans, but not all want to undertake the hundreds of hours of training to become a peace officer.

“You can’t do it without having that required training,” Willis said. “It’s necessary for all these fields.”

Some are hoping to increase the training. OPOTC is undertaking a two-year review of its curriculum, which it expects to update by late 2013. Chiefs in the region say they have also seen more private security at work, and many in that industry would like to add training requirements.

In recent studies by several universities, they have stated that most law enforcement duties that do not involve felonious

crimes such as murder or bank robbery will be handled through private service contracts and that due to manpower shortages, budget constraints and the ability of private businesses to do a better job, cheaper, this will become the standard in private policing.

Whether you’re pro or con on this subject, the fact is that some services including patrolling towns, communities, enforcing traffic and parking laws and other police duties are already being contracted out to private security agencies.

Certainly, law enforcement departments will continue to provide most emergency and criminal investigative duties but it does appear that the private sector will continue to play a much larger part in keeping people and property safe.

There are liabilities issues in providing this type of service, but with the right training, supervision and staff, these duties can be provided safely, professionally and cost effectively

Oak Ridge firefighters now write parking tickets www.privateofficer.com

 

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. July 14 2012– Firefighters will be able to issue $25 parking tickets as designated “special police officers” under a resolution approved by Oak Ridge City Council this week.

Training sessions for members of the Fire Department in the proper procedure for issuing citations instead of making arrests in such cases will be conducted soon, Fire Chief Darryl Kerley said Wednesday.

He said he expects firefighters will be able to start writing tickets in about 30 days.

The measure is part of a “Not in Our City” campaign, a general effort to improve Oak Ridge that includes a new ordinance tightening guidelines involving on- and off-street parking.

Kerley said after they are trained, firefighters will be able to issue parking tickets in instances where motorists have parked in fire lanes at businesses, next to fire hydrants, and in areas designated as fire department connections for hookups to building sprinkler systems.

Motorists parking in fire lanes in retail areas are a frequent problem because firefighters respond to medical emergencies in stores on a “routine basis,” Kerley said.

The on-street parking issue became a problem when firefighters went to a recent residential fire, and vehicles parked on both sides of the street impeded their response, the fire chief said.

Private security vs public law enforcement www.privateofficer.com

 

Charlotte NC June 12 2012 Private security is big business. Estimates suggest that private security guards outnumber police in the US by a 5:1 ratio. The Department of Justice believes that “at least two million persons are … employed in private security in the United States.” In the United States alone, customers spend nearly $35 billion each year on private security services. Globally, the numbers are staggering, approaching nearly $100 billion annually.

In an unpredictable and unstable world, experts believe this number will only increase. Unable to meet all demands, public law enforcement agencies have explored private sector alternatives in lieu of increasingly scarce taxpayer dollars. Both the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Department of Justice have embraced some of these public / private partnerships as a logical outgrowth of community policing. However, a dependency on private security instead of public law enforcement, over time, could erode the hard-won trust between communities and the officers who are sworn to protect and serve.

Looking at the history of law enforcement in America, it’s clear that private security firms have played a role since at least 1855. That’s when Allan Pinkerton founded the now-famous private security company.

While many in the United States fear our health care system may become like the British, apparently many in Britain fear something similar for their public law enforcement agencies. Debate has emerged recently in Great Britain because of large-scale proposals to privatize many responsibilities typically assigned to patrol officers.

“Oh my God,” some have gasped in a properly clipped British accent, “we’re becoming more like the Americans everyday. We must to move to Scotland,” where, apparently, they are NOT becoming more like Americans.

In March of this year reports surfaced in the British press that some politicians and police professionals were considering a privatization scheme for two large police forces, those in West Midlands and Surrey. These emerged in the wake of similar proposals for Lincolnshire. The company at the forefront of these efforts fashions itself the “leading international security solutions group.”

Private security firms provide specific tasks for individuals, companies, or concerns that demand a more immediate and tailored service than public police can provide, especially given the large number of resource constraints on the public sector. As a result, private security can serve corporate interests, supplement sworn law enforcement when necessary, and in the rarest-of-circumstances, replace public law enforcement officers.

Business and corporations that employ private security firms — or have their own in-house security personnel — want their security specialists to weigh risks, profitability, and corporate image, something that public police may not consider if their focus is on catching criminals for prosecution.

