Editor

Martin Gill
The Handbook of Security
3rd ed. 2022
Editor
Martin Gill
Perpetuity Research, Tunbridge Wells, UK

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Acknowledgements
Let me start by thanking all the authors who delivered even with the
widespread interruptions to routines caused by Covid-19 delays. I invited
all the authors to prepare an outline of their proposed chapters which
resulted in very few changes. Indeed, most of the chapters arrived fit for
publication reflecting the calibre of authors involved. This saved a lot of
time and effort. I mentioned last time that Australian based contributors
were the most timely and so they were again. Indeed, the first draft chapter
to arrive was from Dave Brookes and the first completed chapter from
Matthew Manning, Gabriel T. W. Wong and Hien-Thuc Pham. While a few
authors required extensions, and some drafts involved several exchanges to
finalise them we got there in the end.
As I discuss in the Introduction the ideas for chapters evolved from a
variety of sources. I was definitely influenced by the many contributors
(including some of the authors of this Handbook) to the security Thought
Leadership webinars I started with colleagues in 2020 just as the pandemic
was evolving and which have continued to the time of writing (www.
theospas.com). I must thank my co-editor of the Security Journal Bonnie
Fisher, and all those who have published and submitted papers to the
journal over the years who inspired many ideas. So too all the contributors
to the Crime Prevention and Security Management Series, which I edit. I
have also benefited from being a Trustee of the ASIS Foundation and being
part of the proactive Research Committee, which is generating much-
needed new research. James Willison and Adam White offered good advice,
and Janice Goldstraw-White, Glen Kitteringham and Rob I. Mawby made
some very helpful comments on an earlier draft of the final chapter.
I am grateful to Jose Taylor and Liam Inscoe-Jones at the publishers.
When we first met in London in May 2019 to talk about this edition they
were as enthusiastic about the project as I was, that in itself has been
inspiring, and they were very effective in liaising throughout. I am grateful
to the two independent reviewers of my original proposal for this book
which helped me develop my ideas.
It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge how much of a positive
influence my colleagues have made. On the research side, Dr Janice
Goldstraw-White, Josephine Ramm, Caitlyn McGeer and especially
Charlotte Howell are enthusiastic and committed. Since 2006 We have
conducted an annual study of the security sector under the umbrella of the
Security Research Initiative. This is supported by the leading security
associations in the UK and many leading companies; I am grateful to them
all as that work has been instrumental in developing insights on how the
security sector works well and why it sometimes does not. Similarly
learning from the Thought Leadership webinars and much else besides was
made possible by Hannah Miller and Christine Brooks. Along with Claire
Tankard they have all helped create a stimulating environment to work. My
wife Karen and my children provide the very best encouragement of all,
they are very special.
Since the last Handbook I have been involved with the setting up and
development of the Outstanding Security Performance Awards (OSPAs),
the Cyber Outstanding Security Performance Awards (Cyber OSPAs) and
the Tackling Economic Crime Awards (TECAs). If ever one wanted
reassurance that the security sector, in its different guises, is in good hands,
then the finalists and winners provide it in abundance. As the final section
of this book illustrates, the private security sector makes an enormous
contribution, too often operating unwisely and unnecessarily under the
radar, and it needs to change that. It is not a good trait to be shy at saying
how good you are when so much is at stake as is the case with security.
Martin Gill
Tunbridge Wells
August 2021
Contents
1 Introducing the Handbook of Security
Martin Gill
Part I The Subject Area of Security
2 Security: History, Genealogy, Ideology
Francis Dodsworth
3 The New Security: Shifting the Boundaries
Helen Forbes-Mewett
4 Explaining the Impact and Implications of COVID-19 on Crime
Rates: A Criminological Perspective
Rob I. Mawby
5 Forensic Intelligence and Traceology in Digitalised Environments:
The Detection and Analysis of Crime Patterns to Inform Practice
Olivier Ribaux, Simon Baechler and Quentin Rossy
6 Changing Threats and Challenges in International Relations:
Debating (in)Securities and Ways to Manage Them
Tochukwu Omenma and Silvia D’Amato
7 Private Security/Private Military: One Phenomenon or Two?
Adam White
Part II Offence Types
8 The Evolution of the Terrorism and Extremism Landscape in the Age
of COVID-19
Kumar Ramakrishna
9 Violence Against Shop Workers: Trends and Triggers in the United
Kingdom
Emmeline Taylor
10 Burglary Research and Conceptualizing the Community Security
Function, a Learning Organization
James D. Calder
11 Meeting the Challenges of Fraud in a Digital World
Cassandra Cross
12 Examining Private Sector Strategies for Preventing Insurance
Fraud
Yuriy Timofeyev and Michael Skidmore
13 Economic and Industrial Espionage: Characteristics, Techniques
and Response
Mark Button and Susanne Knickmeier
14 Combatting Money Laundering: Some Considerations for Security
Professionals
Michael Levi
15 Corruption, Bribery and Corporate Crime: Victims and
Perpetrators
Branislav Hock, Mark Button and David Shepherd
Part III Crime and Security in Different Domains
16 Securing the Bioeconomy: Exploring the Role of Cyberbiosecurity
Patrick F. Walsh
17 Border Security: An Essential but Effective Tool in Combatting
Cross-Border Crime
Anthony Minnaar
18 Security in the Chemical Industry: Theory and Practice
Chao Chen and Genserik Reniers
19 The Evolution of College and University Campus Security in the
United States: Congressional Legislation, Administrative Directives,
and Policing
Bonnie S. Fisher, Michelle E. Protas, Logan J. Lanson and
John J. Sloan III
20 Addressing the Security Issues Related to Illegal Commercial
Fishing
G. A. Petrossian, J. Lettieri and R. V. G. Clarke
21 Crime on the Darknet: The Case of Brand Abuse
Victoria Wang, Jim Gee and Mark Button
22 Representing Security: A Popular Criminology of Private Policing
in Film
 Steven Kohm
Part IV Researching Security
23 Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Security
Matthew Manning, Gabriel T. W. Wong and Hien-Thuc Pham
24 Realistic Evaluation and the 5Is: A Systematic Approach for
Evaluating Security Interventions
Andy Newton
25 Script Analysis for Security Professionals: Past, Present and Future
Harald Haelterman
26 Using Mobile Applications and Physiological Sensing to Measure
Perception of Security in Built Environments
Reka Solymosi, Ines Guedes and Laura Vozmediano
27 Researching the Relationship Between Tourism, Crime and
Security: The Tourism Industry and the Disenfranchised Citizens
Rob I. Mawby and Zarina I. Vakhitova
Part V Security Products and Services
28 The Security Officer: Overextended and Underappreciated
Mahesh K. Nalla and Alison Wakefield
29 Training and Education Within the Security Sector: Challenges and
Opportunities for Development
Declan Garrett, Glen Kitteringham and Ken Livingstone
30 Private and Corporate Investigations: Internal Security Governance
Within Organisations
C. A. Meerts
31 CCTV as a Socio-technology
Markus Lahtinen and Benjamin Weaver
32 Intrusion Detection Systems in Physical Security
David J. Brooks
33 Crime and the Consumer Internet of Things
Shane D. Johnson, John M. Blythe, Eon Kim and Nissy Sombatruang
Part VI Towards a Better Security
34 Professional Security in the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Alison Wakefield and Michael Gips
35 Security or Liberty? Human Rights and Protest
Kate Moss
36 Facilitating Best Practice in Security: The Role of Regulation
Tim Prenzler and Rick Sarre
37 The Necessary Yet Nebulous Nature of the Informal Security Sector
in South Africa
Gregory Breetzke and Tshiamo Mosuwe
38 Facing the Future: The Role of Horizon-Scanning in Helping
Security Keep Up with the Changes to Come
Paul Ekblom
39 The Securitization of Terrestrial Protected Areas
William D. Moreto
40 The Carbon Footprint of Crime and Security
Helen Shoesmith, Ian Brunton-Smith, Andromachi Tseloni,
Rebecca Thompson and Angela Druckman
Part VII The Impact of Security
41 Security and International Crime Drops
Nick Tilley and Graham Farrell
42 The Role of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design
(CPTED) in Improving Household Security
Rachel Armitage and Lisa Tompson
43 Examining the Use of Video Technologies in Retailing
Adrian Beck
44 Making an Economic Case for Security
Matthew Manning, Christopher M. Fleming and Hien-Thuc Pham
45 Business Resilience to Crime: The Harms of Crime, Security and
Crime Tolerance
Matt Hopkins
46 Thinking About the Benefits of Security, and the Barriers to
Recognising Them
Martin Gill
Index
List of Figures
Fig. 5.1 (1) unusual events cause traces. (2) Resulting traces are collected
when the crime scene is investigated. (3) Explanations are sought
(reconstruction). (4) Conclusions feed the standard process (legal
characterisation of an activity) or proactive policing models (actionable
knowledge about the unusual event)

Fig. 6.1 Regional distribution of terrorism attacks and fatalities, 2002–2018.

(Source: Institute for Economics & Peace. Global Terrorism Index (2019,
37))

Fig. 6.2 International migrants, 1970–2019. (Sources: International

Organisation for Migration (IOM) (2020, 21). World migration report 2020.
Switzerland, Geneva: IOM)

Fig. 6.3 Disaster-related displacements associated with climate (2015–

2019). (Source: IDMC 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020)

Fig. 13.1 Methods of industrial espionage

Fig. 14.1 A process map of measures to combat crime proceeds

Fig. 15.1 Simple pathogen network

Fig. 15.2 International bribery scheme

Fig. 18.1 A chemical installation protected by three security rings

Fig. 18.2 Procedures of game theory approach for security

Fig. 18.3 A scheme of (a) an AHP structure and (b) an ANP structure.
(Adapted from Saaty and Vargas (2006))

Fig. 18.4 A scheme of (a) BN and (b) LIMID structure

Fig. 21.1 Darknet markets comparison chart

Fig. 21.2 A screen shot of the Dream Market listings

Fig. 21.3 The ‘other reviews & discussions’ section of the Wall Street
Forum

Fig. 21.4 A product advertisement in the Wall Street Forum (posted on 15th
January 2018)

Fig. 21.5 Darknet monitoring software. (See https://www.g2.com/

categories/dark-web-monitoring)

Fig. 23.1 The relative strength of treatment effects across US and British
studies. (Source: Welsh, B., & Farrington, D. (2008). Effects of improved
street lighting on crime. Campbell Collaboration. p. 51)

Fig. 24.1 A schematic of the realistic evaluation approach

Fig. 24.2 The duality between realistic evaluation and the 5Is

Fig. 26.1 Conceptualisation of fear of crime and the role of perceived in/
security

Fig. 26.2 Eye tracker capture of one experiment participant showing their
field of visitation and a red circle highlighting on the specific point on
which they focus within the stimuli presented

Fig. 26.3 Annotated schema for conceptualisation of fear of crime (FOC)

and the role of perceived in/security with suggestions for operationalisation

Fig. 28.1 Percentage agree with attributes of security guard work

Fig. 28.2 Percentage agree about views on security guards. (Source: Nalla
et al. 2017c)

Fig. 32.1 Relationship between security, defence and protection in depth

Fig. 32.2 Intrusion detection system events. (Adjusted from Brooks and
Coole 2019)

Fig. 32.3 Sensing detectors spatial dimensions

Fig. 40.1 Highest, lowest, quartile range and average (median) carbon
footprints of different burglary prevention measures from environmental
declarations (Skudder et al. 2017—Figure 2)

Fig. 40.2 Burglary prevention measures plotted by their effectiveness and

carbon payback ratio (median values only) (Skudder et al. 2017—Figure 3).
(Notes: Measures with a carbon payback ratio lower than 1 (below the
horizontal dotted line) are higher carbon than one incident of burglary, and
measures that have an SPF of lower than 1 (left of the vertical dotted line)
offer less protection than no security at all. Abbreviations as per Figure 4)

Fig. 40.3 Combinations of burglary prevention measures plotted by their

effectiveness and carbon payback ratio (median only) (Skudder et al. 2017
—Figure 4). (Notes: Measures with a carbon payback ratio lower than 1
(below the horizontal dotted line) are higher carbon than one incident of
burglary, and measures that have an SPF of lower than 1 (left of the vertical
dotted line) offer less protection than no security at all. Abbreviations: W
window locks, D door double or deadlocks, E external lights on a timer or
sensor switch, I indoor lights on a timer or sensor switch, B burglar alarm,
C CCTV)

Fig. 41.1 The decline in crime and youth offending in England and Wales,
1999–2018. (Source: CSEW, and arrests data from Office for National
Statistics)

Fig. 43.1 Retail utilisation of video technologies

Fig. 43.2 Four modes of video use in retailing

Fig. 45.1 Business engagement with crime prevention and security: high-
harms compared to low-harms businesses. (Base sample: 4429 business
asked security questions)
List of Tables
Table 6.1 Global cases of Covid-19 pandemic (confirmed)

Table 12.1 Causes of insurance fraud and respective preventative

mechanisms

Table 13.1 Key provisions, their characteristics and maximum penalty of

economic and industrial espionage in selected countries

Table 13.2 Principal criminal offences which cover actions linked to

Economic and Industrial Espionage in England and Wales

Table 13.3 Internal offender: duration of employment

Table 15.1 Recorded corruption offences in the UK

Table 18.1 A list of differences between safety and security

Table 19.1 Congressional legislation, amendments, and administrative

guidance and rulemaking addressing campus security

Table 19.2 Campus policing safety and security issues, milestones, and their
impact on campus police/security

Table 21.1 The brands that were found to be abused on the Dream Market
Table 21.2 Types of brand abuse in the category of banking and finance

Table 21.3 Types of brand abuse in the category of telecommunication and

energy companies

Table 21.4 Types of brand abuse in the category of lifestyle

Table 21.5 Types of brand abuse in the category of critical infrastructure

Table 21.6 Brands discussed in the Wall Street Forum

Table 22.1 Private security films

Table 23.1 List of meta-analysis in the security and crime reduction

literature

Table 23.2 Rating of meta-analyses using EMMIE framework

Table 25.1 Example script ‘Cargo theft from a parked trailer’ (modified
from Haelterman 2016)

Table 29.1 EU member states required security officer training

Table 29.2 EU member states exceeding 120-hr security officer training

Table 29.3 Training room and e-learning plusses and minuses

Table 32.1 Geometric taxonomy of sensing detectors

Table 32.2 Grading of intrusion detection systems

Table 33.1 Summary of the intermediate outcomes IoT devices make

possible and their discussion in the literature

Table 33.2 Crimes and harms facilitated by compromised IoT devices

Table 40.1 Summary of assumptions of number of each security device

within a typical household

Table 40.2 Number of environmental declarations included within study and

associated carbon footprints (Skudder et al. 2017—Table 3).

Table 40.3 Burglary prevention measures’ carbon footprint (min, max and
median) per household and carbon payback ratio (Skudder et al. 2017—
Table 4)

Table 41.1 Security Protection Factors and net interaction effects of security
configurations
Table 42.1 Odds ratios of effects from primary studies eligible for meta-
analysis reproduced from Armitage et al. (in production)

Table 44.1 Common economic analysis techniques

Table 44.2 Identified studies

Table 44.3 Comparison of the effectiveness of different types of

interventions

Table 45.1 Measures of crime harms to business

Table 45.2 Harms contribution (%) per crime type

Table 45.3 Direct crime costs (£) across business sectors by crime type
(based on median values)

Table 45.4 Total average costs (£) of crime harms and lost productivity
across business sectors by crime type and per business

Table 45.5 Regression model: characteristics of high-harms businesses (the

three factors most likely to be present are shaded)

Table 45.6 Financial outlay on security: high-harms compared to low-harms

businesses
Table 45.7 Security efficacy: odds ratios of victimisation for businesses
with security in place compared to those without (shaded squares indicate
possible security protection)

Table 45.8 Prevalence of crime: businesses in harms group with security

mechanisms in place compared to those without (shaded squares indicate
possible protection)
Notes on Contributors
Rachel Armitage
is Professor of Criminology within the School of Human and Health
Sciences at the University of Huddersfield. She founded the highly
successful multi-disciplinary institute—the Secure Societies Institute (SSI),
which she directed between 2014 and 2018. Prof. Armitage’s research
focuses upon the role of design (place, space, products and systems) in
influencing both anti-social and pro-social behaviour. She has conducted
research on the subject of Crime Prevention through Environmental Design
(CPTED) for over 20 years—evaluating the effectiveness of the Secured by
Design (SBD) award scheme, investigating the links between housing
design and crime risk, exploring the tensions and synergies between
security and sustainability and studying international approaches to
preventing crime through design. Her work has been referenced in local,
national and international planning policy and guidance, and she aims to
ensure that consideration for crime prevention is on the agenda of all
agencies involved in planning and developing the built environment.
Armitage’s research on housing design has also focused upon the role of
housing in the prevention of domestic abuse (specifically the Sanctuary
scheme) and the impact of housing on mental and physical health.

Simon Baechler
is head of forensic science and crime intelligence with the Neuchâtel State
Police, Switzerland. He benefits from over ten years of experience in police
work and is also a researcher and lecturer in forensic science, crime
intelligence and crime investigation at the University of Lausanne,
Switzerland, as well as an associate professor at the University of Québec in
Trois-Rivières, Canada. He chairs the Swiss National Association of Chiefs
of Forensic Science Services.

Adrian Beck
is an emeritus professor at the University of Leicester, UK, where he was
one of the founders of the Department of Criminology in 1988, and Head of
Department between 2009 and 2015. Over the last 30 years, his research
work has focused on helping retailers around the world better understand
the impact all forms of loss have upon their businesses and how they can be
more effectively managed.

John M. Blythe
is an honorary research fellow at the Dawes Centre for Future Crime at
UCL and Head of Behavioural Science at CybSafe. He is a chartered
psychologist with the British Psychological Society and specializes in
human aspects of cyber security and behaviour change. He has held cyber
security research positions in academia, government and industry including
leading on behaviour change policy at the UK Department for Digital,
Culture, Media and Sport on security by design for consumer IoT.

Gregory Breetzke
is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Geoinformatics and
Meteorology at the University of Pretoria. Greg’s research focuses mainly
on the geospatial analysis of crime and criminal offenders. He is
particularly interested in examining crime patterns and trends and how they
vary across space and time. Other interests include the development of
indigenous theories of crime as well as examining crime as a development
issue. Greg has presented his work at numerous local and international
conferences and symposia and has also worked with New Zealand Police
and the South African Police Services.

David J. Brooks
is Associate Professor of Security Science at Edith Cowan University,
Australia. Brooks commenced his career in Military Air Defence, moving
into the Electronic Security sector and later Security Consultancy prior to
his academic role. He has broad industrial security experience within
Defence, Critical Infrastructure, Resources and Corrections. Research
interests include Security Science education, and security system design
and evaluation. Brooks has published widely, with books, chapters and
academic journals. Brooks’s books include Security Science: The Theory
and Practice of Security with Elsevier, and Corporate Security in the Asia
Pacific Region: Crisis, Crime, Fraud and Misconduct with Taylor and
Francis Books. He was also lead author on the ASIS International guide in
Intelligent Building Management Systems: Guidance for Protecting
Organizations. Brooks is a Trustee on the ASIS Foundation and a member
of the Security Journal Editorial Committee.

Ian Brunton-Smith
is Professor of Criminology and Research Methods at the University of
Surrey and co-director of the Surrey Centre for Criminology. His research
interests focus on the application of advanced quantitative methods to key
issues in the social sciences, including prison effects, the spatial patterning
of crime and perceptions of crime, and the role of neighbourhood context.

Mark Button
is Director of the Centre for Counter Fraud Studies at the Institute of
Criminal Justice Studies, University of Portsmouth. Button has written
extensively on counter fraud and private policing issues, publishing many
articles, chapters and completing ten books with one forthcoming. Some of
the most significant research projects include leading the research on behalf
of the National Fraud Authority and ACPO on fraud victims, the
Department for International Development on fraud measurement, Acromas
(AA and Saga) on ‘Cash-for-Crash fraudsters’, the Midlands Fraud Forum,
Eversheds and PKF on ‘Sanctioning Fraudsters’. Button has also acted as a
consultant for the United Nations Offices on Drugs and Crime on Civilian
Private Security Services.
James D. Calder
is a professor in the Department of Political Science, Global Affairs and
Geography at The University of Texas at San Antonio. He also serves as a
consultant and expert witness in matters of premises security and dram shop
liabilities. His academic career spans 44 years at two major universities
including administration as department chair and associate dean. He served
for several years in investigative and security management positions in two
major aerospace firms and as a military intelligence officer. Instructional
specializations include federal crime control policy, national security and
intelligence, public administration and policy, and politics of domestic and
international security. He is author of two books with a third book in
progress and articles and chapters exploring issues of private security
history, private policing, federal organized crime control strategies, security
operations, and security litigation. Expert witness work is cited in Texas
appellate decisions. Dr Calder is one of three original and continuously
serving designees as an ASIS, Int. Certified Protection Professional (CPP).
He has served for 33 years on the Underwriters’ Laboratories Security
Council and is a member of the International Association for the Study of
Organized Crime, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the
Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

Chao Chen
is a PhD candidate in the Safety and Security Science Group of Delft
University of Technology. His research focuses on the safety, security, and
resilience of chemical and process industrial infrastructures, developing
dynamic risk assessment models and decision models for protecting
chemical and process industries from domino effects. Now he has published
more than ten journal papers and several chapters related to safety and
security in the chemical and process industry.

R. V. G. Clarke
is University Professor at the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice and
associate director of the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing. Before
immigrating to the United States, he worked for 15 years in the British
government’s criminological research department, the Home Office
Research and Planning Unit. While there, he led the team that originated
situational crime prevention and is now considered to be the leading
authority on that approach. In 2015, he was awarded the Stockholm Prize in
Criminology. His research focuses on wildlife crimes.

Cassandra Cross
is a senior research fellow, Cybersecurity Cooperative Research Centre
(CRC), and an associate professor, School of Justice, Queensland
University of Technology (QUT). In 2011, while working for the
Queensland Police Service, she was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to
examine the prevention and support of online fraud victims worldwide.
Since taking up her position at QUT in 2012, she has continued her research
into fraud, publishing over 60 outputs across the policing, prevention, and
victim support aspects of fraud. Further, she has been awarded over
AUD$1.3million in funding, largely to drive her research in this area. She is
co-author (with Professor Mark Button) of the book Cyber Frauds, Scams
and Their Victims published by Routledge in 2017.

Silvia D’Amato
is an assistant professor at the Institute of Global and Security Affairs at
Leiden University in The Hague. She has previously worked at the
European University Institute as Max Weber Fellow, and she holds a PhD in
Political Science from the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence. She is the
author of the book Cultures of Counterterrorism: French and Italian
Responses to Terrorism After 9/11. Her research interests include terrorism
and counterterrorism, European and international politics and military
interventions.

Francis Dodsworth
is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Kingston University London. His
research explores the history of crime, policing and security in modern
Britain, with a particular focus on governmentality, the relationship between
government and self-government, and gender and identity. These themes
are integrated in his recent book The Security Society: History, Patriarchy,
Protection, published by Palgrave in 2019.

Angela Druckman
is Professor of Sustainable Consumption and Production and Director of the
Centre for Environment and Sustainability, University of Surrey. She is a
Chartered Engineer, having read Engineering at the University of
Cambridge. Druckman’s research focuses on investigating avenues that may
lead towards more sustainable lifestyles. Druckman leads on education for
sustainability for the University of Surrey: she chairs the Sustainability in
the Curriculum Working Group and is a member of the Executive
Sustainability Steering Group.

Paul Ekblom
As a researcher in the UK Home Office, Ekblom led diverse crime
prevention projects. His final responsibilities centred on horizon-scanning,
advising on design against crime and developing crime prevention
knowledge management. He then spent ten years as a professor (now
emeritus) at the University of the Arts London Design Against Crime
Research Centre. He is also a visiting professor in the Department of
Security and Crime Science, UCL, and the Applied Criminology and
Policing Centre, University of Huddersfield. Ekblom has worked with the
Australian Institute of Criminology, Government of Abu Dhabi, Council of
Europe, EU Crime Prevention Network, European Commission, European
Forum on Urban Security, Europol, and Cepol. His work covers design and
developing knowledge frameworks/ontologies for general crime prevention,
CPTED, community safety, problem-oriented policing, cybercrime and
counter-terrorism. Ekblom also writes on technology and crime, and
crime/terrorism arms races. In 2018 he received the Ronald V Clarke
ECCA Award for Fundamental Contributions to Environmental
Criminology and Crime Analysis.

Graham Farrell
(PhD Manchester 1994) is Professor of Crime Science at the School of Law,
University of Leeds. He has worked at Oxford University, the United
Nations in Austria, and at Universities in Canada (Simon Fraser) and the
US (Rutgers, Cincinnati) and as deputy research director at the Police
Foundation in Washington DC. He has published in a range of areas, but
much of his research in the last decade focuses on the international crime
drop and the role of security.

Bonnie S. Fisher
is a distinguished research professor in the School of Criminal Justice at the
University of Cincinnati. Her research interests span victimological topics
ranging from the measurement and prevalence of interpersonal violence
against college students to the identification of theory-based predictors of
interpersonal victimization to the evaluation of prevention strategies and,
most recently, to the design and implementation of a longitudinal study of
interpersonal violence against and by emerging adults funded by the
National Institute of Justice. Her work has been published in Criminology,
Justice Quarterly, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Violence Against
Women, Journal of School Violence, and Journal of Interpersonal Violence.
She was member of the “1 in 5” statistics that was reported by the Campus
Sexual Assault study and the National Academy of Science’s panel to
examine the measurement of rape and sexual assault. Most recently, she
was the Co-PI, with Dr David Cantor, on the 2015 and 2019 Association of
American University’s Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and
Misconduct. She received her PhD in political science from Northwestern
University in Evanston, Illinois.
Christopher M. Fleming
is Professor of Economics who teaches, researches, consults and provides
public policy advice on the economic determinants of wellbeing and the
sustainable management of the world around us. An applied micro-
economist, Fleming’s research and consulting interests include natural
resource and environmental economics, climate change economics, social
and economic project/program evaluation, sustainable development,
tourism economics and the economic determinants of subjective wellbeing.
Prior to joining Griffith Business School, Fleming worked as a senior
consultant for MainStream Economics and Policy, and Marsden Jacob
Associates, as well as a senior advisor within the Sustainable Development
Policy Group of the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment.

Helen Forbes-Mewett
is Associate Professor of Sociology at Monash University, Australia. She is
Editor in Chief of the Journal of Sociology. She is also the Deputy Director
of the Monash Migration and Inclusion Centre. Her work on human
security in relation to international students and migrants has been
published widely in many journal articles and chapters, and she is the
author of four books. Her most recent books include The New Security:
Individual, Community and Cultural Experiences (2019), published by
Palgrave Macmillan and an edited collection titled ‘Vulnerability in a
Mobile World’ (2020) published by Emerald. Some of her most significant
projects include International Student Security; International Students
Safety from Crime; Approaches to Death, Funeral Rites and
Memorialisation in Contemporary Australia: Changes and Continuities;
International Students’ Sexual and Intimate Partner Violence Experiences;
and Migration, Mixed Marriage and Integration in Australia.

Declan Garrett
is Doctor of Security Risk Management and holds an MSc in Security &
Risk Management and an MBA. He has several years of experience in
strategic security risk management within Europe and the Middle East. Dr
Garrett Chairs the Board of Governors for Academic Standards at The
Security Institute of Ireland and their representative to the government’s
private security regulator on training and education. His research includes
developing the foundations of structured career pathways for the private
security sector and has contributed as a subject matter expert to European
Union-funded research projects on training and education. His publications
include Protecting Works of Art from Theft in the Palgrave Handbook on
Art Crime, and he has co-written several security educational manuals. He
is a fellow of the Institute of Strategic Risk Management and serves on their
Global Advisory Council. He is a visiting lecturer to the Berlin Institute of
Economics and Law, teaching students of the MA in International Security
Management.

Jim Gee
is a Partner and Head of the National Forensic Services team at Crowe UK.
He is also a visiting professor and chairs Europe’s premier research unit in
this area—the Centre for Counter Fraud Studies at the University of
Portsmouth. He has published more than 30 research reports and two books.
He was the founding Director-General of the European Healthcare Fraud
and Corruption Network supported by 28 European countries. He has
worked internationally across 43 countries to date advising a diverse range
of professional services firms, private companies, charities, pension
schemes, as well as global mining companies, international governments
and major public sector organisations.

Martin Gill
is a criminologist and Director of Perpetuity Research. He holds
honorary/visiting Chairs at the Universities of Leicester and London. Gill
has been actively involved in a range of studies relating to different aspects
of security, private policing and business crime on topics including
organised crime and fraud, why offenders offend, the (in)effectiveness of
different security measures, and the scope of security management. Gill has
been extensively involved with evaluation research and with the offender’s
perspective of looking at how they target certain people and premises and
aim to circumvent security measures. He has written 14 books. He is the
organiser and Chair of the Security Thought Leadership webinar series. Gill
is a Fellow of the Security Institute, and a member of the Company of
Security Professionals (and a Freeman of the City of London). He is a
Trustee of the ASIS Foundation. In 2002 the ASIS Security Foundation
made a ‘citation for distinguished service’ in ‘recognition of his significant
contribution to the security profession’. In 2010 he was recognised by the
BSIA with a special award for ‘outstanding service to the security sector’.
In 2015 and 2016 he was nominated and shortlisted for the Imbert Prize at
the Association of Security Consultants and in the latter he won. In 2016
ASIS International awarded him a Presidential Order of Merit for
distinguished service. In annual IFSEC listings he is regularly recorded as
one of the world’s most influential fire and security experts. In 2016 he was
entered onto the Register of Chartered Security Professionals. Gill is the
Founder of the Outstanding Security Performance Awards (the OSPAs and
Cyber OSPAs) and Tackling Economic Crime Awards (the TECAs).

Michael Gips
is the principal of Global Insights in Professional Security, LLC, a strategic
consultancy supporting security providers and executives. Gips partners
with organizations including the Network Contagion Research Institute,
Cardinal Point Strategies, and insider threat firm Signpost Six. He writes a
monthly leadership column for Security Magazine, hosts the Global
Insights in Professional Security Podcast, and frequently presents at
professional and industry conferences. He also sits on several corporate
advisory boards. He served previously as Chief Global Knowledge Officer
at ASIS International, with responsibility for editorial services, learning,
certification, standards and guidelines, and the CSO Center for Leadership
and Development, which he started as a membership organization in 2008.
In his early career, Mike was an attorney who worked on death-penalty
cases, workplace issues, and intellectual property matters. He has a BA in
History and Spanish from Tufts University, and a Juris Doctorate from
Harvard Law School. He has been named as one of the most influential
people in security by both Security Magazine and IFSEC International.
Ines Guedes
is Lecturer in Criminology in the School of Criminology at the University
of Porto. She teaches different topics related to security, fear of crime,
criminological perspectives, situational crime prevention and cybercrime.
She is also a research member of the Centre of Crime, Justice and Security
(University of Porto) and of the Center for Juridical, Economic and
Environmental Studies (CEJEA) of the University of Lusiada Norte. Her
research interests are in the nature of fear of crime and safety perception,
new and innovative methods to address the experience of situational fear of
crime and correlates of (fear) of cybercrime. She has been participating in
many projects under the field of fear of crime using self-report, eye-
tracking, sensing and qualitative methods to explore how people perceive
environments. Most of her published works are on the fear of crime, and
she is also the editor and co-author of the handbook of Cybercrime, which
will be published in Portuguese in March 2021.

Harald Haelterman
is an academic advisor and former visiting professor at the Faculty of Law
and Criminology of Ghent University and a former visiting professor at the
Law Faculty of KU Leuven. He received his PhD in Criminology from
Ghent University and has been combining his academic work with an
international career in corporate security, ethics and compliance. He further
served as an Independent Expert for the European Commission Research
Executive Agency and as a Security Committee Chairman for the European
Express Association. Haelterman’s recent publications include articles in
the European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, Security Journal,
and Crime, Law and Social Change, and a monograph on crime script
analysis published in the Palgrave Crime Prevention and Security
Management Series.
Branislav Hock
has been involved in a broad range of research, teaching, and consultancy
activities, many have been related to money laundering, anti-corruption, tax
evasion and compliance. He is an author of Extraterritoriality and
International Bribery: A Collective Action Perspective, Routledge, 2020.
Hock supervises doctoral and master projects in the areas of international
corruption and money-laundering. Hock is the founding member of the
European Compliance Center. He worked for a law firm, where he was
advising on various compliance issues.

Matt Hopkins
is an associate professor at the School of Criminology, University of
Leicester. He has a PhD entitled ‘Abuse and Violence Against Small
Businesses’ and has published in a variety of journals including the British
Journal of Criminology, Criminology and Criminal Justice, the
International Review of Victimology, Policing and Society, and the Security
Journal. His work spans a number of activities and interests including
Commercial Victimisation, Security, Organised Crime and Violence. He is a
member of the Home Office Commercial Victimisation Survey steering
group and has conducted several studies on crimes against businesses,
security consumption and the efficacy of security in business settings. Most
recently he has conducted a major national study for the UK Home Office
on Acid Attacks and Corrosive Substance Crime and is leading on an
ESRC-funded Violence Reduction Information Network, which aims to
develop a better understanding of measures that prevent public space
violence. He is also on the editorial board of the Security Journal and is a
research fellow of the Security Institute.

Shane D. Johnson
is Professor of Future Crime. He directs the Dawes Centre for Future Crime
at UCL and co-directs the Centre for Doctoral Training in Cybersecurity at
UCL. His recent research has examined the (lack of) security of the Internet
of Things (IoT), crime threats associated with biotechnologies, the use of
advanced materials (e.g. Graphene) to reduce crime, crime threats
associated with Cryptocurrencies, and the security of Smart Cities. He has
worked closely with the UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media and
Sport to secure the IoT, has a Chief Constable’s commendation for his work
on what works to reduce crime, and is on the Scientific Advisory boards of
the UK Home Office and the Max Planck Institute.

Eon Kim
is a research fellow at UCL’s Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime
Science. Her research interests include computational criminology,
quantitative geography and the application of big data analytics to
understand crime patterns and security issues, and she has conducted
research on policing, social media and crime, and justice reinvestment.

Glen Kitteringham
is a Doctor of Security Risk Management (University of Portsmouth) and
holds a Master of Science in Security & Crime Risk Management
(University of Leicester). He has worked in the security industry since 1990
in positions ranging from security officer to international security
consultant. He has undertaken research into shoplifting, training
effectiveness, how security officers manage violence and security officer
duties and task complexity.

Susanne Knickmeier
is a German lawyer who also holds a master’s degree in criminology. She
was a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime,
Security and Law from 2012 to 2010 and has been working at the Ministry
of Justice in Brandenburg since 2021. Her research focuses on organized
and economic crime, but also trust in the justice system, as well as
European criminal and security policy with a particular focus on migration,
border security and cross-border police cooperation. Her latest research
project about economic and industrial espionage in Germany and Europe
was based on an extensive empirical analysis about the phenomenon of
economic and industrial espionage and the effectiveness of criminal
proceedings. Knickmeier has also acted at the University of Basel (2019–
2020) in a research project about open research data.

Steven Kohm
is a full professor in the Criminal Justice department at The University of
Winnipeg, where he has taught undergraduate and graduate courses since
2004. He has degrees in Urban Studies (University of Winnipeg),
Geography (University of Toronto) and Criminology (Simon Fraser
University). His teaching and research focus is on media and crime, and his
work has been published in such journals as Crime Media Culture,
Theoretical Criminology, Critical Criminology, and The Canadian Journal
of Criminology and Criminal Justice. He is lead editor of Screening Justice:
Canadian Crime Films, Culture and Society (2017) and is co-editor of The
Annual Review of Interdisciplinary Justice Research. He is the principle
investigator of a collaborative SSHRC research project titled Frozen
Justice: A Century of Crime in Canadian Film. Along with his research
team, he recently launched a seven-part online documentary video series
about Canadian Crime films in collaboration with Eagle Vision
Productions, an award-winning Indigenous owned film and TV production
company located in Winnipeg, Canada: http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/frozen-
justice.

Markus Lahtinen
took up his position as a lecturer at Lund University, School of Economics
and Management (LUSEM) in Sweden in 2002. Since 2006 he has been
involved in studying technological change and the digitalization of the
security industry, with a particular end-user B2B focus. In Sweden,
Lahtinen has established himself as an outreach security scholar, working
closely with public agencies, media and corporations on topics concerning
security management as well social and public aspects concerning the use
CCTV. Together with Benjamin Weaver, Lahtinen also runs the LUSAX
security research team—a practice-driven research team affiliated with
LUSEM.

Logan J. Lanson
is a first-year PhD student at the University of Cincinnati’s School of
Criminal Justice. His research focuses include the history and development
of policing, police discretionary decision making, and the development of
criminal justice as an academic discipline. He has presented his research on
the development of criminal justice as an academic discipline at national
and regional conferences, including the annual meetings of the Academy of
Criminal Justice Sciences and the Midwest Criminal Justice Association.
He is working on a study with Professors Fisher and Sloan that examines
the predictors of US states’ receptivity to state-accorded institutional
discretion for concealed carry weapons on postsecondary campuses. He
holds an MS in Criminal Justice from Bowling Green State University.

J. Lettieri
is a PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center and John Jay College of
Criminal Justice. She received her master’s degree in International Crime
and Justice in 2019 from John Jay College. Her research interests include
drug trafficking, terrorism, illicit markets, and the theoretical applications of
environmental criminology.

Michael Levi
graduated from Oxford, Cambridge and Southampton, and has been
Professor of Criminology at Cardiff since 1991. His main work has been
making sense of the linkages and differences between white-collar and
organised crime and their public and private sector controls, intersecting
with corruption and money laundering locally and transnationally. This and
his efforts to improve corruption and economic crime prevention and
criminal justice have previously won him major research prizes from the
British and American Societies of Criminology, the first lifetime Tackling
Economic Crime Award in the UK in 2019, and the Rule of Law
Committee/UNODC Corruption Research and Education prize in 2020. His
projects include Fraud and Its Relationship to Pandemics and Economic
Crises from 1850 to the Present, the impact of technologies on criminal
markets and transnational organised crime, and cyber-enabled fraud and
money laundering projects. He is (very slowly!) co-authoring books on the
Organisation of White-Collar Crimes, on Corporate & Individual Shaming,
and on White-Collar Crimes and their Victims.

Ken Livingstone
is a former officer in the Royal Military Police. He now lectures in Security
Management at University of Plymouth. Livingstone has also lectured in
Security Management at Leicester University, where he was Assistant
Director, and at Loughborough University. Livingstone works extensively
with the commercial sector designing and delivering award-winning
training programmes that can be delivered both in-house and online. He
specialises in creating courses that combine professional best practice with
academic rigour. Livingstone has worked with leading organisations in the
UK and internationally and is a regular speaker at conferences and events.
He is Fellow of the Security Institute (SyI).

Matthew Manning
is a criminological economist and future crimes scholar. As well as
forecasting how new technologies can be exploited by criminals, Prof.
Manning studies which policing strategies really work. As a future crimes
scholar he is committed to advancing knowledge about (1) why individuals
commit future crimes, (2) the processes that can be adopted to make
committing future crimes more difficult and less rewarding and (3) the tools
that assist government and industry in making strategic economic decisions
that create efficiency and enhance return on investment. His work in this
area has contributed to the development of theories for identifying where
and how individuals commit these forms of crime, processes that minimise
insider threat, and tools that provide economic evidence that assist in policy
decision making.

Rob I. Mawby
is Visiting Professor of Rural Criminology at Harper Adams University. He
previously worked at the universities of Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford and
Plymouth, where he was Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice for
over 15 years and was subsequently Visiting Professor of Criminology and
Criminal Justice at the universities of Gloucestershire and South Wales. His
interests include policing and victimology, especially in a cross-national
context, crime reduction, burglary, tourism and crime, and rural crime and
policing. He was the UK representative on CEPOL’s Special Expert
Committee on Police Science in the EU (2005–2007), worked as an
academic expert on EFUS’s ‘Security and Tourism’ initiative (2013–2015),
and engaged with the EC in producing the UK reports on victims rights and
victims services. He is editor of Crime Prevention and Community Safety:
an international journal.

C. A. Meerts
is an assistant professor in the Criminology Department of the Vrije
Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research interests include corporate
investigations, public–private relationships, and white-collar and financial
crime. Her PhD project was funded by de Dutch Research Council (NWO)
and focused on corporate investigations in the Netherlands. She has since
published empirical work pertaining corporate investigations, corporate
settlements and public-private cooperation and public-private relationships.
In addition, she has published on the subject of the conceptualisation of
public-private relationships in the field of internal financial crime.

Anthony Minnaar
from January 2009 to June 2014 was the Programme Head: Security
Management and Postgraduate Co-ordinator in the Department of
Criminology & Security Science in the School of Criminal Justice of the
College of Law at the University of South Africa (UNISA) in Pretoria.
Became a full professor (Criminal Justice Studies) in July 2003. In 2013
appointed as a Research Professor at UNISA. A National Research
Foundation (NRF) rated Researcher (2003–2007 (C3); 2008–2012 (C2);
2013–2018 (C1); rerated for 2020–2025). Recipient in 2006 and 2017 of the
UNISA Chancellor’s Prize for Research Excellence (College of Law). He
has published widely and presented at numerous international conferences
on a wide variety of topics and issues in criminal justice, criminology,
policing and security management. In the early 1990s he has published
largely on issues of political violence and conflict inter alia migrant labour
hostel violence (Goldstone Commission Report). In the mid-1990s he has
researched border controls, border policing and irregular/undocumented
cross-border migrants (as Chair of the Technical Sub-Committee on Border
Policing, 1995) and undertook a review of the SADC Protocol on the Free
Movement of People and Goods (1995) and on immigration legislation in
South Africa and Africa (1996) for the Department of Home affairs. In the
early 2000s he examined security measures at South African ports-of-entry.
Main research interests are cyberattacks, cybersecurity, information
protection and cybercrime, ransomware, privacy issues and
cybersurveillance, the use of CCTV surveillance systems for security and
neighbourhood safety/crime prevention, and issues of rural crime in South
Africa. He was the editor-in-chief (2012–2016) and co-editor-in-Chief
(2017–2018) of the journal Acta Criminologica: Southern African Journal
of Criminology. He was retired from UNISA in December 2018. He is a
research associate in the Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice at
the University of Limpopo, Sovenga, South Africa.

William D. Moreto
is an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the
University of Central Florida. He received his BA from the School of
Criminology at Simon Fraser University and his PhD from the Rutgers
School of Criminal Justice. In 2015, he was awarded a visiting fellow
scholar position at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law
Enforcement. His research interests include environmental criminology and
crime science, situational crime prevention, policing, wildlife crime, and
wildlife law enforcement. He has conducted fieldwork in Kenya, Nepal,
Uganda, and the Philippines, and has collaborated with international NGOs,
including the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Global Wildlife
Conservation (GWC). His research can be found in leading criminology,
criminal justice, and conservation science journals, including Justice
Quarterly, British Journal of Criminology, and Oryx: The International
Journal of Conservation. He is the lead author (with Stephen F. Pires) of
Wildlife Crime: An Environmental Criminology and Crime Science
Perspective (2018) and editor of Wildlife Crime: From Theory to Practice
(2018).

Kate Moss
is Professor of Applied Criminology at the University of Derby. Actively
researching for over twenty years and specializing in applied research and
project management, Moss has achieved notable successes in bidding for
research funding and delivering research for significant organisations
throughout Europe. She has undertaken research for organisations including
the Home Office, the National Police Training Units, the Prime Ministers
Delivery Unit and numerous police forces, charities and NGOs. Perhaps
most significantly Moss led on three European Commission-funded
projects, which together were worth in excess of 2.5 million Euros. This
work—into the phenomenon of female homelessness and its links with
domestic abuse—has made a significant contribution to the academic
understanding of this social issue. Moss has also published previously on
the topic of security and liberty, providing one of very few academic
commentaries on the debate surrounding whether there is an acceptable
balance between national security needs and the protection of civil liberties
(Moss 2008—nominated for the SLSA Hart prize 2010—and Moss 2011).

Tshiamo Mosuwe
is a recent graduate student in Environmental Sciences in the Department of
Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology at the University of Pretoria
of the University of Pretoria. Her research passion lies with understanding
as well as tackling the issues that impede the goals of community
sustainability. Other interests include examining the impact that policing
has on social cohesion, community engagement, and trust amongst
community members.

Mahesh K. Nalla
is a professor at the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University
in East Lansing, USA. His research projects are centred on organizational
issues, security governance and trust in public and private police in
developed and emerging democracies. One of his multi-nation projects on
firearm-related violence for the United Nations resulted in forming the
cornerstone of the draft (UN ECOSOC) International Protocol Against the
Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition and Other
Related Materials, as a supplement to the UN Convention Against
Transnational Organized Crime. Nalla is Editor-in-Chief of the
International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice.

Andy Newton
is Associate Professor of Policing and Criminology in the Department of
Criminology and Criminal Justice at Nottingham Trent University (NTU).
His research interests focus on the intersection of crime, people, and space.
More specifically he is interested in crime and policing as it relates to
transport, technology, intelligent mobility and crime; acquisitive crime;
policy analysis and evaluation, problem solving and evidence-based
policing, data science, crime analysis and GIS; situational crime prevention;
offender mobility, and mixed methods research. He is lead of NTU’s
strategic research theme Safety and Security of Citizens and Society and a
Strategic Board member of the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire’s Violence
Reduction Unit (NNVRU).
Tochukwu Omenma
is a senior lecturer at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, Nigeria,
Department of Political Science, and holds a doctorate in Comparative
Politics from the same University. Omenma recently concluded a
postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.
His primary area of research is conflict and counterterrorism, with a bias in
local defence forces, state response to violent extremism, and the
development dynamics of violent extremism in the Lake Chad region. He
has published articles on terrorism, insurgency and counterterrorism in
several refereed journals including Security Journal, Politics & Religious
Journal, Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research,
Africa Insight, India Quarterly, Peace and Conflict Studies and Journal of
Security Sector Management (JofSSM). He is researching on counter-
insurgency approach from the local defence force in Nigeria. He has
consulted for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) on Nigeria’s land tenure policy and human rights
violation as well as Department for International Development (DFID).

G. A. Petrossian
is an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice, and the
Director of the International Crime and Justice Master’s Program at John
Jay College of Criminal Justice. She is a quantitative researcher and crime
scientist, and her research focuses on testing environmental criminology
and opportunity theories of crime, with a particular focus on illegal,
unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Dr Petrossian has published
over two-dozen scholarly articles and book chapters on the topic of wildlife
trafficking and IUU fishing. She is the author of the book The Last Fish
Swimming: The Global Crime of Illegal Fishing (2019). Dr Petrossian’s
research has been featured in Global Fishing Watch, Yale University’s
Environment Review, National Geographic, and PBS Nature.
Hien-Thuc Pham
is an applied economist, and her research areas are political economy,
economics of culture and economics of subjective well-being. Dr Pham also
has interests in security and criminological economics, especially in the
cost-benefit analysis of various crime prevention interventions. She holds a
PhD (Economics) from Griffith University and a master’s degree in
International Economics and Finance from the University of Queensland.

Tim Prenzler
is Professor of Criminology in the School of Law and Society at the
University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) Australia. He was the foundation
Coordinator of the Bachelor of Criminology and Justice from 2015 to 2018.
He teaches courses in policing, crime prevention, and criminal justice ethics
and accountability. He has been a recipient of the USC Vice-Chancellor’s
Award for Excellence in Learning and Teaching. His research interests
include crime and corruption prevention, police and security officer safety,
security industry regulation, and gender equity in policing. He has been a
recipient of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology Adam
Sutton Crime Prevention Research Award on two occasions. Prenzler’s
books include Regulating the Security Industry: Global Perspectives (2018,
with Mahesh Nalla), Understanding Crime Prevention: The Case Study
Approach (2017), Contemporary Police Practice (2015, with Jacki Drew),
Understanding and Preventing Corruption (2013, Palgrave, with Adam
Graycar) and The Law of Private Security in Australia (2009, with Rick
Sarre).

Michelle E. Protas
is a first-year PhD student in the School of Criminal Justice at the
University of Cincinnati. Her research interests include campus violence,
sexual assault prevention, victimology, and mass shootings in K-12 schools.
She is collaborating with Women Helping Women, a local advocacy
agency, Cincinnati Police Department, and a team of graduate students led
by Professors Valerie Anderson and Bonnie Fisher to evaluate the Domestic
Violence Enhanced Response Team (DVERT) that provides on-call and on-
scene response to domestic violence survivors. Additionally, Protas is
working with Professor Brittany Hayes on a cross-national examination of
individual-level, community-level and national-level predictors of child
marriage and their association with physical and emotional intimate partner
violence.

Kumar Ramakrishna
is a tenured Associate Professor, Associate Dean for Policy Studies, as well
as Head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism
Research (ICPVTR), in the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
(RSIS), in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He was
previously the Head of the Centre of Excellence for National Security
(CENS) at RSIS from 2006 to 2015, and Head of the National Security
Studies Programme (NSSP) from 2016 to 2020. A historian by background,
Ramakrishna has been a frequent speaker on counter-terrorism before local
and international audiences, a regular media commentator on counter-
terrorism, and an established author in numerous internationally refereed
journals. His first book, Emergency Propaganda: The Winning of Malayan
Hearts and Minds 1948–1958 (2002) was described by the International
History Review as “required reading for historians of Malaya, and for those
whose task is to counter insurgents, guerrillas, and terrorists”. His second
major book, Radical Pathways: Understanding Muslim Radicalisation in
Indonesia (2009), was featured as one of the top 150 books on terrorism
and counterterrorism in the respected journal Perspectives on Terrorism,
which identified Ramakrishna as “one of Southeast Asia’s leading
counterterrorism experts”. His recent research has focused on
understanding, preventing and countering violent extremism in Southeast
Asia.