One example is the FedEx Police, recognized by the State of Tennessee as sworn law enforcement personnel. Though they are not uniformed, they apparently have full police powers, work closely with the FBI, and even have a seat on a regional terrorism task force.

FedEx is not the first or only corporate entity to have police powers. According to Gene Voegtlin of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, as early as the 1800’s the railroads established private police forces and today their authority remains intact on railroad property, but beyond that varies from state-to-state. Other modern examples are some metro area transit authority police and police at selected private universities and colleges that work under similarly-limited conditions.

The growth of private security to supplement public law enforcement has also accompanied the increase in gated communities. According to professor of urban policy Edward Blakely, somewhere between six and nine million U.S. citizens “live in single-family residences in gated suburban developments…” They live in what they believe to be an oasis from the crime and violence outside their walls.

Blakely’s research concluded that “gated communities do not have less crime than the suburbs from which they’re walled off,” the one exception being car theft. “For many,” Blakely continues, “the guards at the gate provide an artificial sense of safety.”

Richard Schneider, a professor of urban planning at the University of Florida, is another academic who questions the viability of gated communities to provide a crime-free environment. He believes that “[y]ou’re just as likely to be burgled by your next-door neighbor, especially if there are teenagers.” The gates don’t serve as an effective deterrent, argues Professor Schneider. Criminals “learn the code from the pizza guy…The effects of gating decay over time.”

If those living in a gated community (or outside for that matter) cannot afford to contract security services, they may turn to the less expensive alternative of an unarmed or armed nationally recognized Neighborhood Watch program. Typically, neighborhood watchers report crime and do not respond, leaving that responsibility to the police.

Residents in Georgetown, a non-community in Washington, DC, have adopted a program with support and training from the Washington DC Metro Police Department. This training is based, in part, on the Department of Justice’s Neighborhood Watch Manual.

Though not armed, this approach is similar to the one at the Retreat of Twin Lakes in Sanford, Florida where Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by an armed neighborhood watch member, George Zimmerman.

In the United States, much of the debate over law enforcement privatization has centered on prisons, where, according to the Department of Justice, approximately 1.5 million prisoners — or seven percent — of our total prison population, are serving their sentence. Supporters of privatization, such as Florida’s governor Rick Scott, believe that the benefits of reported cost savings outweigh the possible limitations. Critics point out that privately run prisons reduce essential services so they can maximize profits and, in some instances resemble “a historically racist practice of the old Confederate South: convict leasing.”

With the exception of prisons, private security services typically do not replace public policing authority. However, there are some examples where this has occurred and the trend could increase. State peace officer certification boards are responsible for opening this door. Tennessee, which modified the laws for the Tennessee Valley Authority to accommodate FedEx, is only one example.

In North Carolina, the Capitol Special Police look and act like sworn officers. The officers pictured on their home page look no different than those found on web pages of small departments nationwide. They have the power to arrest, so there is no need for them to detain a suspect and wait for sworn officers to respond. Though the Capitol Special Police supplement public law enforcement, elsewhere a community opted to replace their whole police force with private security.

In the early 1990s, and in the wake of a drug scandal that involved the then-acting police chief, New Jersey’s town of Sussex Borough disbanded their local four-person department and privatized police services. The private cure proved contentious and ultimately unworkable. The contract between the town and Executive Security and Investigative Services lasted only a few months. Originally meant to supplement the state police, the courts found that the company’s mandate exceeded statutory authority and forced Sussex to abandon the experiment. One New Jersey Deputy Attorney General argued in court that the contract put “a disruptive new layer between the citizens and law enforcement.”

There is, of course, another cautionary tale. The legionnaires, centurions, and tribunes that marched with C. Marius and L. Cornelius Sulla during the first two Roman civil wars (circa 88-81 BC) and, later, G. Julius Caesar (circa 49-45 BC) did not owe their loyalty to the Roman citizenry or the state. No longer did Roman citizens man the legions that had protected the Republic.

The conscripts’ and foreign mercenaries’ loyalties lay instead with their generals, who paid them, provided retirement options, and brought them glory.

The Republic fell under their weight.