Genserik Reniers
is a full professor at the Delft University of Technology, at the Safety and
Security Science Group. He is also a professor (in a part-time capacity) both
at the University of Antwerp and at the KU Leuven (campus Brussels), both
in Belgium, lecturing amongst others in chemistry, organic chemistry, and
engineering risk analysis and risk management. His research topics include
domino effects, operational safety economics, physical security in the
chemical industry, safety and security culture. Now he has authored more
than 200 papers in impact factor journals and has authored and co-authored,
as well as edited, more than 30 scientific books.

Olivier Ribaux
is a professor at the School of Criminal Justice, University of Lausanne,
Switzerland. His research and courses are mainly focused on the use of
traces in crime analysis (forensic intelligence). Beyond his academic career,
Ribaux served for eight years as a crime analyst of the Vaud state police,
Switzerland. In this role, his responsibility was to develop, harmonise and
implement crime analysis and criminal intelligence analysis methods across
six police forces and to support specific investigations of various types of
crimes.

Quentin Rossy
a professor at the School of Criminal Justice, University of Lausanne, and a
former crime analyst, is in charge of the Master’s in Crime Data Analysis
and Traceology, a joint programme with the School of Criminology at the
University of Montreal. Anchored in forensic intelligence, his research
interests focus on methods of crime analysis and the analysis of Internet
crimes, particularly frauds and illicit markets.

Rick Sarre
is Emeritus Professor of Law and Criminal Justice at the University of
South Australia (UniSA). He was previously the President of the Australian
and New Zealand Society of Criminology (2012–2016), Dean of Law at the
UniSA Law School (2019–2020), and Chair of Academic Board at UniSA
(2011–2016). He taught courses in criminology, policing, commercial law
and media law for 35 years, and received a Carrick Citation from the
Australian Learning and Teaching Council in 2008. His research interests
include bail reform, surveillance science, restorative justice, and security
law and practice. Sarre has received awards for research from UniSA, the
Australian Security Industry Association Limited (ASIAL) and Herald
Publishing House. His books include The Law of Private Security in
Australia (2009, with Tim Prenzler), Key Issues in Criminal Justice (2005,
with John Tomaino), Policing Corruption: International Perspectives
(2005, with Dilip Das and Hans-Jurg Albrecht) and Religion Matters (2020,
with Paul Babie).

David Shepherd
Following a career in product and process engineering, Shepherd moved
into research, focusing on white-collar crime, fraud and corruption. Using
quantitative and qualitative methods, Shepherd’s research encompasses
organisational characteristics and compliance, offender behaviour, security
and justice.

Helen Shoesmith
(nee Skudder) is a sustainability professional working in the Ministry of
Justice (UK Government Department). Prior to her role in the Civil Service
she completed an Engineering Doctorate studying the Carbon Cost of
Crime sponsored by the University of Surrey, Home Office and Secured by
Design. Her work at the Ministry of Justice involves reducing the
environmental impacts of the criminal justice system and its estate
including prisons, courts, probation and office buildings.

Michael Skidmore
is a senior researcher at the Police Foundation and has worked over a
number of years on a portfolio of work looking at serious and organised
crime and the response from government, police and partner agencies. He
has led substantive research projects on fraud, cybercrime, online child
sexual abuse, local organised crime, and criminal pathways and profiles,
publishing findings in Police Foundation reports, academic journals and
blogs. Previously, he conducted crime and criminal justice research at the
Home Office and Ministry of Justice. He has an MSc in forensic
psychology from London Metropolitan University.

John J. Sloan III

is Professor Emeritus of Criminal Justice at the University of Alabama at
Birmingham (UAB) and Faculty Associate at the University of West Florida
(UWF). For nearly 30 years his scholarship has focused on crime and
related issues at postsecondary institutions in the United States and the
evolution, structure, and function of campus police departments at those
institutions. His work has been funded by multiple agencies of the US
government including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National
Institute of Justice (NIJ), the COPS Office, and the Bureau of Justice
Assistance (BJA) and appeared in such outlets as Criminology, Justice
Quarterly, Social Forces, Criminology & Public Policy, and the Journal of
Criminal Justice. He also contributed an invited entry on campus crime to
the Oxford Bibliographies: Criminology series and written about the
campus police for the British Society of Criminology’s blog and the
American Sociological Association’s monthly newsletter, Footnotes. His
most recent book, co-edited with Bonnie S. Fisher, is Campus Crime:
Legal, Social, and Policy Perspectives (4th ed.), forthcoming from Charles
C. Thomas. He holds a PhD in Sociology from Purdue University.

Reka Solymosi
is Lecturer in Quantitative Methods in the Department of Criminology at
the University of Manchester. She is a fellow of the Software Sustainability
Institute and an honorary lecturer at University College London. She has
led numerous research projects making use of new forms of data to gain
insight into people’s behaviour and subjective experiences, particularly
focusing on crime, victimisation, transport, and spatial research. Her work
promoting place-based measures of fear of crime has been replicated
internationally. She is dedicated to promoting data literacy in social science
study and practice. Her most recent book (co-authored with Juanjo Medina)
Crime Mapping and Analysis using R: A Practical Introduction aims to
promote open-source software and reproducible crime analysis amongst
practitioner and academic researchers.

Nissy Sombatruang
is a senior researcher at the National Institute of Information and
Communications Technology (NICT), Tokyo, Japan. Her recent research
has examined various aspects of human factors in Cybersecurity, from
economics to usability, and in different domains, from IoT to visualisation
in security, and security notification. Prior to obtaining her PhD from UCL,
Sombatruang worked primarily in IT advisory, audit, and assurance in
London, UK.

Emmeline Taylor
is Associate Professor of Criminology at City, University of London. Her
research explores several dimensions of crime and community safety with
particular emphasis on retail crime, new technologies, and the police. Dr
Taylor has published extensively across these topics, including the books:
Armed Robbers (Oxford University Press, forthcoming), Surveillance
Futures (2017), and Crime, Deviance and Society (2020).

Rebecca Thompson
is an associate professor at Nottingham Trent University (NTU). She has a
BSc (Hons) and MSc from Loughborough University and a PhD in
Criminology from NTU. Prior to this, she worked for a police force in the
UK (with a specific remit around crime reduction and community safety).
Since her PhD, she has held research and teaching positions at a number of
academic institutions. Her research focuses upon household burglary, anti-
social behaviour and police-academic collaboration. Much of this involves
working with external partners.

Nick Tilley
is a member of the UCL Jill Dando Institute. His abiding interest lies in
theoretically informed applied social science. His research has focused
mainly on philosophy of social science, programme evaluation
methodology, problem-oriented policing, and situational crime prevention.
This is reflected in far too many publications. Recent empirical work has
concerned the international crime drop and the consequences of Covid-19
for crime patterns.

Yuriy Timofeyev
is Assistant Professor of Management at the Higher School of Economics in
Moscow, Russia. He holds a doctoral degree from Frankfurt School of
Finance and Management, Germany. His recent research focuses on causes
and consequences of fraudulent and unethical behaviour in different spheres
as well as the effectiveness of preventative strategies. The most significant
projects are related to prevention of fraud and cybercrime by insurers in
contemporary Russia, and pharmaceutical and healthcare fraud in the US.
Timofeyev is Associate Editor at Cost Effectiveness and Resource
Allocation and International Journal of Health Planning and Management.

Lisa Tompson
is Senior Lecturer at the New Zealand Institute for Security and Crime
Science. Prior to that she was an associate professor at UCL. Tompson
focuses on research for and with crime reduction agencies. Her work has
helped to shape the professionalization agenda for the UK police, and the
infrastructure underpinning this transformation. She regularly publishes in
top-tier journals on topics relating to crime analysis, crime prevention and
police practice. Her research interests centre on building the evidence base
for evidence-based policing. She is interested in all tiers of evidence
generation, from evaluations of small-scale problem-oriented policing
projects through to evidence synthesis.

Andromachi Tseloni
is Professor of Quantitative Criminology and leads the Quantitative and
Spatial Criminology Research Group at Nottingham Trent University,
working on research projects informing crime prevention and community
policing. She is also Academic Lead of the Ministry of Justice/ADR UK
Data First Programme. Tseloni’s research expertise include risk and
protective factors, including security, of acquisitive crime and violence
victimisation and witnessing anti-social behaviour; the crime drop; crime
perceptions; social capital and cross-national comparisons. She won the
prestigious Office for National Statistics (ONS) Research Excellence Award
2019.

Zarina I. Vakhitova
is Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Criminology at Monash University,
Melbourne, Australia. Her research expertise is in victimology, crime
prevention and methodological and analytical aspects of quantitative
criminology. Her articles have appeared extensively in prestigious peer-
reviewed journals, such as PLOS One, Computers in Human Behaviour,
International Review of Victimology, Crime Prevention and Community
Safety, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice and Deviant Behaviour.
She is researching hotel crime and tourist victimisation.

Laura Vozmediano
is Lecturer in Criminology and Psychology at the University of the Basque
Country and a member of the research group on Applied Criminology. She
has been a member of the directive board in the Spanish Society of
Criminological Research. Her research interests are in perception of safety
and fear of crime, design of safer cities and promotion of sustainable
behaviour, aimed at contributing to the development of safe, sustainable and
friendly cities for all kinds of people. She has led projects related to both
environmental psychology and environmental criminology and is the co-
author of the first handbook about Environmental Criminology published in
Spanish (Criminología ambiental: Ecología del delito y de la seguridad),
along with multiple articles, and several chapters and books.

Alison Wakefield
is Professor of Criminology and Security Studies and Co-director of the
Cybersecurity and Criminology Centre at the University of West London.
She is also an associate fellow of the Royal United Services Institute, a
London-based defence and security think tank, and she was Chair of the
Security Institute, the UK’s largest association for security practitioners,
from 2018 to 2020. Wakefield’s other roles include Academic Adviser to
the Chartered Security Professionals Registration Authority, a
Commissioner on the UK’s National Preparedness Commission, and
membership of a number of editorial and advisory boards, including those
of Security Journal and the Journal of Criminology (formerly the
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology). She was recognised
among the digital magazine SC Media UK’s 30 most influential women in
cyber security in 2021, and her latest book Security and Crime: Converging
Perspectives on a Complex World was published in 2021.

Patrick F. Walsh
is a former intelligence analyst who has worked in Australian national
security and law enforcement agencies. He is Associate Professor of
Intelligence and Security Studies at the Australian Graduate School of
Policing and Security, Charles Sturt University, Australia. He has consults
to government, and his research focuses on a range of intelligence
capability issues including governance, leadership, intelligence and ethics,
biosecurity, health security and cyber. He is the author of Intelligence and
Intelligence Analysis (2011); Intelligence, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism
(Palgrave Macmillan, UK, 2018); and Intelligence Leadership and
Governance. Building Effective Intelligence Communities in the 21st
Century (2020).

Victoria Wang
is a Reader in Security and Cyber-crime, Institute for Criminal Justice
Studies (ICJS), University of Portsmouth. She completed her undergraduate
studies and Doctorate at Swansea University. Wang’s research covers
cybersecurity and information security management, social theory, and
theoretical criminology; in particular, (i) security threats and management
measures in organisations; and (ii) cybersecurity in various countries (e.g.,
Nigeria, South Korea and Vietnam) and networks (e.g., the Darknet). She is
the Principal Investigator of the EPSRC project Data Release—Trust,
Identity, Privacy Security (EP/N027825/1) (2016–2020). She is an
investigator of several HM Government-funded projects, including Cyber
Security Breaches Survey (2016–2019); Victims of Computer Misuse Crime
(2018–2019); and Understanding the UK Cyber Skills Labour Market
(2019). Wang is a regular speaker at various cybersecurity/crime
conferences and seminars, including Oxford, Cambridge and Dagstuhl in
Summer 2019.

Benjamin Weaver
holds a position as Lecturer at Lund University, School of Economics and
Management (LUSEM). Since 2006 he has been involved in studying
technological change and the digitalization of the security industry, with a
particular focus on business strategy and technology. Besides his
contribution to CCTV raising awareness on CCTV research to a wider
Swedish audience, he has in recent years been exploring the impacts of
artificial intelligence and machine learning on business strategy and
management. Weaver is a member and active researcher of the LUSAX
security research team at LUSEM.
Adam White
is Senior Lecturer in Criminology in the Centre for Criminological
Research, School of Law, University of Sheffield. Before arriving in
Sheffield, he was Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer in Public Policy in
Department of Politics, University of York. He has also spent time as a
visiting scholar at the University of Washington (Seattle) and as a
researcher for Gun Free South Africa (Cape Town) and Demos (London).
His research focuses on three interconnected themes: (i) the rise of the
private security and private military industries in the postwar era; (ii)
corresponding issues of governance, regulation and legitimacy in the
security and military sectors; (iii) and the changing nature of state-market
relations. Over the past decade, he has published 30 journal articles and
book chapters on these themes as well as one book, The Politics of Private
Security: Regulation, Reform and Re-legitimation.

Gabriel T. W. Wong
is a criminologist and prevention scientist with experience in evaluation,
cost-benefit analysis, and multi-criteria decision modelling. His research
interests include crime and drug involvement, policy decision-making,
knowledge synthesis, economic analysis of crime prevention and efficiency
in policing. His work in these areas have implications to (i) the
development of targeted institutional and criminal justice policies aimed at
mitigating the adverse harms and consequences associated with crime and
illicit drug involvement, (ii) the deployment of finite resources that improve
the efficiency of policing activities (e.g. arrest, detection), and (iii) the costs
and benefits of prevention interventions.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_1
1. Introducing the Handbook of Security
Martin Gill1
(1) Perpetuity Research, Tunbridge Wells, UK

Martin Gill
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
This chapter introduces this third edition of the Handbook. It starts by
outlining the issues that have influenced how it is presented and then moves
on to introduce, albeit briefly, each of the chapters.

In 2014, in the second edition of the Handbook of Security, I made

reference to technology, how could one not? Technology features more
prominently now, it is core to all security measures even ones that were
traditionally seen as physical. For example, the work of security officers is
increasingly enhanced by technology from body worn cameras to providing
access to more information about crime generally and even specific
incidents, sometimes ahead of arriving at the scene to deal with them.
Technologies are becoming more connected which both enhances their
capabilities but generates new security risks all of their own as concerns
about ‘the Internet of Things’ so poignantly highlights (Blythe and Johnson
2019; see chapter by Johnson et al in this Handbook). Indeed, in the
security world there has sometimes been a tendency to treat technology as
an unqualified good, but it isn’t, it helps offenders too (Gill et al. 2019), and
it raises all sorts of privacy issues and these have also grown in importance
over the last 16 years.
So too we have developed our understanding of what the contested
definition of security is. In this book we refer to security in terms of the
private security sector (although see chapters by Dodsworth and Forbes-
Mewett). We have certainly moved beyond the somewhat basic notion that
security is merely ‘the protection of assets’. It is more than that, at the least
an essential organisational function that facilitates operations in the most
testing environments and in troubled times, and enables this to happen
profitably (where appropriate), and provides an ethical oversight, but I will
develop this thinking in the final chapter.
There are other issues that are emerging in importance, and I would like
to highlight six here. First, as the security sector receives greater
recognition for its role as a major contributor to public protection, so it
needs to address a range of diversity issues for example, age, disability,
gender (reassignment), marriage and other types of partnership, pregnancy
and maternity, race, religion and belief, and/or sex. To take one example, a
recent project led by my colleague Charlotte Howell assessed the
experiences of women working in security and barriers to women entering
the security sector (Howell et al. 2019). In all, 69% of respondents had a
positive experience and only 6%, an explicitly negative one; and more than
twice as many who had changed their attitude to security following
engagement with it expressed positive rather than negative attitudes. But
key problems were highlighted, and they were sometimes serious. For
example, 64% of respondents had experienced one or more of the types of
abuse explored by the survey from male colleagues or the public, these
while working in a security role. This included bullying (50%); sexual
harassment (47%) and violence (24%). 59% indicated their experience of
security as an “old boys club”, 44% said that colleagues treat them
differently because they are female. It was widely accepted that many of the
challenges faced reflected societal trends and so were not specific to
security including the under representation of women and the sense that
women had to prove themselves more to get recognition or promotion
which further highlights the scale of the problem. That said these findings
are damning and must be heeded. When looking at security specific
remedies the sample posed ideas that would benefit the security sector more
generally, including more flexible working arrangements, the opportunity to
reference role models, and changing the perception of security—
particularly on the frontline—from being viewed less as a ‘macho’ job
requiring muscle, to a community service role requiring interpersonal skills.
This overlaps a second point. The role of the frontline worker is an
important one not just because of the immense role it plays in policing
communities, workplaces, and so many organisations where the public have
access to including universities, hospitals, museums, shopping malls and so
on but also because people form their impressions of the whole security
sector through their perception of the competence of the frontline security
officer. Covid-19 highlighted the important role played by frontline
workers, who in many countries were identified as ‘essential workers’, and
often called upon to enforce rules relating, for example, to social distancing
and wearing face masks. Yet more work is needed on the range of duties
they perform, how they serve the interests of the public and their
employers, the impact they are having, and there is a need for more
understanding of the factors that optimise their effectiveness (Gill et al.
2021).
These first two points overlap a third, which is to consider how best to
attract the most able recruits to security roles. A study on this issue (Gill et
al. 2020) has highlighted the enormous untapped potential of the sector.
Currently many don’t join security because they don’t know about it or
don’t think about it, although once they join the majority are positive. There
is a need to highlight its attractive features which include: its remit in
keeping people safe; in undertaking a responsible job and being able to
serve the public; the diverse opportunities it provides and the wide skills it
makes use of; and the fact that it can be lucrative too (albeit less the case in
junior/frontline positions).
This overlaps a fourth point. The security sector incorporates many
activities and job roles; the role of protection is diverse. It has
understandably generated many different associations resulting in a
somewhat fragmented approach to representation. So, one of its attractive
features, its diverse activities, becomes a weakness when, for example, the
security sector would benefit from a more united approach. Where there is
an opportunity to influence governments, it can be all the more powerful if
the sector speaks with a united voice or provides a singular channel of
communication. There are a number of initiatives that exist in different
countries which show promise in doing this but it remains largely work in
progress. Security associations do collaborate on initiatives, sometimes to
great effect, and that is important, but being realistic, they are often in
competition too for (new) members say.
A fifth point is to underline the need for more research generally, and
for more evaluations of which measures work, in what combinations and in
what contexts. Clearly in security there is a need for interventions that can
help to eliminate crime or reduce its incidence and impact, but increasingly
there is a need for them to take account of their carbon footprint too (see
chapter by Skudder et al in this Handbook). As this Handbook shows, and
the final section in particular, security measures are often impactful and
these need to be better understood and better publicised, and likewise where
measures fail knowing why is crucial to progress.
Overlapping this, a sixth point, is to call for a better understanding of
how security personnel can best be deployed for optimal impact. There is
much talk of partnerships, inter-agency cooperation, convergence,
interoperability, and such like, while newer concepts such as Enterprise
Security Risk Management are being widely heralded (Allen and Loyear
2017). There is a need to better understand the nature of the relationship
between security professionals in organisations, and those in other
professions, and how best to optimise them. This is especially important for
those roles most obviously overlapping security such as cyber security
professionals, those working in IT, health and safety, business continuity
and emergency planning and related areas, different areas of risk
management to name but a few. Understanding what has been shown to
work in what contexts are key for them to be replicable, and there is
certainly a lack of that.
The Third Edition of the Handbook of Security
Certainly, there is more security-related research being conducted
nowadays. The Security Journal for example continues to attract engaging
articles from a more diverse range of scholars. Specialist book series have
focussed attention on the importance and benefits of advancing security
knowledge and more writers from diverse disciplines are interested in
contributing to the debate about what good security is. This of course is an
unqualified good and a key component of any ‘profession’ or area of
activity wanting to make advances (see chapter by Wakefield and Gips in
this Handbook). Be that as it may, it makes the decision about what topics
to include and exclude in a Handbook of Security all the more tricky.
When I first discussed the idea of a third edition with the publishers,
and specifically the very helpful Josie Taylor and Liam Inscoe-Jones, they
noted that it was acceptable for about 30% of the book to be the same. For
me this was too high, there are too many topics, too many unexplored or
under discussed issues, too much scope for innovation. That said, this
Handbook was developed in much the same way as the previous two. As I
noted in the acknowledgements in identifying good topics and authors I
have had a front row seat via my role as co-editor of the Security Journal
(with Bonnie Fisher), series editor of Crime Prevention and Security
Management (published by Palgrave), and co-ordinator and Chair of the
Security Thought Leadership webinars. I have also drawn on the
recommendations of others including the authors themselves. Over time, the
themes were identified. I have added two new sections looking at the
impact of security and its effectiveness. Once the authors were identified,
they were approached and invited to submit an outline of their proposed
chapter. It was largely left to the authors to decide the content; after all, they
are the experts. Diversity was provided by some authors presenting more of
an analysis of the big issues in the area, while others focussed on research
findings—sometimes from their own studies—to make broader points about
the topic in question. In some cases, the same broad topic has been tackled
in very different ways. For example, compare how Forbes-Mewett tackles
campus security compared to Fisher et al; how Chen and Reniers approach
assessing risks compared to Brookes; how Petrossian, Lettieri and Clarke
approach the effectiveness of regulatory regimes given Prenzler and Sarre’s
review; or the focus taken by Calder on burglary compared to Shoesmith et
al, and Armitage and Tompson amongst others.
To guide you more, let me take you through each of the chapters
highlighting some key features of the approach taken to understanding
security.

The Subject Area of Security

The first three chapters in this section provide a context for understanding
how security as a discipline and an area of practice has evolved and how it
continues to do so. In Chap. 2 Francis Dodsworth sets the context for
understanding how the discipline of security has evolved. She argues that
the ‘securitisation’ of society is a long-term process, not an expression of
the unique insecurities occasioned by ‘neoliberalism’ or ‘late modernity’.
For Dodsworth it has been driven by a range of attempts to manage danger,
risk and uncertainty, which have always involved a range of agents and
agencies, public and private. In Chap. 3 Dr Helen Forbes-Mewett evaluates
the many diverse meanings of the term ‘security’ showing how it has
broadened well beyond its traditional boundaries to encompass topics such
as international relations, security studies, economic and human security,
psychological security, and sociological security. This leads Forbes-Mewett
to present ‘the new security’. In Chap. 4 Rob I. Mawby looks at the
somewhat different challenges that the security sector has had to respond to
in practice, specifically during the Covid-19 pandemic. He assesses the
changes to everyday life that have impacted on levels and types of crime
and disorder prevalent in societies. Mawby offers explanations for the
changing crime patterns, and discusses the implications for policing by the
public police, private sector and informal guardians.
The next three chapters in this section look at the evolution of security
in specific areas. In Chap. 5 Quentin Rossy, Simon Baechler and Olivier
Ribaux assess the world of forensics. Recognising that traces left by crime
activities in a physical environment can support the detection and analysis
of various forms of crime patterns they document the influence and role of
forensic science and how this has been transformed by digitalisation.
Forensic intelligence is key and they illustrate their argument of its potential
by discussing two new forensic intelligence systems and their underlying
digital infrastructure, one facilitating the forensic comparison of fraudulent
ID documents (ProFID) and the other the monitoring of online frauds
(PICSEL). In Chap. 6 Tochukwu Omenma and Silvia D’Amato discuss the
contribution of the discipline of International Relations. They look at the
changing nature of global security threats and the security responses
focussing in particular on non-state actors. Drawing on contributions within
International Relations theory, from realist accounts to critical security
studies, they argue that different security (and non-security) threats are too
complex and serious to be approached in traditional ways; non-state actors
have become key to an effective response.
In Chap. 7 Adam White assesses the overlap between the terms ‘private
security’ and ‘private military’ which have become commonplace in the
disciplines of criminology and international relations albeit the use of these
terms is not always clear cut. Sometimes they refer to separate phenomenon
—private security to the delivery of police-like services in the domestic
sphere, private military to the delivery of military-like services in the
international sphere. Other times they concern the same broad phenomenon
—the global market for protective services. It can therefore be difficult to
make sense of the literature surrounding these terms. White provides
clarification by shedding light on why these terms run parallel and intersect
with one another. He does so by illustrating how three prominent contextual
factors—growth patterns, market structure and regulation—each gives rise
to ‘one phenomenon or two narratives’. While this does not resolve the
ambiguity encircling these terms, it does offer a road map for navigating
through them.

Offence Types
In Chap. 8 Kumar Ramakrishna examines how the transnational terrorism
and extremism landscape has evolved since the so-called religiously
inspired wave that emerged most forcefully with the Al Qaeda attacks in
New York and Washington in September 2001, and more recently continued
by the virulent Al Qaeda offshoot Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
from the mid-2010s onwards. Ramakrishna shows how not just violent
Islamist extremism as exemplified by Al Qaeda and ISIS but other forms—
such as the White Supremacist, Buddhist and Hindu Extreme Right—have
gained momentum in recent years. The chapter moves on to consider the
key elements of the strategically dexterous approach needed for coping with
such rapidly mutating threats.
 In Chap. 9 Emmeline Taylor looks at seemingly increasing levels of
violence and aggression in retailing and the far-reaching consequences for
shop workers, customers and local communities. Indeed, each year
hundreds of thousands of working hours are lost due to injuries. Taylor
assesses the main scenarios in which violence and abuse is becoming
prevalent: encountering shoplifters; enforcing legislation relating to the sale
of age-restricted goods and other prohibited sales; hate motivated incidents,
armed and unarmed robberies, and, most recently, upholding Covid-19
related rules and restrictions such as requiring customers to wear a mask in
store.
The next chapter focusses on burglary which in the United States is the
second most frequently occurring major crime after theft. Jim Calder
discusses how in the past 25 years burglary rates have dropped dramatically
in Western-law nations significantly attributable to effective crime
prevention and security measures. Calder suggests that even more rate
reductions can be achieved by conceptualising and developing the
community security function (CSFs) as a learning organisation. Burglars
learn from experiences, successes and challenges, and research.
Communities also learn from information disseminated in many forms but
crucially he argues they can learn a lot more but this will depend in part on
more research.
The next two contributions focus on different types of frauds. In Chap.
11 Cassandra Cross focusses on how fraudsters are using a combination of
offline and online approaches to deceive, manipulate and exploit
unsuspecting victims across a variety of communication channels and
platforms. Overall, Cross argues that the response to fraud requires a
change in thinking and practice. While in Chap. 12 Yuriy Timofeyev and
Mike Skidmore discuss the complexities of fraud in the insurance industry.
They assess the nature of insurance fraud as well as the drivers of offending
through different lenses including routine activity theory.
In Chap. 14 Mark Button and Susanne Knickmeier focus on industrial
espionage. The danger of business secrets being spied on by competitors,
hacker groups or foreign intelligence services or its exploitation by third
parties has the potential for significant economic consequences (which they
discuss). Their chapter uses case examples to illustrate and examine the
legal basis of the problem in different European countries and it explores
the techniques perpetrators use. In Chap. 15 Michael Levi focusses on
money laundering where he analyses the collateral damage it causes for
both for companies and for society. Levi discusses how money laundering
is an evil in itself but so are the underlying crimes which give rise to it. He
provides an estimate of the size and harmfulness of the threat, and identifies
improvements/emerging problems in the assessment of money laundering.
In the final part of this section Branislav Hock, Mark Button and David
Shepherd evaluate the threat posed by corporate corruption and bribery
where they start by arguing that categorising those tainted as either
perpetrators or victims is reductionist. Drawing on court papers in bribery
cases involving Airbus and Roll-Royce, they use pathogen theory to explain
the situational factors that may lead a person to engage in bribery.

Crime and Security in Different Domains

In Chap. 16 Patrick F. Walsh discusses threats to the bioeconomy sector. He
presents cyber biosecurity, a growing cross disciplinary knowledge area that
intersects cyber security, security and biosecurity and provides a different
way of understanding security threats to the bioeconomy. He argues that
synthetic biology and biotechnology are exponentially growing sectors of
the global economy, however the nature of emerging threats and risks
associated with these sectors are not well understood. Discussing IP theft,
foreign interference and malevolent exploitation of dual use bio-agents
Walsh provides a more comprehensive understanding of threats, risks and
vulnerabilities in this little understood sector. In Chap. 17 Anthony Minnaar
discusses crime and security at the borders. He highlights the need to adopt
a multi-agency approach to a range of threats and assesses a range of
technologies and aids (equipment) allied to efficient management structures
which are necessary to effectively combat cross-border criminal activity,
usually of a transnational organised form. The role of international treaties,
conventions, protocols and policies play an important role too.
Chapter 18 focusses on the chemical industry which has attracted
increasing attention in the academic and industrial domains since the “9/11”
terrorist attack in 2001. Chao Chen and Genserik Reniers reference three
different security theories and five security risk assessment and
management methods as they trace documented improvements in security
management. They argue the case for integrating safety and security to
avoid protection overlaps. While in the following chapter Bonnie Fisher,
Michelle Protas, Logan Lanson and John J. Sloan III discuss security at
institutions of higher education. They trace the development of campus
security to address specific issues such as the sexual victimisation of
college women, but also to enhance the transparency and accountability of
institutional responses and policies. They assess legislative, administrative
and institutional dimensions and detail how these will shape the contours of
campus security in the future.
In Chap. 20 G. A. Petrossian, J. Lettieri and R. V. G. Clarke examine the
much neglected area of illegal commercial fishing. They explore the harms
and implications of this crime including the overlaps with terrorism, piracy,
drug trafficking, labour trafficking, corruption, and money laundering. In so
doing they include a discussion of the limitations of regulatory mechanisms
and suggest how tools provided by Crime Science can help in both the
study of illegal fishing and in developing prevention and control measures.
In Chap. 21 Victoria Wang, Jim Gee and Mark Button look at crime and
security on the Darknet. They report on a project that investigates the abuse
of the top 50 most valuable UK brands. They show how the Darknet is used
by cyber-criminals to support, plan, execute and monetise attacks on
businesses and how sensitive business and personal data were easily
accessible, readily available and cheap to purchase. They suggest that the
Darknet is a somewhat neglected area and recommend some basic steps that
businesses could take to reduce risks.
The final chapter in this section provides a different take altogether;
Steven Kohm analyses the presentation of security in films. He notes that
film analysis in criminology is a growing area of scholarship where the
dominant focus has been on films in some part of the (mainly US) criminal
justice system. Here he fills a gap via an analysis of fictional films
depicting, as a significant theme, private security. He analyses these
alongside academic discourses which both draw from and in turn inform
dominant ideologies about public and private policing and in a few
instances provide critical and alternative views.

Researching Security
The first four chapters in this section discuss the ways in which different
methodologies are used in security research. First, Matthew Manning and
Gabriel T. W. Wong and Hien-Thuc Pham discuss an approach that enables
practitioners and decision-makers to assess a holistic evidence base. They
summarise examples of meta-analyses (including those related to the
effectiveness of CCTV, alley gating and street lighting) and identify areas
that merit further attention. In Chap. 24 Andrew Newton argues for a
greater uptake of two underused approached in the security field, realistic
evaluation and the 5Is framework. He outlines many advantages to these
complimentary approaches including a greater understanding of the
mechanisms by which a security intervention has or has not worked in a
particular setting or place, and provides a user friendly structure for
disseminating and communicating the evaluation results of interventions to
security practitioners. The chapter examines the strengths and limitations of
each approach, the merits of combining the two, and uses a hypothetical
scenario to guide the reader through how to carry out a combined realistic
evaluation and 5Is evaluation of a security intervention.
In Chap. 25 Dr. Harald Haelterman discusses script analysis which he
positions as a useful tool to help security practitioners design and upgrade
preventive and protective controls. In addition to providing some
documented examples of how the approach has been applied in practice, it
highlights some recent advances in script analysis and some suggested areas
for improvement. In the next chapter Reka Solymosi, Ines Guedes and
Laura Vozmediano discuss a somewhat novel methodology, namely mobile
apps and physiological measures and show how they are increasingly used
to study perceived security of built environments. They allow researchers to
evaluate perceived security in a concrete time and place, framing perception
as a context-specific experience. They hope to inspire more researcher and
help build a more robust understanding of place-based perception of
security. While the final chapter in this section takes a different stance, it
explains how methodologies can be applied to a specific area of study. Rob
I. Mawby and Zarina I. Vakhitova argue that while the relationship between
tourism and crime is not commonly addressed by criminologists, it is
clearly an important issue. Tourists are often identified as causing crime and
public disorder in resort areas, tourists appear to be overrepresented as
victims and some tourist areas are crime hotspots. This impacts the quality
of life of local residents and the vacation experience of tourists. But it also
affects the tourism industry. They provide an engaging critique of what we
know about the relationship between tourism and crime and how research
might be improved.

Security Products and Services

The first three chapters in this section discuss the role of three approaches
using people and the next three using technologies. In Chap. 28 Mahesh K.
Nalla and Alison Wakefield assess the role of frontline security operatives,
which as they say have been the focus of considerable research attention for
more than 40 years, particularly among policing scholars interested in
examining the phenomenon of so-called ‘private policing’. Their chapter
reviews much of this material examining the size and distribution of
frontline security globally; their functions and duties associated; their views
on working conditions motivations and job satisfaction. They show that the
enduring challenge of poor pay, poor conditions and low job satisfaction
still undermines their effectiveness. In Chap. 29 Declan Garrett, Glen
Kitteringham and Ken Livingstone explore the much-neglected topic of
security training focussing in particular on security officers including the
extent to which it is fit for purpose. They make a case for increased training
and the creation of career pathways to raise standards and professionalise
the service. In the next chapter Clarissa Meerts looks at the role of
corporate investigators. In a field of security where the state is typically
absent, corporate investigators provide start-to-finish services to employers
who are faced with internal norm violations. Many corporate investigations
are settled without the involvement of any public law enforcement agency
and stay completely within the private legal sphere. In this sense, corporate
investigations create a system of private investigations and justice and
Meerts discusses the implications for democratic societies by focusing on
the autonomy of corporate investigators, public-private relations and the
interests that are involved.
In Chap. 31 Markus Lahtinen and Benjamin Weaver discuss CCTV
which is now established as a mature and ubiquitous technology. They
review existing research on CCTV as backdrop to introducing an alternative
re-narration that stresses its use as an advanced information technology—a
socio-technology. Central to this perspective is the recognition that system
effectiveness hinges on a match of individual, organisational and
technological features. In the next chapter David Brooks focusses on
intrusion detection systems and how they work in detecting and deterring
offenders, albeit evaluations of their effectiveness have often served to
suggest this is an approach that has been found wanting; Brookes discusses
the reasons why. The final chapter on technologies by Shane D. Johnson,
John M. Blythe, Nissy Sombatruang and Eon Kim systematically reviews
the types of crime that the Internet of Things (IoT)—which brings Internet
connectivity to everyday electronic devices, such as security cameras, TVs
and speakers—has and might facilitate because of security lapses. They also
discuss efforts to improve security including approaches to encourage
manufacturers to address vulnerabilities in the products they manufacture.

Towards a Better Security

All the contributions in this section discuss concepts and issues that are
driving change in the way security is provided. In Chap. 34 Alison
Wakefield and Mike Gips discuss professionalisation. They examine key
features of contemporary professions and the challenges they face including
those presented by the fourth industrial revolution, as the World Economic
Forum describes the era we are now entering. Among the notable trends
they identify are the exponential growth of cyber security threats, the rise of
convergence thinking, career pathways and skills development to meet
current and future needs, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wakefield and Gips argue that, for security practitioners, the pace of change
is such that the ability to continually adapt and develop their practice is
vital.In Chap. 35 Kate Moss looks at the delicate balance between security
and humans rights specifically with reference to the right to peaceful
protest. She laments the ways in which successive UK governments have
sought to restrict the rights of protesters including via directives to the
police to use force against such protest, most recently in relation to
Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter and pandemic protests. Moss
explores the right to peaceful protest as an element of human rights that
should prevail in a democratic society and against this the efforts of
successive governments to restrict this and whether such actions are
justified for the protection of national security or whether they are an
unjustified and worrying attack on basic civil liberties.In Chap. 36 Tim
Prenzler and Rick Sarre provide a review of regulatory systems applied to
the security sector, critiquing the benefits and shortcomings of
contemporary systems on the basis of the available evidence. They
summarise regulatory theory and outline the range of conduct and
competency issues behind interventions in the industry, arguing in favour of
a ‘smart’ model of licensing that includes disqualifying offences, mandatory
pre-service training and close monitoring.The next four chapters cover
areas that are largely neglected by security researchers, starting with the
topic of informal security. Gregory Breetzke and Tshiamo Mosuwe use the
South African township of Mmakau as a case study. Against a background
in which the police have been deemed to be ineffective, citizens have
formed informal security nodes (ISNs) such as street committees and taxi
associations, among others. In addition to a fascinating insight into informal
security at work, the authors provide a more nuanced understanding of the
shift in the contemporary governance of security in the country. In Chap. 38
Paul Ekblom looks at horizon scanning. He notes crimes and threats change
and as such, they are a moving target for security. Adjusting effectively is
the key to responding well and Ekblom discusses how the approach of
horizon-scanning can help. He reviews how the range of diverse
anticipatory techniques already widely used in governmental, private and
third sectors can be applied to crime. In so doing, he explores the overlaps
with crime science.
In Chap. 39 William D. Moreto discusses how the growing concern
over global environmental matters, including the protection of endangered
fauna and flora species, has brought to the forefront the role of security
strategy, personnel, and technology. In particular, the management and
monitoring of terrestrial protected areas (PAs) have increasingly
emphasised the need for, and the reliance on, security measures in many
parts of the world. This chapter examines the ongoing discussion on the
securitisation of PAs and provides an insight on the potential benefits and
problems of such strategies, in relation to both crime and harm. In the final
chapter in this section Helen Shoesmith (nee Skudder), Ian Brunton-Smith,
Andromachi Tseloni, Rebecca Thompson and Angela Druckman discuss the
important area of the carbon footprint of crime and security. This chapter
examines which burglary prevention measures are both low carbon and
effective in preventing burglary. You will read about the Security Protection
Factor (SPF) and how a combination of window locks (which are especially
effective), door locks, external and indoor lighting are shown to be effective
and low carbon, while burglar alarms and CCTV perform less well. Their
findings can be used to inform more sustainable choices for security and
inform product design.

The Impact of Security

All the contributions to the final section of the book assess whether and
how security is having an impact on different types of threats. Some of the
most illuminating work on the issue of security effectiveness has involved
Nick Tilley and Graham Farrell. Here they argue, and this needs
highlighting, that the prolonged crime declines in many countries from the
late twentieth century were largely due to improved security devices.
Moreover, and despite security’s public image sometimes being tainted by
perceptions of it as unsightly or infringing on liberty, many recent security
improvements have been elegant, that is, socially responsible and
aesthetically pleasing. They call on governments to stimulate the markets
for security improvements to continue.
In Chap. 42 Rachel Armitage and Lisa Tompson discuss the impressive
mass of evidence on the effectiveness of Crime Prevention Through
Environmental Design (CPTED), an approach to crime reduction that
involves the design, build and future management of places and spaces. The
authors show how it contributes to a statistically significant overall burglary
reduction effect, equating to 53% fewer burglaries than control sites. The
chapter concludes with a suggested re-orientation of CPTED and its focus.
Presenting findings from a study of 22 incarcerated burglars, the authors
suggest that there may be merit in reorienting CPTED’s focus to incorporate
‘designing in’ pro-social attachments to place, as opposed to limiting
attention on the principle of ‘simply designing out’ illegal behaviour.
In Chap. 43 Adrian Beck reviews the way in which video technologies
are utilised by retail organisations—offering a framework that captures the
various use cases that are employed—in order to better understand how
they are deriving benefit from this investment. To date, it has been a
technology closely associated with, and focused upon, the delivery of safety
and security in retail spaces. However, new use cases are emerging that may
not only enhance its capacity to deliver these objectives, but also enable it
to contribute more broadly across retail organisations helping to underline
the value of security.
In the next chapter Matthew Manning, Christopher M. Fleming and
Hien-Thuc Pham look at the generally positive image of security that
evolves from applying an economic analysis. Reviewing 32 studies using
different economic forms of analyses, and accepting a lack of robust data on
the costs and benefits of specific interventions, they conclude that most
studies found that the security and crime prevention interventions produced
benefits larger than costs, and thus there is prima facie evidence that such
interventions are economically efficient.
 In Chap. 45 Matt Hopkins develops a novel methodological approach to
measure the harms of crime against businesses. He bases his work upon
analysis of data from over 8000 businesses in what has hitherto been a
much-neglected area. His work serves to highlight the important role of
security in building resilience to crime and the need to better understand the
linkages between business tolerance to crime harms, security and resilience.
In the final chapter I attempt to bring these themes together or at least build
on the principles on which they are collectively based, to look at how we
might harness the best that security can offer for the public good. There are
many benefits to good private and corporate security agencies, albeit they
are rarely discussed, and nor have there been systematic attempts by
governments to strategically engage them. This is a collective loss and I
suggest how we might make progress.
In conclusion, I am conscious once again that although this edition
includes new topics and a greater international spread of authors there is so
much that merits discussion and has escaped focus. Certainly, there is a
burgeoning body of security research both from those who work largely
within this broad area of study and from those making contributions from
other disciplines. Collectively this is advancing our understanding of the
theory and practice of security at a pace the subject has not witnessed
before. Long may it continue.

References
Allen, B.J. and Loyear, R. (2017) Enterprise Security Risk Management: Concepts and Applications.
Virginia: ASIS International.

Blythe J. and Johnson S. (2019) A Systematic Review of Crime Facilitated by Consumer Internet of
Things. Security Journal. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41284-019-00211-8.

Gill, M., Howell, C., McGeer, C. and Ramm, J. (2019). The Evolution of Physical Security
Measures: Assessing the Benefits and Implications of Using More Advanced Technologies.
Tunbridge Wells: Perpetuity Research. www.perpetuityresearch.com.

Gill, M, Howell, C, Kitteringham, G, Goldstraw-White, J. and Ramm, J. (2021) The Competence of

Frontline Security Professional and What They Say About Their Work. Florida: the International
Foundation for Protection Officers.

Gill, M., Howell, C. and McGeer, C. (2020) Understanding the Influences on Security as a
Career/Job Choice: What Those Working in the Security Sector Think. Tunbridge Wells: Perpetuity
Research and Consultancy International.
Howell, C., McGeer, C., Gill, M. and Ramm, J. (2019) Exploring the Experience of Women in
Security and Identifying Key Areas for Industry Development. Tunbridge Wells: Perpetuity Research
and Consultancy International.
Part I
The Subject Area of Security
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_2

2. Security: History, Genealogy, Ideology

Francis Dodsworth1
(1) Kingston University London, Kingston Upon Thames, UK

Francis Dodsworth
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
This chapter explores the temporal and disciplinary boundaries of security.
Although the language of ‘security’ only became prominent in
criminological work in the last twenty years, the concepts of ‘security’,
prevention, and sets of practices associated with ‘taming the future’ in the
fields of crime, vice and disorder, nevertheless have a long history.
However, the nature of that history and its interpretation are contested, and
it has only recently begun to be explored in detail. This chapter introduces
important features of the histories of policing, crime prevention and
protection, and their transformation over the modern period, but in doing
so, it also guides the reader through academic debates about the
significance of these developments. Particularly important themes are the
relationship between the state and private security; security and protection
as forms of power or hegemony; the moral and the technical dimensions of
security; and the dynamics of ideology, identity and politics, particularly
articulated in relation to (neo)liberalism, capitalism and feminism. These
themes are related to particular methodological approaches to, or uses of,
the history of security: criminological work inspired by Michel Foucault;
neo-Marxist critiques of security; and more historicist approaches based
around more conventional historical research as a means of engaging in
criminological debate, increasingly being termed ‘historical criminology’.
Introduction
One of the central questions that arise when we start to explore the
boundaries of ‘security’ is its place in time. The development of ‘crime
prevention’ as a criminological sub-discipline and coherent body of practice
since the 1960s; the pluralisation of policing; the centrality of risk
management to contemporary crime control; and the political drive to
‘responsibilise’ the public and engage them in their own protection through
security consumption, have all been identified as harbingers of ‘late’ or
‘liquid’ modernity, or the ‘risk society’, and more specifically with
‘neoliberal’ politics since the late 1970s (Bayley and Shearing 1996;
Ericson and Haggerty 1997; Garland 2001; Gilling 1997; Hope and Sparks
2000; Johnston and Shearing 2003; Zedner 2000, 2009). However, although
the ‘securitisation’ of society may have taken a distinctive form in the last
fifty years, this chapter will argue that the search for security is not a
function of the unique insecurities of the ‘neoliberal’ or ‘late modern’ age.
Rather, efforts to ‘make the future certain’ (Schuilenburg 2015: 1) are
coextensive with ‘modernity’ in the long term and the provision of security
has always been a mixed economy of differing agents, agencies and
technologies.
The ‘securitisation’ of society appears to be part of a wider long-term
dynamic involving the socialisation of risks, pacification of social relations
and the governmentalisation of the state, and thus, as the work of Mark
Neocleous (2011, 2014) has already recognised, intersects with the work of
the two great ‘genealogists’ of the late twentieth century, Norbert Elias and
Michel Foucault. This chapter uses their work to help us to understand the
long-term process of securitisation, but at the same time, it also uses the
history of security to challenge aspects of their accounts. In particular,
rather than seeing the process of securitisation simply in terms of the
accumulation and imposition of state power, followed by its loss or
qualification in the recent past, this chapter will draw on a range of recent
work in the history of crime and policing to argue that although the state
became increasingly important in security provision over the modern
period, it never claimed or achieved a monopoly in this regard (Churchill
2014, 2017). Indeed, rather than seeing securitisation as the outcome of the
development of the modern state, the state itself appears as an outcome of
the process of securitisation and its associated practices. These practices
developed in the context of long-term processes of social change, including
population growth and the emergence of ‘the population’ as a concept, the
breakdown of feudal systems of personal obligation and dependence, the
associated phenomenon of urbanisation and the practical requirements of
governing a society of strangers, and the development of a wide range of
new techniques and technologies of risk management and security
(Dodsworth 2019).