Local police are not likely to cross the Rubicon as Caesar did to openly seize power. However, a contracted police force that works for a corporate entity is not subservient to legitimate political authority. Instead it owes its loyalty to paymasters, who in turn are responsible to shareholders, no matter how much rhetorical or contractual makeup is applied.

We should heed the lessons of Sussex and Rome…

Source:policeone.com/Lance Eldridge

Scott PA police chosen to patrol Rosslyn Farms www.privateofficer.com

 

Scott PA June 8 2012 Rosslyn Farms residents will experience a changing of the guard, so to speak, as Scott prepares to take over as the borough’s contracted police service Aug. 1.

Following a special public session May 29 in which the police chiefs from Carnegie and Scott made Power Point presentations, Rosslyn Farms council voted unanimously to award a three-year contract to Scott. The cost for 2013 will be $50,000 — about $4,000 less than Carnegie’s bid.

“No matter which way we went, we couldn’t go wrong,” Rosslyn Farms Mayor Jim Stover said. “We just decided on Scott.”

He cited department size and call volume as the two deciding factors. Scott has 20 officers and Carnegie has 14, but the latter has a larger call volume.

Scott Police Chief Jim Secreet said his officers are “psyched” to take on Rosslyn Farms — a 0.6 square-mile residential community of fewer than 200 homes and a population under 500.

“I’m lucky,” he said. “I have a good department. All the guys are really proud that another community picked us.”

Chief Secreet, a 30-year police veteran who has been Scott’s chief for five years, added that he was impressed with the friendliness of the people he met in Rosslyn Farms when he drove around to familiarize himself with the borough.

“Our main goal is to keep it like it is,” he said, noting his officers will train with Rosslyn Farms Chief Larry Fischio and that taxpayers in both communities would see some financial benefit from the contracted arrangement.

“I view it as a partnership, and I want to be there forever,” Chief Secreet said.

Carnegie Police Chief Jeffrey Harbin, whose department also polices Pennsbury Village, declined comment except to say, “We appreciated the opportunity to make our proposal.”

Two factors led Rosslyn Farms officials to consider outsourcing its police department: economics and the upcoming retirement of Chief Fischio, a police veteran of more than 41 years. They believe as much as $150,000 could be saved annually by contracting for police service. The change will leave Rosslyn Farms officer Scott Kercher and four part-time patrolmen without jobs.

Because Rosslyn Farms residents are used to high visibility and one-on-one relationships with their police, Chief Secreet intends to continue that. He said Scott has divided its police patrol routes into three zones and that Rosslyn Farms will be added to Zone 2, which also covers Glendale and East Carnegie neighborhoods. All zones are patrolled around-the-clock.

A specially marked police car for Zone 2 will carry the inscription “Serving the Residents of Scott and Rosslyn Farms.”

But his men will mark reports that involve the borough specifically as “Rosslyn Farms” instead of by zone, which is usual practice. Rosslyn Farms typically has about 110 calls annually, many of which are home alarms, he said.

Last week’s decision marks the conclusion of many months of public discussion about how to handle the borough’s policing needs. Besides Carnegie and Scott, Crafton, Heidelberg and Robinson submitted proposals for the police contract. In April, Rosslyn Farms council voted to disband its department and consider proposals submitted from Carnegie and Scott.

Mayor Stover, who said both departments gave excellent presentations, acknowledged that the contractual arrangement will be a change for residents.

“I think public safety will not skip a beat, but we will miss our two officers and seeing the same people every day,” Mayor Stover said, adding the community will thank and honor Chief Fischio in a celebration most likely to take place in late August.

source-www.post-gazette.com

KY town looks to hire private security to patrol www.privateofficer.com

 

Middletown KY May 31 2012 To save money, the Middletown City Commission is considering hiring a private security company to patrol the city.

The city currently contracts with Louisville Metro Police, which provides off-duty officers at $50 an hour, for up to 45 hours a month, Mayor Byron Chapman said.

The city pays for the extra service to make Middletown as safe as possible, he said. The off-duty officers typically run radar and keep an eye on homes during their shifts.

Chapman said the Louisville Metro officers have adequately enforced laws in Middletown, but their services could be provided at a lower rate.

At the request of the City Commission, city attorney John Singler compiled a list of three companies used by other small cities in Louisville. He said the companies charge less — $35 an hour — and also employ off-duty police officers, but not necessarily from the Louisville Metro Police Department.

Chapman will speak with representatives from from the three companies — Five-O Enterprises, Off-Duty Police Services and Neighborhood Security and Asset Protection — before addressing the issue at the June 14 commission meeting.

Chapman said he is unsure if Louisville Metro Police will negotiate its current price for patrols and has yet to approach the department to talk about rates.

Middletown will allocate $45,000 of next fiscal year’s budget to security. It had appropriated $35,000 for security in this year’s budget.

With more money budgeted for security, Chapman said the city would use a less expensive service more.

Chapman said he and the four members of the commission are not sure they want to switch to one of the security companies.

Because the Louisville Metro Police Division 8 headquarters is in Middletown and officers work their regular beats out of there, it has been easier for police to recognize crime patterns in the area.

“They know the trends of break-ins and other crimes,” Chapman said. “With the new agencies, it’s not like they’ve been here all the time.”

Chapman said he would like the three companies and Louisville Metro Police to send representatives to a commission meeting to make a pitch for Middletown’s business.

“Money is always an issue,” Chapman said. “But let’s find out more information before we move forward.”

Source:courier-journal

Private citizens may aid State Police to keep tabs on registered sex offenders www.privateofficer.com

 

RICHMOND, Va. March 30 2012 – Civilians may soon be allowed to help Virginia State Police keep tabs on registered sex offenders.

Currently, State Police physically check the home and work addresses of registered sex offenders for compliance. But under a proposal in the new budget plan, 40 civilians would join their ranks, assisting them with the task.

“Once hired, the individuals will attend a two week training session to prepare them to assist our existing troopers in the Sex Offender Investigative Unit,” said Corinne Geller, spokeswoman for the Virginia State Police.

The civilians picked for patrol would also undergo an extensive background check.

In Hampton Roads, 10 troopers watch over more than 1,700 registered sex offenders. The plan would free up a number of troopers statewide for road patrols and other duties.

Mary Devoy, executive director of Reform Sex Offender Laws of Virginia , wants the more experienced state troopers to continue their watch.

“What we don’t want to see is ‘rent-a-cops’ who have had their 20 hours of training and a chip on their shoulder against those who bear the label sex offender,” Devoy explained.

If approved, civilian employees could start as soon as July. They would not be allowed to carry weapons but would get a vehicle to use.

Source: WAVY

Private firms set to take over core probation services www.privateofficer.com

 

England UK March 28 2012 After all the furore over the proposed radical extension of the role of the private sector in policing, what should we make of G4S and Serco advertising to recruit probation officers? The role of private security companies in the prisons has been well-established for nearly 20 years but the core work of probation services has been sacrosanct. Indeed, the 2007 Offender Management Act, which was designed to open up probation services to potential voluntary and private sector providers, specifically reserved the provision of advice and assistance to the courts for the public sector. So it is something of a surprise to see that G4S is looking to recruit probation officers to work with “public sector clients”. The security company says the typical work undertaken by its probation officers will involve providing pre-sentence court and bail information reports, assessing offenders’ risk and threat to the public, and overseeing unpaid work programmes for offenders. The justice minister, Crispin Blunt, sent a shiver through the world of probation earlier this month when he told the Probation Chiefs’ Association that he was considering repealing section 15 of the 2007 act, which reserves the production of 175,000 probation reports for the courts to the probation services. Blunt was warned by John Fassenfelt, the chairman of the Magistrates’ Association, that the courts would not be impressed by such a development. Fassenfelt says he worries that a privately employed probation officer might be tempted to give advice that favoured their company’s local tagging and curfew programme. He says such a loss of confidence because of a feared conflict of interest could result in more courts playing it safe and jailing more offenders. When the consultation paper on the future of the probation service was published on Tuesday that specific option was not included, but the paper does envisage large swaths of probation work being put out to tender. The new options include the management of low- and medium-risk offenders in the community and many innovative “payment by results” pilot partnership schemes waiting for the green light. The only other area reserved for the public sector probation service appears to be the management of high-risk offenders. The scale of the reforms facing the probation service is reflected in the radical proposal to allow probation trusts to significantly reduce the 35 probation areas should they feel it is necessary to organise competition contracts on a regional, rather than a local, basis. Even this has been the subject of a behind-the-scenes struggle between the justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, and Theresa May, with the home secretary bidding to give the new police and crime commissioners (PCCs) a decisive role in commissioning probation services. But earlier this month May called a truce and signalled that while the 40-odd PCCs may work closely with prisons, probation and other local services they would not have direct power over them. You may well ask when ministers and not just private security companies are going to be put on a payment by results basis. Source:Guardian UK