Security as Genealogy and Ideology

In his wide-ranging and rich analysis of the phenomenon of ‘security’ as a
central figure in contemporary government, Mark Neocleous (2006: 38)
identifies it as ‘the fundamental ideological tool … of internal political
repression and social domination’, central to the successful legitimisation
and imposition of liberalism and capitalism, and he identifies ‘security’ in
general with the practice of ‘police’ in its broadest sense. From this
perspective the search for ‘security’ is ultimately a function of the
development of liberal, capitalist, colonial societies, which require the
creation of a labour force maintained in a condition of sufficient necessity
and insecurity to depend for their existence upon wage labour in service of
capital, while pacifying that same labour force sufficiently to prevent them
forcefully challenging that system of exploitation (Neocleous 2000, 2006,
2008, 2011, 2014). In making this argument Neocleous builds on an
existing body of literature which emerged in the 1990s and which
developed out of Michel Foucault’s work on ‘governmentality’ in the late
1970s, reviving the concept of ‘police’ as a ‘mentality of government’ and
system of ‘social security’ in the most general sense, and further exploring
its relationship to the concept of liberalism (Burchell et al. 1991; Barry et
al. 1996; Dean 1999; Rose 1999).
In the early modern period, the role of the governor, whether at a higher
or a lower level, and in absolute monarchies or other state structures, was
often understood to be the specification or direct regulation of particular
forms of conduct, social relationships, and economic activity, including the
setting of prices and wages, with the aim of maximising the wealth and
power of the state (Dodsworth 2008; Rawlings 2002: 25). In sixteenth-
century London, for example, this concern with specifying order extended
to maintaining a curfew forbidding movement after 9 o’ clock at night
without good reason, an attempt to record the identities of all vagrants, and
regular counts of the presence of ‘strangers’ in the city; the use of
‘passports’ to regulate the movement of labourers, servants and vagrants
between parishes and places of employment was also established through a
range of statutes (Dodsworth 2019: 50–1, 56–7). In England, the offices
involved in this administration, whether urban or rural, were generally
rotated amongst men of property and largely applied at the parochial level,
but the rationale behind the administration of social life remained very
similar to the more centralised approaches favoured in some continental
states (Dodsworth 2004, 2008).
The systematisation of this approach to government was often termed
the science of ‘police’ in continental Europe, although it was usually called
‘policy’ in Britain (Dodsworth 2007b, 2008; Foucault 2009: 311–61;
Neocleous 2000; Pasquino 1991). From the seventeenth century onwards,
Foucault suggests, ‘police’ comes to mean ‘the set of means by which the
state’s forces can be increased while preserving the state in good order’,
focused on ‘the calculation and technique that will make it possible to
establish a mobile, yet stable and controllable relationship between the
state’s internal order and the development of its forces’ (Foucault 2009:
311). The lieutenant-general of police for Paris was established in 1667 and
copied by Peter the Great in St Petersburg in 1718 and across Russia in
1733; Frederick the Great established a director of police in Prussia in
1742; Maria Theresa in Spain in 1751 (Neocleous 2000: 8). The term began
to be used in England from the 1750s and was in regular use by the 1780s
(Dodsworth 2008). This drive to increase the power of the state while
maintaining order led to the development of a whole range of governmental
knowledges, techniques and technologies, which in the process transformed
the understanding of how government itself should be conducted. As
Mariana Valverde (2008: 20) points out ‘Instead of merely securing
territories and maintaining the loyalty of subjects, modern sovereign power,
concerned more about security than the absence of treason, and therefore
constantly worried about the future, sets out to govern risks—risks to the
state itself, and risks to what was coming to be conceived as a population’.
As it became recognised that the strength of the state depended upon
mobilising and maximising the resources of its inhabitants, as well as its
natural resources and military technology, so study of these human
resources led both to the development of the concept of the ‘population’
and the idea that demography might itself be a ‘science’ with its own laws
and rules, with related fields of activity and knowledge previously unknown
to governors focused on loyalty and territory (Valverde 2008: 28–9). The
systematic cultivation of this new concept of the ‘population’, as distinct
from a simple aggregate of individuals, was what Foucault termed ‘bio-
power’.
By the late eighteenth century, the physiocrats and the Scottish political
economists were beginning to argue that attempts to specify economic and
social relationships and direct the increase of wealth and prosperity might
actually be detrimental and that it might be better to leave people to pursue
their own self-interest as far as possible, only intervening where the security
of the state or particular individuals was threatened. It is at this point that
‘police’ develops from a ‘science of government’ synonymous with order in
general, focused on the specification of ideal forms of behaviour, to a
particular institution for the maintenance of social order and security
(Burchell 1991; Dean 1999: 58, 63–6). This focus on ‘securing’ the
processes of population from illegitimate interference is what makes the
subject of security so central to liberal governmentality, with the
‘correlation between the technique of security and population as both the
object and subject of these mechanisms of security’ (Foucault 2009: 11).
Indeed, so central was the concept of ‘security’ to liberal government that
Foucault suggested that we might be able to speak of our (liberal) society as
a ‘society of security’, one dominated by ‘technologies’ of security
(Foucault 2009: 11; Gordon 1991: 20). One of these ‘technologies’ was the
systematisation of policing as a specialist practice, one carried out by paid,
dedicated strangers watching over the behaviour of a general population
rather than governing the behaviour of particular individuals with a direct
connection to them.
The concept of ‘police’ and its translation from the rationale
underpinning government as a whole to one of the instruments of security
was, then, central to the ‘genealogy’ of liberalism and bio-power as
developed by governmentality scholars (particularly Dean 1999). As Mark
Neocleous’s (2000: ix–x) points out, however ‘for all their discussions of
policing as a form of governmentality, Foucauldians barely mention the
police institution itself, to the extent that one begins to think that policing
and the police have nothing connecting them at all’ … ‘for them, the police
idea is emptied of the humiliations administered both on the street and in
the police station, the thought of the truncheon and the gratuitous use of
“discretionary” force. In other words, the Foucauldian texts are stripped of
any sense that police has anything to do with violence and thus state power’
(Neocleous 2000: x). He therefore sought to construct an alternative
genealogy of the relationship between ‘police’, ‘policing’ and ‘security’
that connected the insights of the Foucauldian approach with the realities of
the exercise of power and social control in practice over the long term
(Neocleous 2000, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2014).
For Neocleous (2000, 2006) although the structures of policing change
over time, with different forms of police characteristic of different stages of
state formation, the basic function of the police, he argues, remains the
same: the fabrication of social order by the state. Fabricating social order
means actively defining relationships between mobility and immobility,
visibility and invisibility and setting the boundaries between propriety and
impropriety, and securing the social order against threats to its continued
existence or properties. For Neocleous (2000, 2006) the greatest threat to
social order has consistently been the class of poverty, the underclass.
Policing, then, as a practise, is focused on creating a particular form of
social order, one founded on the exploitation of labour, and protecting that
order by securing it against threats emerging from those marginalised by its
economic structures. The modern institution of the police is a particular
technology created to achieve those ends, but the overall function of ‘police
power’ in the broadest sense, regardless of its institutional form, is to
maintain ‘social security’, because as Marx put it ‘security is the supreme
concept of civil society’ and is synonymous with police, a phenomenon that
is coextensive with state power (Neocleous 2006: 36).
In later work, this long-term genealogy of the relationship between
security and police was extended and integrated with a second body of
literature, Norbert Elias’s theory of the civilising process (Neocleous 2011,
2014). Drawing on Elias’s work allows Neocleous to integrate the concepts
of police and security with Elias’s genealogy of pacification, extending the
timescale of securitisation beyond the systematisation of ‘police’ in the
eighteenth century, as far back as the end of the European wars of religion
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the attempts to pacify and
stabilise the populations of the states that emerged from them. Central to
anxieties about social breakdown in this period was the figure of
‘masterless men’ (many of whom were, of course, women), who were
essentially people who fell outside the existing system of social control,
which was in principle organised through direct, hierarchical and personal
relationships of dependence and obligation and associated ties to a
particular geographical area. In England this was organised at the level of
the manor or parish and with the extended household as its basic unit,
comprised of a male head of household who had responsibility for the
behaviour and safety of his dependents: not only his wife and children, but
also servants and apprentices. Oaths of loyalty and clear gradations in status
bound people throughout society together, with the heads of individual
households themselves likewise subordinate to more senior men
(Dodsworth 2019: 40–55). However, the development of a money economy
and the increasing division and mobility of labour broke the feudal system
of subordination and began the process by which the locally-dominated serf
was ‘proletarianised’, but also radicalised, a phenomenon evident in the
peasants’ revolts of the sixteenth century (Neocleous 2000: 1–2, 2011) At
the same time, however, it also broke the system of personal, hierarchical
and local supervision on which mediaeval social control depended, as many
labouring people moved away from their place of origin and were not tied
to any particular master. Concerns about the absence of controls over such
‘vagrants’ or ‘vagabonds’, those outside the ties of the manor and the
household, lay behind a range of new legislation and practices instituted to
control the movement and identity of the newly-independent lower orders.
One aspect of this was the emergence of a group of ‘security specialists’,
semi-professional men who in some senses substituted as an alternative
disciplinary force for those people who did not have a master to discipline
them. These men made at least a partial living from supervising aspects of
public behaviour, examining the identity of strangers to the area and
watching over suspicious movement, particularly at night. These early
policing officers became common in London from the sixteenth century and
by the 1640s, there were some 800 men policing London’s streets
(Dodsworth 2019: 39–68). Police, then, as a system of government, and as a
practice and profession, emerged not simply as a way of imposing order,
but as a way of replacing a system of order that seems to have been
undermined by social change.
The mechanisms of ‘police’ played a central role in legitimising a
political order that was able to justify its power through the provision of
‘durably pacified’ social spaces for the emerging bourgeoisie, which
enabled urban and economic growth, a stable society, and thereby increased
the capacity of states for external conquest and colonial expansion. Noting
the slippage in ‘security’ discourses between ‘internal’ and ‘external’
threats to the well-being of society, Neocleous (2014) argues that the
mechanisms of security, the technologies of policing, are fundamentally
enmeshed with military techniques and technologies of discipline, control
and colonial conquest. From this perspective, war power and police power
are intertwined: police as a general form of government emerges at the
same point as the elaboration of the fiscal-military state, the institutions of
police develop from military models, and the elaboration of state power as a
tool of pacification against both internal and external resistance is
articulated in relation to discourses of ‘civilisation’ which are used to
legitimise the subordination of the poor.
Contemporaries certainly made the connection between police power
and what we would now call authoritarianism and that left us with the
legacy of the concept of the ‘police state’. English police reform from the
1780s to the 1830s was often opposed in language that identified ‘police’
with French absolutism and raised the spectre of a police force being used
as a ‘standing army’ to oppress the people (Dodsworth 2019: 161–2). When
the different parochial and metropolitan forces were integrated into a ‘new
police’ for the majority of metropolitan London in 1829, creating the
institution which still polices London to this day, one of the derogatory
names for the new force was the ‘Jenny Darbies’, a corruption of the French
gens d’armes (Dodsworth 2019: 213–14).
However, the contentions that police and security are both simply facets
of state power, or that policing is all about controlling the class of poverty,
are more problematic assertions. Although it is clearly the case that the
majority of policing energy has gone into the control of the relatively poor,
it is equally clear that many of the concerns of policing and much of the
sense of threat to the body politic against which security practice has been
targeted, has been moral in nature, with campaigns against vice, the control
of drinking, prostitution and later violence figuring largely, with many
practices of policing cutting across class boundaries as well as between
them (see, in different ways, Bailey 2014; Dodsworth 2019; Hunt 1999;
Petrow 1994; Wood 2004). At the same time, the control of vagrancy in the
seventeenth century and anxieties about apprentices and servants in the
eighteenth century, which are in some senses about class in the most
obvious sense, circulated around issues of authority, subordination and
status in ways that are not simply reducible to functions of economic
relations and often reflected political associations and loyalties that were
not class related (Dodsworth 2007b, 2019: 39–188). Further, the central
purpose of Foucault’s original framing of governmentality as a subject of
study (Foucault 2009: 247–8 and following) was to historicise and critique
the assumption that governmental power and state power were identical.
Criticising scholars in the governmentality field for averting their gaze from
the subject of state power, then, is to deliberately ignore one of the central
contentions of that field, which is precisely that governmental power cannot
be reduced to the state. As Rose (1996: 43) puts it ‘The “power of the
State” is a resultant, not a cause, an outcome of the composition and
assembling of actors, flows, buildings, relations of authority in two
relatively durable associations mobilised, to a greater or lesser extent,
towards the achievement of particular objectives by common means’ (see
also Foucault 2009: 247–8). This is not to say that class is not an important
dimension of security or that capitalist economic relations do not involve
the construction and exploitation of a class living in a condition of
insecurity, requiring policing to prevent them from challenging the
structures of capitalism; nor is it to deny that policing is often an
articulation of state power. However, recent historical work argues that
neither security nor policing can be reduced to these aspects.

Beyond the State Monopolisation Thesis?

One of the fundamental insights provided by the concept of
‘governmentality’, then, was that power was widely dispersed throughout
society, not the exclusive property of the state. Just as Neocleous’s
argument challenges the idea that security only emerged as a phenomenon
in the recent past, so also, this aspect of the genealogy of government, along
with a range of historical work, challenges the idea that the plural nature of
security provision is also a novel phenomenon.
The idea that the history of security is a story of the straightforward
accumulation and then loss of state power is what David Churchill (2014)
calls the ‘state monopolisation thesis’. Central to this concept is the
Weberian idea that the state is ‘a human community that (successfully)
claims the monopoly of the legitimate use a physical force within a given
territory’ (quoted in Stenning 2020: xi). According to this account of the
development of ‘modernity’, in the pre-modern period security (and to
some extent justice) was communal and participatory, supported by
voluntary office holding, largely by the propertied members of the
community. Modernisation implied processes of centralisation,
bureaucratisation and professionalisation through which the participatory
elements of crime control were driven to the fringes by a newly hegemonic
legal system (Churchill 2014, 2017; Dodsworth 2004; Lemmings 2011).
One of the mainstays of the state monopolisation thesis is the idea that
as the ‘new’ police were introduced in the nineteenth century they took over
and came to dominate crime control and prosecution, displacing a system in
which communities govern themselves through the participation of a range
of temporary, participatory officeholders (Lemmings 2011). Versions of this
argument figure in histories that emphasise class power and the suppression
of popular culture (Gatrell 1990; Storch 1976) and those that emphasise the
role of the centralisation of power in the ‘civilising process’ (Klingenstein
et al. 2014). The actual dynamic involved here, however, is complex and in
many respects Foucault’s (2009) argument that we have seen the
‘governmentalisation of the state’, the assumption by the state of
governmental powers often developed elsewhere, provides a useful way of
thinking about crime control and prevention.
If we look, for example, at the development of modern policing
institutions in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, although
concerns with the regulation of behaviour were a central part of the
development of modern policing as a specialised practice, there were also
prominent concerns with the straightforward protection of property rather
than social control in the more direct sense. The development of modern
policing in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was concerned with
reducing the likelihood and spreading the costs of victimisation as well as
social regulation. Indeed, in the absence of anything like a public
prosecutor, or burglary insurance, being a victim of crime could have
financially disastrous consequences (Dodsworth 2016). Although the
language of ‘risk’ was not used, the principles of prevention and the
spreading of risk were central to the development of new crime control
practices from the outset (for a counter-argument, see O’Malley and
Hutchinson 2007). However, these were not always state-centred. One the
one hand, in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century England, local,
often parochial police reformers were developing more extensive watch
systems, staffed by specialists paid to patrol the streets, investigate
disturbances and ensure good order, largely focusing on perceived
‘dangerous’ classes like the masterless men, vagrants, prostitutes and the
casual poor (i.e. surveilling sub-sets of suspect populations, not watching
threatening individuals). On the other hand, at the same time, large numbers
of propertied people across England were spontaneously forming
‘prosecution associations’ in which they pooled their financial resources to
provide funds to cover the cost of the pursuit and prosecution of anyone
who might offend against any one of them, essentially insuring themselves
against robbery or other loss. They sometimes hired constables and
watchmen from the same funds (Dodsworth 2016). These forms of both
public and private policing, the circulation of information about stolen
goods, and the various public watch reforms and urban regulation proposed
and enacted in the same period, all constitute ways of socialising risk in a
loose sense, whether or not the organisational practices concerned emerged
from, or resulted in, state involvement or not. Indeed, contemporaries
occasionally wrote explicitly about police reform and prosecution
associations as forms of ‘insurance’ (Dodsworth 2016: 50). What is
important here is that the concept of insurance against victimisation and its
instantiation in a range of specific practices seems to exceed the state, even
if these practices are ultimately drawn into the state itself, transforming its
nature and practice in the process.
In the same way, much of the initiative for the development of specialist
policing institutions in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England came
at a local level, from both the voluntary contributions and organisational
initiatives of particular parishes, and from the efforts of crusading
magistrates and moral reformers (Dodsworth 2019: 69–187). Some of these,
such as the Societies for the Reformation of Manners, which employed
informers and perhaps also some constables in the early eighteenth century
to try to effect a change in public morality, were voluntary associations
which sought to influence the nascent state. Others, like the parishes and
magistrates, might be seen as the ‘local state’, but the distinction between
state and society is not necessarily that clear or that helpful here. If we look
at the history of formal mechanisms for the maintenance of order we find a
mediaeval and early modern system in which order was maintained in local
communities through the system of the ‘frankpledge’, essentially a system
of mutual obligation whereby members of local communities were
collectively answerable for wrongs committed by individual members, with
compliance monitored by senior members of the community who were
either elected or rotated the office amongst themselves (Dodsworth 2019:
47–50; Rawlings 2002: 8–60). However, as Rawlings (2002: 15) reminds
us, those senior officers, unpaid and temporary though they were, swore
loyalty to the crown. The Sheriff was likewise a crown officer, as was the
late mediaeval innovation the Justice of the Peace, who became
increasingly influential in the administration of order between the
fourteenth and the nineteenth century. To define these offices as ‘local’ and
‘participatory’, then, is not inaccurate, but it does not mean they were
completely disconnected from ‘the state’, whatever that might mean in a
mediaeval or early modern context, which is ultimately, surely, a question
of definition. At the same time, the reforms that took place were often
driven by individuals in a specific geographic location, and applied in that
area, so that even where those concerned might be identified as the ‘local
state’, the initiative for change and its application was not coming from ‘the
centre’.
Likewise when the ‘new police’ were extended across England and
Wales in the nineteenth century, often modelled on London’s Metropolitan
Police (although also often very different), the wide range of local forces
(of which there were some 200 at the beginning of the twentieth century)
were primarily responsible to local Watch Committees or local authorities,
not central government, although they did receive central government
financial support and by the mid-twentieth century the Home Office was
exerting considerably more co-ordinating influence. Further, although the
constables of the ‘new police’ were paid, uniformed and selectively
appointed (practices pioneered in the watch systems of the eighteenth
century), turnover was high. When the first Commissioners of the
Metropolitan Police reported on turnover in the early years of the force, it
was discovered that of the 2800 officers serving in May 1830, only 562
were still in service by 1834 (Emsley 1996: 200). If service was no longer
the year’s unpaid duty of the early modern parish constable, then, it was
nevertheless a long time before policing began to develop into a life-long
career, so that very large numbers of working-class men at one point or
another participated in the practice of policing in Victorian England. What
distinguished them from their forbears was the payment for the privilege,
and their relatively lowly social position. There were certainly attempts,
particularly in the big urban forces, to separate police officers from the
public through the use of barrack-style accommodation and the appointment
of men from outside the local area, but in many boroughs they also sought
to instil in the men a sense of civic pride and association with the local
community and it must also be recalled that the earlier ‘civic’, unpaid
constables were intended to be in some senses part of, but in other senses
separate from the communities they policed by virtue of their superior
social status (Dodsworth 2004, 2007a, 2019: 212–28). A simplistic
separation of ‘the state’ from the public, then, while serving some purposes,
does not tell the whole story, which is one in which local initiatives were
increasingly inter-connected and systematised, and increasingly, but never
completely, drawn under the influence of central government.
Equally, although the introduction of the new police forces and the
range of other reforms to the legal and criminal justice systems introduced
at the start of the nineteenth century saw prosecution increasingly became
the province of the state, it does not mean that the public were thereby
completely excluded from crime control. As Churchill (2017) shows in his
detailed study of the policing of provincial English cities, the public
continued to be encouraged to take responsibility for their own protection
throughout the nineteenth century and this encouragement came, amongst
others, from the police themselves. Churchill, therefore, finds echoes of the
neoliberal drive for responsibilisation in the period of liberal government in
the nineteenth century. This should not, perhaps, surprise us, given that the
literature on governmentality draws attention to the centrality of
responsibilisation to Victorian liberal government (see e.g. Rose 1999: 69–
89), but Churchill’s work is also important in providing detailed empirical
support for this idea and in demonstrating the ways in which the public
remained involved in crime control throughout the Victorian period.
Beyond this, Churchill (2017: 4–5) integrates this account with a range of
recent historical research into domestic abuse, juvenile offending and
prostitution, which demonstrates the extent to which communal norm
enforcement, the activities of a range of voluntary associations, and
sometimes a strategic decision by the authorities not to become heavily
involved in particular areas of life, meant that crime control was much more
of a mixed economy in the nineteenth century than is commonly assumed.
 This argument is reinforced by the work of Victor Bailey in his
exploration of the relationship between the police and the community in late
Victorian London. Bailey (2014) argues that in contrast to the idea that the
police monopolised the governance of public life and exercised control over
the working class in the form of Gatrell’s (1990) ‘policeman state’, he
suggests that the heavily working-class area of east London was actually
relatively lightly policed. The police intervened in the roughest areas only
when absolutely necessary, preferring to let communities police themselves
where possible and generally resisting the impetus to impose a particular
moral standard on the community from outside (Bailey 2014: 35–46, 56–
68). Bailey suggests that the police and the community had a shared
understanding of what constituted fair intervention from the police and in
general they were happy to allow, and perhaps even had a preference for,
the informal resolution of problems. Like Churchill, Bailey draws attention
to the wide range of organisations, practises, and agencies beyond the state
which were involved in the policing of working-class life in Victorian
London (Bailey 2014: 69–136).
What we see from this research is that far from diminishing the role of
public engagement with security, the extension of state security
organisations formed part of a much wider drive towards social order and
pacification that was driven not only by the state, but also by arrange of
moral and social interventions by charities, churches, political and special
interest organisations (Bailey 2014: 69–136; Hunt 1999; Rose 1999: 98–
136), as well as by private initiative. It is probably no coincidence that this
period saw significant declines in the rate of recorded offending across a
range of categories, and we might conclude from this the drive for security
was, at least in part, driven by an increasing sense of both its desirability
and achievability (Dodsworth 2019: 312). John Carter Wood (2004) calls
this the ‘civilising bargain’: as society has become safer, people have
become increasingly sensitised to, and intolerant of, threat and danger in
social life, and increasingly not only accepting, but also demanding of the
mechanisms of security.
One obvious response to this research might simply be to shift the time
scale that we associate with state monopolisation of crime control into the
twentieth century. Perhaps, we might argue that the process of
monopolisation was simply more gradual than we had previously realised?
Churchill (2017: 250–1), however, explicitly cautions against this approach,
suggesting that the very idea of imposing a clear boundary between a period
of state monopolisation and plural policing provision is itself problematic
and that we are unlikely to be successful in the search for it. This position is
given support by the literature on governmentality, which explores the
relationship between the period of liberal government in the nineteenth
century and the ‘social’ government of the early twentieth century, before
the re-emergence of liberal government from the 1970s (Hindess 1996).
Foucault (2008: 92–4) famously remarked that there had never really been a
socialist governmentality, suggesting that the social government of the early
twentieth century was simply a translation of liberal principles rather than a
distinctive rationality of government itself. What Rose (1999: 98–136) calls
the ‘invention of the social’ in the early twentieth century, focused around
the ‘social citizen’ administered by the ‘social state’ might have introduced
a new dimension into modern government, with the rise of the ‘new
Liberalism’ and the shaping of the welfare state by the Liberal
administrations of the period 1905–14, but it by no means completely
displaced the responsibilising emphasis of Victorian liberalism.
Churchill’s argument is also supported by emerging historical work,
which demonstrates that the very period which saw great growth in the
organisation and power of the state security apparatus, the nineteenth and
early twentieth century, also saw a range of innovations in private and
commercial security provision (here I deal only with the British case, but
see Churchill et al. 2020 for more international examples). Although there
is nothing intrinsically novel about the use of devices to secure the home,
the industrial revolution saw the development of a range of new
technologies designed with this in mind, particularly developments in lock
and safe technology (Churchill 2015, 2016) and also in electric burglar
alarms, which by the early twentieth century were also connected for
monitoring through the telephone system (Dodsworth 2019: 236–9). The
late nineteenth and early twentieth century saw the successful marketing of
burglary insurance, embedding future-oriented risk management of property
in the everyday life for people of means (Moss 2011), while personal risk
management was catered for through the development of commercial
schools of self-defence, again developing rapidly in the early twentieth
century (Dodsworth 2020a, b; Godfrey 2010, 2012). The early twentieth
century also saw the emergence of large-scale commercial security
companies. Private security provision and guarding seems to have been a
feature of life since at least the eighteenth century, and there was certainly
private security work at factories and other large workplaces, as employers
watched their workers to ensure discipline and anticipate industrial
disputes. There was also an attempt to formalise and sanitise the emerging
security industry through the development of a range of professional
associations, but also the development and expansion of new guarding firms
utilising armoured cars for cash delivery and so on, which grew
significantly from the 1920s through to the 1960s (Dodsworth 2019: 264–5;
Draper 1978; Godfrey and Cox 2016; Jeffrys-Jones 2020; Johnston 1992).
By the 1960s, the number of private security personnel had either
reached parity with, or surpassed the number of public police and civil
servants were expressing concern about the fact that private security
companies were deploying uniforms and truncheons, blurring the
boundaries between public and private policing. There is also evidence that
police forces were already working extensively with alarm companies, so
that there was already significant public-private partnership in security,
albeit relatively spontaneous in nature (White 2020). Far from being a
phenomenon of ‘late modernity’, or the ‘neoliberal’ era, then, the
emergence of a large-scale commercial security industry and infrastructure
took place at the same time as the wider drive for ‘social security’ and the
mitigation of risk that characterised the provision of the apparatus of
welfare (sickness, unemployment and other forms of social insurance)
which began to be introduced under the Liberal reforms of 1906–14 and
were extended after the Second World War.

Conclusion: Security Agencies

This chapter has argued that the ‘securitisation’ of society is not a
phenomenon of ‘late’ modernity or ‘neo’ liberalism, but is a long-term
process of attempts to ‘make the future secure and certain’ (Schuilenburg
2015: 1) by pacifying public space, watching the behaviour of the newly-
emergent ‘population’ and socialising the risk of victimisation. This process
began to develop early and relatively rapidly in major urban centres such as
late sixteenth and seventeenth century London, and rather later elsewhere,
in the context of the collapse of an explicitly patriarchal system of public
ordering based around direct personal supervision. In this sense,
‘securitisation’ is a function of ‘modernity’ in general, rather than its ‘late’
period and the socialisation of risk was central from the outset. Specialist
security institutions and practices, ranging from paid watching and policing
specialists to prosecution associations, insurance, lock and safe
technologies and self-defence training, have been developed in a range of
different contexts, extended and often integrated into new ‘assemblages’,
one of which is the modern state. From this perspective, the state and its
powers are an outcome, rather than the driver of securitisation, albeit a
singularly important and powerful one. The modern state, then, has been
central to the process of pacification, and the focus has frequently, though
by no means exclusively, been on the relatively poor. However, the state
does not seem to have sought, or achieved, a monopoly on the provision of
security and practices and technologies of risk management, moral and
behavioural regulation seem to have emerged spontaneously from civil
society as often as from the initiative of either central or local government.
What seems to have changed in the more recent past, and which seems to
underlie the perception of novelty here, is the extent to which practices of
prevention and the plurality of security provision have been recognised,
formalised, systematised and integrated into the governmental assemblage
through policy and legislation (Garland 2001; Gilling 1997; Johnston and
Shearing 2003; Wood and Shearing 2007). Ultimately, however, this seems
to be the latest, albeit important and distinctive, phase in a much longer-
term process.

Recommended Readings
Churchill et al. (2020) provides the most up to date and comprehensive
historical collection to date, this book includes studies of a range of
different forms of private security provision in various national contexts,
integrated through a useful survey of the field as a whole. Subjects include
self-defence, armed and unarmed; private investigation; the private security
sector; employer and political surveillance; and informal resolution of
offences. Dodsworth (2019) provides an attempt to approach the subject of
security in long-term historical perspective; drawing on the most recent
historical research, this book extends many of the themes presented in this
chapter. With an empirical focus on English urban history, the book
explores the process of securitisation from the sixteenth century to the
present, with a particular focus on how the quest for security has shaped
new roles, identities and positions of power, and has simultaneously
challenged and maintained patriarchal disciplinary structures. Neocleous
(2008) provides an important theoretical analysis that argues for the
centrality of security to liberal, capitalist and colonial power, with a focus
particularly on the Anglo-Saxon sphere. Although crime is not a central
concern of this work, the focus on the wider rationality of ordering, social
control, and its relationship to particular socio-economic structures and
ideology provides an important context for thinking about the relationship
between security and long-term processes of social change.

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Zedner, L. (2000). The Pursuit of Security. In T. Hope and R. Sparks (Ed.), Crime, Risk and
Insecurity: Law and Order in Everyday Life and Political Discourse (pp. 200–14). London:
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Zedner, L. (2009). Security. London: Routledge.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_3

3. The New Security: Shifting the

Boundaries
Helen Forbes-Mewett1
(1) Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Helen Forbes-Mewett
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
This chapter will consider many diverse meanings of the term security. It
will also include examples of various applications that show how
understandings of the notion have broadened well beyond traditional
boundaries. Perspectives will include international relations, security
studies, economic and human security, psychological security, and
sociological security—leading to what has been recently termed ‘the new
security’. The latter being a concept that is applied in an increasingly
mobile world. Case studies in the chapter are based on the topics of campus
security, employment security, housing security, food security and personal
security.

Introduction
This chapter investigates how the boundaries of the concept of security
have been widened and how the concept has been redefined within modern
society. The meaning of security for both individuals and groups is diverse
and this is explored in a broader context through various interpretations and
applications of security, as well as through the acknowledgment of the
importance of existing work on this topic. The chapter evolved from an
earlier examination of the notion of security where the term was redefined
as ‘the new security’ (Forbes-Mewett 2019). The notion of ‘new security’
reflects different understandings of what it means to be secure in the
contemporary world. Security can be both objective and subjective, relative
to risk and opportunity, and can involve social influences such as education,
employment as well as economic, cultural and other social factors. That is,
security extends well beyond earlier understandings around national
security issues to impacts on people’s everyday lives. The case studies
included in the chapter relate to individual, community and cultural
experiences across the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK),
Australia and China.
Specific topics including personal security, campus security,
employment security, housing security and food security are a focal point of
the case studies presented. The chapter begins with personal security, which
provides context for other forms of security. Next considered is campus
security, which is framed from the purposes of safety and breaking down
barriers between individuals and police. The notion of employment security
is based on research conducted within a small coastal town in the Australian
state of Queensland facing employment issues and the proposal of Chinese
foreign direct investment. The high impact of housing security on
international students in Australia, the UK and the US is also analysed.
Concern about food security is normally associated with developing
nations; however, in this chapter it is applied to Australia—a developed
nation with a high standard of living. In the case study presented,
‘Australia’s Food Bowl’, is threatened by the proposal of a Chinese-owned
mining venture. The case studies reveal new perspectives and experiences
that signify what emerged as ‘the new security’. The term ‘the new
security’ evolved from the standpoint of security studies—a subfield of
international relations, alongside a holistic approach including human
security as well as economic, psychological and sociological perspectives.

Redefining Security
The notion of security has evolved over time from the basic concept of
physical protection to the provision of welfare enabling an individual’s
well-being and potential in life to flourish. However, there are many sources
of security and individuals have differing values and needs. The
relationships between human needs and security are evident when examined
from a psychological perspective. For example, Adler (1930) acknowledges
the psychological perspective of the impacts of security and insecurity on
an individual and Berne (1947) highlights security as freedom from anxiety.
Similarly, Maslow (1943) asserts that safety and security are basic human
needs. But sociology takes a broader approach that incorporates both
individual and community elements of security, such as how people are
socialised to understand and be aware of possible threats. Due to the
application and understanding of security being so diverse, some claim it to
be indefinable. However, Baldwin (1997) provides an international relations
perspective that challenges the view that the breadth of what is meant by
‘security’ prevents the offering of a meaningful definition. Baldwin
explains:

Understanding the concept of security is a fundamentally different

kind of intellectual exercise from specifying the conditions under
which security may be attained. Indeed, conceptual clarification
logically precedes the search for the necessary conditions of security
because the identification of such conditions presupposes a concept
of security. (Baldwin 1997, p. 8)

Baldwin (1997, p. 13) refutes the possibility of a complete absence of

threat and indicates that the concept of security reflects ‘a low probability
of damage to acquired values’. The estimation of this damage to
individuals, the state or the international system is challenging to foresee as
circumstances and values are capricious. Wolfers’ (1952) distinction
between the objective and subjective dimensions of security had allowed
the conceptualisation of security to be separated from the sources of
security. Both Wolfers and Baldwin shifted the notion of security beyond
military issues, thus providing the opportunity for development of ideas
around security for individuals.

Human Security
Human security proposes that an ‘individual is to be made secure from two
kinds of basic threats: freedom from fear and freedom from want’
(Nesadurai 2005, p. 9). The 1994 Human Development Report of the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP 1994, p. 23) defines
human security as ‘protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the
patterns of daily life—whether in homes, jobs or in communities’ as well as
‘safety from chronic threats such as hunger, disease and repression’. Former
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan reiterated that:

Human security in its broadest sense embraces far more than the
absence of violent conflict. It encompasses human rights, good
governance, access to education and health care and ensuring that
each individual has opportunities and choice to fulfil his or her own
potential. Every step in this direction is also a step towards reducing
poverty, achieving economic growth and preventing conflict.
Freedom from want, freedom from fear and the freedom of future
generations to inherit a healthy environment—these are the
interrelated building blocks of human, and therefore national
security. (Commission on Human Security 2003, p. 4)

Security as a basic human right is regularly disputed depending on

individuals’ circumstances when different levels of rights apply (Doyal and
Gough 1991). For example, people relocating from diverse cultures are met
with new cultural issues that may impact their sense of security. Similarly,
the host country also faces complex cultural differences that may appear to
be threatening. That is, social, cultural and religious factors within society
shape people’s understanding of what constitutes insecurity and who has
responsibility for ensuring safety among individuals and the community as
a whole. It has been noted that these challenges are also evident across
many educational institutions in the United States (US), the United
Kingdom (UK) and Australia in relation to campus security (Forbes-Mewett
et al. 2015).

Personal Security
Overall perspectives on security differ across countries, organisations,
communities and individuals. This section is based on the views of
undergraduate university students in Australia. Personal perspectives on
security have been expressed as ‘ feeling comfortable’ (Adriana, female
student) and ‘ being in control of (at least) my immediate future in terms of
where I’ll be, what I’m doing and who I am with’ (Zeda, female student).
Both Adriana and Zeda’s perception of security was subjective and related
to Bénabou and Tirole’s (2005) work, which suggests that responsibility for
security relates to the individual. In contrast, Aja, a female Indian student
holds a view which intertwines a subjective and objective view of security:
‘Security to me is both a mental state and depends on one’s environment. If
I feel secure in my own mind and body, I in turn am able to feel safe. Then
again, my mental state depends on many things including stability with
friends, family, work and uni, which make up my environment’. Another
respondent mentioned that he had experienced mental health issues from a
young age and valued the support of his family, which enhanced his well-
being and sense of security. The support of loved ones was raised by
several respondents, reiterating the importance of having caring, kind
people close by.
Others expressed a focus on physical safety. Sijun (male student)
articulated that ‘Security means to me that everyone can live in a safe
environment’. This was reiterated by Tracy (female student) who stated that
security meant feeling ‘safe from physical harm’. Material security was also
common in interviewee responses. The notion of having access to basic
needs such as shelter, food and health services was prominent. An
interesting aspect regarding ‘the new security’ was the concept of safety
deriving from social relationships. Many students noted that friends and
family being close was vital to their personal sense of security. This was
articulated by Maria (female student) who explained that ‘The epitome of
when I feel secure is the nights when all six members of my family are
home. I have some of my best sleeps these nights because I know there are
five people who are there as well’.
Cultural security stems from kindness and acceptance, as individuals
should be able to express who they are and be free from any discrimination.
For example, Ronny, a male student says, ‘The right to freedom of thought
and action. The freedom to believe whatever I want and not be
discriminated against because of it’. This form of security goes beyond
physical safety and acknowledges the importance of beliefs and actions
requiring respect and safety. Often those from differing cultural
backgrounds were those who expressed the importance of cultural security
for marginalised groups in society. As highlighted by Briana (female
student):
 Security also applies to everyone and does not discriminate on a
basis of race, culture, gender or ethnicity. However, I believe that
there can become a time when security can be overemphasised
resulting in oppression, racism and discrimination evident when we
look at the treatment of Muslims post 9/11.

It is evident that every form of security is complex and interpreted

differently from individuals with differing life experience and needs.

Campus Security
Campus security has evolved over time (see Chapter by Fisher et al., this
volume) due to both national and international incidents and threats. In
contemporary society, educational institutions such as universities attract a
large number of students from dissimilar backgrounds and different
countries. This has raised concerns regarding safety both on and off
campus. So too, attitudes to the police may vary, based on negative
experiences in students’ home countries (Forbes-Mewett et al. 2015).
Positive relationships with authority and civic participation continue to
become a concern and those responsible for campus security have a
challenging role in counteracting negative perspectives. For example, a
University Community Officer in the UK reported that Chinese students
referred to the police in their home country as corrupt forces who cannot be
trusted. Consequently, these students felt unable to trust campus police.

The biggest problem I’ve found … is the police uniform. They do

not trust the police, because from where they come from, there’s a
lot of corruption in China …. Well, what we want them to do is to
talk to us, to trust us, to have faith in us and to give them support
and guidance wherever we can. (University Community Officer,
UK)

This tension between students and police impacted campus security as it

hindered the development of a communicative relationship that would
enable police and/or campus security to protect the university constituency.
In Australia, similar issues were present and one police officer suggested
that international students should be educated regarding interactions with
the police when relocating:

… Responsibility goes back to the education institute that they

belong to. They’ve got to keep them safe, so I think it comes from a
further education process to say, “Right, apart from what studies
they’re doing, they’ve got to be taught or learn that in our society …
that they can trust the police”. The police are there to help you.
Things can remain confidential with you coming to us and reporting
a crime and make that difference between their own police
department and us. This is a whole new country. (Police, Australia)

The desire of campus security to develop good relations with all

students was to enhance trust so security personnel could keep abreast of
security issues and students and staff would be better protected.
Campus security across the US, the UK and Australia is structured
differently with the US model having their police based mainly on campus.
In contrast to the UK and Australia, university campuses and nearby areas
in the US were monitored by campus police. In the study, some UK had
their own police force for particular districts; however, the level of police
involvement varied between campuses. In all three countries, police
provided helpful information during orientation week at universities about
safety on and off campus. However, in most instances it tended to be an
overload of information at a time when students were adjusting to their new
environment (Forbes-Mewett 2011). Forbes-Mewett had been advocating
for safety issues to be explained regularly on a long-term basis for the
purposes of increasing student security. As explained by a Senior Police
Officer in Australia:

… We’ve been talking to all the tertiary providers about extending

O week [orientation] type themes throughout the academic year to
make sure that it’s not just in the show bag that you get, which is put
in the corner and forgotten about while you go about your education.
I think that’s one of the big limitations … It’s just one big overdose
at the start, and then you don’t hear anything more about it, and I
think that needs to change.
 A University International Office in the US indicated that they had
already addressed the issue to some extent:

Not only as part of our orientation do we have the Northwestern

Police Department participating, talking about things as basic as
bike and laptop safety to domestic violence, sexual harassment, and
even sessions on bathing and relationships in America—what’s
okay, what’s not okay. Those things are presented by our office and
usually introduced during orientation and then provided during
follow up programming.

Including aspects of security regarding personal and family issues in

follow up programming was unique to the US.

Well, we see it manifest in the housing, typically the graduate and

student and family housing. Because they’re coming over as family
units … So when we’re talking about domestic violence, we see a
lot of it there, which in their home countries it may not be
considered domestic violence … yet when it comes to domestic
violence and corporal punishment of children, the expectation is that
people will follow the norms of our country, which sort of frowns on
that and, in most cases, is illegal. (University Police Community
Services, US)

All of those involved in campus security roles across the US, UK and
Australia acknowledged the need to update their campus security practices.
This included updated ways of sharing safety information and alerts. The
advance of information technology allowed this to be more effective for
both campus security, staff and students.

I’ll give you an example. You know the shootings that we were
talking about? Within about 12 minutes, we were on Twitter
warning people about what was going on. Now for some people,
Twitter is like their main route of communication so we were into
them. Now they were people that we wouldn’t have caught by other
media. (Student Liaison Officer, UK)
 Online language translation services were also integrated to UK Police
websites as well as Victorian Police in Australia ensuring that each sub-
culture group had a representative in the police department. The sharing of
information was considered to be crucial in relation to campus security as
was support from the student cohort regarding communication and
reporting of any struggles or crime. A key concern of the interviewees was
the need for increased resources to be able to provide for increasing campus
security needs.
While university campus police is not the norm in Australia, one large
university trialled a ‘Police on Campus’ Pilot programme to enhance
security, well-being and social integration within the community. The
university community was multicultural and there were tensions between
different cultural groups and police. Victoria Police initiated the programme
with the hope of breaking down cultural barriers and enhancing the
communication and relationship between police and the university
community. The Victorian Police Blue Paper (Lay 2014) explicitly states
that Victoria Police need to work closely with Australian universities and
that there was a need to change the policing approach. Interviews regarding
the ‘Police on Campus’ Pilot programme were conducted in 2016 and
despite the positive relationships being built with campus security, students
and staff, the future and longevity of the programme were undetermined.
The availability of police officers became an issue due to a Government
requirement to attend to other security issues in broader society. A police
officer stated, ‘We ended up with the heightened terror alert and not being
able to staff [the on campus program] for as long and at the level that we
wanted’ (Victoria Police). The programme also aimed to decrease isolation
and radicalisation of young people. Ironically, the occurrence of incidences
relating this issue meant police were required to work in pairs and this
placed further limits on the availability of police. Thus, due to stretched
resources, the campus pilot project was no longer a priority in terms of
police and community security. Nonetheless, concern about campus
security continued. All the interviewees acknowledged that large gatherings
at universities involved an increased risk to security in Australia.
The proactive approach of campus security and police to build
relationships with various cultural groups meant that ‘there’s a lot more
trust there’ (Campus Security). Gender-balanced representation of campus
police was also implemented due to gender-based violence, different
cultural mores and a tendency for non-reporting (Forbes-Mewett et al.
2015; Forbes-Mewett and McCulloch 2016). Through the on campus
policing pilot programme, community relationships and engagement
improved, particularly with authorities and students from diverse cultural
backgrounds. Trust between the police and the community were integral to
the aim of delaying and avoiding all forms of security risks within the
university and broader community. These findings strongly supported the
need for police visibility as well as campus security in order to adapt to the
changing security environment on campus. While concerns about campus
security were well-founded, the notion of security extends well beyond the
university campus to affect many dimensions in the everyday lives of
individuals. In the following section, I consider employment security
through a case study on an Australian coastal town.

Employment Security
Employment and security are related in a number of ways. The lack of
employment security has important implications for people and this is
discussed in the context of a coastal town in the Australian State of
Queensland which faced ongoing employment issues. Many in the town
hoped that a proposal for Chinese foreign direct investment promising work
for the local community would provide new employment opportunities and
security. The town was located near the Great Barrier Reef. It had a
population of 10,260 consisting of 7.3 per cent indigenous locals, 76.4 per
cent community born in Australia and 16.3 per cent born overseas. There
were also many non-resident workers in the mining and gas industry, as
well as ‘backpackers’ frequenting the area seeking short term employment.
Mobile workers were attracted to this case study town as employment was
temporary, therefore it was hoped that the proposed foreign development
would encourage a ‘new breed of mobile worker’ who could be ‘enticed to
base themselves in the town’ (Human Resource Manager).
With workers moving into the town, there was a shortage of affordable
housing for locals. Steep rent increases meant only mobile workers earning
‘big money’ could afford to pay. Local jobs had also become scarce and as
explained by a long-term resident farmer, there are now ‘about 75 per cent
backpackers and 25 per cent locals [employed on farms]. There wouldn’t be
too many farms that’d be different. Even the big ones, there are huge
numbers [of mobile workers]’. One young member of the community hoped
that the proposed Chinese refinery would allow her to be employed and to
stay in the town. However, she also had concerns due to her observations of
a similar company who had previously moved into the area:

[They] came in, but they’ve brought their own people as well. That’s
all good and well because they need to start and they need to start
doing stuff, but they come down to us and they say, “… we’ll get
you a job”, blah, blah, blah … I wouldn’t care if you put me as a
receptionist, but you still can’t seem to get ahead and that’s making
me disheartened at the moment … if everyone’s going to bring their
own people in, well what are the locals going to do? (Long-term
resident, seeking work)

The local community expected that incoming investors and developers

should be able to provide local employment. The lack of employment
security pushed locals to consider moving away from their town and seek a
life elsewhere. However, locals aged between 18 and 30 were very reluctant
to leave their town in order to attain employment security: ‘I will have to
move away to do what I’d like to do, but like it’s still a bit hard because I’d
rather be here where I know everyone. It’s just hard’ (Local young
community member, seeking work). The conditions of mobile workers were
undesirable:

Basically, they get up at 4.30 in the morning. They get a bus at 5.

They go out to the work site and then they come home at 6 o’clock
[in the evening] … You’re just going to work, coming home, eating.
That’s the only thing that they benefit from is maybe the food that
they’re selling to them. It is not a great lifestyle. They’re tired.
(Resident for a decade, professional)

Concerns regarding the workers’ lifestyle, well-being and actual

contribution to the community were viewed negatively. Whereas,
contrasting views were evident regarding the unions in the town and the
protection of workers. The following participant who was a retired unionist,
expressed disappointment that a mining company no longer had a union,
thus resulting in workers to be under contract conditions.
 It’s finished. [The mining company] got rid of the union. It’s really
sad I think, that with Australian workplace agreements, what they
have really done is put everybody on contracts … I needed people to
work for [the mines] who … would actually die for [the mines]. You
wouldn’t get it now because they are on contract for five years.
They are not [loyal] … they don’t give a stuff about what happens
for five years, so why should I give a stuff about what happens to
them after five years. I mean it’s an attitude thing. (Long-term
resident, retired unionist)

The lack of employment security was viewed as a major contributor to a

lack of loyalty and care between employer and employee. In contrast,
another resident expressed a more positive view of negotiating with the
unions: ‘ It’s the number of the unions and which unions. You can pick and
choose, yes. You can certainly establish a great relationship with them …
Also, as your company gets greedier or the unions get greedier, that
relationship will break down’ (Long-standing resident, professional). Strong
unionism was intertwined with employment security in the past and this
relationship and source of security appeared to have diminished. Despite
this, a retiree still believed that it would be improbable for the Chinese
refinery to avoid unionism due to Australian expectations and standards.

They would probably have to work to a certain standard …. I don’t

really think they would actually get away without complying …
And from what I could gather … they would employ a percentage of
Chinese as well as a percentage of Australians. (Long-term resident,
retiree)

Not every resident believed unions were essential and enabled

employment security:

We’ve never been involved in the union and we look after our staff
very well … do I need to have someone hovering over me to tell me
what I’m doing wrong? If you’re a good employer, and you’re fairly
good at your business, you don’t need a watchdog. The men will …
vote with their feet, if you’re not doing the right thing by them, you
won’t have a work force. (Long-term local employer, retired)
 There was concern among residents that the Chinese refinery would
employ workers from China who may accept more work for less pay.

… They [the company] would need to be careful that they don’t

pitch their positions at a level that they get no interest from
Australians because the conditions are not acceptable and then turn
around and say to the community. ‘Well, we’ve got all these jobs but
nobody wants them so we have to bring in all these Chinese people’.
(Long-term resident, manager)

The Chinese company’s management structure involved both Chinese

and Australians who were in charge of overseeing the refinery development
in Australia. The company managers’ priority was obviously to ensure the
proposal was successful; however, they did also indicate that they were
mindful of the town’s circumstances and expectations of the locals.

From our point of view, we feel that you need to be a good

community citizen in [the town] to make it successful. That is, ‘you
must sit on the board of the town council, the government schemes
and different initiatives, the Lions Club—to be seen that you are part
of the community’. (Manager, Chinese Company)

The Manager also expressed an understanding that cultural differences

needed to be addressed.

The workforce must be capable and committed. By that again I

mean you do not bring in a team of senior practitioners who may not
have the capability of understanding the Australian culture. So, you
must have someone who understands and works in a Western style
organisation and you have a Chinese manager empower the
decisions to your team at your team level. (Manager, Chinese
Company)

Contemporary Australia mostly accepts foreign developments

notwithstanding some level of concern (Nyland et al. 2011). This was also
acknowledged by the company:
 I don’t think the town sees a Chinese company as the issue.
Whatever we wear comes from China … those who are against the
project are using some of the not so humane practices in China,
linking it to the company. I really don’t think that is the issue, what
company it is, because I think the town really wants us there [for
work], generally speaking. You will always have people going
against. (Manager, Chinese Company)

A business owner in the town was frustrated that he may lose his trained
workers to the large transnational enterprise: ‘The concern and big fear of
the local businesses here are that the large companies put nothing back into
training and they’re quite happy to take whoever has been trained by
someone else’ (Long-term resident and local business owner). Another
community member shared scepticism from seeing similar ventures fail in
the past.

Well, they have promised the fact that [the proposed new refinery]
would enhance the area with jobs and all the rest of it. But in
hindsight, we have seen in other areas that this hasn’t happened. I
believe that if they were to build the refinery, apart from the
pollution problem which they would create, that there wouldn’t be
any jobs there for Australians.

Throughout the interviews, it became abundantly clear that the

workforce and industries within the town were male dominated and females
were encouraged to either leave their town to attain work or to have
children. One young woman stated that due to the lack of employment
opportunities for women, ‘we have babies’ (Long-term resident, seeking
work). Despite the many challenges faced by residents within the coastal
Queensland town, the Chinese refinery proposal was welcomed due to the
need and hope for new employment security for the locals and future
generations.

Housing Security
Another integral factor of security is safe and economical housing. Housing
is a major problem for many, even in developed countries. Australia, for
example, is generally believed to have a high standard of living.
Nonetheless, much media attention has been paid to the housing difficulties
faced by international students pursuing an international education in
Australia. Marginson et al. (2010) highlights the issue of a lack of housing
security for international students—noting that their living conditions were
not congruent with host country standards. Other risks came to light
through students arranging their accommodation prior to their arrival in
their host country. This led to students often living in areas a long distance
from campus (Forbes-Mewett 2011). Affordability was a central focus for
international students compared to an understanding of logistical
practicality between their residence and educational institution.
It was evident throughout the interviews that cheaper housing tended to
be associated with less security. For example:

The north side of campus is much safer [than the west side of the
campus]. There are more police patrolling the neighbourhood a little
bit better. And the west side is, I would say, a little more dangerous.
And the rent is actually cheaper there, that’s why a lot of
international students choose to live on the west side of campus …
A lot of students want to save money for their parents on housing
and they try to live in the cheaper area, which is the less safe area.
So, I think if the school tries to build more affordable and safe
housing for students that would be a big help. (Chinese, post-
graduate student, female, 20, US)

A female student from the UK reiterated a similar viewpoint, ‘ I lived

with people who have been living in subsidised housing for three
generations. I’ve definitely lived around poor people, and my neighbours
were drug dealers’ (Israeli, post-graduate student, female, 34, UK). Living
with one’s cultural group was also an option taken by some international
students. The benefit of living with people who are of the same culture, in
some cases, outweighed the need for proper accommodation and adequate
facilities. This arrangement was also lower in cost.

It’s pretty rare, but I have a friend who is staying in a house with
eight or nine people. They had two bedrooms, one toilet and one
bathroom together. I said to him, “Well why don’t you rent down the
 street where it might be a bit more expensive or maybe even cheaper
instead of living in those poor conditions”. He was like, “No, that’s
my community; I stay with them”. I’m like, “But you’re suffering”.
He’s like, “Yes, but that’s community; we stay together”.
(International Student Officer, female, 20, Australia)

Other issues linked to student housing and security included the power
imbalance between landlords and their tenants, resulting in the mistreatment
and sexual assault of international students (Forbes-Mewett et al. 2015;
Forbes-Mewett and McCulloch 2016).

For instance, if you have a landlord coming from Vietnam, he wants

to be able to speak Vietnamese and he will pay the Vietnamese
students to stay with him. Sometimes he would use the position just
to say, “If you won’t sleep with me, you won’t be able to rent or you
won’t be able to stay; I will kick you out; I will report you to DIAC
[Department of Immigration and Citizenship] and [tell them] you’re
working more than 20 hours a week”. These are the things
international students don’t know about their rights … (International
Student Officer, female, 20, Australia)

The illegal treatment of international students by landlords has been

well-established (Marginson et al. 2010). However, the problem is most
likely worse than it is presented due to the ongoing issue of non-reporting
(Forbes-Mewett et al. 2015). As international student numbers continue to
increase, so does the demand for safe and secure student housing. This
ongoing concern was explained by one interviewee as follows:

If not a housing crisis, certainly a shortage of affordable housing.

And you can’t look at that in isolation. So, it’s not just a question of
well we’ve got this population that we can’t house safely and
affordably. Well, there’s a lot of people we can’t house safely and
affordably and you can’t sort of look at one without the other. So,
I’m not sure how structurally you deal with that. I mean I know
some universities are looking at building on campus accommodation
and that’s all well and good but certainly the numbers we had a
couple of years ago, it’s the tip of the iceberg. (Chief Executive
Officer, female, Australia)
 Housing shortages for international students is an ongoing concern
(Morris et al. 2000) that needs to be addressed, yet it is important to
acknowledge that there are other vulnerable groups who experience long-
term housing and security issues.
The next section looks at food security from the perspective of farmers
in Australia’s food bowl, in the Liverpool Plains region of New South
Wales.

Food Security
According to the World Food Summit, ‘Food security exists when all
people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe
and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for
an active and healthy life’ (FAO Policy Brief 2006, p. 1). It is important to
acknowledge that ‘Australia feeds a lot of people’ (Bellotti 2017, p. 1).
Natural resources as well as economic, social and cultural factors are
vital to food security. Australia’s largest area of agricultural land, known as
‘Australia’s Food Bowl’ is located in the Liverpool Plains region in New
South Wales. ‘Australia’s Food Bowl’ provides approximately 40 per cent
above the national average of agricultural outputs. The availability of water
in the region was also frequently mentioned in relation to being able to
produce crops all year round. Within this agricultural area is also a Chinese-
owned piece of land proposing a coal mine which poses as a potential threat
to the current environment and agricultural output. The interviewees
believed that the proposal by Shenhua, a transnational mining company,
would negatively impact food security both in Australia and across the
globe.

[We need] to protect this land because it is truly unique. There are
not many pockets of soil like this in the world and if you take away
the water then the land [because of a coal mine], yes, it’s still
productive but if the rainfall isn’t very reliable and our last four
years, if you look at the rainfall charts you’ll see, it hasn’t been
reliable. But we could produce crops because we’ve had ground
water. Now when that groundwater is damaged and you can’t access
it because of another industry, then it totally changes the game, it
totally changes the productivity of this land. (Joe, male, 40s)
 Future impacts of the proposed mine were also of concern for the local
residents as ‘ when the mine moves away, like they leave and 100 years
down the track, it’ll reach equilibrium where all those holes and those voids
that’ve been filled up with rock and rubble, when they fill up with water
again and water goes in, what comes out is going to be salty’ (Wendy,
female, 40s). The residents’ concerns were driven by their love of the land
and a sense of responsibility for food security in Australia and beyond for
not only themselves but for future generations. The potential to provide
food for distribution throughout Australia and across the world was
acknowledged by many interviewees. However, the Australian leaders’ lack
of experience regarding minimal food security and the broader community
were viewed as barriers to the in-depth understanding required regarding
the impacts of the proposed mine. As articulated by Joe (male, 40s):

During the First World War and the Second World War people went
without, they were using sawdust to fill their sausages so that they
could get enough to fill their tummies. I mean we’ve never had to do
that and our generation haven’t. But people have starved, they do
know what it’s like … there’s a great quote, basically it says there is
no more dangerous animal on earth than a hungry human. … So,
people fob us off when we’re saying, “We want to protect this land
for food security” but I don’t think that they understand the
importance of food, it’s too easy at the moment, they all just get it
off the shelf.

This viewpoint was shared by Malcolm (male, 50s) who stated:

A lot of governments in most other parts of the world cherish food

security because they’ve been through famine, depression, and I
suppose that’s why European and American governments subsidise
their farmers. … In Australia, we don’t get any subsidy at all. It’s
like a Darwin’s law of evolution, survival of the fittest in Australia.

As recently as April 2021, it was announced that the New South Wales
Government scrapped the Liverpool Plains open cut mine by paying the
Chinese company, Shenhua, $100 million to put a stop to coal mining on
prime agricultural land. This followed a community-led fight for well over
decade to protect the region and Australia’s contribution to global food
security.

Conclusion
This chapter has sought to present the case for a ‘new security’.
Traditionally the focus has been on security being about the mitigation of
threats or the protection of assets which has led to a narrow and a false
understanding. Via research in three countries, and by looking at different
areas of security, I have sought to show how security is entwined with
many aspects of life, and that both its study and its applications need to take
account of this.
The chapter first outlined the need to redefine security before discussing
the more subjective notion of human security. A number of case studies
then illustrated just how broad the notion of security is. Based on interviews
conducted in the US, UK, and Australia, the case studies provided examples
of how different forms of security relate to the impact of social, cultural,
and economical factors. By first considering the idea of personal security,
the chapter set the scene for other forms of security that relate to individuals
lives, such campus security, employment security, and security relating to
housing and food.
The concept of personal security was commonly associated with caring,
kind people in one’s life. Campus security was thought to be imperative to
not only making staff, students and the local community safer but also for
breaking down cultural barriers between diverse groups and authority
figures such as police and security staff. Employment security was
considered in the context of a regional town where there were few
opportunities for work other than casual and seasonal jobs attractive only to
an itinerant workforce. The issue of housing security was presented from
the perspective of international students in a case study that revealed
concerning aspects that greatly impacted the security of international
students. Food security was discussed within the context of the Liverpool
Plains in NSW Australia. In the Liverpool Plains case, there was
community-led opposition for well over a decade to mining that would
contribute to land degradation and a subsequent loss of food security, not
only for Australia but also for the world where exports feed large
populations in other countries. It was shown in recent times that food
security prevailed because the NSW government brought the mining project
to a halt.

Recommended Readings
Baldwin (1997) highlights an abstract version of security and of how it can
apply to all people in many different ways. This reconceptualisation of
security is further developed by Nesadurai (2005) who focusses on
economic security in the globalised world. Marginson et al. (2010) write in
detail about ‘International Student Security’. Their work presents security
as a broadly encompassing concept involving all aspects of the international
student sojourn and acknowledges the agency of students. Forbes-Mewett
(2011) adds the issues of minimising risk and furthering security in relation
to preparation for the international education experience. Forbes-Mewett et
al. (2015) focus on international students and crime in relation to security
needs as both victims and perpetrators. Forbes-Mewett’s (2019) more recent
work, The New Security: Individual, Community and Cultural Experiences,
further broadens the notion of security and underpins this chapter through a
book based on in-depth case studies.

References
Adler, A. (1930) Problems of Neurosis. New York: Cosmopolitan Book Co.

Baldwin, D.A. (1997) The Concept of Security. Review of International Studies 23(1): 5–26.
[Crossref]

Bellotti, B. (2017). How Many People Can Australia Feed? The Conversation, July 13.

Bénabou, R. and Tirole, J. (2005) Belief in a Just World and Redistributive Politics. Cambridge:
National Bureau of Economic Research.
[Crossref]

Berne, E. (1947) The Mind in Action. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Commission on Human Security (2003) Human Security Now. New York: Human Security Unit,
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Doyal, L. and Gough, I. (1991) A Theory of Human Need. Houndmills: Macmillan.

[Crossref]

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO (2006) Food Security, Policy Brief,
June 2006, Issue 2. Available from: http://www.fao.org/forestry/13128-0e6f36f27e009105
5bec28ebe830f46b3.pdf [Accessed 30 June 2017].

Forbes-Mewett, H. (2019) The New Security: Individual, Community and Cultural Experiences.
Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Forbes-Mewett, H. and McCulloch, J. (2016) International Students and Gender-Based Violence,

Violence Against Women, 22(3): 344–365.
[Crossref]

Forbes-Mewett, H., McCulloch, J. and Nyland, C. (2015) International Students and Crime. Palgrave
Macmillan, Houndmills.
[Crossref]

Forbes-Mewett, H. (2011). International Education Preparation: Minimising Risk and Furthering

Security. International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, 48(1), 61–92.

Lay, K. (2014) The Victoria Police Blue Paper, A vision for Victoria Police in 2015. Victoria Police:
Victoria.

Marginson, S., Nyland, C., Sawir, E. and Forbes-Mewett, H. (2010) International Student Security.
Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

Maslow, A.H. (1943) A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review 50(4): 370–396.
[Crossref]

Morris, A., Hastings, C., Wilson, S., Mitchell, E., Ramia, G., Overgaard, C. (2000). The experience
of international students before and during COVID-19: Housing, work, study and wellbeing (pp. 1–
131). Sydney, Australia: University of Technology Sydney.

Nesadurai, H.E.S. (2005) Conceptualising Economic Security in an Era of Globalisation: What Does
the East Asian Experience Reveal? The University of Warwick, Coventry, UK: Centre for the Study
of Globalisation and Regionalisation. Working Paper.

Nyland, C., Forbes-Mewett, H., & Thomson, S. B. (2011). Sinophobia as a Corporate Tactic and the
Response of Host Communities. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 41(4), 610–632.
[Crossref]

UNDP (1994) Human Development Report. New York: United Nations Development Programme.

Wolfers, A. (1952) “National Security” as an Ambiguous Symbol. Political Science Quarterly 67(4):
481–502.
[Crossref]
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_4

4. Explaining the Impact and Implications

of COVID-19 on Crime Rates: A
Criminological Perspective
Rob I. Mawby1
(1) Department of Rural Criminology, Harper Adams University,
Newport, UK

Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought changes to everyday life that have
impacted on levels and types of crime and disorder prevalent in societies, in
many cases leading to reductions in crime but in other cases increases. This
has implications for policing and security. This chapter discusses the
evidence, offers explanations for changing crime patterns and discusses the
implications for policing by the public police, private sector and informal
guardians.

Introduction
To criminologists, safety and security are generally perceived to involve
crime, public disorder and terrorism incidents. However, both international
bodies (United Nations Development Programme 1994) and national
governments (Department of Homeland Security 2021; UK Cabinet Office
2017) have envisaged security to incorporate natural hazards and
technological or accidental hazards.
The COVID-19 pandemic may thus be viewed as a security issue in its
own right. However, the issue that has most intrigued criminologists is the
extent to which the increased health risk posed by the pandemic has led to
changes to everyday routines that affect safety and security vis a vis crime
and disorder, and as a consequence, how the policing of societies has
adjusted to any changes. It is these questions that are the main focus herein.
The chapter is divided into five sections. Firstly, the spread of COVID-
19 and subsequent attempts to suppress it are discussed. Secondly, the
impact of the pandemic on crime and disorder during the lockdowns in
2020 is addressed. Thirdly, evidence on crimes specifically related to
lockdowns is considered. Fourthly, the impact of this on policing is
discussed. The final section is more speculative, in looking to the future, in
terms of changing patterns of offending and policing post-pandemic.

COVID-19: Lockdown, Partial Lockdowns and

Unlocking
On 31 December 2019, the World Health organisation (WHO) was
informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan, China. On 30
January 2020 WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a public health
emergency of international concern, WHO’s highest level of alarm. At that
time, there were reported infections in 18 countries outside the Peoples
Republic of China (PRC). By mid-March 2020, the WHO European Region
had become the epicentre of the epidemic, reporting over 40% of globally
confirmed cases. From then on the pandemic swept across the world.
Despite an initial reluctance to introduce curbs that threatened civil
liberties, by late-January 2020, a state of emergency was introduced in Italy,
subsequently involving internal restrictions on travel, suspension of public
events, educational services and schools, museums and public offices, and
commercial and work/business activities (Sanfelici 2020). Similar, but not
identical, measures followed across continental Europe (Godwin 2020) and
the UK, where they were raised and then reintroduced as the COVID-19
death rate fell and then rose. The first national lockdown in England was
announced on 23 March, lasting until 10 May, when restrictions were
gradually eased. Rising levels of COVID-19 led to the introduction of a
local lockdown on June 29 in Leicester, but generally, government policy
was to encourage a return to work and pursuit of leisure activities at home
and abroad. However on 24 July face coverings become mandatory in shops
across England, and from 30 July, those who tested positive for coronavirus
or displayed symptoms were required to self-isolate. Nevertheless,
restrictions were further eased, epitomised by the Government’s Eat Out To
Help Out scheme, until rising rates of COVID-19 led the government to
impose restrictions on mass events, and social gatherings of more than six
people were made illegal in England from September 14. Later in the month
fines were increased for those who refused to self-isolate, leisure facilities
closed, and a regional three tier system of restrictions was introduced. A
second lockdown followed. On 4 January 2021 a third national lockdown
was introduced, and it was lifted in stages from early March.
Of course, legal restrictions are only one part of the equation. Some
people’s activities will be directly affected by the virus, for example if they
become ill. Other activities will be affected by people’s fear of becoming
infected, leading to them inter alia opting to stay at home or relying less on
public transport. The impact of these mandatory and discretionary measures
is illustrated in government surveys for England and Wales showing high
levels of compliance with lockdown measures, especially during the first
and third lockdowns (Office for National Statistics 2021).

Crime and Disorder 2020–2021

Testing out the impact of COVID-19 on crime and disorder is fraught with
difficulties. Firstly, official statistics are dependent on victims reporting
crimes and the police recording them, and in many cases, like domestic
violence or Internet crime, they may not be reliable because a majority of
crimes are not reported or recorded. It is likely, moreover, that during the
pandemic victims were more reluctant to report crime where this entails
more contact with outside agencies like the police.
In these circumstances, criminologists commonly turn to victim survey
data, but these are generally unavailable in the short term. One notable
exception is in England and Wales, where a new Telephone-operated Crime
Survey (TCSEW) was introduced to measure changes in crime levels after
restrictions were imposed (Office for National Statistics 2020a). However,
when victim surveys were first designed in the 1970s, evaluations suggested
that asking about crimes during the previous twelve months was optimal:
any longer and victims forgot many minor offences; any shorter led to
telescoping. In the latter case, arguably, victim surveys focusing on the
short term might overestimate crime levels. Nevertheless, caution needs to
be applied when using victim survey data that relates to crimes in the very
recent past.
 Secondly, up-to-date criminal statistics may be inaccessible or limited.
This will vary according to the country and within countries, but many are
not refined enough to allow us to identify subtle changes. For example,
many police crime statistics fail to distinguish between domestic and
commercial burglaries, and in the former case, distraction burglaries
(Thornton et al. 2005) are not separately counted. Additional details on
whether offences occur within the home or in public space or the
relationship between offender and victim are rare; with the result that
theorising is restricted. Ideally, for example, research on the impact of the
pandemic on homicide would need to consider victim/offender
relationships, especially where each lived and where the offence occurred,
but this amount of detail is rarely available. Finally, given that crime rates
are subject to seasonal variation and may be subject to shifting patterns, it is
necessary to include long-term trends.
As a result, many researchers have incorporated softer, secondary
source material, including agency reports and media articles. These are
clearly useful illustrative material but to an even greater extent than official
statistics are dependent on selective recording and reporting.
Bearing these difficulties in mind, it is appropriate to consider how
crime and disorder were affected over the period since early 2020 and what
theories have been applied to explain the changes. Three broad approaches
may be identified: optimistic perspectives that consider the COVID-19
pandemic as reducing crime; pessimistic perspectives that view the
pandemic as leading to increasing levels of crime; and rebalancing
perspectives that see shifting crime patterns.
Academics interested in situational influences on crime patterns have
been particularly active in testing the extent to which changes in mobility
lead to reductions in crime rates. For example, UCL (University College
London) hosted an online symposium on Crime and COVID-19 on 16 July
2020 and has a webpage dedicated to the subject.1 The theoretical basis
underpinning optimistic perspectives is derived from routine activity theory
(Cohen and Felson 1979), rational choice theory (Cromwell et al. 1991) and
crime pattern theory (Brantingham and Brantingham 1995). While varying
in their emphases, essentially these focus on opportunities: offenders’
decisions to target specific property or persons, based on their knowledge
and awareness of the target; the availability and accessibility of an
appropriate target; and the extent to which victims are protected.
 These points have been significantly affected by the pandemic, in terms
both of individuals’ choices and of government restrictions. Firstly, the
availability of victims was in many respects reduced. People were less
likely to be out in public, and since entertainment venues were closed, they
were especially less likely to go out after dark. They were also less likely to
use public transport. This suggests that less victims would be available to
steal from and public disorder offences linked to alcohol misuse would be
lower. Secondly, potential offenders might have been less likely to go out,
especially with co-offenders. Thirdly, there might have been more police
around if the police were actively enforcing the lockdown. Most
importantly though, is the question of self-guardianship and guardianship
by passers-by or neighbours (Hollis-Peel and Welsh 2014; Reynald 2011).
People spent more time at home which meant that their homes were better
protected from burglars, and they were better able to act as guardians of
neighbours’ property.
There is persuasive evidence to support this perspective. For example,
domestic burglary rates have been found to fall (Ashby 2020; Halford et al.
2020; Payne et al. 2020). In England and Wales, the Office for National
Statistics (2020a) also reported a significant decline in household
burglaries, reflected in both the TCSEW and police statistics. The TCSEW
suggested that domestic burglaries declined by 72% during the first
lockdown.
Moreover, if less people are on the streets, robberies and thefts from the
person may also be expected to decrease. Correspondingly, many studies
report a decline in robberies (Campedelli et al. 2020; Payne et al. 2020),
although there appears as yet little refinement vis a vis different types of
robberies or any differences between theft from the person and robbery.
With regards to other thefts, closure of many shops resulted in a reduction
in thefts from shops, including in Australia (Payne et al. 2020), the UK
(Halford et al. 2020), and the US (Campedelli et al. 2020). Less use of cars
produced a reduction in car-related crime, given that cars parked in urban
centres are more vulnerable than those in garages, drives and residential
streets (Clarke and Mayhew 1994), and Payne et al. (2020) and Halford et
al. (2020) found a decrease in thefts from cars. Dixon et al. (2020) also
noted a decrease in crime on public transport. The TCSEW also found a
general decrease in thefts from members of the public, with a 73% fall in
the classification ‘other theft of personal property’ (Office for National
Statistics 2020a).
What then of changes since the end of the first lockdown in England
and Wales? In an analysis of crime patterns between March and November
2020, Farrell and Dixon (2021) illustrated how crimes rates that had fallen
during the first lockdown began to rise again over the summer, but did not
reach pre-lockdown levels. The imposition of a second lockdown resulted
in a reversal of this upward trajectory, but the fall was not as marked as
during the first lockdown. The most significant changes were for robbery
and theft. For example, from a low during the first lockdown, robbery and
theft from the person increased with movement through to the summer,
although these peaks were significantly below the expected rate for the time
of year. Rates then declined during the second lockdown but less
dramatically. Subsequently Dixon and Farrel (2021) noted a further decline
at the beginning of 2021 during the third lockdown.
A more pessimistic perspective is one that draws on stress or strain
theories (Agnew 1992) or builds on the impact of destitution on crime. The
pandemic has led to restrictions on movement. For those ‘imprisoned’ in
cramped homes with little or no outside living space especially, and where
contact with wider family members and friends is limited, rising stress
levels might be expected to lead to increased rates of violence against
family members. Alongside this, increased unemployment and reductions in
income might contribute to higher levels of stress but also led some to turn
to property crimes and drug dealing to supplement their income. Certainly,
while not unambiguous, there is evidence that acquisitive crime increases as
unemployment rises (Bennett and Quazad 2016; Raphael and Winter-Ebmer
2001), and while there were fluctuations in unemployment during 2020,
data from the UK, for example, shows a much higher rate since the onset of
the pandemic (Office for National Statistics 2020b).
Police data and data from support services indicate a rise in domestic
violence. In Dallas, Piquero et al. (2020) noted a short-term rise in police
reports but no long-term trend. However, other, less systematic evidence
suggests that calls to Women’s Refuges and Helplines has risen
dramatically, indicating that women attacked in their homes may feel
trapped and unwilling to involve the police but more likely to seek
alternative solutions (Bradbury-Jones and Isham 2020; Townsend 2020;
Usher et al. 2020; WHO 2020). Similarly, concern has been expressed
about rises in violence against children (NSPCC 2020; Romanou and
Belton 2020). Looking further at the relationship between those involved,
we might expect domestic violence against those in the same household to
increase, but domestic violence against those from other households (e.g.
assaults by estranged or former partners) to decrease. However the evidence
is currently not detailed enough to take account of these distinctions.
This, combined with the fact that changing activities may create new
opportunities for offending, leads to the suggestion that there has been a
rebalancing, that is, that the pandemic has led to changing crime patterns.
Thus, whilst the optimistic assessment discussed above notes that some
would-be offenders found the opportunity to commit their crime-of-choice
restricted, and so did not offend, it is plausible to suggest that:
Some would-be offenders found the opportunity to commit their crime-
of-choice restricted, so offended in different ways, that is, there was
crime displacement.
Some would-be offenders found the opportunity to commit their crime-
of-choice enhanced and expanded their offending.
Some people who would not otherwise have offended but were faced
with additional financial pressures, took advantage of the new
opportunities available during the lockdown.
Whilst the optimistic assessment assumes that offenders are relatively
specialised in their criminal behaviour, this is less likely among younger
offenders and will vary according to offence type, albeit many are
somewhat restricted by limited skill-sets. The second possibility suggests
that the pandemic allowed some offenders to expand their criminal
behaviour, perhaps by exploiting the conditions created by the pandemic.
The third possibility assumes that there is a pool of potential criminals who
are deterred from offending under normal conditions but due to financial
hardship, stress and so on, they commit offenses when circumstances
change.
Any change in offending patterns could arguably, apply on at least five
levels, or SPOTT.
Spatial Context: For example, while crimes in real space were reduced,
crimes in virtual space (i.e. online or phone calls) have increased. With
people confined at home, dependence on the Internet increased.
Correspondingly, frauds through phone and Internet have increased
(Kemp et al. 2021). These may be directly related to the pandemic, for
example scams over selling face masks or COVD-19 testing kits or
defrauding the government through falsely claiming grants. Others are
indirectly related to the pandemic (e.g. where customers are more
dependent on purchasing goods online and are conned, or where
criminals offer government grants and loans). Others are unrelated but
opportunistic. Additionally, with schools closed and many working from
home, children have been more likely to use the Internet unsupervised,
putting them more at danger of grooming. While there has been far less
research on online offending, TCSEW data suggested an upward trend
(Office for National Statistics 2020a), and other UK and European
sources also report an increase in online child abuse (BBC News 2020a;
EUROPOL 2020; Romanou and Belton 2020). Additionally,
impressionistic evidence from across the world suggests a rise in Internet
fraud and fraud linked to false claims by shadow businesses applying for
government grants (Barth 2020; Lynch 2020; Tett 2020). Recent evidence
on vaccine passport fraud demonstrates how this has evolved (Grierson
2021). Research in the UK, by Kemp et al. (2021) seems to confirm this
increase in Internet fraud. Based on data from the website of Action
Fraud, the UK National Fraud and Cybercrime Reporting Centre, they
found a significant increase in various manifestations of cybercrime.
Finally, and directly linked to increases in isolating, there appears to have
been an increase in online dating scams (Buil-Gil and Zeng 2021; Sky
News 2020).
Physical Location: For example: violence committed in the home rather
than in public places, in some cases by the same offenders but against
mainly different victims; and a shift towards even more locally based
crime, as the lockdown restricted travelling distances.
Offence Type: For example while household burglary was reduced, there
is some evidence that corporate burglary increased, probably due to
displacement. Where shops, offices, schools and so on were closed for
long periods, burglaries of businesses, storage facilities and public
buildings might be expected to increase. These offences traditionally take
place at night (Mawby 2001) but may have become more common in the
daytime. While the data do not always allow a distinction to be made
between commercial and household burglary, Abrams (2020) found that
commercial burglary rates increased. In Vancouver, Hodgkinson and
 Andresen (2020) also identified an initial rise in commercial burglaries,
but rates fell after police and business owners took counter-measures.
Elsewhere, Felson et al. (2020) found a shift from burglaries in
residential areas to burglaries in mixed use areas of Detroit.
Technique: For example, burglary: residential burglaries might be
expected to decline because burglars tend to target empty properties
(Mawby 2001), but distraction burglars may be more active, using the
emergency as an excuse to gain access. Since these are often carried out
by specialists and are unlike other burglaries, any increases would
generally be by different offenders.
Target: As noted above, this includes a shift from household burglary to
break-ins to offices, shops and so on. Additionally, in holiday resorts
where there were less tourists there may be a shift towards breaking into
unoccupied holiday accommodation, especially second homes. However,
as noted by Mawby and Vakhitova (this volume) most official sources do
not provide the detail to allow this to be tested.

Lockdown-Related Crimes
In addition to conventional crimes, new legislation has been introduced in
many countries to enforce lockdowns and restrict behaviour during partial
lockdowns. New laws have broadly covered: external border restrictions,
that is, laws regulating access to and egress from the country; internal
border restrictions, a key feature of Australia’s approach to containment;
leisure and retail restrictions; prohibition of social gatherings; curfews;
restrictions on legitimate reasons to leave home; restrictions on distance one
is allowed to travel; and requirements regarding face coverings. In England,
an increase in anti-social behaviour offences under lockdowns at least
partially reflects this. Thus, these rose during the first lockdown before
decreasing significantly over summer 2020, and then increasing as
movement restrictions were imposed through to second lockdown (Farrell
and Dixon 2021).
Offences that are a direct result of lockdown may be considered in two
ways: firstly, the extent to which the different laws have been applied; and
secondly, the ways in which law breaking can be explained.
In the former case, the police in England and Wales recorded a total of
134,188 Covid-19 related incidents in the four weeks to the 24 May 2020
(National Police Chiefs’ Council 2020). These resulted in 15,552 Fixed
Penalty Notices, showing that in the vast majority of cases (88%) the police
used their discretion and offered advice and warnings. In cases where FPNs
were issued, most (11,568) were issued for ‘Contravene requirement as to
restriction of movement during emergency period’, with 4031 issued for
‘Contravening the requirement to not participate in a gathering in public of
more than two people’. Most of those charged were male (81%) and 18–28
(55%), albeit this may partly be explained as the result of police discretion
as to who to charge. The pattern did, however, differ between different
police force areas. BBC News (2021) reported that Devon and Cornwall felt
that breaking the lockdown rules had increased during the third lockdown,
and in a region characterised by large numbers of second homes, travelling
from outside the counties to live in these holiday homes was of particular
concern. In contrast, Transport for London revealed that by mid-February
2021 some 137,000 travellers had been stopped and told they would not be
allowed to board its buses and metro system unless they wore a mask since
it became mandatory. The majority complied when directed, but some 9800
people were prevented from travelling and a further 2100 ejected and issued
with fixed penalty notices (Corbishley 2021).
These figures give only a broad-brush picture. Media reports cover a
wide range of scenarios: illegal opening of businesses; raves and private
parties; illegal movement including driving to beaches, national parks and
second homes; close contact with others in public, either informally or at
protest meetings; and failure to wear facemasks in shops.
A key distinction can be made between offences motivated by conflict,
denial and protest and offences of circumvention. The former include cases
where the offender(s) deliberately and openly challenge laws they consider
wrong: either because they feel that COVID-19 is a hoax used by the state
to repress their freedoms; or because they feel that at least some of the new
laws are an overreaction to the problem. By offences of circumvention I
mean, following Sykes and Matza’s (1957) techniques of neutralisation,
situations where offenders broadly support legal restrictions but create
justifications regarding why a particular aspect of the law does not apply to
them at a particular point in time. This may take one or more of at least six
forms:
Inappropriate role models: during lockdowns a number of politicians,
senior political advisors and media stars have been exposed for breaking
 the rules. In such circumstances, it is possible to justify one’s own
transgressions according to the maxim, ‘If it’s OK for them to do it, it’s
OK for me to.’
Appeal to a higher loyalty: particularly an appeal to freedom and a
rejection of an alleged police state, although perhaps the extreme
example relates to two nuns who broke the laws in Eire to perform an
exorcism ‘according to God’s wishes’ (Elvin 2021).
Exceptional circumstances: for example, the claim that one cannot afford
to self-isolate, which applies especially to those excluded from
government easement measures.
Challenge the law: claiming the rules are irrational, inconsistent or
ambiguous: for example during lockdowns in England where one was
required to exercise locally but with no legal definition of local.
Special dispensation: claiming one is extra-careful when bending the
rules.
Victim-denial: the argument that it is only the transgressor who is
affected.

Policing Lockdown
The Covid-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns have clearly impacted on
crime leading to reductions in some crimes, increases in others, and the
creation of new offences and bases for public disorder. This has
implications for the policing process (Grace 2020; McVie 2020; O’Neill
2020; Sheptycki 2020)and the well-being of officers (Frenkela et al. 2021),
albeit there is no parallel research on the impact of the pandemic on private
security staff. What is also known is that both public sector and private
sector police have experienced high death rates from COVID-19. The
Industrial Injuries Advisory Council (2021) found that males working in the
private security sector had death rates of over three times the national
average and male police officers (below inspector rank) had over six times
the national average. In each case, these mortality rates were higher than
those of nurses were. In England and Wales, the TCSEW variously includes
questions on public perceptions of policing under lockdown. This reveals
that in England and Wales during August 2020 91% of adults were satisfied
with the way local police were responding to the coronavirus outbreak and
that there was general support for police powers that were available to help
enforce new laws, such as on-the-spot fines for people found out of their
homes without a good reason (72%) and police-enforced curfews (67%)
(Office for National Statistics 2020c). The government’s Opinions and
Lifestyle Survey (OPN) covering the same period found that 69% of adults
thought that the police should be strict in enforcing the new rules, although
only 15% thought the police were enforcing the rules strictly (Office for
National Statistics 2020d).
This data, of course, is limited to England and Wales. However, despite
increases in policy transference there are marked variations between nations
in both legal and police systems (Mawby 2018). Moreover, just as the
extent of COVID-19 and the health- and economic-based responses have
varied between countries, so legislative and policing responses have
differed (Godwin 2020; Roche 2020).
Various commentators have pointed to key differences in the functions,
structure and legitimacy of the police in different countries to draw
comparisons between police systems that are more control-oriented and
those that are more service-oriented (Mawby 2018). In the former, clearly,
non-democratic police systems have been decisively used to enforce the
policing of health initiatives, whether through advanced technology
(Magnay 2020; Rapoza 2020; Reevell 2020; Roth 2020) or through more
traditional militaristic or ideologically dominated police institutions, as in
Iran (The New Arab 2020), Iraq (Watkins 2020) and the PRC (Li 2020),
illustrate the refocusing of already powerful police systems on enforcing
new ‘lockdown laws’. Similar examples can be found in the EU, where
relatively new democracies have arguably used the pandemic to hasten a
return to more traditional control-dominated policing, Hungary being a case
in point (Williamson 2020).
However, in some ways policing the lockdown has underscored historic
concerns about the reality of democratic policing. The philosophy of
community policing thus almost inevitably glosses over the fact that
societies are comprised of a multitude of communities, with different
lifestyles and priorities as well as different histories of police-public
interaction. Policing during the pandemic inevitably raises issues
concerning whether communities are being policed equally (Grace 2020).
Given the primacy of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and the
unequal impact of COVID-19 on Black Asian Minority and Ethnic
(BAME) communities (Public Health England 2020), ethnicity has been a
focal point of critiques of the discriminatory application of new police
powers (Amnesty International 2020; Boffey 2020). But differences
according to, inter alia, age, class and region are also important.
Some, like Sheptycki (2020) see the pandemic as accelerating a shift to
more authoritarian and totalitarian police systems, but it is important to
recognise that alongside the concerns of more radical organisations like
Amnesty International (2020) and Human Rights Watch (2020) much of the
hostile reaction to lockdowns has been orchestrated by the hard right, with
liberal support for increased police powers and more proactive policing, as
long as it is proportionate, fair, and time-limited. Moreover, while the extent
to which the police throughout the UK have used their new powers varies
markedly (McVie 2020), there is no evidence that the police have embraced
them with any enthusiasm, and as noted above, during the first and second
lockdowns most transgressions were handled informally. However, both
police and policing have changed in a number of ways.
In some cases, this has involved the reorganisation of police structures
to address new issues. Thus, many police forces have created new specialist
units to enforce lockdown laws. For example, by November 2020 Devon
and Cornwall Police reported having ten dedicated COVID patrol cars
operating across the force area (Eve 2020). Alongside this, new
technologies have been deployed: for example, facial recognition
technology (Reevell 2020; Roth 2020) and number plate recognition
cameras to track illegal movements and smartphone technology to plot
transmission of the virus. In the former case, the police use of drones, in
Paris (Schippers 2020) and Yorkshire (Pidd and Dodd 2020) proved
controversial and was stopped, unlike in Russia (Rapoza 2020). In the case
of smartphone technology (a notable failure in the UK) in contrast, the
technology has been introduced to track the disease but what was less
controversial in more authoritarian regimes such as South Korea has raised
concerns among the public regarding its retention and future use by policing
agencies against known offenders and terrorist suspects (Human Rights
Watch 2020). The use of advanced technologies in Russia, for example
(Reevell 2020; Roth 2020) is a salutary reminder of such dangers.
Perhaps of more significance in Western democracies are a reinvention
of plural policing developments that expanded at the beginning of the
century (Jones and Newburn 2006; O’Neill and Fyffe 2017) but were
curtailed with cuts to policing budgets. It is well established that the public
police do not have a monopoly over policing. In fact, there are a number of
alternative informal and formal bodies involved in the policing enterprise,
and the COVID-19 pandemic has brought new momentum to many of
these. They include in the UK police units controlled by local government,
private sector security, policing by the general public, and policing by other
public sector agencies.
Local government developments. In England, many local governments
introduced new units to control public behaviour. In October 2020 the
government announced that it would be funding local councils to support
the employment of Covid marshals or street marshals to advise and
support members of the public and businesses on following social
distancing rules (Aitken 2020; BBC News 2020b). Whilst a survey of
some local councils by the BBC found that less than a third of councils
were employing or intending to employ marshals, some deployed
existing council staff as marshals, wardens or ‘city hosts’. In other areas,
volunteers had been deployed. Elsewhere existing staff had been
reassigned to work as marshals or ‘street ambassadors’. These agents
may have limited powers but they can call on the public police for
assistance.
Private sector security. The role of the private sector in security has
expanded dramatically in many western democracies (Jones and
Newburn 2006). Perhaps not surprisingly, then, in some areas street
marshals have been subcontracted by local authorities from private
security firms, as in Leamington Spa2 Rather differently, the requirement
for those arriving from abroad to quarantine in hotels means that hotel
security staff have assumed new responsibilities. In Australia this has
raised much controversy, with guards accused of being COVID-spreaders
(Manfield 2021; Thiessen 2020), and while the English scheme
announced in February 2021 differs in crucial respects a considerable
onus of responsibility lies with private security staff (Shukman 2021).
Other aspects of policing that are handled by the private sector have
attained added significance where specific offences have increased
during lockdown: in England and Wales, for example, while online fraud
is coordinated by the City of London Police the service is subcontracted
to the private sector contractor Concentrix. However, the role of the
private sector extends far beyond the deployment of specialist security
personnel. In introducing the requirement for shoppers to wear face-
 masks, the English government made it clear that the responsibility for
policing in shops lies with the shops’ management. This widened the
duties of store security guards, but also added a new onus of
responsibility for other staff in stores and also for small-shopkeepers.
Informal guardianship. Additionally, there are calls on the public to
exert their influence by reporting neighbour-transgressors, adding a new
layer to the guardianship concept discussed earlier. Overall, though, we
have a policing responsibility conferred on many who did not ask for or
want it. While the UK government has emitted mixed messages
regarding moral obligations to report lockdown transgressors (Hinde
2020), unsurprisingly there is a reluctance among shopkeepers to ‘snitch’
on customers and residents to ‘snitch’ on neighbours, and where they do
this may accentuate conflict.
Clearly, the police in different nations have had to adjust to a different
crime and disorder context, with many crimes decreasing but others
becoming more common. At the same time, additional responsibilities mean
that they have been engaged in different contexts, involving both peace
keeping and control, often with minimal guidance and an ambiguous legal
foundation. The situation is perhaps even more contentious for others drawn
into the policing process, invariably with even less legal guidance and often
without any willingness to inhabit the ‘front-line’. Overall, policing the
pandemic has inevitably led to conflict with different publics with different
perspectives on the threat posed by COVID-19, the moral and legal bases
for lockdown, and views on citizens’ rights. Moreover, it is arguable that
this will have at least as great a long-term impact.

Future Crime and Disorder Possibilities

With regard to crime there appears to be an assumption of a ‘back to the
future’ scenario where post-pandemic crime will broadly correspond to pre-
pandemic crime. However, this is by no means certain. On the one hand, if
unemployment remains at higher levels than pre-lockdown, the pressures
towards offending will remain high. Moreover, the increases in public
disorder that followed the lifting of restrictions post-lockdown1 might be
expected to resurface post-lockdown3. Returning to the SPOTT model
described earlier:
 Spatial Context: Will crime in real space remain lower than pre-
lockdown or will offenders return to their former offending patterns? In
this context, will crime in virtual space (Internet or phone) which had
been rising in recent years become the strategy of choice for many
offenders?
Physical Location: while most crime is committed locally we might
expect those who have restricted their ‘journey to offend’ to return to
their previous behaviours.
Offence Type: Similarly, we might anticipate a return to previous levels
for domestic burglary, other thefts and so on. However, this does not
necessarily imply that other offences that have become more frequent
will be abandoned, especially if they were committed by ‘newcomers’.
Technique: Moreover, if offences like distraction burglary have been a
successful modus operandi, it is feasible that they will retain popularity.
Target: Will those who shifted from targeting households to targeting
businesses revert to their previous crimes-of-choice?
From a policing perspective, this implies that resources need to be
flexibly managed to meet both a return to former crime patterns and an
expansion of crime in virtual space or using new techniques. However, the
social context of policing has also changed. The role of the police and other
agencies in policing the lockdown, combined with the restrictions on public
protest in England and Wales envisaged in the Police, Crime, Sentencing
and Courts Bill (2021), provide a perfect storm for further protests from a
range of social groups and protest movements. Added to which, policing
measures to prevent a new surge in infections suggest that the ‘new normal’
is far removed from the old one, and that just as public health measures
adopted in response to the pandemic will in part continue, so will the
policing of these measures (Parkman 2021).
There is, therefore, a real possibility that police/public relations in the
UK will deteriorate to levels not seen since the Miners’ Strike of the early
1980s and, given the enhanced role of plural policing in the meantime, local
government employees, private security, and other public factions will
feature in escalating public confrontations. This may be a pessimistic
forecast but it is by no means an unlikely one.

Recommended Readings
While the theories underpinning crime pattern changes under the lockdown
are well covered, almost all the research on crime and policing during the
pandemic is ongoing. Readers should therefore consult online sources,
particularly through UCL (https://covid19-crime.com/) and the pan-
Yorkshire universities WhiteRose website (White Rose Research Online).
In England and Wales, the Office for National Statistics website provides a
wealth of data on crime in general and crime and public attitudes towards
crime and policing.

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Footnotes
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2 Leamington Spa Street Marshals (warwick.ac.uk), accessed 12 February 2021.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_5

5. Forensic Intelligence and Traceology in

Digitalised Environments: The Detection
and Analysis of Crime Patterns to Inform
Practice
Olivier Ribaux1 , Simon Baechler1 and Quentin Rossy1
(1) Ecole des Sciences Criminelles, University of Lausanne, Lausanne,
Switzerland

Olivier Ribaux (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Simon Baechler
Email: [email protected]

Quentin Rossy
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
Different data processing methods can support the detection and analysis of
various forms of crime patterns. The authors document the influence and
role of forensic science and how this has been transformed by digitalization.
Forensic intelligence is key and they illustrate their argument of its potential
by discussing two new forensic intelligence systems and their underlying
digital infrastructure, one facilitating the forensic comparison of fraudulent
ID documents (ProFID) and the other the monitoring of online frauds
(PICSEL).
Introduction: Forensic Science and Security
Since the 1970s a range of innovative policing practices have been
developed under the umbrella of different proactive policing models which
have been defined as, All policing strategies that have as one of their goals
the prevention or reduction of crime and disorder and that are not reactive
in terms of focussing primarily on uncovering ongoing crime or on
investigating or responding to crimes once they have occurred (Weisburd
and Majmundar 2018, p. 1).
This definition provides a useful framework for situating forensic
science. At first glance, forensic science clearly positions itself outside
proactive models, by limiting its contribution to responding to crimes once
they have occurred. It focusses on providing services to the criminal justice
system and assisting in the management of scientific information in
investigative processes and court proceedings. It is implemented through
forensic science laboratories, borrows methods and techniques from the
natural and physical sciences (e.g. chemistry, biology, biochemistry,
physics), and translates the analytical results obtained in a way that makes
sense to a court of law.
Biased scientific expertise provided in specific high-profile cases has
given rise to the general idea that the way forensic science is implemented
contributes to miscarriages of justice (NAS 2009). The forensic science
community has been urged by the legal profession to focus on the scientific
substance of the results it provides to assist courts in making better
decisions.
Currently, the process of digitalisation has added a layer of complexity
to forensic science and the way it is used (Pollitt 2010). The extended
traceability of human behaviour in the digital world has gradually brought
digital forensic scientists to the centre of many investigations, at the
expense of traditional crime investigators.
Others within the criminological movement have questioned the value
of forensic science (Doleac 2016; Julian et al. 2011; Wilson et al. 2011), but
such evaluations have been partial in their coverage, typically measuring
only specific elements of processes that are inherently multidisciplinary and
intertwined.
For example, some have focussed on the direct value of DNA processes
and databases, which are often considered the flagships of the discipline.
These studies have mainly assessed a number of detections: in how many
cases has a DNA profile extracted from a biological trace at a crime scene
have been linked to a person’s DNA profile by the DNA database, possibly
leading to prosecution (Brown and Ross 2012; Brown et al. 2014). The
findings from these evaluations dampened the initial enthusiasm for DNA
and associated databases because they appeared to contribute to solving a
very small percentage of both serious crimes (Brodeur 2008) and high
volume crimes (Amankwaa and McCartney 2019; Brown and Ross 2012).
Studies to measure the effectiveness of databases in aiding policing are
much more difficult to design than those which focus solely on crime
detection (e.g. crime reduction). It is even questionable whether such
evaluations make sense in the absence of a framework that would allow a
broader set of contributions to be clearly expressed and isolated
(Amankwaa and McCartney 2019; Doleac 2016; Ribaux et al. 2017; Wilson
et al. 2011). This observation extends to other areas of forensic science as it
is difficult to accurately measure the added value of each forensic process
and technology implemented independent of the other factors that may
contribute to an outcome (De Ceuster et al. 2012).
Therefore, it makes sense to step back from the standard reactive model
used to express the value of forensic science in policing (Ribaux et al.
2017). While early research recognised significant potential for forensic
science to contribute to solving repetitive and high volume crimes (Tilley
and Ford 1996), it has emerged that most organisations fail to effectively
integrate different elements of forensic science into emerging proactive
policing processes.
The concept of forensic intelligence (Ribaux et al. 2006) assumes that,
beyond the basic function of explaining a single event from the past,
forensic information also contributes to detecting crime patterns and
generally supports a more comprehensive analysis of crime for supporting
proactive policing.
Furthermore, in the age of digitalisation, we argue that a trace-based
(forensic) crime analysis model, which we discuss in this chapter, can take a
central role in proactive policing. This model takes into account the strong
interactions between criminal (or unusual) activities and the substrate
(physical, IT infrastructures) on which they take place. The resulting
traceability changes the nature of crime analysis. In particular, it
exponentially increases the volume and variety of traces available
indicating human behaviours, and, consequently, demand more focus on the
protection of fundamental freedoms and privacy.
This chapter begins with a definition of forensic science based on the
concept of the trace (Margot 2014) providing the foundation of the model
we outline. Then, we use three concrete operational systems to demonstrate
how the information conveyed by the trace can merge with other pieces of
information to improve crime analysis in proactive models. All three
systems have been previously implemented in different Swiss jurisdictions.
They result from multiple forensic intelligence research projects initiated at
the School of Criminal Justice of the University of Lausanne involving
close collaboration between academia and the professional field. All the
systems presented are integrated and managed by the police organisations
involved. The first system covers high volume crimes. The second focusses
on a new forensic methodology that processes physical and digital features
of fraudulent identity and travel documents to reveal the activity of serial
forgers and criminal networks. The third is a recently initiated crime
analysis system for online fraud that highlights the progress being made by
digital techniques in informing crime analysis.

Forensic Science, Traceology and Crime Analysis

Forensic science consists of detecting, observing, measuring and
interpreting traces resulting from unusual events. In this context, ‘unusual’
denotes harmful disruptions to the regular course of events and primarily
involves human activities that violate a law or rule. In terms of security,
socially deviant behaviours, as well as natural and technical phenomena that
cause damage and destabilise a community, are also part of the events of
interest. For example, explaining the cause of a fire (natural, technical or
human) from debris is a central forensic activity.
The forensic trace is the result of an analogue or digital change in a
physical or virtual environment caused by these kinds of events. It can be
material (e.g. a shoeprint, an object, a sound) or immaterial (e.g. a change
produced by inappropriate use of a computer program) (Pollitt et al. 2018).
According to (Margot 2014), important characteristics of the forensic
trace include the following: (1) its existence is independent of an observer;
(2) it comes from a singular event in the past that can neither be reproduced
nor reconstructed with certainty; (3) when caused by human activity, it has
generally been unintentionally created or transferred; (4) it is imperfect in
nature (fragmentary, degraded), and the imprecision of its measurement
depends on the reliability and accuracy of the instruments and the quality of
observations made; (5) the representativeness of the traces detected among
the traces actually created by the event is unknown; (6) it is a sign of a
presence of an object/a person or a sign of an activity/event.
The term ‘trace evidence’, which is often used to refer to the treatment
of minute amounts of fibre, glass or paint chips, is particularly misleading.
The association of minute quantities of materials with trace evidence is
based on chemical definitions that are not adequate for forensic purposes. In
our definition, a trace is a physical or digital remnant of an unusual event,
regardless of its size or shape. In addition, most of the traces recovered
from crime scenes are never interpreted as evidence in the context of a court
trial. The information traces conveyed are typically used in other
investigative processes or for providing knowledge about the mechanisms
underlying events of interest (e.g. modus operandi, chronologies or links
between events and crimes).
The totality of traces linked to an event help to provide answers to
quintilian questions of who, when, where, what, how, with what, and can
occasionally explain why. Deciphering these traces therefore belongs to a
logical process of reconstruction to find the best possible explanations for
the traces collected (see Fig. 5.1).
Fig. 5.1 (1) unusual events cause traces. (2) Resulting traces are collected when the crime scene is
investigated. (3) Explanations are sought (reconstruction). (4) Conclusions feed the standard process
(legal characterisation of an activity) or proactive policing models (actionable knowledge about the
unusual event)

This process of interpretation is at the heart of forensic methodology. It

works in cycles by imagining possible explanations (hypotheses) for the
traces collected and then testing them through experimentation or further
observation (hypothetico-deductive).
The volume and diversity of these traces increase dramatically when the
traceability of human activities in the physical world is added to the
traceability resulting from the use of information and communication
infrastructures. This radically changes the relative importance of the data to
be processed in criminal investigations but also impacts all forms of
understanding of crime, behaviour and the events that cause harm.
 Traceology is forensic science that focusses on traces. As such, it
belongs to the family of historical sciences which help to explain singular
past events (Cleland 2011). However, it also feeds more inductive processes
(generalisation) that generate knowledge and models that enable proactivity.
The use of the term ‘traceology’ carves a new space for forensic science
beyond its legal conception, that could become the cornerstone that
underpins many processes in criminal investigation, crime analysis, law
enforcement and various fields of criminology more generally.
To illustrate this perspective, three different concrete systems of trace-
based crime analysis integrating new digital aspects are presented. Their
architecture is generic, but the framework on which they were developed,
the Swiss police system, was of great importance in determining their
current state.
These example systems are implemented in a police environment, but
this approach based on traceability goes far beyond the police. The
approach can provide a basis for dealing with a wide variety of security-
related problems in many other areas covered by private or public actors
(Rossy et al. 2018).

Context of the Three Projects: Decentralised

Forensic Activities
Switzerland is a small federal country in the centre of Europe that is not
easy to manage in terms of security. It is composed of more than 30 police
organisations of different sizes, each with a high degree of autonomy in
policing. Citizens speak four different official languages, as well as
numerous dialects. Most forensic activities are integrated into the 26 states’
police organisations (Ribaux 2019).
This high degree of decentralisation has methodological consequences
and means that relatively small, non-specialised units covering both crime
scene investigations and basic laboratory functions have a major influence
on police work; this contrasts with the more centralised forensic laboratory
models implemented in many other countries that offer more specialised
services and radically changes the way traces are used in the daily work of
the police. On the one hand, this approach offers more flexibility in the use
of traces. On the other hand, such a structure makes it more difficult to
harmonise the processing and exchange of information between
jurisdictions. This becomes relevant when considering the following three
trace-based crime analysis systems.