Utah law would allow private investigators to serve civil processes, including vacate and eviction notices, bench warrants, summonses and subpoenas www.privatefficer.com

 

 

SALT LAKE CITY UT March 27 2012 – Lt. Lee Perry of the Utah Highway Patrol has reservations about Senate Bill 210 that gives new powers to private investigators.

The bill passed the Legislature but has yet to be signed by Gov. Gary Herbert. SB 210 would allow private agencies such as law firms and real estate companies to hire private investigators to serve all civil processes, including vacate and eviction notices, bench warrants, summonses and subpoenas. These are responsibilities that are now done by constables or law enforcement officers.

“They’re not trained in the same way as officers,” said Perry, who is also a state representative from Box Elder County and voted against the bill.

Many private investigators are former officers who know how to handle those situations, but under current state law, anyone who wants to be an investigator doesn’t have to take police training, “and that’s the hang-up,” Perry said.

Perry wonders what happens when people who don’t understand the recipient’s basic constitutional rights act inappropriately. If a resident or the investigators end up having to call law enforcement to assist in the situation, he questions what the bill really accomplishes.

The bill faced stiff opposition in the Senate, but passed 16-12 after sponsor Sen. Stephen Urquhart, R-St. George, added that the investigators cannot make arrests when serving a bench warrant.

Rep. Lowry Snow, R-St. George, sponsored the bill in the House and made sure to include a provision that investigators cannot use any force or breach the peace in performing these duties.

“It is true that (private investigators) have not been through the same training that a police officer will go through or a constable,” Snow said. “But they are regulated by the state Department of Professional Licensing and must adhere to the rules and regulations of that agency.”

In the House, Perry added a requirement that the investigators have to identify themselves and state that they’re acting as process servers, carry visible credentials and provide their contact information.

He also changed the bill so that if a sheriff’s office receives a credible complaint about an investigator, the department can ban him or her from performing those duties in that county ever again.

“I tried to give as much protection as I possibly could,” Perry said.

The final version passed the House on the last night of the session by a 38-36 vote.

One local private investigator shares Perry’s concerns about the possible law.

Jeff Nelson, who has been a private investigator in North Salt Lake for almost 35 years, said the bill does not make much sense to him. He’s been involved in at least 2,000 criminal cases and worries for the investigator’s safety while serving warrants. Sometimes “you run into someone who is a bad guy,” he said.

It’s better to send someone into these situations who is more qualified, he said.

If the governor signs SB 210, Perry plans to work with Rep. Curtis Oda, R-Clearfield, over the coming months on a new bill that would further clarify what the investigators can and cannot do.

Source:www.standard.net

Private community residents question security officers authority to enforce traffic laws www.privateofficer.com

 

 

SPRING, TX March 9 2012 — Residents in one Spring community are split over a decision to hire private security officers to patrol their streets. It sounds like a great idea, but residents are also being told they could get pulled over and potentially have to pay a fine to their homeowners association.
The Legends Ranch property owners association recently added a patrol in an effort, they tell us, to get drivers to slow down while driving through the neighborhood and to also stop at stop signs. But some question if the officers on patrol have the authority to pull people over.

Legends Ranch is a gated subdivision near Spring. Those who live here love the quality of life, but hate the speed at which some though drive through their neighborhood.

Ben Cox says from his front yard he regularly watches drivers blow through a stop sign.

He said, “I’ve seen people running through here at 60 mph sometimes.”

The homeowner’s association has brought in Top Gun Security and Investigations to patrol and assist homeowners with safety concerns. The HOA has instructed them to enforce traffic, parking and other violations within the community.

Despite appearances, the officer driving the vehicle though is not law enforcement. Top Gun Security tells us the individual is a “DPS commissioned security officer.”

“They have a right to patrol. This is private property,” said Jeff Moore with Top Gun Security. “That’s what people hire security for is to patrol their private property.”

A representative with the homeowner’s association tells Eyewitness News they are not saying that these officers are officers of the law.