System 1: Physical Traces and the Analysis of

High Volume Crimes
In the early 1990s, the police felt that the collapse of the Berlin Wall had
changed something in the structure of crime in Central Europe (Gerber and
Killias 2003). More transnational crimes were emerging, and victimisation
surveys clearly showed that, slightly out of step with other Western
countries than Switzerland, house burglaries and other thefts had doubled in
less than a decade (Killias et al. 2007).
Due to the fragmented nature of the police crime recording system, it
was difficult to obtain an accurate picture of these developments. This
difficulty was the catalyst for six police forces in Western Switzerland,
covering a population of 2.5 million people, to regionalise their crime
analysis system. Traditional crime analysis models (Clarke and Eck 2005)
were progressively integrated with forensic intelligence practices borrowed
from the UK (Birkett 1989).
As with early versions of intelligence-led policing (Ratcliffe 2016), the
original idea was to target prolific offenders and coordinate investigations
of them, such as by detecting and analysing the activity of a single offender
or group of offenders and avoiding separate investigations where cases
could be linked. This approach has led to many investigative leads that have
ultimately resulted in the identification, location and arrest of multiple
offenders.
This crime analysis and forensic intelligence service quickly went far
beyond simply providing investigative support. It currently operates a
shared database named PICAR,1 which has gradually become a hub
covering many forms of repetitive crime, such as violent and sexual
offences, arsons and computer-based serial crimes. These approaches
enable the crime analysis and forensic intelligence service to play a broader
role in proactive strategies, for example, by orienting police patrols or
proposing other types of measures (crime disruption and prevention).
Many local incidents are detected quickly due to the numerous
opportunities for exchanging information between forensic scientists
themselves or investigators (e.g. various meetings or more informal
exchanges). Series of offences that cross jurisdictions, or which present less
common modus operandi characteristics, were found to be more likely to be
discovered through systematic comparisons of the traces collected.
Similarities between these characteristics sometimes indicate repeat activity
by the same offender(s), without necessarily indicating who the offenders
are. Initially, the traces used were mainly shoe, tool, glove and ear marks
(Ribaux et al. 2003), although this has been extended over time to include
DNA profiles (through a national database), CCTV images from various
contexts and other digital traces.
Trace analysis informs the crime analysis process by systematically
linking crimes and interpreting modus operandi. Conversely, crime analysis
informs crime scene interventions by providing a consolidated view of the
crime environment, patterns, situational elements and modus operandi
(Ressnikoff et al. 2015).

Case Study
Links provided by the Swiss centralised DNA databases led to the detection
of a particularly interesting pattern. The same DNA profile coming from
biological traces collected from separate burglaries indicated that the same
offender was present in two periods separated by two years. A very simple
geographical analysis of those cases showed a common characteristic: they
were aligned but dispersed all along the Swiss border with France and
Germany. The existence of this previously unknown pattern was confirmed
by other sources of data (e.g. shoe marks, other DNA profiles, comparison
of modus operandi, etc.). The analysis of the available information was
further examined along two different axes. Firstly, the analysis of the
immediate physical and social environment of the dwellings and factories
led to many prevention initiatives being started and better coordinated.
Secondly, from an investigative perspective, these collective approaches led
to the discovery that a group of international criminals specialising in this
type of burglary were responsible.

Results in Numbers
It is inherently difficult—if not impossible—to measure the effects of such
a system on crime reduction or its benefits to public perception of security
(Boba Santos 2014). The whole methodology, as well as its associated
computerised system (PICAR), have developed and evolved over time. The
structure of crime has also changed during the same period.
Rossy et al. (2013) undertook a statistical overview of different crime
activities supposed to be perpetrated by a single offender or multiple co-
offenders from 2009 to 2011. At that time, half of the series detected (i.e.
two or more linked cases) were cross-jurisdictional; this confirmed the high
degree of mobility of thieves and fraudsters, which contrasted somewhat
with the common notion that offenders were more local. One third of the
crime series were detected by traces (i.e. traces constituted the first link
detected), mainly shoe marks, DNA profiles and images (e.g. extracted
from CCTV). These series ranged from two related cases to over 100 cases.
The number of crime series detected was relatively high (e.g. 22% of
robberies were considered to be part of a series). However, the crime
analysis and forensic intelligence system did not allow the detection of all
crimes in the series and probably yielded much lower figures than the actual
concentration of these crimes.
More recent research indicates some positive evolutions of this trace-
based crime analysis system.2 The six states that joined forces, like many
countries, are experiencing a marked decrease in high volume crime,
undergoing an approximately 60% drop in dwelling and shop burglaries
since 2011, with about 10,000 cases recorded in the region by 2019.
Approximately 2500 crime series (from two cases linked up to several
hundred cases linked) were detected in 2019, with 30% of the repeats
detected through the use of traces (314 by shoe marks, 221 by images, 120
by DNA and 13 by various traces). Half of the crime repetitions or series
detected covered more than one jurisdiction. Interestingly, traces can
provide links even to extremely temporally and spatially distant cases. The
progression over the last 10 years is striking, especially when looking at
CCTV images, which help detect more repeats than the comparison of
DNA profiles extracted from biological traces, identifying four times more
repetitions than nine years ago even while the number of cases has more
than halved. This efficiency can be interpreted as a consequence of a much
more systematic use of the methodology, relevant collection and processing
of information from the crime scene to the crime analysis department, and
the effects of digitalisation through the increasing use of CCTV and other
images.
System 2: Forensic Document Examination and
the Analysis of Identity Frauds
A totally different type of concentration of crime can be deciphered using a
similar trace-based approach, namely the manufacture, distribution and use
of fraudulent identity and travel documents (Baechler and Margot 2016). A
false identity can be a powerful crime enabler, used in contexts ranging
from petty crimes (e.g. obtaining a service) to the most organised and
threatening offences (e.g. human trafficking, serious fraud or terrorism;
Europol, 2017). Fraudulent documents can be used to deceive various
stakeholders in many situations both in the public sector (i.e. to cross a
border, identify yourself during a police check, register with an
administration to access welfare) and the private sector (i.e. to board a
plane, open a bank account, rent a vehicle).
In a standard law enforcement model, when a fraudulent identity
document is found, it is confiscated and the holder is charged with a
specific crime. The false document is then destroyed or archived with the
offender’s file. Each fraudulent document, however, has another use in that
it conveys information about its manufacturing process. Compared
systematically with other seized documents using forensic methods, one can
detect the repetition of a modus operandi, revealing the ‘trademark’ of a
forger or of a criminal network (e.g. a combination of repeated printing
defects or spelling errors in the texts). Such information has significant
value in terms of intelligence from strategic to operational levels (Baechler
and Margot 2016).
Given the value of analysing documents, a trace-based method was
developed to process, manage and systematically compare features of
fraudulent identity documents and is now implemented in the same region
within the same legal framework as PICAR (system 1 described in the
section above).
The development of the trace-based method started in 2007 and rapidly
became a PhD research project (Baechler 2015). Beyond the methodology
itself, a prototype, in the form of a basic database named ProFID (standing
for Profiling Fraudulent ID documents) was quickly developed. Gradually,
new functionalities and improvements made it possible to focus on the most
promising characteristics of the documents. The database saves time on
tasks such as data entry or comparisons of documents (e.g. automatic image
processing) and facilitates the use of a computer vision-based classification
algorithm. Profiling digital images of documents has enabled the transition
from processing physical traces only (observations of documents
themselves) to combining physical and digitised traces. The detected
repetitions, also called series, provide insights regarding how forgers and
criminal networks operate.
Beyond assisting investigations and crime analysis efforts, the
transversal analysis of series and their associated patterns provides guidance
to (1) law enforcement agencies and private sector stakeholders in targeting
the search for fraudulent documents in the field (e.g. at the border, during
police checks, at the counter of a bank, at the gate of an airport), (2) the
security document industry on how to design more secure documents.
The full integration of the methodology and the ProFID system into an
appropriate, intelligence-led process remains a challenge. One of the
reasons for this difficulty is that document fraud is an enabler of multiple
forms of crimes and deviant behaviours that may fall within the competence
of separated units, agencies and organisations, both public and private. It is
therefore technically as well as administratively challenging to create a
sufficiently fluid process that crosses these organisational barriers. This is a
characteristic example of (1) the tension between the traditional law
enforcement model imposing a siloed organisational structure and proactive
policing models that require a more transversal and multidisciplinary
approach, and (2) the lack of workable models for partnerships between the
state and private sectors.

Case Study
Thanks to the trace-based ProFID system, a dozen counterfeit drivers’
licenses from Country A were linked based on the detection of similar
features, despite the fact that the cases were scattered across all the states of
Western Switzerland and the documents seized under various
circumstances. In some cases, people holding the fraudulent documents had
caused car accidents with severe consequences. The trace-based profiling
pointed first to a common manufacturing origin and then to the activity of
an organised group of offenders. The counterfeit drivers’ licenses were all
held by nationals of Country B, a foreign country. The investigation
revealed that they met the fraudulent documents providers during
integration language classes.
 This result was a surprise to law enforcement agencies as well as
government departments since false documents from Country A had never
appeared to be a problem before, and nationals from Country B were not
regarded as likely offenders. Beyond a joint investigation aimed at
dismantling the network, preventive measures have been proposed. They
aim to both deter nationals of Country B from resorting to document fraud
as well as to enable police and administrative personnel to further improve
the detection of fraudulent documents. Quickly, the series was stopped.
Thus, the trace-based crime analysis approach had an impact not only on
crime detection but also on road safety. It also might have helped to deter
other potential offenders.

Results in Numbers
From April 2017 to February 2021, 2400 fraudulent documents were
entered into the ProFID database by police forces from eight different Swiss
states as well as the federal police. Of these, 50% of the documents were
linked and grouped into 178 series. The largest series consists of 160
documents. Interestingly, even based on this limited dataset and region,
these results indicate a high concentration of fraudulent document
production. The use of the methodology resulted in the initiation of several
international investigations of high-profile forms of crime, shedding light
on transnational organised groups the presence and scope of which were not
previously recognised. An exploratory study on the use of the ProFID
system at the international level revealed promising results, with links
detected for about 20% of fraudulent documents seized by law enforcement
agencies from two different countries. Based on those results, several
organisations are now considering deploying the ProFID system at the
European and international levels.

System 3: Internet Traces and the Analysis of

High Volume Online Crimes
The size, extent and evolution of online fraud have recently been made
visible through higher victimisation rates across countries (Reep-van den
Bergh and Junger 2018). Some may argue that the police should not
conduct a crime analysis project in this digital area. Rather, the task might
be left to actors in online private security such as e-commerce platforms or
other online service providers.
The hypothesis that private companies are supposed to analyse online
crime is supported by at least three arguments. (1) Online crime analysis is
supposedly carried out through publicly available reporting infrastructures,
such as Action Fraud in the UK (Levi et al. 2017). These platforms are
generally not operated by the police, which results in the increased
fragmentation of relevant data. (2) Cybercrimes are global; local or regional
police thus have a limited role to play. (3) These offences are closely related
to cybersecurity issues and cyber-risks. Countries have put comprehensive
models in place and built new structures to address these risks focussing on
protecting their infrastructure, increasing their resilience and responding to
incidents (CMM 2016). The police seem to have only a subsidiary role to
play in this new landscape.
Nevertheless, these arguments present valid reasons for greater police
involvement. Firstly, the police cannot be uninformed regarding what
accounts for approximately half of the crimes committed. They must more
fully understand their own data, even if it is only representative of what is
reported to the police. A virtuous circle can result given that better
recording and analysis increases knowledge about the harm caused and
improves contact with the public, which will be more inclined to report
crimes. Crime analysis can then indicate new proactive ways to disrupt
certain crime mechanisms, reduce harm, orient priorities in investigations,
develop new forms of prevention and open channels of communication with
institutional and private partners as well as the public. Secondly, online
frauds can take advantage of vulnerabilities specific to local systems or
routine activities (Leukfeldt et al. 2019). Online crime analysis must thus be
performed at all geographical levels covered by the different police.
Thirdly, early cybersecurity models incorporated forensic and investigative
considerations (Kent et al. 2006), but in an incidental way that failed to take
full advantage of police and forensic experience on conducting
investigations and the knowledge gained through in-depth and detailed
analysis of individual cases (Casey and Nikkel 2020). Finally, private
companies can only monitor threats to their own or their customers’ assets,
which prevents them from seeing the full extent of the problems. The police
force is in the best position to fill this gap.
 The third system of trace-based crime analysis was developed in the
same geographical territory using the same agreement and legal basis
between the state police forces as the systems presented above (Rossy and
Ribaux 2020). The need to establish an adequate intelligence process to
handle online fraud involves the entire organisation in all levels, from the
field officer, who may have difficulty recognising the problems when
registering complaints, to management, which needs an overall vision to
define adequate strategies. A process has therefore been put in place to train
field officers to identify the main online crime phenomena that even victims
sometimes barely understand. Current processes and most existing
classification systems are inadequate for this purpose. Thus, a very
simplified classification system has been developed that makes it possible
to recognise the main types of online fraud. Experience has shown that a
complaint report must be quick to compile and easy to understand to initiate
a virtuous circle aimed at gradually increasing knowledge of the types of
frauds.
Reports are then monitored by crime analysts to detect and analyse
series and trends. They provide relevant and timely intelligence for different
levels of the organisation as well as establish a dialogue with partners.
Indeed, the process not only aims to identify suspects but may also lead to
proactive measures in collaboration with private companies, as illustrated in
the case study below.
The translation of this methodology into a computerised system is still
in the early stages. A very simple database named PICSEL3 was developed
to gather and codify this information, most of which is based on Internet
traces. Many difficulties still need to be overcome, but encouraging results
thus far include increased awareness and knowledge throughout the
organisation, better communication with the public and with other relevant
communities, a shift towards a more proactive attitude, and changes in
priorities.
The detection of crime repetitions in the database has various
objectives. For example, targeted public information campaigns can be
established when an emerging problem is detected. Strategies to disrupt
crime by shutting down illegal websites or accounts operated on online
platforms are increasingly being used. Crime analysis also provides
guidance in more traditional police investigations. Moreover, the detection
of cross-jurisdictional series helps to regroup cases, concentrate efforts and
limit parallel (and occasionally contradictory) initiatives between the state’s
different police bodies in dealing with the same problem.

Case Study
The centralisation of cases at the regional level led to the detection of a
significant number of cases of online shopping frauds (coupled with well-
known advance fees schemes) from the same e-commerce platform.
Contacts were made between the police and the platform’s anti-fraud
department in order to alert them to cases that had passed through their
existing detection filters. A global analysis of the cases allowed the police
to reconstruct the simple but surprisingly clever modus operandi deployed
by the fraudsters. The offenders initially created ads with legitimate content
that passed through the automatic filter. In a second step, they modified the
ads to match their fraud scenario (e.g. a hot-product sold at a discounted
price). When the ad was modified, the fraud filter did not check again,
thereby allowing the ads to reach their target. Once the modus operandi was
reconstructed, the filtering process was updated, and suspicious ads and
accounts were deleted. The impact was immediate. The number of cases
reported to the police about the platform was reduced by three quarters,
without observing any obvious displacement to another online platform. In
this example, police strategies were not oriented towards case detection but
towards disrupting the offenders via a hardening of the environment to
reduce opportunities.

Results in Numbers
A preliminary study based on the cases registered by one state police
service was conducted in 2018 (Rossy and Ribaux 2020). In 2020, the
PICSEL database was still in a pilot phase, but used by eight police
organisations. From January 2019 to September 2020, approximately 7500
cases were registered by analysts. More than 85% were frauds, two thirds of
which were related to e-commerce. Basic digital traces such as emails,
accounts and ads from e-commerce platforms, social media profiles and
other suspicious website URLs are systematically collected. Although the
process is in its early stages, many links have been found by analysing
information indicating identities extracted from these Internet traces.
Globally, around 6000 pseudonyms, 4100 email addresses, 2700 phone
numbers, 2700 bank accounts, 900 IP addresses, 700 URLs and 200
cryptocurrency wallets were registered. Of these, 360 clusters of cases
(from two to more than 1000 linked cases), that is 62% of the total, were
detected. Two thirds of the crime repetitions detected covered more than
one jurisdiction. Around 100 series were registered by the analysts based on
the detected links, and at least one fifth led to a criminal investigation.
Moreover, multiple crime prevention messages were disseminated to online
platforms, targeted companies.

Conclusion
Forensic science has much to offer proactive policing, and much of the
potential benefit has yet to be capitalised on. Traceology, as defined in this
chapter, feeds inductive processes that create knowledge and models about
numerous crime mechanisms and their environments. Digital
transformations of crime and the related expansion of human traceability
should make this approach much more central in policing. It could even
become the cornerstone that underpins many processes in proactive policing
models as well as creates a clear link between crime analysis and the
investigation of serial crimes. To illustrate these perspectives, three
different concrete systems of trace-based crime analysis model were
presented.
These systems and their underlying methodology and deployment
environments are oriented towards the transition to proactive policing
models. It is evident that policing in a digital age goes far beyond the
development of computerised systems. A whole methodology must be
elaborated to gather and analyse information in a transversal way to ensure
the translation of analysis results into a rational set of measures and to
monitor their effectiveness. Traceology can foster cross-sectional crime
analysis that overcomes the fragmentation implied by the standard model of
policing and its organisational structures. In this increasingly digital
landscape, the police remain a central actor with practical experience that is
still not captured well in the cybersecurity models used by many
stakeholders. Efforts to better express traceology and its potential in
proactive policing models aim to facilitate such an integration.

Recommended Readings
To expand the debate around criticism of forensic science in the standard
model, the report of the National Academy of Sciences in the US (NAS
2009) and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology’s
report (PCAST 2016) are basic texts. Comments placing traceology at the
forefront of the debate can be found in Margot (2011) or Roux et al. (2012).
A working group within the US Organization of Scientific Area
Committees for Forensic Science (OSAC) has published a report that
proposes an integration of digital forensics with forensic science on the
basis of the concept of trace (Pollitt et al. 2018). This report lays the
groundwork for a new framework in which human digital traceability can
be integrated with policing issues (Casey and Nikkel 2020; Casey et al.
2018).
The various contributions in Fraser’s and William’s Handbook of
Forensic Science (Fraser and Williams 2009) express the complexity of the
use of traces in investigations. This complexity is also reflected in the series
of works that emerged from an ambitious project in Australia led by Julian
et al. (2011) on the effectiveness of forensic science.
By putting forensic science and proactive policing into perspective,
Williams’ contribution (Williams 2007) complements Tilley and Ford’s
initial study (Tilley and Ford 1996). Frameworks for the integration of
forensic science with crime analysis were outlined in a series of papers
from the late 1990s (Ribaux and Margot 1999). A summary of current
discourse is proposed in The Routledge International Handbook of Forensic
Intelligence and Criminology (Rossy et al. 2018).
The US National Institute of Justice has published a report on
integrating forensic case data in intelligence processes that is largely based
on studies cited in this chapter (Lopez et al. 2020).

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Footnotes
1 PICAR is an acronym in French: Plateforme d’Information du CICOP pour l’Analyse et le
Renseignement

2 Annual activity report of the regional analysis centre, 2019, not published, personal
communication.

3 PICSEL is an acronym in French: Plateforme d’Information de la Criminalité Sérielle en Ligne

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_6

6. Changing Threats and Challenges in

International Relations: Debating
(in)Securities and Ways to Manage Them
Tochukwu Omenma1, 2 and Silvia D’Amato3
(1) Department of Political Science, University of Nigeria, Nsukka,
Nigeria
(2) Department of Politics and International Relations, University of
Johannesburg, South Africa
(3) Institute of Global and Security Affairs, Leiden University, Leiden,
Netherlands

Tochukwu Omenma (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Silvia D’Amato (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Abstract
The authors discuss the contribution of the discipline of International
Relations. They look at the changing nature of global security threats and
the security responses focussing in particular on non-state actors. Drawing
on contributions within International Relations theory, from realist accounts
to critical security studies, they argue that different security (and non-
security) threats are too complex and serious to be approached in traditional
ways; non-state actors have become key to an effective response.

The authors have contributed equally to the manuscript.

Introduction
Drawing on interpretations from the various theoretical schools of
International Relations, this chapter focuses on changes in the responses to
security threats. Specifically, the study addresses the changing nature in the
understanding of global security threats and the different ways this impacts
upon the management of security. We will argue that the continuous
dominance of the state in the changing international security agenda calls
for a rethinking and a re-examination, as most conventional security threats
are transnational while state capacities are increasingly insufficient. Indeed,
the conventional security threats come in different ways such as
transnational terrorism, migration or global pandemics such as the COVID-
19 emergency. These issue-areas will drive our discussion of the theoretical
relevance of the key concepts of International Relations in a highly complex
and multifaceted terrain of security.
The aim, therefore, is to establish the relationship between International
Relations as a discipline and security as a global challenge. We will argue
that on the one hand, states interact with non-state actors (NSAs) to provide
for a more secure world while on the other hand offering a different take on
how we understand security management.
In order to do so, we depart from security in its traditional sense as the
responsibility to defend national politics or the national economy primarily
defined as the national interest. Accordingly, traditional perspectives in
International Relations have prioritised powerful states and their interests in
exploiting security weaknesses in less powerful states for their own ends.
So, we specifically build on the pillars of classic realist-dominated
International Relations thinking which originated within security studies
and especially within critical security studies (CSS) (Lemon 2018; Fierke
2015; Buzan et al. 1998). Critical security studies, as pioneered by the
Copenhagen School, put into question any objective and immutable
understanding of security. Indeed, they look at the way individuals and
groups subjectively perceive their safety and status of security that might be
very different from dominant national security perspectives (Fierke 2015).
What scholars of critical security studies advocate is that we must rethink
what it means to be secured beyond the state-centric prism if International
Relations is deemed to be relevant in responding to the changing nature of
security. That is, scholars of International Relations should not consider
security merely as a “thing, a concept or a condition but rather as an
umbrella term under which one can see a multiplicity of governance
processes” (Valverde 2011, 5). The emphasis is not to question the
traditional methodologies, nor proposing new approaches; rather it is to
deepen the security debates with emphasis on the ways in which NSAs
(can) respond to everyday security threats in a global political order
dominated by the state actors. Indeed, we believe that the way security is
conceptualised, discussed and implemented today reveals the fallibility of
traditional binary distinctions such as internal versus external, macro versus
micro, state versus non-state. We therefore see security today as a spectrum
going from national to human security (Kerr 2007; Burgess and Gräns
2012)
In this sense, we draw attention to the changing patterns of threats, that
is, events that have occurred over time and in different epochs of security
studies. The Cold War era presented states as the only relevant referent
object of security studies due to the frequency of interstate conflicts, and the
risk of nuclear war, which were matters of substance in global politics
(Baldwin 1997). However, the combined factors of the collapse of the
Soviet Union (USSR), the forces of globalisation, and interdependence
started to diminish the place of interstate security threats, giving way to the
previously neglected intra-state conflicts. Similarly, other transnational
security problems such as the increasing porosity of national borders, local
or regional security threats of global dimension, organised crime,
separatism and religious extremism, economic crises, epidemics and
pandemics as well as environmental security threats started to emerge and
expand in scope and intensity. While mainstream theories of International
Relations mostly showed a somewhat ambivalent attitude towards NSAs as
an important participant in (more or less relevant response to) the pursuit of
global peace and security, a part of scholars’ interest in security issues
started to shift attention towards the implications of these new threats. This
meant that the concept of security itself broadened to include NSAs as one
of the ways to respond to the multiplicity of security challenges (Buzan et
al. 1998). Indeed, in the academic and policy world alike, NSAs are no
longer strictly analysed in their local or regional dimension but rather as
international players. This aligns with their engagement in security matters,
as both providers of security services and a threat to security. The current
forms and activities of NSAs in global politics are the focus of this chapter.
Hence, we depart from security in its traditional sense as the responsibility
to defend national politics or the national economy primarily defined as
national interest to focus on security in relation to individuals and groups.
Specifically, in terms of structure, the chapter firstly presents an
overview of the academic debate between International Relations and
security, followed by an examination of the changing security panorama,
particularly on transnational terrorism, migration, pandemics and climate.
We then discuss responses from NSAs to these challenges and the nature of
cooperation between states and NSAs so to establish the security practices
in international politics. Finally, the concluding section briefly argues the
key points and their relevance for both International Relations and security
studies.

Something New on the Horizon? International

Relations, Security Studies and the New
Panorama of Security
International Relations as an academic field of study was established in
1919 at the end of the First World War. Major historical conflicts creating
relative shifts in power such as the Thirty Years’ War, imperialism,
colonialism, World War II, Cold War and 9/11 significantly contributed to
shaping theoretical developments. These are global landmarks that have
thrown up new theories to challenge what existed previously. These events
changed the existing world order, created new power blocs that redefined
and widened the discourses and parameters of international relations.
Within the emerging debates, contributions emanated from contiguous
disciplines such as history, international law and political philosophy
(Burchill et al. 2005). As detailed in almost every review of the state of the
art, International Relations has been mostly shaped by the intellectual
tension between realism/neo-realism and liberal/neo-liberal positions, with
alternative theoretical views emerging within and gravitating around them
as subaltern approaches. More than others, the realist tradition puts security
at the centre of its research agenda, understood in this context as the
survival of the state and the need to ensure its independence from other
states’ influence.
 As a theory, realism is not easily defined by “an explicit set of
assumptions and proposition” (Donnelly 2000, 6) but some scholars argue
that it is “a set of normative emphases which shape theory” and “a ‘big
tent,’ with room for a number of different theories” (Ferguson and
Mansbach 1988, 79). To put it simply, states here are the central entities of
international politics that define security as the protection of their national
interest. They have different capacities and power to do so, but they are all
motivated by the need to ensure national independence, an ultimate aim that
can justify the use of extraordinary measures (force or threat of it) to
survive. Waltz (1979) recognises that NSAs may be somewhat important
players, but he limits their relevance to domestic politics only. In a nutshell,
the realist strand presents the state as the only relevant actor in world
politics; as a result, the focus of analysis is to explain state behaviours
(interstate relations), and not on the nature and role of non-state entities in
international outcomes. Conversely, different varieties of liberalism grant
different spaces to NSAs, and they minimally focus on different
interpretations of security. Ultimately, both realism and liberalism offer
quite materialistic and positivist analyses of conflicts and security affairs.
Other theoretical orientations such as constructivism (Reus-Smith 2005;
Viotti and Kauppi 2012; Wendt 1992, 1987, 1999), post-structuralism
(Ashley and Walker 1990; Der Derian 1990) and critical studies (Buzan et
al. 1998; Linklater 2007) include analytical elements that go beyond the
states to include other sectors and actors. This makes security something
more of what has “to do with threats to survival” (Collins 2010, 2) or the
struggle for power which is an enduring characteristic of International
Relations (Waltz 1979). In this sense, security becomes people-oriented
(Bado 2011, 106). As mentioned, with the end of the Cold War and the
bipolar confrontation in the early 1990s, states start to grow less important
in conventional security threats, and the need for a different focus of
analysis became prominent. As a consequence, a number of political,
economic, societal and environmental factors are included as part of the
security agenda of International Relations (Buzan et al. 1998; Bigo 2002;
Aradau and Van Munster 2007; Fierke 2015). No doubt, critical theoretical
perspectives provide a broader, more nuanced set of principles related
security that encourage practitioners to revalue the space and role of
individuals and human beings in any security discussion, without
necessarily denying the centrality of the struggle for power or national
security.
These new approaches signalled the need to expand the conceptual and
methodological lens in security studies. As Bourbeau & Vuori (2015, 111)
argue, security has now been ‘structured, systemised, broadened, deepened,
gendered, criticalised, humanised, constructed and privatised’. Indeed,
NSAs are today quite relevant in international affairs where they normally
work with states in the process of “agenda-setting”, in establishing
“coordinated responses to global problems”, and “standard setting
procedures in world affairs” (Baldwin 1993, 18). Their relevance has been
recognised for the last two decades both in security scholarship and in
policy. The United Nations Security Council (2018) defines a NSA as an
“individual or entity, not acting under the lawful authority of any state in
conducting activities” (UNSC S/RES/1540, 2004). By this, it is generally
understood that NSAs are entities independent of state interference
(Reinalda 1999), as they often possess the capacity to provide services more
effectively than official state institutions (Miller 1994), representing
important actors on the international stage alongside other sovereign states
(Biró and Motoc 2005). In a broader sense, NSAs are any actor other than
the state that strategically influences international outcomes by participating
in the international stage and are potentially relevant to international
politics. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2005 highlighted the
new importance of NSAs as strategic actors in the global security
governance, by stating that “no state, however powerful, can protect itself
on its own” and that “the threats we face are interconnected” (Annan 2005,
7). In a nutshell, in contemporary global politics, it is clear that states no
longer have the capacity to address the full spectrum of security challenges
alone. Yet, many approaches within the discipline continue to focus
primarily on the way states respond to security issues.
Generally, NSAs are classified into two categories: the
intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) and the transnational or
international non-governmental organisations (INGOs). The IGOs, such as
the United Nations, are NSAs created by nation-states serving as official
government agencies, while the INGOs, such as Human Rights Watch, are
established by groups of individuals, businesspeople and other societal
forces. Groups in the latter are not legally accountable to the states, and
they comprise a category denominated as “global civil society” (Bado 2011,
108). Within the security field, NSAs equally refer to the universe of actors
threatening security, such as terrorist and criminal groups commonly
referred to as non-state armed groups (NSAGs) as well as those
organisations, agencies and operators providing support and security during
conflicts. This means that, on the one hand, the category of NSAs include
the purveyors of security threats that use violence to redefine the terms of
political discourse affecting state interests and actions such as organised
criminal and terrorist organisations threatening security (Raineri and
Martini 2017; Aziani et al. 2020). On the other hand, it also includes those
active participants in the process of problem-solving such as private
security companies (PSC) that operate both at the national and at the
international level (Krahmann 2012; Singer 2001), multinational companies
(Honke 2012), non-governmental or civil society organisations (Cusumano
and Pattison 2018). Non-governmental organisations are, for instance,
actively involved in responding to security problems related to natural
catastrophes, epidemics or global pandemics, migration and displacements.
They may be private actors and intergovernmental organisations, such as
voluntary and non-profit organisations operating at the national, regional
and global levels.
Overall, it seems fair to argue that NSAs occupy an important role in the
constellation of international security, serving as a direct and indirect
agency but also functioning as proxies of the interests of bigger states in a
variety of domains (Rauta 2019; D’Amato et al. 2019). They are therefore
able to exert considerable impact on the international balance of power, as
International Relations traditionalists would identify it. In this sense,
security studies have significantly affected the focus of International
Relations by shifting, or better enlarging, the scope of its academic
investigation. We, therefore, expect to provide some fresh insights on how
NSAs constitute an integral part of the competence, authority and
legitimacy on this multifaceted security environment focusing on
challenges and responses to mass migration, health and climate change.

From Theory to Practice: Non-state Security

Challenges
The purpose of this section is to show how complex the general
understanding of security has become and how states are adapting to the
new challenges they face by accepting the engagement of NSAs. While
terrorism, due to its obvious security component, shows concrete security
implications, we believe it is interesting to approach it in comparison to
new challenges as migration, health and environment as they are all
representative of two elements we are examining in this chapter: first, they
underscore the persistent shift in objects of security, moving along the
spectrum of national to human. Specifically, migration, health and
environment are not only considered potential sources of insecurity as they
can function as ‘threat multipliers’. Second, they have all gone through a
process of securitisation making them security issues on their own—health
security or environmental security. Hence, it is worth addressing these
challenges that have changed and continue to change the playing field for
the state and has opened up space for NSAs to function and create
competing narratives in world politics.
Despite the contestations on meaning, definitions and narratives on
terrorism and counterterrorism,1 the war on terrorism remains a global topic
of discussion in the state security agendas. The Global Terrorism Index
measurement of 2019 indicates that there were 98,328 terrorist attacks
between 2002 and 2018 across the globe, resulting in 221,966 deaths in the
same period (Institute for Economics and Peace 2019). Figure 6.1 shows the
scope and intensity of terrorist threats over the 16-year period across the
sub-regions. The largest number of deaths was recorded in the Middle East
and North Africa (MENA) region, with 93,718 deaths; next are South Asia
and Sub-Saharan Africa with 67,503 and 45,102 deaths respectively while
Central America and the Caribbean regions recorded the lowest number. In
2018 alone, over 103 countries recorded at least one terrorist incident, and
71 countries witnessed at least one death.
Fig. 6.1 Regional distribution of terrorism attacks and fatalities, 2002–2018. (Source: Institute for
Economics & Peace. Global Terrorism Index (2019, 37))

Between 2002 and 2018, the global cost of terrorism amounted to US

$767 billion in constant purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, the biggest
cost of US $111 billion was recorded in 2014, followed by 2015 and 2016
with US $94 billion and US $92 billion respectively. Although the total
global economic impact has fallen to US $33 billion in 2018, terrorism is a
small percentage of the total global cost of violence, which was equal to
14.1 trillion dollars in 2018 (IEP 2019, 2). Yet, right or wrong, new
questions have gained centrality in the security understanding of many
states and organisations of international affairs.
The attention dedicated over the last decade to migration, for instance,
has probably been unprecedented and represents an important case in point.
The available data show that between 1990 and 2019, the number of
international migrants has doubled, and has increased by 77% (see Fig. 6.2).
In absolute terms, this is an increase of 118,630,632 million. A significant
increase of 39,804,782 million refugees (35%) was observed between 1985
and 1990. By mid-2018, the world refugee population extended to 25.7
million, and the Group of 20 countries (G20 countries) alone hosted 7.3
million refugees, signifying about 36% of all refugees under the mandate of
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Resettlement
remains an issue, and without NSAs, including third sector organisations,
mainstream enterprises, parishes, informal groups and individuals providing
medium- and long-term assistance to refugees, protection holders and
asylum seekers, it is evident that states alone cannot provide for these high
number of refugees across all the continents.

Fig. 6.2 International migrants, 1970–2019. (Sources: International Organisation for Migration
(IOM) (2020, 21). World migration report 2020. Switzerland, Geneva: IOM)

These changes also need to be understood in relation to natural disasters

caused by climate change, another dimension that has recently gained
centrality in international politics and security discourse. Over the past
decade, there were 288.5 million displacements associated with disasters
between 2008 and 2019, representing an average of 26.2 million per year.
Weather-related disasters such as storms, floods, droughts, wildfires, and
geophysical hazards (earthquakes) constitute the principal sources (Internal
Displacement Monitoring Centre [IDMC], 2016, 15; 2020, 3) (Fig. 6.3).
Fig. 6.3 Disaster-related displacements associated with climate (2015–2019). (Source: IDMC 2016,
2017, 2018, 2019, 2020)

More recently, the world has faced a largely unexpected crisis with a
significant impact on both national and human security: the rise of global
pandemics such as the COVID-19 emergency. Globally, there were
106,555,206 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 2,333,446 deaths,
reported to WHO as of 5:07 pm CET, 10 February 2021 (see Table 6.1).
The US has the highest confirmed cases and deaths, standing at 26,832,826
and 461,610 respectively, with the American continent as the highest
impacted region of the world. The second highest impacted continent is
Europe, with 35,950,159 million confirmed cases and 795,024 deaths; while
the least impacted is Western Pacific with 1,502,384 confirmed cases and
26,362 deaths. Despite differences per world region, the spread of the
coronavirus has been the most serious global crisis threatening human
populations in recent times. At the time of writing, the challenge of the
COVID-19 pandemic is still immeasurable, in light of the unabated growth
trends of confirmed cases and the non-availability of proper, effective and
scientifically accepted vaccines.
Table 6.1 Global cases of Covid-19 pandemic (confirmed)

Region Confirmed cases Deaths

Region Confirmed cases Deaths
Africa 2,683,594 66,826
Americas 47,420,800 1,105,961
Asia 13,098,740 201,191
Eastern Mediterranean 5,898,784 138,069
Europe 35,950,159 795,024
Western Pacific 1,502,384 26,362
Total 106,555,206 2,333,446

Source: WHO situation report, data as of 5:07 pm CET, 10 February 2021

https://covid19.who.int/

The pandemic has overwhelmed nations, international bodies, and

citizens everywhere are adversely impacted. Incidentally, the impact of
Covid-19 is not restricted to poor GDP and low HDI countries. On the
contrary, the numbers coming from different parts of world as well as the
critical discussions it raises in light of its consequences for public health
and safety offer new insights into the question of human verses national
security and further strengthen the relevance of ‘the people-based model’ of
International Relations (Bado 2011). On the one hand, we see national
militaries now actively involved in controlling the movement of people and
handling the shipment and delivery of vaccines to national health facilities.
On the other hand, as we will discuss further in the chapter, the support of
NSAs has become necessary and urgent in delivering assistance to citizens
and supporting security management.
The challenges arising from terrorism, forced migration flow or natural
catastrophes, epidemics and pandemics, while different in nature, point to
similar problems facing the state political apparatus. In the current
international panorama, they all represent issues that states are asked to
respond to. As a consequence, traditional political and social institutions are
currently experiencing increasing pressure to deliver. Such pressure has
indeed opened up a larger window of opportunity for a variety of actors to
operate under what might be termed the typical governmental umbrella.
Indeed, we witness today a multifaceted and fragmented informal security
architecture where the private sector, NGOs and even armed NSAs
intervene in delivering community-level services. In the following section,
we focus on this point, addressing security responses to these complex
challenges. More precisely, we provide some reflections on the strategic
relationship between state and non-state actors by drawing on non-state-
related initiatives, activities and events that emphasise their increasing roles
within the current security architecture.

Responses to Security Challenges and

Contributions to the Field: From States to Non-
state Actors
Security strategies today attempt to deal with different issues, as presented
above, which are generally linked to the fear of losing the established
standards of life (Schroeder 2012). In this sense, for many countries, non-
traditional security challenges have become a priority for their security
agenda and, in many instances, a militarisable one. More importantly, the
way states respond to these new challenges does relate to their legitimacy
and role within national and international affairs.
Building on the data presented in the previous section, this section
focuses on key examples of security approaches that have been central in
international politics. Hence, we address a crucial conceptual and
methodological puzzle for International Relations theory: excluding NSAs
from security response could lead to overlooking important
segments/organisations providing home services for the vulnerable and
disadvantaged. Incorporating them may confirm the diminishing place of
the state in international politics. This puzzle is not necessarily new within
International Relations debates (Glaser 2003; Schweller and Priess 1997).
As Glaser (2003) argues, realists consider NSAs as mere appendages of
state power and interest, framed as “a means available to states for
achieving their goals” (Glaser 2003, 409). This constitutes a challenge for
the NSAs’ relations with the state, and probably limits their impact at the
macro-and micro-levels and therefore on world politics.
Indeed, many security challenges call for some new responses which
include responsibilities for and actions to be implemented, directly or
indirectly, by NSAs. In order to grasp the nuances of this dilemma better,
we draw upon Paley’s (2008) distinction of NSAs’ relations with the states,
and we show how this applies to different cases. In particular, he identifies
three types of relations: there is the group of NSAs that are closely related
to the state specifically for what concerns economics and interests, such as
United Nations and its agencies such as UNICEF, or the World Trade
Organisation (WTO), World Health Organisation (WHO), multinational
corporations and even state-funded terrorist groups. Then there are those
NSAs that are loosely related to the state structure like different types of
NGOs, enterprises, parishes, informal groups and individuals providing
medium- and long-term services to the victims of security threats. Finally,
there are NSAs which are completely separated from the state structure,
such as the case of rebel and terrorist organisations. The burden-sharing
responsibilities between the NSAs and state actors, it is argued, are
determined to a large extent by whether their relationship is close, loose or a
case of complete separation, which is briefly described in what follows.

Group 1: Close Relationship

As for the first group of NSAs, they often have close relations and shared
aims with the states because of their global credibility and resource capacity
to affect people at the national, sub-regional and regional levels as well as
on a global scale. The global health governance provides the first case in
point. Indeed, recent events have confirmed the relevance and legitimacy
gained by many NSAs, mostly due to the inability of states to timely and
adequately respond to global health emergencies (Helble et al. 2018). So,
again once we look at security from a human perspective, the case of the
COVID-19 pandemic offers some additional insights. Indeed, several NSAs
stepped in with humanitarian assistance in terms of personal protective
equipment (PPE), medicines, ventilators, testing kits, handwashing
facilities, public enlightenment, training of health personnel and the
provision of palliatives for the most vulnerable.
In Nigeria, the WaterAid used the toilet campaign to drive and
champion handwashing with soap and water as a key hygiene behaviour
change crucial to preventing the spread of COVID-19 pandemic (WaterAid
2020). In many European countries like the UK, Ireland, Spain and also in
many countries of the Middle East, governments had to extensively
collaborate with or even depend on the private sector for healthcare
provision, preventing the spread of the disease, and sustaining activities that
promote people’s resilience to help local responses to the crisis (Tiggle
2020; Payne 2020; Ryan 2020; Shepp 2020; WHO 2020). In communities
living under the control of armed NSAs as well, like in Myanmar, these are
the actors that actively run health clinic supplying essential infection
control equipment such as surgical masks and gloves (Geneva Call 2020).
These interventions have increased the legitimacy of NSAs in intervening
in health security.
Among many others, the contribution of 254 million Swiss Francs by
the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) helped to strengthen
health, water and sanitation systems in 36 states of the world since the
COVID-19 pandemic (ICRC 2020). We are now—as of January 2021—
discussing the variety of vaccines developed by pharmaceutical giants such
as Pfizer, Moderna, and their German partner BioNTech that have
announced a new vaccine known as messenger RNA (mRNA) against
Coronavirus disease. Much more than internationally applied restrictions,
the vaccine, it is argued, represents the ultimate tool to grant safety to
citizens. In this sense, both pharmaceutical giants and non-governmental
organisations have become critical forces to respond to the biosecurity
threats. Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, the aim of these actors has
always been to prevent and contain epidemics and pandemics, to eradicate
or minimise the occurrences of certain diseases, as well as to provide basic
health services that are beyond the states’ capacity. As is often the case,
these interventions are often directed at global, regional or sub-regional
levels, and they require the close cooperation of state authorities for
effective implementation.

Group 2: Loose Relationship

Overall, states are generally more likely to support the inclusion of NSAs in
the management of their international concerns if there are some degrees of
convergence of objectives and ideologies between them. Interestingly, but
not surprisingly, the debate on how to manage migration flows and related
security implications has raised questions on another important aspect of
states’ response: the relation to climate change. Environmental cooperation
is one such issue-areas starting from the 1972 UN Conference on the
Human Environment in Stockholm, to the 1992 Rio De Janeiro Conference
on Environment and Development, that attracted 14,000 NGOs demanding
greater consultation and oversight in international environmental
agreements (Conca and Dableko 2004; Mathews 1997). At the 2002 World
Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in Johannesburg, South
Africa, NSAs registered increased convergence with states in “the areas of
biodiversity, forestry, environmental managements, and environmental
reporting” (Andonova 2006, 36). Previously, researchers (Myers and Kent
1995; Mathews 1997) have underlined the need to address the environment
per security issue in light of the potential scarce resources of states (Barnett
2000; Gleditsch 1998; Jakobeit and Methmann 2012). More recently, the
environmental discourse has reinforced its connection to security paradigms
by focusing on how populations of the Global South, and the African
continent in particular, would be particularly vulnerable due to
environmental factors such as desertification that would eventually increase
migration flows and trafficking, as well as make civil conflicts for the
control of resources more likely. This discourse, we argue, reveals an
extension of the development-security nexus (Venturi 2017), comprising
climate change as a causal factor of security threats. The question here
seems particularly relevant for the overall objective of this chapter as this
additional format of security does indeed entail consequences for
international affairs. The emphasis on the security consequences of climate
change means that military interventions are indeed a potential legitimate
option for international response. Indeed, the focus on climate change
concurs in strengthening the legitimisation of those interventions that
challenge traditional concepts of national sovereignty and that are meant to
intervene in at-risk areas of the Global South to address the mentioned
potential security consequences of such transformations. Hence, states
remain crucial in determining what it is indeed to be conceived as a security
question and in understanding the international implications of changes in
the way security is conceived and practised, which is one of the key
prerogatives of International Relations as a discipline.

Group 3: Separation
Finally, there is the case of NSAs displaying almost complete separation
from the state structure. States are usually not willingly disposed to adjust
policies to accommodate demands or activities of NSAs, especially when
their demands align with those of armed groups, unless it is in the case of
state-sponsored armed groups. Armed NSAs operate beyond state control,
which includes, but is not limited to, rebel groups, local militias, vigilantes,
warlords, terrorist groups among others. Data previously presented (see Fig.
6.1) shows that 98,328 terrorist attacks occurred between 2002 and 2018,
and in 2018 alone, over 103 countries recorded at least one terrorist
incident, while 71 countries witnessed at least one death. This indicates that
states are losing the monopoly on conflict, and several NSAs such as al-
Qaeda, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Taliban, Boko Haram,
al-Shabaab, and other affiliates of the ISIL in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India,
Nigeria and Mali are operating beyond state control. From this perspective,
these NSAs are increasingly considered, not as essential partners in the
global security discourse (Nelson 2000), but as actors to be eliminated to
avoid undermining state survival.
Some states might also be unwilling or slow in responding to certain
NSAs, either as security provision or as threats. A clear case in point is the
loose relations between the Nigerian government and Amnesty
International (AI) because of the AI’s criticism of the human rights abuses
by the Nigeria military. In 2015, AI reports entitled Stars on their
shoulders. Blood on their hands: War crimes committed by the Nigerian
Military notes that the security operations against Boko Haram in North-
east Nigeria have consistently violated the human rights of thousands of
Nigerians. Amnesty International has over the five years documented
extensive abuses of human rights against secessionist groups of Igbo in the
South-east and the killing of 350 Shi’ite religious members in Kaduna by
the Nigerian security forces. These critical reports have provoked media
attention, debates, hearings and meetings on human rights issues that
previously had not been a matter of public knowledge and debate. On the
basis of AI reports, the American government and other European countries
continued to refuse the sale of arms and ammunition to the Nigerian
government. Interestingly, however, AI advocacy and agenda-setting have
been described as the determination to destabilize Nigeria through fictitious
allegations of alleged human rights abuses. Garba Shehu2 in a press release
notes that:

The Federal government is increasingly concerned about the role

that Amnesty International is playing in the war against terror in
Nigeria. The organisation’s operations in Nigeria seem geared
towards damaging the morale of the military. It often appears as if
the Nigerian government is fighting two wars on terror: against
Boko Haram and against Amnesty International. (The Guardian,
London, 18 December 2018)
Before then, the Nigerian government had briefly banned UNICEF over
claims it was training “spies” sympathetic to Boko Haram and threatened
the closure of the Nigerian offices of the global rights watchdog.
Overall, today there are more international organisations than at any
other point in history, and their effects on local and international politics
have continued to increase, particularly where there are governance voids in
society. The agenda-setting ability of NSAs is no doubt important, but by
considering them a continuum of these two properties, either as a burden-
sharing or seen as sources of threats, does provide a much richer and
perhaps accurate picture of their interaction and relevance in international
politics. Yet, the puzzle is how states could share a relationship with non-
state groups while retaining their traditional role as the sole and unitary
actors in international relations. In other words, how states, with their
restricted funds, can adequately contain armed NSAs as the purveyor of
conflicts and others that are security providers. In this case, for instance,
when NSAs do have better resources and capabilities, they are more likely
to be involved in critical areas of international and domestic needs. As we
mentioned, this often happens, as a strategic decision of many states that
voluntarily outsource to PSCs, both domestically and internationally, to
counter external military threats such as terrorist organisations and
organised criminal activities. This is often the case, as they do not
necessarily possess the required intelligence, combat reservoir or the
weaponry to deal with these problems on their own.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and where states have demonstrated a lack of
capacity to provide robust social, economic and health facilities for their
citizens, they should expect the people to turn to a burgeoning shadow
economy, and NSAs derive authority by supporting that shadow economy.
It is from this perspective that complementary governance structure is
treasured and advocated, where state and non-state actors contribute to
different extent to the overall complex security environment.
As it has been described, there are different types of burden-sharing
connections with the states that draws on the capabilities and resources of
multi-sectoral NSAs, comprised of private, for-profit and not-for-profit
organisations including civil society organisations and armed NSAs. In
recognition of the complexity of providing security in different parts of the
world today, the activities of NSAs should be critically evaluated rather
than summarily excluded as dangerous. Today’s challenge is determining
how to integrate these relevant and important actors in global politics.
Given their degree of integration, it does not really make sense to confine
key concepts and lessons in International Relations to the activities of state
agencies because ultimately, the recognition of the relevance of both new
security challenges and actors does not undermine or diminish the
importance of International Relations as a discipline. The status of states
remains central. It might only need to recognise the spectrum of different
security realities and the role of NSAs in addressing the challenges.

Concluding Remarks
This chapter was concerned with the security implications raised by non-
traditional challenges such as transnational terrorism, migration, pandemics
and climate change. The chapter also examined the role of NSAs in the
current security realm at the national, (sub)regional and global levels.
Specifically, departing from International Relations traditional debates, the
chapter addressed those challenges that mostly occupy debates encouraged
within security studies. We addressed the complexity of the current security
environment in terms of new challenges and actors with the intent to shed
light on changes in the understanding of security and in the ways it is
performed and managed in the current international environment.
In this regard, the chapter presented an overview of the current
fragmentation of the international security environment where traditional
binary distinctions such as internal versus external, macro versus micro,
state versus non-state do not seem to be particularly useful to grasp the
complexity of security today and the way it is managed. The discussion of
the different examples seems to confirm that although states remain crucial
in determining what is conceived as a security question, the increasing
impacts of NSAs on security issue-areas cannot be gainsaid and should be
acknowledged to be able to address the hydra-headed nature of international
security. In this sense, as academic discipline prone to analyse international
events and actors, International Relations offers unique analytical tools that
can been employed in order to make sense of apparently independent and
disconnected national practices.
However, a broader theoretical and conceptual effort is needed in order
to grant due conceptual consideration to the role played in international
security by NSAs; the roles played by organised individuals, non-
governmental organisations or terrorist and criminal groups who are
directly or indirectly, positively or negatively involved in the security of
nations and the world. Indeed, we confirm that both institutional and other
types of NSAs have started occupying a relevant role in both the definition
of security and its management. To conclude, we emphasise that a focus on
the spectrum of understandings of security—from national to human—
within the current fragmented scenario is not only consistent with the
expectations and concerns of the existing academic debates, but it also
leaves additional room for addressing the different ways security is
practised.

Recommended Readings
There are a number of studies focusing on the role of new challenges and
actors in International Relations. For a general overview on the key
developments in international security in the post-Cold War era in terms of
new threats and new actors, see Krahmann (2005). Reinalda (2011) instead
offers a useful guide on how to research Non-State Actors. In order to better
analyse their relevance in relation to IR approaches, Betts and Loescher
(2010) analyse the question of refugees from the different theoretical
perspectives within the discipline. More recently, Marchetti (2016)
provided a useful look at the interactions between states and non-states
actors in international politics.

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Footnotes
1 Critical terrorism scholars have produced extensively on this. For a pioneer contribution, see
Jackson (2005) and Jackson and Pisoiu (2018) for a more recent overview on current debates.

2 Garba Shehu is the Senior Special Assistant on media to the Nigerian President, Muhammadu
Buhari.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_7

7. Private Security/Private Military: One

Phenomenon or Two?
Adam White1
(1) Centre for Criminological Research, School of Law, University of
Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

Adam White
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
The terms ‘private security’ and ‘private military’ have become
commonplace in the disciplines of criminology and international relations.
However, the use of these terms is not always clear cut. Sometimes they
refer to separate phenomenon—private security to the commercial delivery
of police-like services in the domestic sphere, private military to the
commercial delivery of military-like services in the international sphere.
Other times they concern the same broad phenomenon—the global market
for protective services. It can therefore be difficult to make sense of the
literature surrounding these terms. The purpose of this chapter is to shed
light on how and why these terms run parallel to and intersect with one
another. It does so by illustrating how three prominent contextual factors—
growth patterns, market structure and regulation—each gives rise to ‘one
phenomenon or two’ narratives. While this does not resolve the ambiguity
encircling these terms, it does offer a road map for navigating through them.

Introduction
Over the past three decades or so, the terms ‘private security’ and ‘private
military’ have become commonplace in the disciplines of criminology and
international relations. However, the use of these terms is not always clear
cut. Sometimes they refer to separate phenomenon—private security to the
commercial delivery of police-like services in the domestic sphere, private
military to the commercial delivery of military-like services in the
international sphere. Other times they concern the same broad phenomenon
—the global market for protective services. As a consequence, it can be
difficult to make sense of not only the literature surrounding these terms,
but also the underlying phenomena themselves. The purpose of this chapter
is to shed light on how and why these terms variously run parallel to and
intersect with one another. It does so by illustrating how the literature
relating to three prominent contextual factors—growth patterns, market
structure and regulation—gives rise to a series of distinctive ‘one
phenomenon or two’ narratives. This does not resolve the ambiguity
encircling these terms, but it does offer a road map for navigating through
them.

Growth Patterns
In the criminology and international relations literature, it is possible to
identify three different narratives relating to the growth patterns of the
private security and/or private military industries. The first two portray
these industries as separate phenomena, one emerging from shifts in the
domestic sphere during the late 1970s and 1980s (the fiscal crisis of the
state, rising crime and insecurity and the emergence of mass private
property), the other materialising from changes in the international sphere
during the late 1980s and 1990s (the end of the Cold War, the politics
surrounding the peace dividend and the resurgence of new civil and
regional wars). The third depicts them as part of the same overarching
phenomenon—the declining frontline capacity of the state and the
concomitant ascendance of neoliberalism during the latter part of the
twentieth century. This section examines each of these narratives in turn.
The first narrative tells the rise of the private security industry in the
domestic sphere and runs more or less as follows. In the decades following
World War II, many democratically elected governments assumed
responsibility for delivering ever more public services (health, education,
transport, utilities, sanitation etc.) in an effort to satisfy voters. As economic
productivity began to drop off during the 1970s, however, the tax base
needed to pay for these services diminished, leading to a period of political
uncertainty—a notable turning point in postwar history often called the
‘fiscal crisis of the state’. In this climate, a series of market-orientated
governments came to power—for instance, the Conservatives under the
leadership of Margaret Thatcher in the UK—with a mandate to impose
spending caps and reduce the burden of public service expenditure on the
exchequer. This pattern of public disinvestment duly impacted upon the
area of crime control, where reduced public spending created a security
vacuum among individuals, communities and businesses, who accordingly
turned to the private security industry as an alternative source of protection
and reassurance (for examples of this explanation, see Cunningham and
Taylor 1985; Cunningham et al. 1990).
While this neat ‘public cuts, private growth’ dynamic certainly sheds
light on the growth patterns of the private security industry during the
1970s and 1980s, Jones and Newburn (1998, pp. 98–104) observe how it
does not necessarily tell the whole story because in some countries public
spending on the police actually increased during these decades. Between
1970 and 1990, for example, police officer numbers in the UK rose by 35%
(Braithwaite 2000, p. 49). This trend appears to undermine the fiscal crisis
of the state explanation. However, when public spending on the police is
approached in relative as opposed to absolute terms, the logic of this
explanation still holds. During the 1970s and 1980s, recorded crime rates
experienced a sharp rise in many parts of the world for a variety of reasons,
in particular the widening gap between rich and poor (Maguire 2007;
Reiner 2007). So although public spending on the police may have
increased over this time, it was not necessarily sufficient to meet the
mounting security concerns of anxious populations dealing with higher
levels of crime (Zedner 2003). As a consequence of this relative (as
opposed to absolute) public disinvestment in police resources, individuals,
communities and businesses still then had motivation to engage with the
private security industry as a supplement or alternative to the police (see:
Jones and Newburn 1998, pp. 98–104).
At the same time, this motivation was in many cases amplified by a
separate but contemporaneous trend within the domestic sphere—the
widespread emergence of ‘mass private property’ such as shopping malls,
industrial complexes, gated communities and leisure parks (Shearing and
Stenning 1981, 1983; Kempa et al. 2004). The logic here is that the
(collective) owners of such property have the power to shape the behaviour
of individuals on their land through (reasonable and proportionate) private
means, just as one does inside a private household. This in turn creates a
latent demand for private security which can be actualised if owners are
dissatisfied with the willingness and ability of the police to maintain social
order in line with their personal preferences—a common scenario given that
these preferences often prioritise capital accumulation (such as facilitating
private consumption) rather than public order (maintaining peaceable
relations among citizens). This means, as Shearing and Stenning (1981, p.
228) put it, that ‘whenever one finds a shift in property relations toward
such large geographically connected holdings of mass private property one
also finds a shift toward private policing initiatives’. The combination of
fiscal crisis, rising crime rates and insecurity and the emergence of mass
private property forms the backbone of the first narrative which depicts the
growth patterns of the private security industry in the domestic sphere.
The second narrative tells the rise of the private military industry in the
international sphere and emphasises a completely different set of causal
factors. It begins with the ending of the Cold War in 1989. Cashing in on
the so-called ‘peace dividend’—the perceived opportunity to reduce
military capacity in the new unipolar world order—governments across the
globe soon initiated military downsizing programmes to the extent that two
decades later state-run armed forces had 7 million fewer soldiers in their
ranks (Singer 2008, p. 53). In the UK, for instance, defence expenditure,
service personnel and Ministry of Defence civilians each fell by around
20% between 1990 and 1996 (Hartley 1997, p. 42). However, the post-Cold
War years were far from peaceful. The relatively swift withdrawal of
superpower presence from parts of Eastern Europe, Africa and South Asia
had the unforeseen effect of releasing long-suppressed localised conflicts
resulting in a new wave of civil and regional wars. This unexpected
resurgence of international instability created a problem for ‘victorious’
liberal democratic powers such as the US and UK. For a variety of
geopolitical, economic and humanitarian reasons, they wanted to influence
the course of these new wars, but no longer had the capacity to do so with
their diminished armed forces.
One solution to this conundrum was for states to enter into contractual
relationships with the many private military companies (most of them
comprised of the recently demobilised Cold War soldiers) now being
formed to profit from the situation. Against this backdrop, the market
expanded quickly. Between 1950–1989 private military companies were
involved in 15 conflicts, while in the period 1990–2000 they were present
in no less than 80, including those in Yugoslavia, Albania, the Gulf region,
Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Congo, Angola, Sudan, Zambia Papua New Guinea
and East Timor (Rosén 2008, pp. 79–80). A second growth wave then
emerged during the post-9/11 military interventions in Iraq and
Afghanistan, where Coalition forces found themselves facing stiff
resistance from insurgents and governments once again turned to the market
for military-like services. This combination of post-Cold War
demobilisation, the politics surrounding the peace dividend and the
emergence of new civil and regional wars in the international sphere forms
the spine of the second narrative relating to the growth patterns of the
private military industry in the international sphere.
In contrast to the first two narratives, the third narrative views the
growth of the private security and private military industries as part of the
same overarching trend. This narrative begins by identifying a common
theme running through the above domestic and international growth
patterns—the declining and/or inadequate frontline capacity of police and
armed forces to address the pressing issues of the day. It then poses two
simple questions. Why did individuals, communities, businesses and
politicians alike so readily embrace the market as the solution to this
problem? Why did they not support the obvious alternative which was to
increase investment in the police and armed forces commensurate to the
issues they faced (which certainly would have been possible for wealthy
countries in North American and Europe)? While there are of course some
answers to these questions in the first two narratives (i.e. the politics of the
fiscal crisis and peace divided), a different answer is given in this third
narrative—the ascendance of neoliberalism. Moreover, it is an answer
which, unlike those mentioned above, covers both domestic and
international spheres and thus serves to unite the growth of the private
security and private military industries under the same logic.
At the centre of neoliberalism is a binary ideal-type portrayal of the
state and market. On one side, the state is comprised of monolithic
bureaucracies which are incapable of comprehending the complexity of
citizen needs and thus constitutes an inefficient, ineffective and expensive
mechanism through which to produce and distribute goods and services. On
the other side, the competitive market is made up of flexible and dynamic
companies which are highly sensitive and responsive to consumer demands
and therefore represents an efficient, effective and value-maximising
mechanism through which to produce and distribute goods and services (see
Hayek 1944; Friedman 1962). From the late 1970s onwards, so the third
narrative goes, neoliberal thinking spread across the world, influencing how
individuals, communities, businesses and politicians framed problems and
solutions in all walks of life, including the security and military spheres
(Harvey 2007). This is seen to explain, for instance, why governments have
increasingly turned to the market rather than investing solely in police and
armed forces (White 2020a; Kinsey 2009; Krahmann 2010; Ortiz 2010;
McFate 2015) and why individual, communities and businesses have
echoed this logic in their private consumption patterns (Loader 1997;
Abrahamsen and Williams 2011, pp. 59–69). In this narrative, then, the
growth of both the private security and private military industries is driven
by one overarching trend—the declining frontline capacity of the state and
the rise of neoliberalism.
The growth patterns of the private security and private military
industries thus change shape depending upon which contextual factors are
given priority. If priority is given to factors located in either the domestic
sphere (the fiscal crisis of the state, shifting crime patterns and mass private
property) or the international sphere (the end of the Cold War, the peace
dividend and the subsequent emergence of new civil and regional wars),
these industries manifest as two separate phenomena. If, however, priority
is given to the global ascendance of neoliberal ideology, these industries
come across as part of the same overarching phenomenon.

Market Structure
When it comes to the market structure of the private security and/or private
military industries, it is once again possible to identify three different
narratives in the criminology and international relations literatures. The first
two portray separate market structures, one relating to a group of companies
and employees delivering police-like services in the domestic sphere, the
other centring upon a different group of companies and employees
delivering military-like services in the international sphere. The third
depicts a more joined-up market structure which incorporates one set of
multinational companies and employees delivering protective services
across the globe. This section examines each of these narratives in turn.
The first narrative revolves around a group of private security
companies and employees delivering police-like services in the domestic
sphere. Prior to the 1970s—when the private security industry experienced
significant expansion in line with the growth patterns outlined in the
previous section—little is known about the kind of services offered by
companies in the sector. In the UK case, Churchill (2017) goes back further
than most, illustrating how in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
private security companies were for the most part small outfits offering a
limited number of technological products (such as locks and safes) and
‘manned’ services (such as the patrol of industrial facilities and transport
hubs) usually within quite a localised geographical area. White (2020b)
picks up this story in the early to mid-twentieth century, during which time
these companies added a few more products (such as burglar alarms) and
services (such as the transit of valuable goods and basic investigation) to
their still quite limited portfolios and some companies (such as Group 4,
Securicor and Security Express) gained a nationwide status, even if they
were still diminutive compared to the multinational corporations of today.
During the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries—when the
industry entered its accelerated growth phase—the functional scope of these
companies broadened out considerably. A good starting point in illustrating
this diversification is Stenning’s (2000, p. 328) often cited remark that ‘it is
now almost impossible to identify any function or responsibility of the
public police which is not, somewhere and under some circumstances,
assumed and performed by private police in democratic societies’. This
observation is illuminating not only because it serves to demonstrate just
how diverse the industry had now become, but also due to its choice of both
descriptor and comparator—the police. The expansion of the industry was
founded on a widening portfolio of police-like services. To put some detail
on (and to some extent problematise) this observation, it is useful to
consider Button’s (2019, pp. 154–159) distinction between ‘old’ and ‘new’
private security. Old private security involves a wide range of functions
which more or less run parallel to traditional police work: the protection of
persons and property (static and mobile); the transit of valuable goods
(especially cash); investigation; crime prevention consultancy and
technology (locks, alarms, safes); surveillance services and technology
(CCTV, access control, drones); and detention and monitoring (tagging)
services. This is the family of police-like services which underpin
Stenning’s remark. New private security, by contrast, relates to functions
performed not in the physical world but online, such as cyber solutions,
cyber awareness, cyber investigation, incident response, disaster recovery,
vulnerability testing and so on. When it comes to these functions, the
footprint of the police is patchy at best, calling into question their police-
like nature. At the same time, however, it is important to note that Button’s
(2019) distinction is embedded in survey of contemporary ‘private
policing’. This is because, old or new, these functions still contribute
towards the basic process of maintaining social order within the domestic
sphere during peacetime—that is, they can all be regarded as part of the
market for police-like services in the domestic sphere.
With regard to employee base, it is useful to differentiate between
managers and the frontline. Gill et al. (2007) draw a distinction between
two kinds of security manager. On one side are the ‘traditionalists’ who
regard security as a service function organised through command-and-
control structures. Unsurprisingly, this group includes a large number of
former police and military personnel. On the other side are the ‘modern
entrepreneurs’ who view security as a business process and prioritise
business skills over security expertise. This group, as the description
suggests, includes a high proportion of individuals whose primary
experience lies in the corporate world. This goes to illustrate how security
management comprises an interesting assortment—or indeed clash—of
skills and dispositions. The frontline, though, is even more variegated.
Button (2019, pp. 199–200) observes how this section of the labour market
tends to be characterised by a masculine culture, long-hours on low pay, a
high employment turnover and low levels of training. It is not therefore
generally viewed as a vocation. As a consequence, frontline employees
come from a wide range of backgrounds. Wakefield’s (2012) survey of
private security officers working in a UK shopping mall, for example,
identified the following past employment histories: other private security
posts; various military roles; skilled manual work (carpentry, joinery and
mechanics), unskilled work (factory, waitering, cleaning and hospitality);
and managerial work in pubs, mining and funeral trade. It is this
combination of companies delivering a range of police-like services in the
domestic sphere with a highly mixed employee base which lies at the heart
of the first narrative.
The second narrative, by contrast, centres upon private military
companies and employees delivering military-like services in the
international sphere. Prior to the late 1980s—when the industry started to
boom in accordance with the growth patterns sketched out in the preceding
section—the contours of the sector are something of a mystery. This is in
large part because of the clandestine nature of private military operations at
this time. Kinsey (2006, pp. 46–51), however, provides valuable and rare
insight into the UK industry in the immediate post-World War II decades.
He notes how in the 1950s and 1960s companies (such as Watchguard) and
lone contractors sold military advice, training and combat (mercenary)
capabilities to warring factions in countries like Yemen, Libya and Angola
—all with the (tacit) consent of the UK government. In the 1970s, he
continues, a new set of companies (such as Control Risks, Kroll and
Saladin) came into view, offering military-style counter-terror operations to
multinational corporations working in hostile environments across Europe,
the Middle East and South America.
In the post-Cold War era—when the industry entered its rapid growth
phase—the functional scope of these companies started to widen out. The
most well-known profile of these functions is Singer’s (2001, 2008) ‘tip of
the spear’ typology, which differentiates between three types of company
and specialisation: ‘type 1’ companies (at the tip of the spear) engage in
frontline combat operations and offensive counter-insurgency operations
(e.g. Sandline and Executive Outcomes); ‘type 2’ companies (in the middle
of the spear head) provide military consulting, strategy and intelligence
(such as MPRI and Dyncorp); and ‘type 3’ companies (at the base of the
spear head) specialise in technical support, training and static and mobile
protection (for instance, Brown & Root and SAIC). In practice, though, the
relationship between these three types of function is often fluid. For
example, it is not uncommon in the chaos of war for a company tasked with
protecting a convoy on a vulnerable route (type 3) to engage in frontline
combat operations if the convoy is under threat of enemy attack (type 1). In
terms of the present discussion, however, the most salient feature of this
typology is that it is explicitly drawn from traditional ‘military thought’ in
which ‘units within the armed forces are distinguished by their closeness to
the actual fighting’, with the frontline infantry units at the tip of the spear
followed by command and logistics units further down the spear head
(Singer 2008, p. 91). It is this military frame of comparison which gives the
second narrative its distinctive orientation towards companies delivering
military-like services in the international sphere.
In direct contrast to the private security employee base described in the
first narrative, the defining feature of the private military labour force is its
homogenous character. From management down to the frontline, it is
comprised almost entirely of former armed forces personnel. As Singer
(2008, p. 76) puts it: ‘the very name “ex”—ex-Green Beret, ex-Paratrooper,
ex-General, and so on—defines the employee base of the private military
industry’. This is mainly because the skillsets developed in the armed forces
—especially, the pre-reflexive discharge of violence—serve as the key
determinant of value in the private military labour market (Higate 2012a).
There is also a streak of nationalism running through this labour market
with, for instance, UK companies preferring to recruit ex-UK armed forces
and so on (Isenberg 2009, p. 44). This is borne out in White’s (2018, p. 394)
survey of employees working for the UK company Aegis on a major Iraq-
based contract circa 2010–2011. Of the 67 employees who gave a complete
employment history, 66 were ex-armed forces, with 62 from the UK, 2 from
the US, 1 from Australia and 1 from France. On a finer grained level, about
two-thirds of this group came from the infantry and marines (n=40), the
average length of service in the armed forces was 12.5 years and most had
not left active duty until the post-9/11 era (n = 60). This uniformity means
that the sector is also unsurprisingly defined by a prominent military-like
occupational culture and modus operandi (Singer 2008; Isenberg 2009;
Higate 2012b). It is this combination of companies delivering a range of
military-like services in the international sphere with a highly cohesive
employee base which serves as the focal point of the second narrative.
The third narrative differs from the first two by portraying a more
joined-up market structure which incorporates one set of multinational
companies and employees delivering protective services across the globe.
On the company side, this narrative highlights a series of recent cross-
sectoral mergers and acquisitions. For decades now, private security
companies have been augmenting their market shares through mergers and
acquisitions in the domestic sphere. Towards the end of the twentieth
century, for instance, the UK market leader Securicor acquired ever more
private security companies across Africa, Asia, Europe and North
America.1 In 2004, Securicor then merged with another market leading
private security company, Group 4, establishing the household name G4S,
with some 340,000 staff and global sales approaching £4 billion at the time
(BBC 2004). For present purposes, however, the most important moment in
this process of accumulation came in 2008 when G4S paid £43.6 million for
the UK private military company Armorgroup, which had extensive
operations in Iraq and other conflict-ridden countries (Isenberg 2009, pp.
74–75). The news release accompanying this acquisition reads,
‘ArmorGroup is a leading provider of defensive and protective security
services to national governments, multinational corporations and
international peace and security agencies operating in hazardous
environments’.2 This news release is highly revealing. It unambiguously
locates Armorgroup’s core area of activity in ‘hazardous environments’
(read international war zones) while, at the same time, side-stepping any
reference to the provision of military-like services, instead using the more
benign phrase ‘defensive and protective services’. In other words, it marks
out the emergence of a market structure—and accompanying corporate
terminology—which transcends the private security/private military
divide.3
On the employee side, the third narrative then traces a parallel blurring
process unfolding within the labour market. Following the major drawdown
of Coalition troops from Iraq and Afghanistan between 2011 and 2014,
employment opportunities in the private military labour market began to
dry up. So where did private military employees head next? Interestingly,
the one study which has followed the trajectories of these employees
suggests that many headed towards the private security labour market.
White (2018) surveyed 387 (mostly UK) individuals employed by the UK
private military company Aegis on a major Iraq-based contract circa 2010–
2011. He found that when these they moved on from the company when
this contract ended, 192 left the sector, with 137 returning to the UK. Of the
111 individuals in this group actively working at the time of the survey, by
far the largest proportion (44%) had found new employment in the private
security industry, especially in management roles. While these numbers are
of course small, they nevertheless illustrate the coming together of two
previously disconnected labour markets. Furthermore, when this process is
placed alongside the aforementioned cross-sectoral mergers and
acquisitions, it is possible to see the emergence of a more joined-up market
structure which incorporates one set of multinational companies and
employees delivering protective services in both domestic and international
spheres.
The market structure of the private security and private military
industries therefore changes shape depending upon which contextual factors
are given priority. If priority is given to traditional company and employee
profiles, these industries manifest as two separate phenomena, one relating
to the delivery of police-like services in the domestic sphere, the other
centring upon the delivery of military-like services in the international
sphere If, however, priority is given to recent mergers and acquisitions and
cross-sectoral employment transitions, these industries come across as part
of the same overarching phenomenon—a more joined-up market structure
in which multinational companies and transnational employee bases deliver
protective services right across the globe.

Regulation
In the criminology and international relations literature, it is once more
possible to identify three different narratives concerning the regulation of
the private security and/or private military industries. The first two assume
a more formal-legal understanding of regulation and portray two separate
dynamics, one relating to a collection of tightly controlled state-led
initiatives directed towards the market for police-like services in the
domestic sphere, the other focusing on a much looser series of multisectoral
initiatives targeted at the market for military-like services in the
international sphere. The third takes a more sociological approach to
regulation and depicts a common set of normative limitations which relate
to the controversial erosion of state sovereignty in both domestic and
international spheres. This section examines each of these narratives in turn.
The first narrative focuses on the legal mechanisms used by states to
control private security companies and employees engaged in the delivery
of police-like services in the domestic sphere. The most comprehensive
survey of these mechanisms is the United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime’s (UNODC) (2014) Handbook on State Regulation Concerning
Civilian Private Security Services and their Contribution to Crime
Prevention and Community Safety, which reviews state regulation in 43
countries across Europe, North America, South America, Australasia,
Africa and Asia.4 It reveals how states impose markedly similar legal
controls on this market irrespective of location. On one side, companies are
generally required to conform to various corporate good practices (e.g.
insurance, financial viability, quality assurance, record keeping and
reporting procedures) and meet basic working conditions (e.g. minimum
wage, maximum working hours, appropriate equipment and workplace risk
analysis). On the other side, employees are usually required to satisfy
certain status criteria (e.g. minimum age, legal employment status, no
criminal record, education, literacy and health) and complete basic training
modules (e.g. knowledge of role, knowledge of legislation, communication
skills, conflict resolution and physical intervention). In terms of the present
discussion, the salient feature of these legal controls is that they are all
directed towards companies and employees delivering police-like services
in the domestic sphere.
But while on the surface these geographically diverse regimes share
many commonalities, on a more fine-grained level there is variation
between them when it comes to the strength of these conditions and their
enforcement. In other words, some regimes are stricter than others are. To
illustrate this variation, Button and Stiernstedt (2018, pp. 405–6) rank 26
European Union states according to the comprehensiveness of their private
security regulations, placing Belgium, Spain and Slovenia in the top three
and Lithuania, Austria and the Czech Republic in the bottom three. It is
important to note, however, that even at the bottom end of this league table,
state regulation still plays a decisive role in shaping the conduct of
companies and employees. The UK, for instance, is positioned a lowly 20th
out of 26 in Button and Stiernstedt’s rankings, yet its state-run licensing
system—established through the Private Security Industry Act 2001—has
nevertheless been successfully rolled out to the vast majority of individuals
working in the sector, in the process making a tangible contribution towards
standards of training and professionalism, and holding to account both
companies and employees guilty of malpractice (White 2015). In other
words, less stringent regulation does not equate to failed regulation. States
with laissez faire regimes still exercise considerable control over private
security companies and employees inside their territories. As such, the first
narrative depicts regulation as a relatively tightly controlled state-led
initiative directed towards companies and employees delivering police-like
services in the domestic sphere.
 The second narrative shifts attention to the mechanisms used by a range
of stakeholders in the public, private and third sectors to control companies
and employees engaged in the delivery of military-like services in the
international sphere. This narrative begins with Article 47 of the First
Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions (1977), which was drafted
in response to the shadowy operations conducted by private military
companies and lone contractors during the African decolonisation
movements of the 1960s and 1970s (Singer 2008, pp. 37–8). It criminalises
any individual who ‘is specifically recruited locally or abroad to fight in an
armed conflict’ and ‘is motivated to take part in hostilities essentially by the
desire for private gain’. In due course, the intention and wording of Article
47 came to inform the UN Convention against the Recruitment, Use,
Financing and Training of Mercenaries (General Assembly resolution
44/34), which was drafted in December 1989 and came into force in
October 2001. While both Article 47 and the subsequent Convention have
both frequently been linked to the private military industry—not least by
the United Nations Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries5—no
company or employee in this sector has ever been prosecuted under their
provisions (see Pattinson 2014). They are thus widely acknowledged as
weak pieces of legislation (Percy 2007). With this in mind, a number of
states have unsurprisingly experimented with domestic law as an alternative
to international law. However, this approach has generally been regarded as
unworkable for a variety of reasons, not least the significant logistical
challenges of monitoring and enforcing corporate compliance in hostile
environments over which they have no jurisdiction. The UK Government
certainly came to this conclusion during the consultation process
surrounding its 2002 Green Paper, ‘Private Military Companies: Options for
Regulation’ (Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2002).
As private military activity reached unprecedented levels during the
post-9/11 interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, a number of stakeholders
began to switch their attention to a different form of regulation—
international codes of conduct functioning on a voluntary basis. Examples
include: the International Peace Organisation Association Code of Conduct,
2008 Montreux Document, 2010 International Code of Conduct for Private
Security Service Providers, the 2011 PSC Series of Standards and the 2015
ISO Management System for Private Security Operations (ISO 18788)
(Avant 2016; Krahmann 2016). While these codes were drawn up by a
miscellany of states, companies and non-governmental organisations, they
have two important commonalities. First, they are all designed to control
companies and employees engaged delivering military-like services in
hostile environments. The IPOA Code of Conduct, for instance,
incorporates into its provisions the Geneva Conventions (1949), the
Convention Against Torture (1975), Protocols Additional to the Geneva
Conventions (1977), Chemical Weapons Convention (1993) and extensive
rules on the use of force in armed hostilities. Second, they rely upon
voluntary compliance among signatories—there is no general legal
requirement for companies and/or employees operating in the sector to sign
up. This means that although they are more readily applied than the
international law outlined above, they too remain fundamentally weak in
substance. As a consequence, the second narrative depicts private military
regulation as a loosely controlled multisectoral initiative targeted at
companies and employees engaged in the delivering of military-like
services in the international sphere.
The third narrative, by contrast, emphasises a set of normative
limitations which relate to the controversial erosion of state sovereignty in
both domestic and international spheres. It opens with the broad historical
observation that during the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
(proto-) modern states increasingly sought to locate the delivery of security
and military functions within the public sphere through the establishment of
police and armed forces. While the drivers behind this grand historical
process were complex—ranging from the benevolent protection of citizens
to the violent suppression of colonial subjects—populations across the
globe nevertheless came to view security and military functions as core
state responsibilities. As Migdal (2001, p. 137) remarks, most people today
consider this ‘image’ of the state ‘to be as natural as the landscape around
them; they cannot imagine their lives without it’. Cerny (2015, p. 3)
elaborates on this theme in relation to military functions: ‘the dominant
nation-state-based international security paradigm is still hegemonic in the
minds not only of politicians and bureaucrats, but also of many interest
groups and mass publics’. Loader and Mulcahy (2003, p. 43) identify a
similar dynamic when it comes to policing functions, emphasising ‘a set of
predispositions which operate in such a way that when people think of
crime and order they reach, as it were, instinctively for the police’.
 From a sociological perspective, these widespread normative
expectations play an important role when it comes to regulating companies
and employees engaged in the delivery of police-like services in the
domestic sphere and military-like services in the international sphere
(Loader and White 2017). To begin with, they cause people to resist or
problematise the expansion of the market into what is regarded as a
traditional sovereign domain. A good example of this resistance is the
critical manner in which the private security and private military industries
are represented in the media. Livingstone and Hart (2003), for instance,
reveal three recurring stereotypes of private security employees in the UK
media: the ‘watchman’ (a figure of incompetence), the ‘gangster’ (a
cheating and villainous character), and the ‘hired gun’ (a paid enforcer with
few morals). Likewise, Kruck and Spencer (2013, p. 331) found that the
four dominant characterisations of private military employees in The Daily
Telegraph (UK), The Guardian (UK), The New York Times (US) and The
Washington Post (US) during the period 2004 to 2011 were: ‘dirty
mercenaries’ (38%), ‘uncontrolled abusers’ (38%), ‘exploiting war
profiteers’ (31%) and ‘incompetent cowboys’ (29%). It is important to
emphasise that these disparaging representations cannot be reduced to a
general anxiety about the erosion of state sovereignty alone—the newspaper
articles under examination were often written in response to specific
scandals or misdemeanours. But this general anxiety certainly forms the
normative backdrop to many of these media representations.
Critical discourse along these lines performs two specific regulatory
functions. First, these stereotypes serve as ready-made and highly resonant
mechanisms through which to hold these industries to account whenever
they engage in malpractice. One of the most well-known examples of this
process relates to the private military company Blackwater, which was
forced to change its name twice—first to Xi and then Academi—following
the censorious media coverage of the 2007 Nisour Square Massacre, when
4 of its employees killed 17 Iraqi civilians and injured at least 20 more
during a 15 minute shoot-up in the middle of a busy Bagdad intersection
(Scahill 2007). Second, they encourage companies in both sectors to engage
in various (pre-emptive) status-enhancing legitimation strategies. Private
security companies, for example, frequently outfit their officers in mock
police uniforms, deploy them in copycat police cars and draw attention to
the fact that they are (in most instances) licensed by the state (White 2010,
2012). Likewise, private military companies shower their websites with
references to human rights, democracy and development; contribute to
humanitarian charities; seek to forge alliances with humanitarian
organisations like the UN; and appropriate humanitarian imagery such as
the UN global compact symbol (Joachim and Schneiker 2012). From a
more optimistic perspective, these legitimation strategies may serve to
introduce a range of virtuous ideals into the markets for police-like and
military-like services. From a more cynical perspective, they may simply
cause companies and employees to be rendered accountable through their
own hypocrisy (Loader and White 2017). Either way, they feed into cultural
resistance against the erosion of state sovereignty in the domestic and
international spheres—a resistance which sits at the core of the third
narrative.
The regulatory dynamics surrounding the private security and private
military industries thus change shape depending upon which contextual
factors are given priority. If priority is given to formal-legal control
mechanisms (such as statutory frameworks and codes of conduct), these
dynamics come across as two separate phenomenon, one focused on a
collection of tightly controlled state-led initiatives directed towards the
market for police-like services in the domestic sphere, the other relating to a
much looser multisectoral initiative targeted at the market for military-like
services in the international sphere. If, however, priority is given to more
sociological mechanisms, these dynamics manifest as the same overarching
phenomenon—cultural resistance against the erosion of state sovereignty in
both domestic and international spheres.

Conclusion
This chapter began with the observation that the terms ‘private security’ and
‘private military’ are often used in rather confusing ways within the
disciplines of criminology and international relations. This is because
sometimes they refer to separate phenomenon—private security to the
market for police-like services in the domestic sphere, private military to
the market for military-like services in the international sphere. Whereas
other times they concern the same broad phenomenon—the global market
for protective services. The chapter then proceeded to offer a road map for
navigating through these parallel and intersecting terms. As a final step, it is
now instructive to tease out and reflect upon three general principles which
animate this road map. First, the literature in this field is extensive,
interdisciplinary and constantly expanding. Attempting to work out the
connections between the terms ‘private security’ and ‘private military’ is
therefore a somewhat unwieldy task. For this reason, it is useful to break
down this puzzle into smaller and more manageable contextual factors. This
chapter focused upon growth patterns, market structure and regulation—
though others could equally be deployed. Second, the process whereby each
of these contextual factors is then further sub-divided into ‘one
phenomenon or two’ narratives is shaped by a decision about which
variables to prioritise at any one time. Yet some variables bring into effect
separate ‘private security’ or ‘private military’ narratives, while others blur
these narratives together. Third, and most importantly, it is possible (even
desirable) to pursue pathways across this road map other than those
described above. This chapter has necessarily presented a series of rather
stylised ‘one phenomenon or two’ narratives. Some of the most interesting
questions in this field lie in between the neatly set out contextual factors
and variables examined over the preceding pages. In other words, this road
map should be approached not as a strait-jacket, but rather a starting point
for exploring new relationships between the private security and private
military industries.

Recommended Readings
There is now an extensive literature on the private security industry—that
is, companies and employees delivering police-like services within the
domestic sphere. The most up-to-date and comprehensive overview of this
literature is this edition of The Handbook of Security (together with its
predecessors). For general observations on the growth of this industry, see:
Shearing and Stenning (1981), Jones and Newburn (1998) and White
(2012). For insights into the market structure of this industry, see: Button
(2019). For a wide-ranging discussion of how this industry is regulated, see:
Loader and White (2017) and Stiernstedt et al. (2019). There is also now
quite an extensive literature on the private military industry—that is,
companies and employees delivering military-like services within the
international sphere. A relatively recent and certainly comprehensive
overview of this literature is Schaub and Kelty (2016). For commentary on
the growth of this industry, see: Rosén (2008). For a tour through the
market structure of this industry, see: Singer (2008) and Eichler (2014). For
analysis of how this industry is regulated, see Chesterman and Lehnardt
(2007), Avant (2016) and Krahmann (2016). However, the literature which
connects together the private security and private military industries is
small by contrast and rather piecemeal in shape. While the best starting
point in this literature is Abrahamsen and Williams (2011), a slightly more
recent overview is White (2016).

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Footnotes
1 www.g4s.com/who-we-are/our-history.

2 www.g4s.com/news-and-insights/news/2008/05/07/g4s-completes-acquisition-of-armorgroup-
international-plc.

3 In March 2021, G4S agreed to a £3.8 billion takeover by the US-based private security company
Allied Universal, creating a new global market leader in the sector, employing 750,000 staff across
80 countries (Plimmer and Wiggins 2021).

4 The 43 countries are as follows (by region). Europe: Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia,
Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal,
Russia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. North America: Canada (British Columbia,
Ontario); the United States (California, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio,
Virginia, Washington State). South America: Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, El
Salvador, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Panama and Uruguay. Australasia: Australia (New South
Wales, Victoria). Africa: Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa and Uganda. Asia: Japan, Israel, Korea,
Philippines, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.

5 www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Mercenaries/WGMercenaries.
Part II
Offence Types
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_8

8. The Evolution of the Terrorism and

Extremism Landscape in the Age of
COVID-19
Kumar Ramakrishna1
(1) S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore, Singapore

Kumar Ramakrishna
Email: [email protected]

The author would like to thank Mohammed Sinan Siyech for sharing his
valuable insights on Hindu extremism, as well as Tan Ming Hui and Syera
Anggreini Buntara for their editorial and research assistance in the
preparation of this chapter.

Abstract
The chapter examines how transnational terrorism has evolved since the
twentieth century, focusing on the so-called religiously inspired wave that
emerged most forcefully with the Al Qaeda attacks in New York and
Washington in September 2001, as well as the rise and evolution of the
virulent Al Qaeda offshoot Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), in tandem
with the emergence of social media-driven radicalization processes from the
mid-2000s onwards. The chapter will show how not just violent Islamist
extremism as exemplified by Al Qaeda and ISIS but other forms—such as
the Identitarian Far Right in Western countries and even Buddhist versions
in South and Southeast Asia—have gained momentum in recent years. The
chapter will argue that these other extremisms have arisen partially in
response to violent Islamism in a process of reciprocal radicalization—
mediated by the very same social media platforms used by ISIS and its
affiliates. Finally the chapter will discuss how strategic dexterity, by way of
a judicious mix of “hard” law enforcement and “soft” counter-ideological
and other non-kinetic measures, remains essential to cope with the rapidly
mutating threat.

Introduction
The announcement on 27 January 2021 that a 16-year-old male Singaporean
had been detained in December 2020 under the Internal Security Act (ISA)
was a milestone in the history of counter-terrorism in Singapore. While the
city-state has had to deal with the threat of violent Islamist extremism
exemplified by the Al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah and more recently
the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) since the 2000s, this was the first
time an individual had been hauled up under the ISA for involvement in
“far-right extremist ideology” (Koh 2021b). According to reports, the
individual in question had been making “detailed plans and preparations to
conduct terrorist attacks using a machete against Muslims at two mosques
in Singapore” (Koh 2021a). He had reportedly “watched the livestreamed
video of the terrorist attack on the two mosques in Christchurch, New
Zealand, on 15 March 2019, and read the manifesto of the Christchurch
attacker, Brenton Tarrant” (Lim 2021). At the same time, watching ISIS
propaganda videos was said to have led him to believe that “ISIS
represented Islam, and that Islam called on its followers to kill non-
believers” (Lim 2021). Earlier that same month, on the other side of the
world, a mob—amongst whose ranks white nationalist and supremacist
symbols were prominently displayed—assaulted the US Capitol building in
an ultimately futile attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Democratic
President Joe Biden’s November 2020 victory over Republican Donald
Trump. The attack revealed the potency of Extreme Right White
Supremacist appeals in the country (Zaru 2021). Nevertheless, according to
the Global Terrorism Index for 2020, the strategic challenge of countering
and preventing transnational Islamist terrorism and extremism remains for
the foreseeable future the most potent terrorist threat to global stability
(Institute for Economics and Peace 2020: 3).
This chapter examines how transnational terrorism has evolved in the
past two decades, focusing on the so-called religiously inspired wave that
emerged most forcefully with the Al Qaeda attacks in New York and
Washington in September 2001, as well as the rise and evolution of the
virulent Al Qaeda offshoot ISIS, in tandem with the emergence of social
media-driven radicalisation processes from the mid-2000s onwards. The
chapter will show how not just violent Islamist extremism as exemplified
by Al Qaeda and ISIS, but Extreme Right versions in the forms of White,
Hindu and Buddhist Supremacist extremism, have gained momentum in
recent years. The chapter will argue that both Islamist and Extreme Right
movements are sustained by competing ideological ecosystems comprising
key religious and political ideologues, educational and religious institutions
as well as social media. As we shall see, Islamist extremist ideological
ecosystems have sustained the threat of extremist violence—ranging from
low-level, lone actor attacks to more organised terrorist attacks by the likes
of Al Qaeda, ISIS and their affiliates on a global basis. On the other hand,
within Extreme Right ideological ecosystems, White Supremacist
extremism has generated largely lone actor threats thus far, but more
organised terror networks have certainly emerged, with incipient
transnational linkages, facilitated by social media. At the same time, the
chapter will note that Buddhist and Hindu Extreme Right ideological
ecosystems have sustained social media-empowered social and political
movements, animated by a strong anti-Muslim bias. Rather than organised
terrorist networks, thus far these latter movements have generated relatively
unstructured localised mob violence.
That said, because these Extreme Right movements—White, Buddhist
and Hindu Supremacist—also show evidence of cross-pollination of ideas
and worldviews, often with a strongly anti-Muslim bias, the danger of
reciprocal radicalisation between vulnerable Muslim and similarly
susceptible White, Buddhist and Hindu populations into Islamist extremism
and White, Buddhist and Hindu Supremacism respectively, is all too real.
Hence, the chapter will close with an argument for greater strategic
dexterity in better grasping the dynamics of the rapidly evolving global,
extremist and by implication, terrorist, landscape.

The Global Islamist Extremist Threat: As

Resilient as Ever
Following the September 11 2001 Al Qaeda strikes in New York and
Washington, the Bush administration declared a Global War on Terror.
Interestingly, Southeast Asia—where the writer resides—gained an
unwelcome reputation as the so-called “second front” at the time (Tan and
Ramakrishna 2002; Desker and Ramakrishna 2002). While the decade of
the 2000s saw governments worldwide respond strongly to the threat from
Al Qaeda and its local affiliates (Ramakrishna 2002), in the following
decade, policy attention began refocusing more on the rise of ISIS from
mid-2014 onwards. While the Bali bombings in October 2002 represented a
turning point in the Southeast Asian struggle against pro-Al Qaeda regional
terror networks (Ramakrishna 2009), two decades on, mirroring global
strategic trends, the five-month long battle for control of the Islamic City of
Marawi in the southern Philippines between May and October 2017,
evinced the contemporary struggle against regional pro-ISIS networks—
although the threat from Al Qaeda and its affiliates remained a concern
(Banlaoi 2020). To be sure, at a global level, following the loss of its
territorial holdings in the Middle East by March 2019, ISIS re-imagined the
caliphate as an overarching global State rather than one territorially
confined to Iraq and Syria. It reframed the inclement strategic situation it
had faced since 2019 as a “protracted resistance” strategy and its military
setbacks as temporary. Despite the military demise of its so-called territorial
caliphate in the Middle East, ISIS managed to remain resilient and active
both on the ground and online. As far as the estranged ideological cousin of
ISIS, Al Qaeda, was concerned, the demise of Abu Muhsin al-Masri
(Husam Abd-al-Rauf) in Afghanistan, Abu Muhammad al-Masri (Abdullah
Ahmed Abdullah) in Iran and top leader Ayman al Zawahiri undoubtedly
impacted the network seriously. It does seem that “the core organisation is
no longer able to project its power and force in the same way” and that “a
continuing disintegration will take place as the various groups using the
name around the world continue to focus their attention on local conflicts
rather than the global clash the core group was advancing” (Pantucci 2020).
As such, rather than tight strategic control, both ISIS and Al Qaeda have
since sought—through adroit exploitation of social media platforms—to
provide a broad strategic narrative to guide the actions of a widely
scattered global network of affiliates (Freedman 2006).
This Islamist extremist narrative1 tends to focus on three core themes,
adapted and customised to diverse local contexts worldwide, including in
Southeast Asia: armed struggle to establish the caliphate; hatred of the non-
Muslim Other and that the current era represents the apocalyptic End Times
that will eventually herald the final victory of Islam over the forces of
unbelief (Halimi and Sudiman 2021). To elaborate further: at the
ideological core of Islamist extremism lie in five key concepts: tauhid, or
the divine unity and lordship of God alone; al-wala’ wa-al-bara, defined as
“love and friendship with the believers, hatred and enmity toward the
unbelievers” and is “animated by a strong sense of Muslim superiority and
deep distrust of non-Muslims” (Weismann 2017: 47); hakimiyya—“the
securing of political sovereignty for God”—implying that only a
government based on Islamic law is acceptable (Maher 2016: 170–171);
takfir or “excommunication” of an “out-group” of “errant Muslims” from
the fold, thereby maintaining “doctrinal purity” (Maher 2016: 72); and of
course the well-known concept of jihad. As David Cook (2015: 9) observes,
“the Qur’an was a powerful exponent of an aggressive jihad doctrine”,
while the “hadith literature follows in its footsteps”, providing “a full-
blown description of warfare with a heavy spiritual content”, affirming that
“militant jihad” in the “military” sense was of critical concern to Muslims
during the formative three centuries of Islam”. Apart from earlier notions of
“classical jihad” to fight against non-Muslims occupying Muslim territories
or to expand the realm of Islam (Wagemakers 2016); since the 1980s—
influenced by Al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri
—Islamist extremists have called for global jihad, emphasising mass-
casualty terrorism against civilians of states regarded as oppressing
Muslims (Wagemakers 2016: 15).
Ideology aside, globally, the Islamist extremist physical threat has been
evolving. While attacks by organised Al Qaeda and ISIS cells and affiliated
networks remained a real threat, what seemed striking was the continuing
salience of the threat of lone actor attacks by self-radicalised individuals
inspired if not necessarily directed by ISIS, Al Qaeda or their affiliates
online. In 2020, for example, in Indonesia, “stabbings were the most
preferred tactic, followed by shootings and bombings” by not just “pro-IS
groups” but also “individuals in Indonesia”, reflecting a “continued
preference to execute attacks that require little training, planning or funds”
(Rahmah 2021). This was partly due to “the decentralised structure inherent
in most pro-IS local groups”, which “limited a transferring of skills and
funds between cells” (Rahmah 2021). Low-tech, involving knives and/or
vehicles by lone actor/lone wolf or “wolf pack”2 terrorism modalities—the
so-called “weaponisation of everyday life” (Ramakrishna 2017)—along
with those related to regular organised network-based attacks, were
certainly evidenced globally. According to the Global Terrorism Index, the
global reach of ISIS in particular has “steadily expanded” with ISIS-related
attacks recorded across the “Asia-Pacific, Europe, MENA, North America,
Russia and Eurasia, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa” (Institute for
Economics and Peace 2020: 5). In addition, since 2013, outside the ISIS
geographical epicentre of Iraq and Syria, ISIS-affiliated “groups and
individuals” perpetrated over 3000 attacks in 48 countries, with the number
of countries recording an ISIS-related attack increasing “from two in 2013,
to 27 in 2019” (Institute for Economics and Peace 2020: 5).
At the same time, what seems worth a closer analysis to better grasp the
persistence of Islamist extremism is the role of ideological ecosystems
sustaining and propagating violent Islamist extremist ideology and
perspectives. Terrorism scholar Scott Atran (2010: 166) has referred to the
similar concept of the “passive infrastructure” sustaining Islamist
extremism in Indonesia, such as “affiliated schools, charities, and
publishing houses and other religious networks”. Such ecosystems
implicated in propagating the violent Islamist strategic narrative have
included interconnected networks of social media applications and
platforms, online magazines, individual social media-savvy influencers, as
well as certain extremist organisational, educational and religious
institutions and spaces relatively insulated from mainstream society. In
2020 for instance, violent Islamist propaganda organs and voices worldwide
notably offered virulent justifications for the beheading of the French
teacher Samuel Paty, whilst legitimising economic boycotts and even
violence against France for its defence of the freedom to publicly display
and discuss the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. At the same time, in India in
October 2020, ISIS published its new monthly propaganda magazine, Sawt
al-Hind (Voice of India) (ICM, 2020), while Al Qaeda in the Indian
Subcontinent (AQIS) put out its monthly magazine Nawa-i-Afghan Jihad to
Nawa-i-Ghazwat al Hind (Conquest of India) (Siyech and Singam 2021a).
Meanwhile in Pakistan, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) used its
“propaganda magazine Mujallah Taliban to articulate its ideological
position on various issues” (Basit 2021).
In Bangladesh, also in 2020, the Al Qaeda-linked Ansar-al-Islam (AAI)
put out narratives structured around the Ghazwatul Hind or the
eschatological last battle of the Indian subcontinent, which would result in a
Muslim victory over all infidels (Bashar 2020). AAI exploited social media
heavily, promoting extremist content through Facebook, Messenger,
Whatsapp and other platforms, recruiting young people in the process (Rita
2020). In the Maldives, a Telegram channel, “TouristWatchMv”, was set up
in January 2020 that “churned out propaganda in the country” whilst its
members were believed to have been involved in stabbing tourists (Siyech
and Singam 2021b). A key radicalising and logistical role was reportedly
played by Mohammed Ameen, an extremist preacher (Siyech and Singam
2021b). Meanwhile in Russia, radicalised Central Asians regularly gathered
to listen to and discuss online audio-visual propaganda preached by
extremist ideologues such as Abu Saloh, Abdulloh Zufar, and Sodiq
Samarqandiy, while in the Uzbek province of Jizzakh, a cell whose leader
had reportedly been radicalised by extremist ideologues in Turkey, in turn
began recruiting via the Odnoklassniki and Telegram social media networks
(Soliev and Pantucci 2021). Social media was of course complemented by
regular physical meetings where possible. Thus in Indonesia, some
members of the pro-ISIS groups Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) and
Jamaah Ansharul Khilafah (JAK), “continued to conduct closed-door
sessions for the purpose of ideologically indoctrinating followers” (Rahmah
2021). In Sri Lanka, investigations following the Easter Sunday attacks of
April 2019 (Ramakrishna 2019) revealed that some Muslim-majority towns
like Kattankudy continued to be “hotbeds for extremist activity”: extremist
sermons were reportedly delivered in various unregistered mosques and
madrassas in that town (Gunasingham 2021). At the same time the
Kattankudy branch of the National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ), the local
jihadist group set up by the Easter Sunday attackers and subsequently
banned by the authorities, continued functioning under other guises, such as
the Darul Adar Addahwiya, Centre for Islamic Guidance and Quba mosque
(Sirilal and Aneez 2019). In short, the variegated and complex ideological
ecosystems of violent Islamist extremism worldwide have helped ensure
that the likes of Al Qaeda, ISIS and their affiliates will remain a persistent
threat going forward.