Still some question whether Texas law allows those who are not commissioned peace officers, only commissioned security officers, to pull people over. Even the Department of Public Safety today could not give us a definite answer on this.

“It’s not going to go well,” said homeowner Darren Toner.

Toner says traffic enforcement should be done only by real lawmen — actual police officers, sheriff’s deputies or constables. Anyone else, he insists, is overstepping their authority.

He said, “They’re there as a physical deterrent and that’s it.”

The homeowner’s association says for now the officer will only be issuing warnings. But in the future, the association may implement fines for traffic violations.

Source:KTRK

Some UK security companies receive police powers www.privateofficer.com

 

 

Norfolk England March 7 2012 A number of employees at a Costessey-based security firm have been granted ‘selected’ policing powers after the organisation became a member of the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme (CSAS).

As a member of the Scheme, GSL Dardan will work in partnership with Norfolk and Suffolk police, strengthening links within the community to further increase public reassurance by supporting Safer Neighbourhood Teams (SNTs).

Thirteen members of staff from GSL Dardan were accredited at the firm’s Longwater Business Park offices at a ceremony last Wednesday<29>.

GSL Dardan’s accredited officers, who have had to meet specific training requirements, will wear a nationally identified logo on their uniform and carry an identification card which sets out the powers they are trained and authorised to use.

Some of the powers they have been granted include the ability to issue fixed penalty notices for offences such as graffiti and cycling on footpaths as well as assisting with traffic control and seizing tobacco from persons under 16 years old. They also have the authority to enforce anti-social behaviour laws such as restricting the drinking of alcohol in designated spaces and prohibiting underage drinking.

Superintendent Stuart Gunn, of head of community safety at Norfolk Constabulary, said: “The accredited staff will increase public reassurance and provide greater resources to deal with crime reduction and anti-social behaviour, which greatly impact on people’s lives.”

Adrian Ewing, a consultant at GSL Dardan, said: “We are delighted to become an important part of the Community Safety Accredited Scheme (CSAS) and develop our role within the greater Policing Community.

“We are looking forward to playing a full and active part with supporting ‘Safer Neighbourhood Teams’ and improving public confidence.”

The use of private firms for policing purposes has generated controversy recently, with forces in the West Midlands and Surrey having invited private security companies to bid for a wide range of services, including criminal investigations, patrolling neighbourhoods and detaining suspects.

Private security company G4S to build-staff police station www.privateofficer.com

 

 

England Feb 21 2012 Private security company G4S is about to sign a deal which would see it building and staffing the first British police station run by a private security contractor.

The deal with Lincolnshire Police Authority – expected to be signed within days – represents the most radical outsourcing of law enforcement so far, according to a report last week in the Financial Times .

The contract will see G4S take over jobs previously handled by police officers including custody and ID duties (but with custody sergeants still on hand), control room staffing, town enquiry officers, the crime management bureau, the criminal justice unit and firearms licensing.

But Simon Reed, vice-chair of the Police Federation, told the FT that he had some reservations about the scheme, as private employees may not have the same enshrined sense of public duty as police officers.

“Our concern is the resilience of the companies doing this,” he said. “When we have national emergencies or unforeseen events, will they be able to bring their staff in to work long hours, regardless of what their contracts say?”

The police station move is part of a £200m contract with G4S over 10 years. Other police forces are said to be considering similar moves.

In a joint statement announcing the contract last December , Lincolnshire Police Authority chairman Barry Young and chief constable Richard Crompton said:

“Over the period of the contract this new approach will make significant savings, whilst also providing investment in key areas like IT infrastructure. The subsequent streamlining of processes will free up officer time to concentrate on operational policing.

“This new approach will mean that the leanest police force in Britain, which already provides its services at the lowest cost per head of population, will be able to meet the challenges laid down by the government, whilst also meeting the high standards rightly expected by the people of Lincolnshire.”

John Shaw, managing director of G4S police support services, said:

“Lincolnshire is leading the way in responding to the challenges of the economic environment and this transformation project will mean many of the services provided by Lincolnshire Police will now be delivered externally by specialists who can deliver greater savings and improve efficiency.

“We believe that the combination of Lincolnshire’s policing model and our expertise in delivering middle and back office functions will improve services and deliver the savings the Authority needs.