The Global Rise of the Extreme Right

While the threat of violent Islamist extremism has rightly occupied policy
attention in the nearly two decades since the September 11 2001 attacks in
the United States, the aforementioned discovery almost exactly two decades
later of the very first case of a “far right extremist” in Singapore, as well as
the infamous 6 January 2021 assault on the US Congress by the pro-Trump
mob were most telling. They were arguably symbolic of a wider, emergent
trend in political and religiously inspired violence across the world:
Extreme Right Movements, at times variously fomenting hate crimes,
violence and terrorism. A brief terminological explanation is perhaps in
order: following terrorism scholar Julia Ebner (2020: 288), we could say
that the Extreme Right comprises groups and individuals that espouse “at
least three of the following five features: nationalism, racism, xenophobia,
anti-democracy and strong state advocacy”. At the same time, a key node of
the wider Extreme Right ecosystem, the Far Right, represents the “political
manifestation of the extreme right” (Ebner 2020: 288). Ebner’s point that
ostensibly non-violent Far Right political figures and parties are
ideologically related, albeit distantly, to the at times, relatively more
violence-prone Extreme Right, have certainly been a distinct feature of
three types of Extreme Right movements: the White, Buddhist and Hindu
Supremacist extremists. We shall further unpack this point in the following
sections.

The White Supremacist Extreme Right

To be sure, the mob that stormed the Capitol building in Washington DC on
6 January 2021 displayed a bewildering range of symbols representing the
diverse populist and extremist forces supporting former President Trump.
The New York Times described the storming of the Capitol as “a holy war”
in which “white evangelical Christians fused with Trump extremism” to
provide the “political and theological underpinnings” of the rampage (Dias
and Graham 2021). Extreme Right White Supremacist movements are a
complex, continually evolving and fragmented, amalgam of White
nationalists, some White Christian evangelicals, racists, anti-government
militias, misogynists, anti-globalisers, and anti-vaxxers, amongst others,
seeking “to capitalise on the global social and political upheaval”—
including the current COVID-19 pandemic—to “promote intolerant ideas
and at times inflict violence” (Pantucci and Ong 2021). According to the
2020 Global Terrorism Index, in “North America, Western Europe, and
Oceania, far-right attacks”—in this context White Supremacist terrorism
—“have increased by 250 per cent since 2014, with deaths increasing by
709 per cent over the same period” (Institute for Economics and Peace
2020: 3). In 2019, there were “89 deaths attributed to far-right terrorists in
2019, with 51 of those occurring in the Christchurch mosque attacks in New
Zealand”. The Index also reported though that “Far-right terrorism”, while a
growing concern, is “not as lethal as Islamist terrorism in the West”
(Institute for Economics and Peace 2020: 3). Somewhat more so than the
Islamist extremists, White Supremacist terrorism “is also more likely to be
carried out by individuals unaffiliated with a specific terrorist group”, as
almost “60 per cent of far-right attacks from 1970 to 2019 were carried out
by unaffiliated individuals, compared to under ten per cent” for other
groups (Institute for Economics and Peace 2020: 3). Furthermore, there is
considerable evidence of transnational networking between White
Supremacist threat groups as well. Hence, the US-based Atomwaffen
Division maintains links to “other white supremacy extremist groups
abroad”, in Canada, Germany, Ukraine, Estonia and Australia for example.
As the Soufan Center warns, it would be “critical to counter the
transnational growth of Atomwaffen before it is able to metastasise into a
full-scale movement abroad”, where it would be in a position to “draw upon
an anonymous globalised network to organise and conduct terror attacks”
(Intel Brief n.d.-a).
It is worth deconstructing one important ideological strand of the White
Supremacist Extreme Right—that, as we shall see, is very much in common
with its Buddhist and Hindu ideological counterparts: the notion of an
existential threat to core group identity, in this case, White Christian
identity. According to this discourse, a “White Genocide” is underway,
perpetrated by non-White out-groups like Jews, Hispanics and Muslims.
White Genocide is allegedly the result of the stronger, insular identities and
greater relative fertility rates of such out-groups, coupled with lax national
immigration policies. Hence, the “Great Replacement” of the White
Christian races needs thwarting urgently (Moses 2019). While such notions
have certainly fuelled violent Extreme Right attacks such as the New
Zealand mosque shootings in 2019, they have been increasingly
mainstreamed into Far Right political discourse as well. For example,
European Far Right political parties portray themselves as the “defenders of
European values, culture, and civilisation”, while slogans such as “Europe
for Europeans” have been increasingly prevalent (Akbaba 2018: 205).
White Supremacist ideological ideas have similarly been increasingly
mainstreamed through an ideological ecosystem which in the US includes
web-based platforms such as Altright.com (https://altright.com/). Altright.
com was started by Richard Spencer, who popularised the term “alt right”
or “alternative right” to describe a “politics that combined racist white
nationalism, isolationism and criticism of mainstream conservatism”
(Wilson 2019). Spencer—echoing the White Genocide and Great
Replacement tropes—has argued that as long as “whites continue to avoid
and deny their own racial identity, at a time when almost every other racial
and ethnic category is rediscovering and asserting its own, whites will have
no chance to resist their dispossession” (Neiwert 2018: 237–238). Spencer
pointedly adopts a “suit-and-tie image” to “look good” as “nobody wants to
join a movement that is ‘crazed or ugly or vicious or just stupid’” (Neiwert
2018: 237). While Spencer has thus gained mainstream media coverage by
“largely avoiding crude slurs” in public and the “cultivation of a superficial
civility”, he has been “caught on tape using racist slurs against African
Americans and Jewish people” (Wilson 2019).
Suggestive of Ebner’s Extreme Right-Far Right social-political nexus,
Spencer has also been a key supporter of former President Donald Trump,
arguing that thanks to the latter, the Alt-Right would replace the traditional
conservative Republican base, who Spencer felt were made up of people
who were “losers and dorks and dumb” (Neiwert 2018: 288–289). Spencer
argued that the Alt-Right—who he claimed were “smarter” than the old
conservatives—would serve as the “think tank” to hopefully help build a
white nationalist “ethno-state” in the US (Neiwert 2018: 288–289). The
Extreme Right-oriented Alt-Right movement in the United States has
European counterparts, such as Generation Identity. Emerging in 2012,
Generation Identity started life as the youth wing of the older French
nationalist movement Bloc Identitaire, and quickly spread to Austria, Italy
and other European countries including Germany. Strongly shaped by the
Great Replacement trope, its followers hold that “white genocide” is
occurring due to a toxic combination of “pro-abortion and pro-LGBT laws
that have lowered the birthrates of native Europeans”, as well as “pro-
migration welcoming policies” that permit minorities to engage in “strategic
mass breeding” (Ebner 2020: 28–30). Like the Alt-Right in the US,
Generation Identity followers in Europe tend to be “middle class and well
spoken” (Ebner 2020: 29), attired in “Ray-Bans and T-shirts instead of
jackboots and swastika tattoos” (Ebner 2020: 49). It cannot be overstated
that despite seemingly benign outward appearances, such Extreme Right
White Supremacist ecosystems propagate Great Replacement and White
Genocide themes that have been readily weaponised by recent ideologically
-motivated lone shooters like Anders Breivik (The Soufan Center 2019: 27),
Brenton Tarrant (The Soufan Center 2019: 26), John Earnest (Spagat 2019),
Patrick Crusius (Hutchinson et al. 2019), Philip Manshaus (Burke 2019),
and others.

The Buddhist Extreme Right

If one accepts that the Extreme Right comprises groups and individuals that
espouse “at least three of the following five features: nationalism, racism,
xenophobia, anti-democracy and strong state advocacy”, while the Far
Right represents the “political manifestation of the extreme right” (Ebner
2020: 288), it seems clear that Buddhist Extreme Right social movements
and associated Far Right political institutions should be a matter of concern
as well. In Myanmar, in November 2020, the monk Ashin Wirathu, days
prior that country’s general election, voluntarily surrendered to the police in
Yangon. Wirathu has long been an influential and controversial social
media personality, emerging on the scene following the country’s earlier
transition from military rule in 2011. In several incendiary sermons over the
years, he had targeted Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority, accusing it
of posing an existential threat to Myanmar’s Bamar (or Burman)-Buddhist
majority identity. The Buddhist fundamentalist Ma Ba Tha movement of
which Wirathu is a part resides at the core of an ideological ecosystem that
promotes not just the preservation of Bamar-Buddhist political supremacy
but the narrative that “inherently peaceful and non-proselytising” Buddhism
in the country is “susceptible to oppression by more aggressive faiths” like
Islam (International Crisis Group 2017). Against this backdrop, Wirathu
had warned publicly that Myanmar’s Muslims—particularly the Rohingya
but non-Rohingya Muslims as well—have long represented “despicable and
dangerous destroyers of our Buddhism and Buddhist symbols”
(Ramakrishna 2013). Wirathu often emphasised that “he never encouraged
attacks, and nowhere in his sermons” did he “implore followers to take up
the sword”—but as Francis Wade (2017: 158) points out, he certainly “did
lay down tinder that could easily catch flame”. Such incendiary rhetoric
contributed to violence against the Rohingya: between June and October
2012, 200 people, mainly Rohingya Muslims, were killed in Buddhist-
Muslim riots in the western Rakhine (also known as Arakan) State of
Myanmar, and 110,000 villagers, mostly Rohingya were displaced
(Ramakrishna 2013).
When radicalised Rohingya of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army
subsequently attacked security forces in August 2017, the Myanmar
military reacted ferociously in Arakan State, killing 400 Rohingya and
causing 370,000 others to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh (Chew 2017).
There were more than 700 000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh as of
February 2021 (Alam 2021). Wirathu’s Extreme Right influence lingers
despite his arrest, as Myanmar’s November 2020 election saw the Rohingya
minority almost completely excluded from participating (Smith 2020).
Meanwhile, members of the Extreme Right Ma Ba Tha openly campaigned
for the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP),
another key cog in the wider ideological ecosystem of Buddhist extremism
in the country (Lwin 2020). The Far Right orientation of the USDP was
reflected in its exploitation of the race and religion card during the
November electoral campaigning. For instance, the USDP Chairman, a
former senior military officer, assured locals that “no one in his family was
of mixed blood”, while the general USDP line was that it was better placed
to protect the “national identity” of the country than the “pro-Muslim”
National League for Democracy (NLD) (Aung 2020). Extreme Right,
xenophobic, racist attitudes toward the Rohingya and other Muslims will
likely persist, especially following the military coup in February 2021 that
deposed the NLD government that had been duly elected in the November
polls. Certainly, Bangladesh-based Rohingya refugees appear to fear
returning to a Myanmar with the military in charge (Westerman 2021).
The Buddhist Extreme Right has also been influential in Sri Lanka. In
2020, the leading Extreme Right Buddhist monk Galagoda Atte Gnanasara
Thero, who has long been “accused of instigating hate crimes against
Muslims in the country”, secured a seat in the parliament, on behalf of his
Far Right-oriented Our People’s Power Party (OPPP) (Agence France-
Presse 2020). Gnanasara, leader of the Extreme Right Buddhist movement
Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), or Buddhist Power Force, has long urged the
Sinhalese Buddhist majority to defend their identity and interests against
Islamist extremism (Kingston 2017). Gnanasara’s ire extends to be sure to
ordinary Muslims as well. On 15 May 2019, he “called for the stoning to
death of Muslims and propagated an unfounded allegation that Muslim-
owned restaurants had put “sterilization medicine” in their food to suppress
the majority Sinhalese Buddhist birthrate” (Office of the International
Religious Freedom 2019).
Then on 8 May 2017, “Gnanasara Thero claimed at a press conference
that Muslim Rohingya refugees fleeing persecution in Myanmar were trying
to invade Sri Lanka” (Amnesty International 2017). Very much like Wirathu
in Myanmar—and echoing White Supremacist Great Replacement anxieties
—Gnanasara and other BBS leading lights advocate “a narrative that
requires protection of Sinhalese Buddhism from Islamification” (Jerryson
2018: 36). Just like in Myanmar as well, an ideological ecosystem
comprising closely interlocking Extreme Right Buddhist social movements
like BBS with Far Right political institutions like OPPP, heavily exploiting
social media for pushing out xenophobic, anti-Muslim narratives, exist.
BBS is said to be “one of the main components of OPPP” (Ranawana
2020). BBS aside, other Extreme Right Buddhist social organisations
include the Ravana Balaya and Sinhala Ravaya (Ivarsson 2019: 48).
Dilanthe Withanage, one of the founding members of BBS, also leads the
BBS political arm named Bodu Jana Peramuna (Walko 2016). Moreover,
BBS and “other Buddhist nationalist groups used social media to promote
what it called the supremacy of the ethnic Sinhalese Buddhist majority and
denigrated religious and ethnic minorities” (Rajagopalan and Nazim 2018).
BBS is said to employ modern tactics and is very active on social media
like Facebook (Ivarsson 2019). Not unlike Wirathu in Myanmar, Gnanasara
and his BBS colleagues take pains to not explicitly advocate violence.
However, as religious scholar Michael Jerryson (2018: 36) argues, “there is
an implicit prima facie logic within their narrative: something needs to be
done, or Sinhalese Buddhism will become obsolete”. Hence, while
“[v]iolence is not named, but it is implied” (Jerryson 2018: 36). Little
wonder then that observers believe that Gnanasara’s speech on 15 June
2014 in Aluthgama “contributed to the 2014 anti-Muslim riot” in that
locality where “4 people were killed and more than 100 Muslim-owned
businesses were destroyed” (Colombo Telegraph 2014b). It was lost on no
one that the riot occurred on 15–17 June 2014, which was right after that
speech (Jerryson 2018: 35; Gunatilleke 2016).

The Hindu Extreme Right

Extreme Right-Far Right socio-political fusion seems equally pertinent in
case of the Hindu Extreme Right in India. The Hindu Far Right Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP)-led government since 2014 has remained very much in
sync with the broader and older Extreme Right Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh (RSS) social movement—characterised as “the holding company of
Hindu supremacism” or “Hindutva” ideology (Subramaniam 2020). The
BJP is widely regarded as the “political wing” of the RSS (Frayer and Khan
2019). Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP has been said by
observers to be remaking India into an authoritarian, Hindu nationalist state
(Subramaniam 2020). Approximately 80 per cent of India’s 1.4 billion
people are Hindus, but there are also “millions of Muslims, Christians,
Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains”, while the Indian constitution defines India as
“secular” (Frayer and Khan 2019). However, the core of the Hindutva
ideology animating the BJP and the RSS posits that India is a Hindu nation
rather than a secular one. RSS ideologues have argued since the 1920s that
a true Hindu accepts India as both fatherland and holy land. This definition
of Hindu identity implies that Christians and Muslims—whose religious
allegiances reside elsewhere, are immediately suspect and excluded
(Jaffrelot 2007). More recently, RSS ideologues—revealing their Hindu
Supremacist outlook—have argued that to remain in India, Muslims and
Christians must “accept the superiority of the Hindus” (Scroll 2020).
Interestingly, in a fashion similar to the White Supremacist and Buddhist
Extreme Right, the Hindu Extreme Right seems fixated on the Muslim
threat—in this case to the core Hindu identity of India. The RSS mission
statement decries the “erosion of the nation’s integrity in the name of
secularism” and the seemingly “endless appeasement of the Muslim
population” (Frayer and Khan 2019). Such an ideological stance has given
rise to various negative narratives about Muslims. Certainly, especially
since the September 11 attacks two decades ago, Indian Muslims have had
to grapple with social and economic discrimination arising from the
stereotype that “all Muslims are terrorists” (Press Trust of India 2013).
Muslims have also been regarded in Hindutva circles as historical
“invaders” (Patnaik 2017); who have long been engaged in a process of
converting large numbers of Hindus to Islam (Hansen 1999); as well as
marrying and converting Hindu women, then sending them to participate in
terror incidents—encapsulated in the notorious idea of “Love Jihad” (Bhatia
2017).
 Again, very much like the Islamist extremist and other Extreme Right
movements, such narratives have been propagated by an extensive
ideological ecosystem—in this case centred on the RSS—essentially an
“all-male network that runs Hindu catechism classes, yoga sessions” as well
as “morning drill sessions” and “summer camps” where volunteers train
with rifles. The Far Right BJP and its related institutions are an integral part
of this vast ecosystem (Frayer and Khan 2019). In addition, although the
thousands of RSS schools “use government-prescribed textbooks”, the
“teaching methods are shot through” with ‘“spiritual values’ that are
exclusively Hindu nationalist” (Mohan 2016). Moreover, as is the case with
the other Extreme Right and Islamist extremist movements, social media
plays an important amplifying role. Certainly, in India, falling mobile data
costs have encouraged much greater mass use of the Internet (Doval 2018).
This has unsurprisingly created opportunities for sustained exposure to
inflammatory anti-Muslim material online propagated by Hindutva
activists. For example, in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak in the
country in April 2020, a BJP parliamentarian “used Facebook to allege that
Muslims in India are spreading coronavirus in the country as part of a
conspiracy called “Corona Jihad”’ (Times of India 2020). In this
connection, the Tablighi Jamaat Muslim missionary movement was heavily
castigated for allegedly ignoring safe distancing measures in holding a mass
gathering (Mayaram 2020). Meanwhile, another BJP activist “demanded
that Rohingya refugees in India be shot; called Indian Muslims traitors and
threatened to demolish mosques” (Times of India 2020).
Senior BJP government leaders have generally not taken strong steps to
either tone down such rhetoric or for that matter prevent the violence that it
encourages (Dhillon 2018). A case in point in recent times was the lead up
to the anti-Muslim riots in February 2020 against the backdrop of the anti-
Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests. Because the CAA allows
“persecuted Hindus, Parsis, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs and Christians from
Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan” a faster pathway to citizenship—but
ignores “persecuted Muslims”—the legislation is said to “violate the non-
discriminatory spirit of India’s constitution” (Chacko and Talukdar 2020).
The BJP government’s plan for a National Register of Citizens (NRC) also
drew flak from Indian Muslims who feared that their constitutional rights
would be imperilled by it. When the CAA and NRC initiatives prompted
peaceful protests around the country, these were met with Hindutva-
inspired violence. For instance, in Delhi, Yogi Adityanath, a “militant
Hindu monk” said the protesters should be fed “bullets not briyani”’ (Ellis-
Petersen 2020), while shootings of protestors perpetrated by “individuals
who identified as Modi supporters” also occurred, in the face of ineffective
police action. By late February 2020, even when the death toll had spiked to
over 40 and parts of Delhi were locked down, some BJP and affiliated
figures continued making inflammatory comments (Chacko and Talukdar
2020).

The COVID-19 Complication

Unsurprisingly, the global COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in 2020 had an
impact on the transnational Islamist and Extreme Right extremism
landscape, which has been felt on both the ideological and operational
fronts. Ideologically, many Islamist extremist ideologues exploited the
pandemic to push out the narrative that the End Times and, hence ultimate
victory, were nigh. Thus in Bangladesh, a Jama’atul Mujahideen
Bangladesh (JMB) leader, “actively used the COVID-19 pandemic in his
propaganda materials, describing it as a sign of the End of Times, and urged
his followers to prepare for the final battles” (Bashar 2020). In the southern
Philippines, “terrorist groups’ propaganda” framed “the pandemic as divine
retribution to the ‘kuffar’ (non-believer) government” (Yeo 2021), while an
Indonesian terrorist leader called the virus an “ally” that would defeat the
Indonesian authorities (Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict 2020). At
times such violent Islamist diatribes surfaced in non-violent—but certainly
intolerant and xenophobic—quarters. In Singapore, a local religious teacher
claimed that the virus, “which first emerged in China, was God’s retribution
against the Chinese for oppressing the Muslim Uighurs in the country’s
Xinjiang province” (Chandra 2020). As seen, moreover, the COVID-19
outbreak prompted Hindu Extreme Right activists to “allege that Muslims
in India are spreading coronavirus in the country as part of a conspiracy
called “Corona Jihad”’ (Times of India 2020). Likewise, Buddhist Extreme
Right activists in Sri Lanka and Myanmar have reportedly used the
pandemic to justify “threats and hate speech”, “discrimination” and even, in
some cases, “attacks”, against Muslims (Human Rights Watch 2020).
The pandemic impacted the operational efficiency of both security
forces and terrorist networks alike. Security forces had to split attention and
limited resources between operations to enforce physical lockdowns to limit
the spread of the virus and ongoing operations against terrorist networks
(Yeo 2020). At the same time, social media platforms like Telegram and
8Kun for instance, “frequented by white supremacists” have seen a
“significant uptick” in propagating, inter alia, the familiar “concept of
‘whites being under siege and attacked’ through the weaponization of
COVID-19” (Intel Brief n.d.-b). Hence White Supremacist activists have
agitated “for the white population to take up arms to spark a race war that
leads to societal collapse”, so as to be “supplanted by a new, white-led order
that reigns supreme” (Intel Brief n.d.-b). That said, the imposition of border
controls and lockdown measures have also significantly reduced terrorist
operating space. Cross-border movement has been much tightened, while
regular domestic lockdowns have prevented the face-to-face meetings that
facilitate the radicalisation of new recruits. Perversely, though, lockdowns
have also compelled vulnerable individuals to spend more time online,
where they are potentially able to immerse themselves even more deeply in
violent extremist ideological content (Azman 2021). No less important is
the fact that the pandemic “increased economic hardships and growing
social insecurity”, and thereby laid the foundations for “significant
domestic unrest” that could only fuel “radicalisation”. It seems clear that,
until mass vaccinations take hold and the pandemic finally subsides, the
international community is likely to confront a “Covid-19-driven surge of
extremism”—both Islamist and Extreme Right—“in the near future”
(Azman 2021).

The Importance of Strategic Dexterity

What seems clear from the foregoing analysis is that while the global
Islamist extremist threat remains as resilient as ever almost two decades
after September 11, the global terrorism and extremism landscape has
become more complex with the striking global rise of Extreme Right forms
of White, Buddhist and Hindu Supremacism as well—as seen in significant
part directed at Muslim minorities. While the physical threat from the likes
of Al Qaeda, ISIS and affiliated networks and lone actors remains on
balance more lethal on the whole, Extreme Right White Supremacist lone
actor terror attacks and incipient transnational linkages between White
Supremacist threat groups across Western countries are also an escalating
concern. Meanwhile, while Buddhist and Hindu Extreme Right movements
have thus far contributed to low-level and relatively unstructured mob
violence against Muslim minorities in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and India, the
danger is that such anti-Muslim violence is only going to reinforce stock
Islamist extremist narratives of a world violently opposed to Muslims. This
would continue radicalising impressionable Muslim communities
worldwide, thereby encouraging a vicious cycle of “reciprocal
radicalization” (Ebner 2017) between Muslim constituencies on the one
hand and White, Hindu and Buddhist communities on the other. For
instance, in late April 2019, Mark Steven Domingo, a US military veteran
and recent convert to Islam, was arrested by authorities for planning mass-
casualty attacks in Los Angeles to seek revenge for the White Supremacist-
inspired Christchurch mosque attacks earlier the same year (Diaz 2019).
While there remains a need for law enforcement and calibrated kinetic
measures based on good intelligence to cope with the very real physical
threat posed by lone actors and organised cells fuelled by both Islamist
extremist and Extreme Right ideologies, an over-reliance on such “hard”
approaches addresses symptoms rather than underlying causes. That is,
without complementary, sustained and simultaneous efforts to deal with the
underlying drivers of extremism and terrorism, security professionals would
have to continually cope with an exhausting, continually regenerating
supply of violent extremists and terrorist networks. Hence, strategic
dexterity is needed. At the time of writing, a big part of strategic dexterity
must certainly involve a whole-of-government effort at dealing with the
economic and social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This represents a
critical challenge that must be part of any wider solution to the evolving
terrorism and extremism challenge across the board. Such sustained multi-
dimensional efforts can only have positive knock-on effects on politics,
society and the economy across the broad—which in turn would have
salutary effects on the counter-terrorism/extremism fronts as well.
Certainly, one very critical plank of a strategically dexterous approach
to dealing with the rapidly evolving threats posed by Islamist extremist and
Extreme Right elements is a more granular intelligence-driven
understanding of how the ideological ecosystems that propagate the
extremist ideologies that sustain such terrorist and support networks
operate. As seen, a considerable diversity of ideological transmission
“nodes” exists on both the Islamist extremist and Extreme Right sides—
whether White, Buddhist or Hindu Supremacist—ranging from Net-savvy
charismatic individual influencers and organisations and institutional
spaces, to Far Right political parties and organs, to online publications and
social media platforms like Telegram and WhatsApp, to physical closed-
door study sessions—a list that is by no means exhaustive. It would be
important to perhaps map out how the nodes of these various ideological
ecosystems interconnect, not just within but also across the regions
surveyed. For instance, within the Buddhist Extreme Right domain, it is
known that Gnanasara’s BBS of Sri Lanka has formally collaborated with
Wirathu’s 969 movement in Myanmar, signing a Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) in Colombo in 2014 to cooperate on three broad
issues: (1) stronger networking, (2) strengthening individual and
organisational relationships, (3) more research to “stabilize Buddhism”
(Burma Library n.d.). This MoU was valid for 5 years starting from 30
September 2014 (Colombo Telegraph 2014a). Some observers have argued
that while “the future of these collaborative efforts is still unclear”, the
MoU signing is strongly suggestive of “shared Buddhist political interests
across the region” (Frydenlund 2015). Similarly, thanks to “social media”,
within the White Supremacist Extreme Right domain, extensive
communication and cooperation across borders between “like-minded
groups” has occurred, generating a “powerful multiplier effect” (Ebner
2017: 63). In 2016, a study by the UK anti-racist organisation Hope Not
Hate counted 24 such White Supremacist, counter-jihad social
organisations in the UK, 42 in the US and 12 in Australia (Ebner 2017: 63).
It should also be noted that ideological cross-fertilisation across disparate
Extreme Right movements also occurs. Thus Gnanasara of BBS in Sri
Lanka asserted in 2019 that his “ideology” was influenced by “Hindu right-
wing group Shiv Sena, the British National Party, and French far-right
leader Marine Le Pen—all of whom have made incendiary remarks on
Islam and Muslims” (Lim 2019).
A final important element of a strategically dexterous approach to the
Islamist extremist and Extreme Right challenge would be to better
understand the nexus between mainstream, ostensibly non-violent but
intolerant political and religious influencers—and actual violent extremist
networks. This is an issue that has long engaged analysts of Islamist
extremism. For instance, in the Maldives, it was noted that increased
terrorist activities in 2020 came “amidst the growing appeal of more
exclusivist versions of Salafism which is gradually replacing the non-
fundamentalist and tolerant Islamic traditions in the Maldives” (Siyech and
Singam 2021b). Analysts posited that “in addition to contemporary terrorist
influences”, the “Wahabi and Salafi teachings that originated from Saudi
Arabia and Egypt over the last few decades have increased the appeal for a
puritanical Islam and possibly contributed to the ingress of IS in the
archipelago” (Siyech and Singam 2021b). While the ostensible links
between non-violent if puritanical Salafism and violent Islamist extremists
remains a controversial issue, the debate appears as relevant as ever (Shane
2016). Within the Extreme Right domain, moreover, supposedly non-
violent individual influencers and entities have at times been linked in some
ways to actual outbreaks of out-group violence. Hence dealing with “the
extreme right threat”—White, Buddhist and Hindu Supremacist—has
proven “deeply complicated for states”, because the “bleed into the political
mainstream” has rendered the problem “very difficult to isolate and
eradicate” surgically (Pantucci and Ong 2021: 123). As Elcheroth and
Reicher (2017) point out, ostensibly non-violent if Far Right, politicians
need not facilitate violence directly and verbally; they can do so also by
keeping silent on actual incidents of violence, hence emboldening violent
groups, as well as by deliberately referencing historical clashes between
communities, in the process perpetuating the narrative that the communities
have been clashing for decades—thereby fuelling reciprocal radicalisation.
It could thus be argued that the whole notion of “non-violent extremism” on
the part of Islamist ideologues, Extreme Right social activists and their Far
Right political counterparts is “misleading”. As terrorism scholar Alex
Schmid (2014: 13–14) argues, while “Gandhian non-violence is radical” it
is not “extreme”; it is a “principled political philosophy that seeks to hold
the moral high ground in the face of a violent opponent”; by contrast,
extremism is in essence “not-violent” or “not-now violent”, simply because
“the non-use of violence is based merely on pragmatic, tactical and/or
temporal considerations”. This issue of the nexus, if any, between not-now
violent and violent extremism—and its significance for the analysis of
Islamist and Extreme Right ideological ecosystems, in any case, certainly
deserves further study.

Recommended Readings Seminal studies of the evolution of terrorism

and extremism down the decades include Bruce Hoffman’s Inside Terrorism
3rd edition (2017) as well as ed. Walter Reich’s excellent edited
compilation Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies,
States of Mind, (1998). Useful primers on the rise of the religiously -
motivated “new” terrorism wave of the 2000s onwards and the rise of Al
Qaeda include The New Terrorism: Anatomy, Trends and Counter-
Strategies, edited by Andrew Tan and Kumar Ramakrishna (2002) as well
as the journal article in Survival, “America and the New Terrorism” by
Steven Simon and Daniel Benjamin (2000). Good accounts of the
emergence and ideology of ISIS include Fawaz Gerges’s ISIS: A History
(2016) and Shiraz Maher’s Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea (2016).
For a helpful account of Extreme Right White Supremacism and how it
interacts with the Islamist extremist threat, see Julia Ebner’s The Rage: The
Vicious Circle of Islamist and Far-Right Extremism (2017). Kumar
Ramakrishna’s “Understanding Myanmar’s Buddhist Extremists: Some
Preliminary Musings”, from The New England Journal of Public Policy
(2020) and Christophe Jaffrelot’s Hindu Nationalism: A Reader (2007) shed
more light on the Buddhist and Hindu Extreme Right respectively, while
Mark Jurgensmeyer’s classic Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of
Religious Violence, 4th edition (2017) examines the Islamist extremist and
Extreme Right movements in valuable detail.

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Footnotes
1 Islamist ideology holds that “the primary Islamic texts (the Quran and hadith)” should be exploited
to provide the “blueprint for the creation of a state governed by Islamic law and the restoration of the
Caliphate” (Meleagrou-Hitchens 2018: 9). Extremist versions of Islamism legitimize the use of
violence including terrorism, to attain this objective.

2 Involving a self-organising small number of attackers not necessarily directed by an organised

network but planning and acting on their own. For instance, see (2019). Police Monitoring ‘Wolf
Pack’ Terrorism. The Star. April 8. Accessed March 18, 2021, from https://www.thestar.com.my/
news/nation/2019/04/08/police-monitoring-wolf-pack-terrorism.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_9

9. Violence Against Shop Workers: Trends

and Triggers in the United Kingdom
Emmeline Taylor1
(1) City, University of London, London, UK

Emmeline Taylor
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
Violence and aggression in shops can have far-reaching and devastating
consequences for shop workers, their customers and the communities that
they serve. At the time of writing, multiple indicators and sources from
police and industry demonstrate that the frequency and severity of violent
incidents in the retail sector have been increasing significantly across the
UK. This chapter outlines the main scenarios in which violence and abuse
are becoming prevalent: encountering shoplifters; enforcing legislation
relating to the sale of age-restricted goods and other prohibited sales; hate
motivated incidents, armed and unarmed robberies and, most recently,
upholding COVID-19 related rules and restrictions such as requiring
customers to wear a mask in store. An overview of the driving forces
behind the increase in attacks on shop workers is outlined alongside an
overview of the far-reaching and devastating consequences for shop
workers, their customers and the communities that they serve. Hundreds of
thousands of working hours are lost each year due to injuries—both
physical and mental—and many shop workers are now making the difficult
decision to leave a job that they once enjoyed. All too frequently, shop
workers are suffering physical injuries as well as chronic and life-changing
mental health consequences of violence such as long-term anxiety and post-
traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Introduction
In September 2020, CCTV footage of a woman smashing bottles of wine
from the shelves of a Co-operative supermarket made headline news across
England (YouTube 2020). Although shocking, many shop employees will
not have been surprised by the aggressive behaviour. At the time of writing,
multiple indicators and sources from police and industry demonstrate that
the frequency and severity of violent incidents in the retail sector have been
increasing significantly across the UK. For example, the British Retail
Consortium (BRC) (2020) estimated that there were more than 400
incidents every day in 2019; an increase of 9% on the previous year. This
chapter examines the circumstances in which assaults against shop staff
occur, identifying five common scenarios: encountering shop thieves;
enforcing legislation relating to the sale of age-restricted goods and other
prohibited sales; hate motivated incidents, armed and unarmed robberies
and, most recently, upholding COVID-19 related rules and restrictions such
as requesting that eligible customers wear a mask in store. Violence and
aggression in shops can have far-reaching and devastating consequences for
shop workers, their customers and the communities that they serve. This
chapter then turns to explore the ways in which violence towards shop
workers has—and can be—responded to. The approaches are divided into
three categories: security strategies, societal changes and legislative reform.

Trends in Violence and Abuse Towards Shop

Workers
Multiple industry and government sources of data demonstrate that the
frequency and severity of violent incidents in the retail sector have become
a significant issue across England and Wales. In addition to the BRC crime
survey, several other estimates on the level of violence against shop
workers have been produced. The Association of Convenience Stores’
Crime Report 2020 (ACS 2020) estimates that there were more than 50,000
incidents of violence against shop workers in the year previous, a quarter of
which resulted in injury. Their data equates to 34 individuals being
physically injured each day while serving their communities. In addition,
the ACS estimated that 83% of people who worked in the convenience
sector had been subjected to verbal abuse over the past year. Furthermore,
both the BRC and ACS report a concerning increase in the use of weapons
in attacks on shop workers. The ACS survey found almost 10,000 of the
reported attacks in convenience stores involved a weapon; 43% involving a
knife and 5% involving a firearm. Attacks with axes, hammers and syringes
were also reported (ACS 2020).
These alarming figures were released just before the severity of the
impact of COVID-19 became apparent, and before ‘lockdown’ restrictions
were put in place in the UK in March 2020. Sadly, the situation was about
to get a lot worse. Despite being recognised as essential ‘key workers’
during the COVID-19 crisis, shop workers have seen the levels of violence
and verbal abuse directed at them increase. As customers have become
agitated by restrictions, queues and limits on stock, some have directed their
frustrations at public-facing employees working hard to serve their
communities. Usdaw’s annual Freedom from Fear survey results for 2020
highlighted that 9 out of 10 workers said that they had been verbally abused
in the last 12 months, 60% received threats of violence from a customer and
a staggering 9% said they had been physically attacked (Usdaw 2021).
Overall, abusive incidents towards shop workers is claimed to have doubled
since the outbreak of COVID-19 (Usdaw 2020). Measures introduced to
manage the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic were cited as the most
common trigger for violence, verbal threats and abuse targeted towards
shop staff, including enforcing social distancing, managing queues outside
stores, enforcing the wearing of face coverings and limiting sales on high
demand items such as toilet paper and bread.
All available data sources suggest a large increase in incidents of
violence and abuse towards shop staff, yet it is likely to be a gross
underestimate of the true scale of the issue since it is well-documented that
crimes committed in the retail sector often go unreported to the police.
According to the Home Office 2018 Commercial Victimisation Survey
(CVS) (Home Office 2019) reporting rates remain low across the different
categories of crime (data is taken from the 2018 survey because the CVS
was paused during 2019 while a review was undertaken to assess user needs
and was then delayed due to the pandemic). The 2018 CVS asked those
respondents who had experienced crime in the past year whether or not they
had reported the most recent incident of each crime type to the police. The
findings are as follows:
 45% of assaults and threats reported to the police
70% of robberies reported to the police
42% of theft by customers reported to the police, and
35% of theft by unknown persons reported to the police
Research has found that employees attribute low levels of reporting to
several reasons, including a lack of time to report the sheer volume of
incidents using the current police reporting system which is often perceived
as cumbersome and long-winded, a fear of reprisal from offenders, a lack of
confidence in the criminal justice system in its current state, a reluctance to
take up valuable and severely overstretched police time and resource, as
well as a worry that they will be blamed for the incident, particularly in
stores that have a ‘no challenge’ policy with regard to shop thieves (Taylor
2019).

The Context of Violence and Verbal Abuse

Towards Shop Workers
Although each incident is of course unique, there are some contexts that
have been found to be commonly associated with the onset of violent
offences in-store. In the report It’s not Part of the Job (Taylor 2019), four
main scenarios were identified: encountering shoplifters, enforcing
legislation relating to the sale of age-restricted goods and other prohibited
sales, hate motivated incidents, and armed and unarmed robberies. Since the
onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, upholding both government and store
regulations and restrictions such as social distancing, queuing outside
stores, wearing a mask and limits on the number of items that can be
purchased adds a fifth common trigger for aggressive outbursts.

Encountering Shoplifters
Retail crime is high volume. In England and Wales, wholesale and retail
premises experienced an estimated 10.1 million crimes in 2018 (a
substantial increase on the 8.1 million estimated the previous year). The
year-on-year increases since 2015 have largely been driven by rises in theft
by customers. In 2018, 82% of the 10.1 million crime incidents were thefts
and, specifically, almost three-quarters (71%) of all incidents were theft by
customers. This equates to 7.1 million incidents of shop theft—more than
19,000 incidents a day. While this volume of offences is concerning, it is a
gross underestimate—one source calculates a more realistic figure to be 38
million shop theft offences per annum (Centre for Social Justice 2018). Yet,
it has been estimated that arrests for shoplifting fell by 17%, and the
number of perpetrators charged fell 25% in 2018 (Hemmings and Clark-
Neal 2018).
Individuals engaged in shop theft are increasingly using violence,
threats, intimidation and abuse directed at staff. Being challenged or
apprehended for shop theft is the number one trigger for violence and
verbal abuse in the retail sector—accounting for 25% of incidents (having
grown from 15% of incidents in 2016 to 21% in 2017) (Usdaw 2017). The
current high rates of shoplifting increase the likelihood of incidents in
which thieves become aggressive.
Drug addiction and acquisitive crime have always gone hand in hand.
Previous studies have estimated that between a third and a half of all
acquisitive crime is committed by offenders who use heroin, cocaine or
crack cocaine (MacDonald et al. 2005). More specifically, it has been
estimated that 70% of shop theft is committed by frequent users of these
drugs (Centre for Social Justice 2018). There is a strong relationship
between substance misuse, shop theft and the use of violence and
aggression by drug-affected offenders who are desperate not to be detained
because they are worried about beginning to withdraw from drugs while in
detention and unable to secure more drugs. This process, described as
‘rattling’ or ‘hanging’ by drug-affected offenders, is to be avoided at all
costs due to how unwell, mentally and physically, it makes users feel
(Taylor 2019). Offenders report that they will resort to violence if they think
it is the only option for them to escape and therefore avoid withdrawing
from drugs (Taylor 2019). Some drug-using offenders, particularly women
who feel that they would be unable to be physically threatening to male
security or staff members, self-report that they will threaten staff with a
‘dirty needle’ (a needle or sharp that has been used and therefore could
potentially be contaminated with infections that can be spread through
blood or bodily fluids, including hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and HIV) in order
to avoid apprehension for theft (Taylor 2019). This can be a particularly
scary ordeal for shop workers and security staff who do not know if the
threat is genuine or not. In similar terms, since the pandemic, there have
been reports that customers have deliberately coughed and sneezed at staff
(or threatened to) when they have asked customers to adhere to COVID-
related rules such as practising social distancing or wearing a mask (Usdaw
2020).
There have also been some legislative changes to how retail theft is
dealt with by the criminal justice system and this has arguably had an
impact on levels of shop theft, as well as the approach that offenders take.
The Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 (ASBCPA 2014)
made the theft of goods from a shop worth £200 or less (retail value) a
summary-only offence that would not be pursued by police (Home Office
2014). Instead, if caught, the offender can enter a plea via post (although
Home Office guidance stipulates that the ‘guilty plea by post’ is not
appropriate in cases involving aggravating factors such as violence, hate
motivated incidents or the possession of a weapon, it is possible with crime
committed in the retail sector that the emphasis on the value of goods may
obscure these other factors). The threshold was set at £200 because the data
at the time suggested that it captured the vast majority of cases heard in the
magistrates’ courts, as well as 80% of the much smaller number of cases
that go to the Crown Court. For example, research for the Sentencing
Advisory Panel in 2006 showed that 90% of cases of shop theft involved
property worth under £200. As such, the vast majority of perpetrators are
not required to attend court in person.
Following the introduction of the ASBCPA 2014, some forces
implemented their own assessment guidelines that effectively meant that
only the most serious retail crimes would be investigated. For example,
citing huge budget cuts amounting to £1 billion between 2010 and 2021, the
Metropolitan Police—the largest police force in the UK—advised in their
Crime Assessment Policy that they wouldn’t investigate any losses under
£50 in value unless a suspect was already identified. Despite these changes,
it is unclear to the extent to which the law has changed how forces respond
to reports of shop theft in real terms but it is clear that they
disproportionately impact some retailers more than others. Stores that sell
fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs), such as packaged foods, beverages
(including alcohol), toiletries, over-the-counter drugs and other
consumables, are more likely to suffer low-value high-volume thefts.
The Home Office CVS (2018) found that food and grocery items were
most commonly stolen in theft incidents; nearly a third (30%) of all
shoplifting incidents involved food and grocery items in 2017. Just over a
half (53%) reported that the food and grocery items stolen were typically
low-value items such as milk or bread. As such, not only are shops such as
supermarkets and convenience stores suffering a much higher volume of
incidents; they are also far less likely to receive a police response to reports
of theft than shops that stock higher value durable goods. Offenders report
being acutely aware of the current legislation and say that they feel that they
can now steal with impunity so long as they do not surpass the values
stipulated in legislation and police guidance (Taylor 2019). This is an
important development since, prior to the onset of COVID-19, the most
frequent trigger for violent assaults on shop workers was encountering a
shop thief.

Enforcing Legislation Relating to the Sale of Age-Restricted

Goods and Other Prohibited Sales
It has been estimated that more than one in five violent attacks on shop
workers are triggered by age-restricted sales (Usdaw 2018). The Licensing
Act 2003 stipulates that shop workers must take ‘reasonable precautions
and exercise due diligence’ to test the age of individuals seeking to
purchase age-restricted goods and services such as tobacco, alcohol, knives
and solvents. If shop workers don’t enforce the law, then they are personally
liable for breaking it. Failure to comply with trading standards law can lead
to enforcement action and to sanctions, which may include a fine and/or
imprisonment. In most police force areas, the offence of selling alcohol to a
person under 18 years of age may be dealt with by a £90 penalty notice and
in some areas may be addressed by an education scheme—that is, retraining
the offender to prevent further sales. As such, shop workers can feel under
considerable pressure, especially when a customer becomes threatening and
abusive. There are now more than 50 types of products that are restricted by
law in England and Wales.
In response to age-restricted sales, many retailers have implemented the
‘Challenge 25’ scheme endorsed by the Retail of Alcohol Standards Group,
the Government and Trading Standards. The scheme encourages anyone
who is over 18 but potentially appears to be under 25 to carry an acceptable
ID when they want to buy alcohol. Challenge 25 builds on the Challenge 21
campaign introduced by the British Beer and Pub Association in 2005.
In addition, some retailers have introduced voluntary codes to restrict
the sale of some products. For example, although at present there is no legal
restriction on the sale of high-caffeine drinks, some companies including
the Co-op as part of their social responsibility commitment have imposed a
voluntary ban on the sale of ‘energy drinks’ to under 16s. Customers
wishing to purchase these products might also be asked to present proof of
age documentation. It has been estimated that 1 in 20 of the age-restricted
violent and aggressive incidents in 2018 involved young people attempting
to buy high-caffeine drinks (Usdaw 2018). Whether the age verification
requirement is a product of government or the retailer for which the shop
worker is employed, they can generate ‘flash points’ in which violence or
aggressive behaviour occurs.
In addition, to age-restricted sales, it is also an offence to serve alcohol
to a person who is already intoxicated. Once drinkers have consumed
alcohol to a level that they are showing signs of intoxication, their normal
judgement is impaired. Therefore, it is up to the server—not the customer—
to decide whether or not they should be served. It can be difficult to know
with certainty when someone is drunk, and the amount of alcohol consumed
will vary between different people. This can make it a very difficult task for
shop workers to refuse service to someone under the influence of alcohol or
drugs and particularly since it can increase the likelihood of an altercation.
It has been estimated that refusing sales of alcohol to someone who is drunk
and dealing with people who are under the influence of alcohol or drugs
accounted for 21% of violent and abusive incidents in 2018 (Usdaw 2018).

Armed and Unarmed Robbery

Police-recorded crime data shows that robbery of a business property has
increased from 6800 offences in the year to March 2012 to 7700 offences in
the year to March 2018.
However, the Home Office’s Commercial Victimisation Survey reports
that this figure is estimated to be considerably higher with 297,000
incidents of robbery (including attempts) in 2017. The prevalence of
robbery has also increased, with 5% of premises experiencing this crime
type in 2017 compared with 3% in 2012 (Home Office 2019). Since the
1980s, armed robbery has undergone substantial changes in target selection
and modus operandi. This is, in part, due to a range of new security
measures and situational crime prevention strategies that have become more
sophisticated and widely available (Gill 2000; Matthews 2002; Taylor
2017).
 The changing patterns in armed robbery reflect ‘tactical displacement’
(see Repetto 1976 on the different types of criminal displacement). As
banks and financial institutions have installed sophisticated security, armed
robbers have turned their attentions to ‘softer targets’. The sale of cigarettes
and other readily exchangeable goods, the high volume of cash transactions,
their often-relative isolation or longer opening hours compared to other
businesses in the vicinity have resulted in a corresponding increase in
armed robbery in convenience stores, service stations, off-licences,
supermarkets and restaurants (Borzycki and Fuller 2014; Taylor 2017). The
reality is that any business with cash or high-value items on the premises
can expect to be targeted.
Unlike other acquisitive crimes, such as burglary (Taylor 2014) or
stealing via self-service checkout (Taylor 2016; Beck 2011) that offenders
typically intend to be non-confrontational (although that is not always the
case in reality), robbers deliberately employ strategies of violence or the
threat of violence to force victims to hand over money, cigarettes, alcohol
and other goods. This makes robberies particularly scary and traumatic for
shop workers who might be physically hurt or threatened, as well as
bystanders who witness the crime. For example, Elklit (2002) studied a
group of 65 shop employees, of which 72% had been victims of armed
robbery and the others had suffered life-threatening circumstances, physical
or psychological assault or captivity, or they had seen people being injured
or killed. He reported that 25% of the sample suffered from acute stress
disorder. During a robbery, demands are often made of staff that can be
difficult to fulfil under high levels of stress, such as opening cash tills and
safes and this can lead to heightened levels of intimidation and threat being
used by offenders (Taylor 2017). Furthermore, by definition, the vast
majority of robbers are armed with some form of weapon. The prevalence
of different weapons used in armed robberies varies by country, but in
England and Wales, it is now most commonly a knife following a long-term
decline in the use of firearms in robberies (Matthews 2002). For example,
the number of robberies involving firearms in England and Wales fell by
62% between the year ending March 2006 (4121 offences) and March 2016
(ONS 2017).
Robberies are volatile situations, particularly when offenders are under
the influence of drugs or heavily intoxicated. Convicted armed robbers
report that if anything does not go according to plan, if there was a plan
(and they are typically ill-conceived to begin with) or if they believe that
the robbery is taking too long, then this will dramatically increase the
likelihood of them using violence (Taylor 2017).

Hate Motivated Incidents

As one of the main public-facing sectors, there is anecdotal evidence to
suggest that shop workers are enduring heightened levels of hate motivated
offences. The definition of hate crime is contested in academic terms and
some argue that a standard universal and internationally accepted definition
is not possible or desirable (Schweppe 2021). However, the police and
Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have agreed to the following definition
for identifying and flagging hate crimes:

Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other

person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice, based on a person’s
disability or perceived disability; race or perceived race; or religion
or perceived religion; or sexual orientation or perceived sexual
orientation or transgender identity or perceived transgender identity.
(CPS 2017)

In a study of violence against shop workers (Taylor 2019), several

participants reported incidents in which they, or their colleagues, had been
on the receiving end of verbal abuse that targeted their membership (or
perceived membership) of a certain social group or race. One store manager
was quoted as saying:

It’s disgusting—some people will say anything to staff to do with

the colour of their skin, their gender, anything… It can be very
upsetting. It can take a while to come back from a personal attack.
It’s daily—it’s racist abuse, it’s gender abuse—everything under the
sun. (Cited in Taylor 2019)

Such hate incidents can be particularly traumatic for victims because of

who they are or what they believe. Furthermore, this type of abuse can often
take place over a prolonged period of time. There were 94,098 hate crimes
recorded by the police in England and Wales in 2017/2018, an increase of
17% compared with 2016/2017 (80,393 offences). There have been
increases in all five of the centrally monitored strands of hate crime (race,
religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender status) continuing the
upward trend since 2012/2013. Some of the increase is thought to be driven
by improvements in crime recording by the police following a review by
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services
(HMICFRS 2018), but there have been notable increases in hate crime
following certain events such as the EU Referendum in June 2016 and the
terrorist attacks in 2017. The number of hate crime incidents recorded by
the police reached a record monthly level of 6000 incidents in June 2017
following the terrorist attacks at Westminster Bridge, the Manchester Arena
and London Bridge earlier in the year (Travis 2017). This peak was higher
than the previous monthly peak of 5500 in July 2016 seen in the aftermath
of the EU referendum (Travis 2017). Although there are suggestions that
some incidents of violence and verbal abuse towards shop workers are hate
motivated, there is currently no systematic way by which this data is being
collected. It is hoped that future iterations of the UK Home Office’s
Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS) include questions on hate-related
incidents.

COVID-19 Restrictions and Rules

It has been claimed that abusive incidents towards shop workers have
doubled since the outbreak of COVID-19 (Usdaw 2020) with shop workers
reporting that they have been spat at, coughed at and sneezed at when
asking customers to practise social distancing or wear a mask. Given the
fear around the transmission of COVID-19, these deliberate breaches of
social distancing and rebutting measures to protect others present a
concerning development.
Some respondents to the Usdaw survey (2020) stated that they had
encountered physical assaults when trying to enforce buying limits on in-
demand products. On average, it was reported that retail staff were being
verbally abused, threatened or assaulted every week during the crisis,
compared with once a fortnight in 2019 (Usdaw 2020). There is currently
very little available data on the frequency and severity of incidents that
appear to have been triggered by Covid-related regulations and more work
is needed to fully understand the impact. It is worth pointing out that police
forces across the UK saw a 21% increase in assaults on their officers in the
first three months of lockdown (7863 assaults compared with 6505 over the
same period in 2019) (BBC News 2020). Similarly, there is anecdotal
evidence suggesting that security officers, often deployed to assist with
Covid-related restrictions, suffered increased levels of abuse and violence
as a result of the pandemic (Clayton 2021; Mosendz et al. 2021).
Furthermore, in the UK, male security officers have one of the highest death
rates from COVID-19 compared to other occupations—fourth only to care
home workers, chefs and taxi drivers (Mosendz et al. 2021). Overall,
COVID has brought heightened challenges for retailers in terms of
protecting their staff and their stock. The problem being particularly acute
for security officers who not only appear to be suffering increased levels of
violence and abuse, but also are at an increased risk of contracting and
dying from coronavirus when compared to other occupations.

The Impact of Violence and Verbal Abuse

The impact and consequences of violence can result in life-changing
injuries. Shop workers have reported broken bones, knife injuries, being
punched and lacerated with smashed glass bottles, and of course, some
attacks on shop workers are fatal. Yet the impact of violence and verbal
abuse stem far beyond physical symptoms; violent encounters can leave
long-lasting and life-changing emotional and mental health impacts on
victims. There is a well-established link between violence and mental well-
being (Acierno et al. 1999). In the short term, victims might experience a
range of emotions including fear, anger, confusion and even feelings of
guilt and shame. Other effects can include shutting people out, difficulty
sleeping and having low self-esteem. Long-term mental health effects of
violence can include depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD). PTSD is estimated to affect about one in every three people who
have a traumatic experience (NHS 2018). In the study conducted in 2018,
multiple participants described how they, or a colleague, suffered from
PTSD following a violent attack whilst they were at work (Taylor 2019).
For example, a store manager relayed the devastating impact that a robbery
had on a colleague who was left too frightened to leave her home (names
have been changed):

Rebecca was 21 years old at the time the offence took place. She
had been working on the shop floor when a guy in his thirties came
in and picked her up by her jacket. He then pulled her by her hair
 down one of the aisles to the office where he demanded that she
emptied the safe. He then went back to the front of the store,
threatened the girl behind the till and ripped the cash drawers out
before leaving. Rebecca was in a very bad way. She was very
shaken up. She tried to carry on for two weeks but then she handed
in her notice. The GP diagnosed PTSD and she’s not been able to
work since. She’s on medication and is just stuck at home. I know
she’s accessing counselling and she said it’s really helping her but
she’s still too scared to leave the house. (Store Manager of a
supermarket cited in Taylor 2019)

In addition to the physical and mental impacts on shop workers, the

strain of constant abuse and fear of physical violence result in them
changing their shift pattern, place of work, or even terminating their
employment. This can have huge and wide-ranging impacts on their
confidence, self-esteem and career prospects, notwithstanding their income.

Tackling Violence and Verbal Abuse Towards

Shop Workers
Security Strategies
Although the antecedents of crime lie in complex social issues that require
long-term strategy and investment to resolve them, there are security
strategies that retailers can take to protect their staff and customers from
violence and aggression. Effective crime control is not just about
responding after an incident has taken place; it is about proactively taking
steps to limit the likelihood of crime occurring in the first place. It is well-
established that opportunity plays a part in criminal behaviour and so taking
steps to make it harder for criminals can reduce its frequency and severity.
Situational crime prevention is focused on ‘opportunity reduction’
strategies (Clarke 1980) that may include increasing the effort that is
required by criminals to commit an offence or increasing the perceived
risks, for example.
Cornish and Clarke (2003) have outlined a classification of 25
situational prevention techniques comprised of five different strategies
(increase the effort, increase the risks, reduce the rewards, reduce
provocations, remove excuses) each with five different techniques to reduce
crime. The techniques include both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ strategies. Hard
strategies include interventions that aim to make the criminal event
impossible or more difficult to commit. On the other hand, soft strategies
include interventions aiming to reduce the situations that cause the increase
of person’s motivation to offend. Strategies deployed by retailers involve a
range of approaches, including security devices such as body-worn
cameras, having reliable and quality CCTV cameras, installing personal or
duress alarms, appropriate signage, cash minimisation strategies and using
Perspex screens to protect staff from physical contact by customers, as well
as Covid-related abuse (e.g. deliberately coughing or sneezing at a member
of staff). The British Retail Consortium (BRC) estimated that industry
spending on crime control surpassed £1 billion per annum for the first time
in the 2017–2018 financial year and continues to increase each year. This
indicates that the majority of retailers are investing in security strategies to
better protect staff as well as securing assets and reducing potential losses.
However, there is a severe lack of an evidence base in relation to ‘what
works’ in reducing violence and aggression towards shop workers. As such,
the strategies are unlikely to always be effective.

Legislative Reform
In addition to industry-led initiatives such as the Co-op’s Safer Colleagues,
Safer Communities campaign and Usdaw’s Freedom from Fear annual
survey, there have also been repeated calls for the Government to introduce
legislation that would increase the penalties for offenders if they assault a
shop worker who is fulfilling their duty to uphold the law, such as refusing
underage sales. Following the increase in the frequency and severity of
assaults against shop workers, the Assaults on Retail Workers (Offences)
Bill 2019–2021 was introduced to parliament in September 2020. The Bill
proposed to make certain offences, including malicious wounding, grievous
or actual bodily harm and common assault, aggravated when perpetrated
against a retail worker in the course of their employment. Despite
unanimity across industry bodies that legislation is needed to protect the
three million individuals that work in the retail sector, the government
rejected the calls, stating that ‘it remains unpersuaded of the need for a
specific offence’ (UK Government and Parliament 2020). Whereas, in
Scotland, the issue has been responded to with the passing of The
Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services)
(Scotland) Bill by a unanimous vote, becoming an Act in February 2021.
The law makes it a specific offence to assault, threaten or abuse retail
workers, particularly when the worker is applying an age restriction (e.g.
asking for proof of age from someone trying to buy alcohol).
It is not yet clear whether the legislation will deter offenders from
becoming violent and abusive towards shop workers. According to von
Hirsch et al. (1999), there are five logical conditions which must exist
before an increase in the severity of criminal penalties can work as a
deterrent:
Potential offenders must realise sentence levels have increased
Potential offenders must think about heavier sentence levels when
contemplating their offences
Potential offenders must believe they have at least a reasonable chance of
being caught
Potential offenders must believe that if caught the heavier sentencing
policy will be applied to them
Potential offenders must be prepared to desist where (i–iv) are present.
There are additional concerns that can be added to this list. For
example, potential offenders must believe they have at least a reasonable
chance of being prosecuted if they are indeed caught and of course, they
must be so minded as to want to avoid a lengthier sentence. While this
might seem like an obvious stance, some offenders report deliberately
returning to prison for respite or to get medical attention for an ongoing
health issue (Taylor 2017, 2021).
It is well-documented that crimes committed in the retail sector often go
unreported. As outlined above, according to the Home Office 2018
Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS) reporting rates remain low across
the different categories of crime. With so many crimes not being reported, it
would be a reasonable supposition for offenders to think that the chance of
them being apprehended and charged was slim. Furthermore, without
treatment for drug-affected offenders, it is highly unlikely that they would
be prepared to desist from crime. Prolific and drug-affected thieves report
that they will use any means necessary to avoid apprehension, including
serious violence. Of the few cases that are prosecuted and proceed to court,
prolific retail offenders describe receiving sentences that do nothing to
address the underlying reasons for their offending behaviour (Taylor 2021).
In particular, drug-affected offenders report a string of short custodial
sentences (less than six months) with no rehabilitation component. It is
clear that the way in which the criminal justice system responds to crime in
the retail sector requires significant and urgent change. Although it is
unlikely that introducing a specific offence for assaults on shop workers
will deter the bulk of offenders, it may provide an opportunity to undertake
meaningful work with prolific retail criminals through deferred sentencing
(see Taylor 2021). Using legal leverage could potentially improve the
likelihood of compliance with treatment services and secure long-term
change in an offender’s patterns of behaviour. More research is required to
understand the impact of the legislation on patterns of offending and if it
does deter some offenders.

Societal Changes
No crime happens in a vacuum. There are long-established key drivers of
crime including drug and alcohol abuse, the crime-inducing impact of
unemployment and income inequality (e.g. Fajnzylber et al. 2002) and a
lack of ‘social capital’ (e.g. DiIulio 1996). Violence towards shop workers
is part of a broader trend of increasing violence across England and Wales.
The police recorded 1.4 million ‘violence against the person’ offences in the
year ending March 2018; an increase of 19% compared with the previous
year (1.1 m offences) (Office for National Statistics 2019). Police-recorded
homicides have increased by 37% since 2014, following downward trends
during the previous decade (Home Affairs Committee 2019), and knife
crime has increased by 71% between 2014 and 2018. The number of
murder victims aged 16 to 24 rose by 45% in the year to March 2018
leading The Home Affairs Committee (2019) to describe youth violence as
a ‘national emergency’.
The reasons for the dramatic increase in violent crime in recent years
are not yet fully understood. The underlying causes of violence and verbal
abuse in society are multiple and complex with contributing factors
identifiable from individual (e.g. mental health, substance misuse) to
societal levels (e.g. social inequality, unemployment) and they are often
interrelated. For example, the impact of living in poverty can exacerbate
mental health problems and, in turn, result in unemployment and/or
substance misuse. What is clear, however, is that dramatic cuts in public
spending have resulted in devastating consequences for some of the most
disadvantaged and vulnerable individuals and communities across England
and Wales. A recent parliamentary inquiry directly linked prolonged
austerity measures to increasing rates of violent crime. Between 2010 and
2015, local authority budgets were cut by £18 billion, with youth services,
social care, early intervention and housing services particularly affected
(Neville 2015). In conjunction with cuts to social investment across
England and Wales, currently, an ineffective and inappropriate criminal
justice response to retail crime in all its forms is perpetuating criminal
activity.
Funding cuts have been extensive and wide-ranging and include social
services provision that is known to prevent or tackle criminal behaviour,
including youth services and early intervention programs, drug and alcohol
treatment services, mental health provision and education. This signals the
need for concerted government action to invest in preventative measures,
with enhanced interventions to support the communities most at risk of
violence.

Conclusion
Shop workers have become major targets of workplace violence. They
frequently encounter people who are heavily intoxicated, drug-affected,
suffering mental health issues, on their way to or returning from stressful
jobs and long commutes, and those who are intent on stealing and getting
away with it.
The current lack of law enforcement in concert with legislative changes
has created a fertile ground for retail crime to flourish. Violent and verbally
abusive customers are becoming more commonplace as shop workers find
themselves increasingly duty-bound to uphold government regulations such
as age-related sales, COVID-19 rules and policies brought in by their
employers for well-intended reasons but that can create ‘flash points’ for
abuse to occur, for example, age limits for the purchase of ‘energy drinks’.
In addition, thieves are becoming more prolific and more brazen as they
calculate the risk of formal apprehension and punishment to be virtually
non-existent which creates a dangerous situation as shop workers encounter
them more frequently. It has been estimated that the current average risk of
being caught for a shop theft is around 1 in 500 (Centre for Social Justice
2018) which some offenders interpret as ‘a licence to steal’ (Taylor 2019).
Retailers are responding with security technologies that, anecdotally, are
producing positive outcomes. Some of the examples of this include body-
worn cameras for customer-facing staff and headsets so that employees can
quickly communicate with one another and security personnel. These
technologies have yet to be independently evaluated, but there is research to
indicate that body-worn cameras, for example, can have a ‘civilizing effect’
(White 2014) on otherwise heated interpersonal interactions. Much more
research is needed and in particular a review of what works and in what
contexts to prevent and deescalate aggressive and potentially violent
incidents. Alongside security solutions, it is, however, important to focus
energies on the root causes of violence, not just the symptoms. The factors
that contribute to violent incidences—whether they are factors of attitude
and behaviour or related to larger social, economic, political and cultural
conditions—can be changed. Only by doing this will we be able to break
the cycle of violence and reduce the impact that it has on individuals, their
families and our communities.

Recommend Readings
There is very little published academic research on the issue of violence and
verbal abuse towards shop workers. Much of the data and analysis stems
from industry publications. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) and the
Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) both publish annual crime
reports which include levels of abuse towards sop staff. The Home Office
run an annual Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS) (paused during
2019 while a review was undertaken to assess user needs and then delayed
due to the COVID-19 pandemic) which will include questions specifically
on violence in the next iteration. The union, Usdaw, run an annual survey of
their nearly 400,000 members as part of the Freedom from Fear campaign.
The report, It’s Not Part of the Job (Taylor 2019), was published in 2018
and documents the experiences of shop workers in relation to violence as
well as providing insights into the triggers for violent altercations. The
research underpinning the report was based on interviews with victims and
offenders.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_10

10. Burglary Research and

Conceptualizing the Community Security
Function, a Learning Organization
James D. Calder1
(1) Department of Political Science and Geography, The University of
Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA

James D. Calder
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
In the United States, perhaps elsewhere, burglary is the second most
frequently occurring major crime after theft. Burglars prey on households
and businesses, leaving behind victims and lost property rarely recovered.
In the past 25 years, burglary rates have dropped dramatically in Western-
law nations significantly attributable to effective crime prevention and
security measures. Community initiatives have contributed to the
implementation of some of these measures. This chapter suggests that even
more rate reductions can be achieved by conceptualizing and developing
the community security function (CSFs) as a learning organization.
Burglars learn from experiences, successes and challenges, and research.
Communities also learn (and can learn more) from information
disseminated in many forms. CSFs exist more often in concept than reality.
Formalization of CSFs as proactively critical and learned resources for
further reducing burglary rates must rely on new research findings.
Discussion is limited to summarizing selected recent research findings on
burglars as crime workers who apply skills intentionally focused on
counteracting security and prevention strategies. CSFs can benefit from an
equally intensive focus on learning from what burglars are thinking and the
actions and methods of prevention.

Introduction
Successful burglaries represent failures of the community security function
(CSF). Burglars target, attack, steal from, and fence valuables from
communities and structures. Burglary events begin with breaking into and
entering a building or structure with the intent to commit a felony or
misdemeanor. Burglars prey on residential and commercial locations. They
prefer isolated weakly defended targets without any capable guardians
(Lentzner 1979; Mawby 2014; Morgan and Truman 2020). Victims react
with befuddlement, fear, and/or justifiable embarrassment. Police are
frequently ambivalent. Property is rarely recovered. Learning, proactive
interventions, and technologies have contributed to burglary’s decline
(Farrell 2013; Tseloni et al. 2017). Remaining, however, are millions of
unreported, reported, and unsolved events (Berman 2000; Federal Bureau of
Investigation 2020; Office of National Statistics, UK 2020; Australian
Bureau of Criminal Statistics 2021). Burglary’s historical roots parallel
human history. Playwright, actor, and poet, William Shakespeare, was
obsessed with burglary and theft, bothered more by betrayals of trust than
methods of evildoers (Dubrow 1999). ‘Housebreaking’ was at one time a
hanging offense in the U.S. Beginning in the late eighteenth century;
however, state laws reduced punishments to prison terms depending on the
facts (Friedman 1993, 308).
This chapter focuses on the CSF, currently a largely unrecognized
community resource randomly available and only loosely formed as a
collection of actual and potential victims, nearby neighbors, bystanders and
witnesses, community organizations and partnerships (Prenzler 2009),
police patrol personnel, security providers, business operators, religious
groups, insurance representatives, and others. As such, CSFs are more
concept than reality since they exist but generally do not function in a
wholistic fashion. I propose greater formalization of CSFs mostly through
the creation of voluntary but publicly recognized organizations with
leadership, representative structure, and broad participation by every
community element focused on burglary-specific initiatives. Formalization
of CSFs places burglary prevention among other top priorities in local
public policy. Principal missions would focus on gathering, retaining, and
sharing information about every aspect of a local burglary problem,
intensive community education in burglary prevention, and evolution over
time as a learning organization. Of necessity, this chapter is limited to
summarizing foundational advanced research findings in aid of CSF
stepwise growth in their learning processes. Developmental dimensions of
CSFs must await further exploration.
The term ‘security function’ is borrowed from organizational theorist
Henri Fayol, an early twentieth-century engineer concerned with worker
safety and security in the French mining industry (Fayol and Storrs 1916;
Peaucelle and Guthrie 2016). Fayol viewed the safety and security of mine
workers as essential to industrial productivity. Fayol’s concept finds
application in developing community security functions as learning
organizations. Core elements of learning about burglary are found in recent
research concerning burglar thoughts and conduct, burglar targeting
decisions, and assessments of prevention efforts. Strengthened by learned
insights from research findings, combined with organized collaboration and
leadership, CSFs can improve crime prevention capacity. As Peaucelle and
Guthrie (2016) noted, Fayol’s ‘security function’ significantly reduced
deaths and injuries in mines, thus expanding an industrial ‘security culture’.

Realities of the Community Security Function

Fully functioning and effective CSFs do not exist in major urban areas in
developed nations. Well known, however, are smaller-scale crime
prevention organizations with limited anti-crime initiatives. CSFs, however,
are conceptualized as substantially larger, formally constituted, and more
specialized organizations targeted at burglary and aimed at gathering,
learning from, and disseminating correlated and evaluated information. It is
not a policing or regulatory function. As mentioned, basic elements of CSFs
already exist in towns, cities, and counties. The concept of the CSF adds
measurably to the resource capacities of smaller-scale initiatives, most
importantly an intensively developed knowledge-based function aiding the
evolution of learning organizations. In essence, the critical mission of the
CSF is to harness, evaluate, and disseminate information to residents and
businesses for the purpose of expanding community participation. It is a
structured voluntary organization established under local government
oversight with a goal to aggressively defend communities against burglary
events.
Formalization of the CSF concept as principally an information
collection and dissemination entity will, most likely, encounter resistance.
Western-law principles impose primary responsibility on private property
owners and occupants for personal security protections. Individuals decide
—or not—about the valuation of property and risks they accept or shift.
Assumptions creep into such assessments, particularly assumptions about
security elements beyond their property. Such assumptions may stem from
abstract concepts of political freedom and decisions about free choice, one’s
own property versus public property, a right of self-defense, and/or
sentiments about community belongingness. In practical terms, assumptions
may reflect pure stubbornness, ambivalence about property values and loss,
and/or attitudes about local political and social environments (Lentzner
1979; Cohen et al. 2006). Successful implementation of functioning CSFs,
at least in the U.S., will likely struggle with these attitudes and with
political resistance originating in ideologically grounded allegations of
more government intrusiveness. Oddly, however, such assertions typically
ignore concerns for public costs associated with failures to protect even at
the most minimal levels (Lentzner 1979). Burglary is a crime against
communities, not simply a matter of individual victimizations, and the
public costs for expected responses are substantial.

The Community Security Function as a Learning

Organization
Community awareness of the elements of a CSF stems from presumptions
about security already embedded in community life. Individual and
community beliefs about community safety—real or imagined—range from
the existence of trusted neighbors to distant but capable guardians to police
or security patrols and/or to the presence of real or imagined technologies.
Each element is defined legally or socially, potentially adding to an overall
perception of community safety. Circumstances of daily life inform the
realities of safety or threats, including learned accounts of improving or
worsening conditions. Burglary is but one local threat. Interactions among
community members, news media stories, police presence, and other
information resources provide facts and recommendations at the
foundational level of community learning, including learning about the
specifics of burglary events. Logically, although not guaranteed, as learning
multiplies, cues and mental maps expand awareness and response concerns.
When it does so, community members may seek to enhance security
measures through self-help or collaborative initiatives. Loosely imagined,
then, a community security function evolves as a formal or informal
learning organization.
Learning organizations (Denhardt 2011, 212–214) are more commonly
discussed in the context of private sector initiatives in organizational
development (OD), only recently transitioning to public sector and security
applications (Makinen 2005; Getha-Taylor 2008; Shafritz et al. 2017, 260–
262). Effectiveness evolves from two main premises: first, like other
organisms, they change as they respond to external environments; second,
they learn only when members learn. Learning methods can be adaptive—
essentially learning from environmental conditions—and proactive (or
essentially deliberative higher-order learning by doing). In each case,
organizations cease to advance when they cease to learn, thus resulting in
stagnation (Chilton et al. 2019, 233). Within boundaries and limits of
internal bonding, they learn from individual and collective experiences,
they seek additional information about certainties and uncertainties, and
they develop preliminary solutions affecting survivability.
In this chapter, I address the problem of burglary and what CSFs can
learn from recent research. In its early phases, a formal CSF cannot be
expected to operate in a perfectly adaptive manner nor as a fully
deliberative body—or even as an effective learner—since its organizational
elements may vary greatly and encounter several types of bounded
conditions (e.g. victims too busy or unconcerned, police ambivalence,
operability of security alarm systems, security providers under contract
limitations, witnesses unwilling to report observations, etc.). At first, it may
experience halting collaboration. In time and with good leadership, a CSF
can learn its way beyond a mere elusive, ghostlike, less-than-collaborative
activity to a fully functioning and palpable social organization. Its
effectiveness depends on the acquisition of and adaptation to knowledge
concerning potential threats from burglary. Decisions taken to learn from
the information and to respond to threats may take considerable time but
learning continues.
 Comprehensive discussion of the advanced scholarship is an impossible
task. Scholarship summarized here is neither conveniently available nor
easily consumed and applied across CSF elements. Moreover, only the most
directly influential and engaged CSF can be expected to lead to deep dives
into the usefulness of advanced research. Of necessity, therefore, I must
narrow the learning agenda to a highly selective collection of research
findings published since 2000 in three core areas of burglary studies: (1)
modes of burglar thinking and tradecraft; (2) burglar targeting methods and
what they teach about burglar aims, directions, and decision-making; and
(3) experimental prevention initiatives providing feedback to the learning
cycle, principally cautioning about what works or what is problematic.
Necessarily, and beyond the scope of this chapter, imagining the CSF and
how it advances its learning capacities will require significantly broader and
deeper investigations. Spreading analysis of useful insights from current
research, especially by the most engaged CSF members, can be expected to
lead to a community learning objective, a task anchored in formalized
outreach.

Burglary, Burglars, and Research History

When burglary rates rise, public reactions vary greatly. Not uncommonly,
when more serious facts, such as collateral violence (e.g. murder or rape),
community fears, and outrage escalate, media attention is peeked, and
public officials voice public anger. High profile one-off events,
however, can stir national and international interest but are far less focused
on victimization issues, for example, the 1971 burglary of an FBI office in
Media, Pennsylvania (Cunningham 2004; Batvinis 2007; Medsger 2014),
the 1972 third-rate burglary of the National Democratic Party headquarters
at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. (Olson 2003; Calder 2010;
Kutler 2013), or the 1989 ‘Blue Diamond’ theft from the vault of a Saudi
Arabian prince (Layton and Chandler 2021). Clever schemes of art theft
and notorious safe crackers attract popular culture writers and film
producers who often portray burglars as devious anti-heroes. Statistical
reality for millions of ordinary burglaries, however, is quite different.
Scholarly investigations have been conducted in the U.S. and elsewhere
for several decades, mostly occurring in the past 60 years. In the U.S.,
government-sponsored studies originated with the 1930s Wickersham
Commission (National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement
1931; Calder 2013), advanced in the mid-1960s with other national
commission investigations (e.g. President’s Commission on Law
Enforcement and Administration of Justice 1967), and transitioned to high-
level methodological sophistication through large grant-funded projects
narrowing and sharpening foci on victims, perpetrators, police, and security
functions. From the mid-1970s forward, victimization and self-report
research greatly expanded horizons of theory (e.g. Scarr 1973; Miransky
and Langer 1978; Clarke 1995; Felson and Boba 2010), including victim
contributions to criminal events and the costs of personal negligence
(Lentzner 1979). Through the late 1980s, research influenced expansion of
burglary countermeasures, frequently pointing to flawed design features,
target hardening devices, advanced technologies, and prevention strategies
(Newman 1976; Pease 1991; Miethe et al. 2005). Elaborate quantitative,
qualitative, and ethnographic methodologies pushed forward deeper probes
into offender conduct and analyses of criminal thinking and tradecraft (e.g.
Pope 1977; Wright and Decker 1994; Cromwell 2006). As research
expanded after 1994, questions evolved mainly from foundations in rational
choice theory, a doctrine grounded in the thinking and reasoning
capabilities of offenders as they consider costs and benefits of burglary
events and how they bring significant informational resources to their
planning (Cornish and Clarke 1986; Brown and Bentley 1993; Ekblom and
Tilley 2000). Advancing thoughts post-2000 were given to such dimensions
as target surveillance methods and guardianship factors (Felson and Boba
2010; Coupe and Fox 2015), and assessment of security provisions and
deterrence technologies. To the present, reported statistics continue a
downward direction across all of the Western-law nations (Girard 1960;
Tilley et al. 2015; Farrell 2013; Brown 2015; Tseloni et al. 2017). Research
has continued, much of delivering significant credit to the implementation
of various security practices and technologies (Farrell et al. 2014).
A deeper perspective might have added that elements of the
unorganized but present community security function were engaged in a
learning process—a process likely informed by research findings and
translated into actions, a thesis so far remaining unaddressed. Factually, at
least across Western nations, building and residential construction features,
alarms and locking mechanisms, engaged community organizations,
security guard and alarm companies, and police departments gathered and
shared insights and instructions about strategies for countering burglary
events surpassing previous efforts. Communities experiencing worsening
burglary statistics pointed out contributing factors, pressured public
officials, collaborated individually and collectively, and implemented
physical, technological, and procedural prevention initiatives. Burglary
rates have continued, however, as they do to the present. Recent research
affords significantly more analytical understanding about the ‘who’, the
‘where’, and the ‘effects’ associated with victimization.

Burglars: Their Conduct and Thinking

Successful burglars plan their criminal work, they surveil targets, they study
target features, and they consider target occupancy, presence of capable
guardians, and potential witnesses. They make go-no-go decisions, plan
entry methods, and contemplate internal search and exit strategies.
Moreover, they retain learning useful in repeated events at the same or
nearby targets. So much more is presently known about burglars now fully
useful to the community security function.

Burglar Beliefs About Rewards of the Craft

Applying a ‘Good Lives Model’ (GLM), Taylor (2017) investigated burglar
conceptions of rewards of the trade. Convicted English residential burglars
provided data: half were under probation supervision and half were
incarcerated. The objective was to afford offenders opportunities to build
new thinking about a future ‘good life’ while sharing reflections that would
improve precision about types of property garnering personal rewards
beyond monetary value and what property conquests or ‘takes’ provided
stimuli sufficient to advance to selected targets? Findings indicated that
many were motivated toward ‘life’-sustaining rewards through money,
often used to buy drugs, since they were largely people raised with few such
rewards and not particularly interested in a safe life. Some expressed
interests in developing greater expertise by learning to elevate abilities to
get in, take what they wanted, and depart without capture. Others found
meaning in the game of burglary. Others interpreted tasks as challenges to
achieve excellence. Some interviewees searched for ‘agency’ in their
abilities to perfect a spirit of self-direction, some asserted more subtle
desire for inner peace through conformity of conduct and identity with other
offenders, some stressed the importance of reinforcing ‘relatedness’ to
others, and a final category simply enjoyed what they were doing. These
categories exposed a diverse field of burglar motivations, important
intelligence for the CSF in its anticipatory assessments of attackers.

What Is an Expert Burglar?

Are there significant differences between novice burglars, experienced
burglars prone to making some mistakes, and long-term burglary experts
with many victimizations yet few captures and/or convictions? Using
photographs of a sample of homes, Roth and Trecki (2017) asked burglars
and non-burglars about the places they would attack. Test groups included
52 imprisoned burglars and 50 non-burglars (i.e. students, community
residents, and police). The study addressed three key questions: do burglars
and non-burglar offenders differ in how they view residential features as
they make target selections (Coupe and Blake 2006)? Do thoughts based on
empathy for victim locations matter in target choices? And where
differences arise in target selection, are such differences important in
deciding whether or not a burglary event should occur immediately or at a
later time? Findings concluded that experienced burglars were significantly
more adept at identifying prey than non-burglars. Awareness that burglars,
regardless of level of experience, make decisions demonstrating selectivity
of time and place of attacks was not discounted, including decisions based
on emotional empathy for victims. Acknowledging the need for ongoing
research, Roth and Trecki (2017) found few differences between burglars’
target selections and selections of non-burglars, leaving open the question
of whether or not significant differences might show up between more or
less experienced burglars.

Can CSFs Learn from What Burglars Learn on the Job?

Educational endeavors include information content, methods of delivery,
and measurability of outcomes, all essential to learning. Nee et al. (2019)
developed an experimental approach to learning from two sample groups,
one with 56 jailed burglary offenders, 50 other offender types, and 55
nonoffenders. Focus was given to factors considered important in achieving
successful burglaries. Using a virtual neighborhood environment, research
processes recorded and evaluated step-by-step decisions made by the
groups as they journeyed virtually through a burglary event. The goal-
directed question: How does burglar expertise develop from unconscious
and automatic processes as offenders learn from what they do in real
situations? Summarizing findings, “We show how this approach offers a
series of new possibilities to study offending behavior that could lead to a
step-change in our understanding of crime and how to prevent it. We
capitalize on the unique opportunity of testing our approach directly among
the target group of incarcerated burglars, comparing their behavior with a
sample of non-burglar offenders and a matched sample of nonoffenders”
(pp. 2–3). Burglars were able to hypothetically experience target selections,
invent attack approaches, and complete a burglary thus allowing detailed
revelations about offender decision-making theretofore unknown and
affording insights into prevention strategies among other indications. One
significant objective was to advance the means of discovering inaccessible
thoughts about burglary methodology beyond some of the limitations of
rational choice theory. Findings: experienced burglars applying decision-
making strategies are always far superior to nonoffenders, including even
professional nonoffenders such as police officers, students, and less
experienced burglars.

Are Burglars Consistent in Their Manner of Burglary

Execution?
Is it true that high levels of consistency exist both within individual burglars
and across the burglar class? Fox and Farrington (2016) investigated this
question by looking at how serial burglars manifested certain consistent
patterns of specialization. The goal was to provide more effective assistance
to crime scene investigators in reducing pools of suspects in ongoing cases.
The study relied heavily on police data analysis, some of which could be
highly valuable in digested and simplified form to a CSF when assessing
vulnerabilities to known consistencies of local burglar conduct. Researchers
learned from previous studies the most reliable style consistencies among
burglars, including distance traveled to events, amount of time between
events, and burglar crime scene behaviors shaping style groupings or modus
operandi. Advancing beyond the complex methods employed, the
investigation was premised on the notion that the conduct of serial
offenders can remain consistent over time and across offenses.
Targets: Distance, Criteria, and Approaches
We now consider matters of targets and targeting behaviors, topics
examined enthusiastically for decades. Journal literature on targeting has
expanded exponentially, most of it aimed at enriching thoughts about
burglar planning such as go-no-go decisions, assessments about finding
prized valuables (e.g. cash or other targets), and confidence-building
assurances of viable exit plans. Such research has progressively improved
the understanding of defensive countermeasures and prevention methods.

Distance Traveled to Targets

A rational burglar calculates the distance to a target of opportunity as a key
factor in planning. Furthermore, if multiple targets are considered, targets
closest to the burglar’s residence generally are favored. Geographers
contribute calculations of this kind stemming from perspectives on spatial
patterning of crime. Burglars sleep at a particular location; they know the
area in which they live and travel; they estimate distances and time needed
to achieve objectives; and they make decisions about the totality of the
attack environment. Chamberlain and Boggess (2016) employed a discrete
choice model that included all arrest information pertaining to both alleged
perpetrator and victim addresses in Tampa, Florida, for the period 2000–
2012. Wealthier areas, they suggested, might offer more appeal on the view
that better rewards may result; less wealthy or poor areas may have few
locational obstacles to breach or a neighborhood culture more accepting of
criminal conduct or victims unlikely to report. In general, if a target is
available close to a burglar’s living space, risks and the amount of invested
effort associated with territorial familiarity and travel are reduced.
Additionally, burglars are more likely to select targets in neighborhoods
similar to the location of their living spaces mainly because their mental
map knows the structure, distances, accessibility factors, arrival and escape
timing, escape risk variables, and other factors essential to an effective plan.
Researchers concluded that characteristics of the burglar’s and the victim’s
neighborhoods are important determinants of target choices. Within
geographic spaces, more frequently burglars select targets closest to living
spaces. In short, they are, first, limited by space, time, and distance for risk-
reward calculations, and second, they select neighborhoods with less social
cohesion.
Circumstances Change and So Does Burglar Decision-Making
A fundamental premise in burglary research is that sophisticated thought
processes and planning schemes are key elements in the cognitive skills of
successful burglars. Successful burglars, that is, those not prosecuted or
imprisoned, study their prey. As they pull together details in their roadmap,
they verbalize orderliness and accommodations of changing conditions
surrounding target locations. Considering that changes in circumstances
may disrupt initial planning, Taylor (2018) investigated how certain
physical, social, and spatial changes may modify burglar calculations.
Acknowledging limitations of other qualitative research designs, Taylor
traveled with two working burglars to understand the evolution of their
decision-making, particularly focused on points in their planning at which
changes obligate adjustments to observed changes in the situation. In
essence, the script for their original plan met with obstacles or shifts in
conditions that caused reassessment of forward progress.
Applying verbal protocol analysis (VPA), scholarly work with burglars
in real-life situations is rarely engaged but generally follows the work of
Cromwell (2006 [1991]). Findings revealed several factors in the visual
horizons of burglars that would cause them to change plans: Were the items
in the space profitable? Was the space accessible as measured by degree of
force necessary? Could they be interrupted? Could the target be adequately
surveilled? Were there escape pathways? Was the target considered
‘dishonorable’ (e.g. elderly, children or victim present)? Admitting
limitations in the methods of using real-world burglars as sources of insight,
Taylor concluded that the approach allowed him to unravel elements of
burglar planning.

Accessibility: Gated Versus Non-gated Communities

Accessibility is a primary concern of anyone who values a closed and
locked door or window. It is also central to the physical security function.
Within the concept of a defined territoriality (Brown and Bentley 1993), the
distinction between inside and outside, and between ownership or
authorized control and violation by trespass, barriers at the threshold (e.g.
walls, doors, windows, skylights, roofing, or flooring) announce points of
potential breach. Barriers are either adequate or inadequate as tested by
attackers. Over time, word of barrier effectiveness in warding off attackers
becomes gospel in security circles, the stuff of best practices, marketing
strategies, and even myths creeping into popular acceptance.
Addington and Rennison (2015) probed the question of safety in gated
communities versus security features unavailable in non-gated spaces.
Applying routine activities theory, researchers hypothesized that built-in
security features of so-called gated communities (e.g. entry checkpoints,
fencing, walls, roving security guards, etc.) afford significant protections
against burglary. A competing hypothesis was that overuse of security may
contribute to increased criminal vulnerability. Source data was drawn from
the National Crime Victimization Survey. Definitionally, ‘gated
communities’, as the term is commonly conceived, are more diverse in
terms of owners versus renters, household incomes, amenities, security
features, reasons for selection, preservation of home value, lifestyle choices,
and beliefs in greater physical control not afforded by government.
Acknowledging a range of variations in data used by other researchers of
gated communities, and concerns for data usage, researchers offered three
conclusions: first, no significant differences exist between the overall crime
rates for the two types of communities; second, the burglary component of
crime rates in such communities needs more careful study; and third, and
importantly here, gated communities may mask not only the lesser
importance of burglary fears but also the presence of other more serious
crimes.

Neighboring Businesses as Crime Attractors

Observant members of a CSF pay close attention to conditions in
surrounding areas of one’s direct protective zone of interest. Who are the
neighbors? What types of businesses and residential properties contribute to
burglary attractions? What is the neighborhood crime profile? What natural
or installed security elements offer imagined protections against burglary?
Are there negative variables more consistently associated with commercial
versus residential premises? To the security function, the first order of
consideration should be the surroundings and conditions contributing to
threats to immediate security interests. Most reasonably, one of those
interests should be burglary events.
Yu and Maxfield (2014) directed research interests at who ‘lives’ in the
neighborhood. Are there undesirable businesses nearby posing commercial
or residential burglary threats? Researchers considered ‘ordinary
businesses’ in terms of services locations, volume of transactions, and
clientele. Their purpose was to investigate how variations in the types of
local businesses may contribute to burglary victimization since specific
types of businesses have higher rates of targeting than others. Attractors, as
they were labeled, included the volume of business transactions, business
services, or products sold on-site or off-site, and the profile of the customer
base (local or distant). This massively complex study examined dozens of
independent variables hypothesized as potentially associated with
commercial versus residential burglaries and with the types of attractors
most frequently showing up at these facilities. In essence, what is the place
of preference, and what is the relative interest in the bait appealing to
burglars expecting substantial profits?

Job Loss and Burglary Targetability: Slim Pickings and

Capable Guardians
A reasonable assumption can be drawn that unemployment naturally
translates into higher residential burglary rates since both employed and
unemployed burglars are negatively affected by job losses and equally
motivated to commit break-ins. D’Alessio et al. (2012) challenged this
assumption. They drew on 2005 data on unemployment in Michigan, a state
then experiencing sharply escalated unemployment. Burglary data for the
same period was compared. Comparing daytime and nighttime burglaries
and burglaries during weeknights and weekends, researchers expected more
unemployment would yield more workers at home, thus providing natural
protection for themselves and perhaps by default (although not measured)
their neighbors. Focusing on weekday burglaries (i.e., hours during which
normal work shifts occur), they found that unemployment had a negative
effect on residential burglaries. There was also no effect on weeknight or
weekend burglary rates. General conclusion: decline in daytime burglaries
was directly attributable to the presence of more jobless people at home
during daytime working hours. The research raises important additional
questions for future research, but for now, the evidence from this study
offers a challenge to the thesis that significantly rising unemployment rates
automatically translate to increased burglary rates.

Home Vacancies and Burglary Targets: Better Pickings at

Empty Homes
What about the home vacancy problem and its effects on burglary? Home
vacancy rates in the U.S. escalated sharply between 2001 and 2009 due to
economic declines attributable to macro-economic policies and fraudulent
home mortgage lending practices. People literally walked away from their
homes leaving behind bare walls, empty rooms, and expensive structures.
Loss of employment, often concentrated in newly developed
neighborhoods, dumped row upon row of houses onto the foreclosure
market and caused record levels of property vacancies. Empty structures
appeared generally normal on the outside but were internally vacant but
with exposed and expensive amenities such as stoves, refrigerators, copper
pipes, electrical devices and lighting fixtures, carpets, and marble
countertops subject to thievery. Jones and Pridemore (2016) used national-
level panel data on housing vacancy rates for the period 2005–2009 in 126
urban areas to investigate burglary in relationship to home vacancies.
Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) were used as units of analysis to
allow for a much broader distribution of variations in economic
circumstances across substantially larger areas of population and housing
units thus improving upon other studies drawing upon local or
neighborhood-level data. Results established a strong link between vacancy
rates and burglary rates within and between cities under investigation.
Researchers’ conclusions carefully pointed out that property foreclosures
cannot be used by themselves but rather must apply foreclosure rates
combined with vacancy rates. In direct terms, foreclosures by themselves
are not the same as an abandonment of foreclosed homes vulnerable to
criminal targeting.

Prevention: What Works, and What Is

Problematic?
Typically, publicly funded prevention initiatives, especially those requiring
a broad application, require political support. Several major research
projects in crime prevention have responded to citizen clamors to reduce
crime rates while others evolved from criminological theories and field
experiments (Kelling et al. 1974; Hope 2004; Hinkle and Weisburd 2008;
Hinkle 2013). Some were police-directed programs generally focused on
public education or expanded and revised officer patrol strategies. Some
were private initiatives focused on actions to change defensive behaviors,
such as consistently securing property access points and/or installing human
and technological interventions to harden the targets against burglar
intentions. Several anti-burglary projects conducted in the United States, the
United Kingdom, Australia, and other places offered security professionals
advanced considerations to inform thinking, including cautionary
instructions intended to sharpen proposals for interventions.

Political Pressures on Scientific Findings

What can CSFs learn from research on the broad popular acceptance of
burglary prevention programs? Science and politics often make strange and
sometimes disturbing bedfellows despite worthy professional expectations
from hopeful findings. In the ‘Risk Society’, Beck (1992) observed that all
the parties to any anti-crime initiative should not carelessly join the chorus
of cheering support for seemingly successful program anti-crime initiatives
nor should they retreat in frustration that nothing works.
Hope’s (2004) research team, funded and managed by the British Home
Office, examined these concerns in an extensive study aimed at elevating
confidence in public policy by tamping down mere political preferences on
matters of data analysis, programmatic impacts, and future costs. Partly
grounded on principles of ‘new public management’ (Pollitt and Bouckaert
2011; Christensen and Laegreid 2016), Hope’s group focused on
‘scientization’ of public policy, particularly probing the question of ‘what
works’ while insisting upon applying the latest research methodologies,
detailed analysis, and full reporting of findings. Hope’s overall conclusion
marks an important lesson for CSFs: “If this experience is anything to go
by, the introduction of evidence-based policy making into British central
government is fostering the development of ‘networks of governance’
around political programmes, consisting of a melange of political,
administrative and scientific interests where traditional roles, practices and
allegiances—especially between political, administrative and scientific
expertise—have become blurred” (p. 15).

Willingness to Pay (WPT) for Residential Security Costs:

Adjusting Security Expectations
What can be learned from research on the willingness to pay (WTP) for
protection initiatives? In 1999, the U.S. Department of Justice, National
Institute of Justice sponsored pilot research on the public’s willingness to
pay for protection (Cohen et al. 2006). Stickle (2015) conducted a follow-
up investigation to challenge earlier findings, thus offering a richer
understanding of the complexities of the public’s willingness to pay for
burglary prevention. Respondents’ unwilling to pay for more security
indicated that they could not afford the costs. They believed government
was principally responsible for burglary prevention, held negative views of
existing burglary reduction strategies, believed the problem was not serious
enough to warrant additional payments, and preferred private homeowner
responsibility for protection. Overall, 75% of the respondents were
unwilling to pay for additional burglary prevention costs, leaning in direct
opposition to the findings of an earlier study.

Alarms and CCTV Systems: The Holy Grail?

Coupe and Kaur (2005) tested the effectiveness of commercial burglary
detection and assumptions about how alarms and cameras improve burglar
captures and overall prevention. Research was focused more on the roles of
alarms and CCTV systems as capture-valued devices in addition to roles in
burglary prevention. Findings did not dispute the value of alarms and
CCTV systems. Rather, they were recognized for contributions to
identifying burglars for police investigation and deterring burglars who set
off alarms or activated visual images of attempted or actual intrusions.
Additional recent research on alarm contributions appears in Roth et al.
(2018).
Another dimension of the same concern: whether or not security alarm
systems contribute to increased risks of burglary, a question raised by Tilley
et al. (2015). Burglar alarm systems, they probed, while generally
productive in checking the risks of burglary events, may increase risks of a
burglar’s attempt to enter a property, a conclusion largely overlooked in
either police or security circles. Alarm functionality heavily relies on the
manner of installation and fit with the designs and intentions of property
occupants. Tilley points to concerns with alarms when other risk reduction
strategies have already been installed: high rates of false alarms raising
negative profiles of specific properties in terms of direct and indirect costs
of false alarm fines, licensing restrictions, police unwillingness to respond,
police experience with low burglar capture rates, social costs of disturbing
alarm noise, public costs for system approvals and inspections, and loss of
faith in a system’s reliability from false alarms. Most importantly, there is
an assumption embedded in alarm systems springing from a belief that a
capable and willing guardian will be present and will act to call the police.

Preventing the Optimal Forager from Doing His Work

Fielding and Jones (2012) applied Felson’s (2006) ‘optimal forager’
characterization of burglars: foragers, essentially returning burglars who
rely on a patterned approach to perceived benefits at certain times and
targets of opportunity and who carefully consider target defenses and
limitations. Interpreting data gathered in Greater Manchester, UK, on nearly
18,000 residential burglary events occurring in a 12-month period,
researchers used crime mapping tools to overlay events with police patrols.
They identified and mapped times and locations of events to reveal areas in
which police could position countermeasures. Police knew that a significant
number of burglars traveled no farther than 400 meters from a previous
burglary within a 6-week period. The effort was grounded in the
predictability of repetitive burglar behavior and intended to counter
standard police patrol designs built on long-experienced random show-ups
that typically resulted only in minimal captures or limited deterrence. Sharp
declines in burglaries occurred year over year. Police resources were more
effectively allocated and systematically developed, and coded maps were
issued to several types of community safety partners.

Dealing with Repeat and Near-Repeat Burglaries

Findings from several studies indicate that burglary events occur frequently
at the same physical location, sometimes attacked in the same manner by
the same or other perpetrators. Known as ‘repeat victimizations’, reason
suggests that a property once attacked should generate decisions to
markedly elevate and intensify security. Factually, however, property
owners frequently fail to upgrade security following a burglary attempt or
completed event. Moreover, ‘near-repeat’ events may occur against nearby
properties within times close to earlier events. Applying space-time
analyses employed by crime science researchers, translation of findings
concerned with repeat burglaries were investigated by Groff and Taniguchi
(2019) in an effort to improve police decisions and implement burglary
prevention experiments.

What About Security for Elderly Persons?

Among CSF elements, what is the level of awareness of burglary’s impact
on the elderly and other special needs populations living in residential or
care facilities?
Research conducted by Lee et al. (2008) focused on these issues in
Perth, Australia. Researchers were funded for a government initiative
targeted at general living conditions of elderly persons. Survey results from
nearly 5600 respondents indicated that the most frequently employed (i.e.,
at least 50%) home protection elements included key-operated bolt locks,
security screens, and external lighting. Elements achieving 49% or lower
included security bars and window grills (37%), burglar alarm (28%), guard
dog (15%), and other security devices (8%). Shockingly, elderly persons
living alone were least protected by security protective devices. Those
living alone in detached homes appeared to understand burglary event
vulnerabilities. Noteworthy also, data showed that half of the respondents
had been burglarized and approximately 22% were burglarized within the
previous three years. Less than one-quarter of those affected in the study
period reported crimes to police.

Summing Up
Burglary has declined across the Western world. This was not by accident
or luck. Community security functions, as defined here, contributed an
unmeasured portion to this achievement. CSFs exist, but remain informal
and almost ghostlike in their relatively unfocused and randomly
collaborative associations. To their credit, however, they have learned over
time evidenced by their slow, even snail-like implementation of community
and individual security responses. More work is needed. Burglary is a crime
against communities, not simply a crime against residential and commercial
victims. Successful burglars assess community environments, assess targets
worth invading, surveil structural and neighborhood features, accommodate
security defenses, plan entry and exit strategies, and make go-no-go
decisions. Burglars are walking encyclopedias of information. They learn
and retain information from their work.
CSFs have also learned from victimization experiences and they have
implemented responses based on that learning. The argument here is that
they could be far more effective in lowering burglary rates if they were far
more organized, directed, and invested with a continuous flow of the most
recent research findings. As such, they can evolve as learning organizations
capable of maintaining a consistent, well-informed counterforce against
burglary events. For now, however, the operational specifics of operational
CSFs must remain for others to invent and develop. Formalization of the
concept will require investment of collaborative effort and building of a
more focused and sustained culture of learning and application.
What have we learned and suggested from the recent research on
burglary?
Burglars vary in perceived benefits from their work. Burglars operate in a
marketplace of valuations.
Burglars succeed and fail. Expertise ranges. CSTs can learn from
successes and failures.
CSFs can learn burglar behaviors and strategies with the same intensity
as burglars.
Burglars are relatively consistent in burglary executions over time.
Burglars are typically short-range predators. Neighborhood conditions
and features they consider are useful intelligence for CSF defense
planning.
Circumstances change causing changes in burglar decision-making. CSF
defensive countermeasures and risk assessments must also change.
Security afforded by gated residential communities may overlook
important vulnerabilities.
Some neighboring businesses may introduce crime attractors, all valuable
intelligence for CSFs.
Burglars have slim pickings in communities encountering elevated job
loss since guardianship is elevated.
Better pickings are found at abandoned and empty homes since capable
guardians and security provisions are disconnected or absent.
Bureaucratic and political declarations of crime prevention successes
must be critically examined.
Willingness to pay for efforts to control burglary rates is a critical issue
for CSFs to address. Community resistance may be countered by open
discussions of grounded evidence of elevated community security and
types of low-cost security defenses.
Alarms and CCTV systems contribute to identification and deterrence of
burglars; some findings raise questions about worthiness under certain
conditions.
 Burglars known as ‘optimal foragers’ can be countered by intelligence
sharing of tracking strategies and analysis. CSF coordination with police
patrol plans can undermine repeat events.
Mining, summarizing, and disseminating research findings on repeat and
near-repeat burglaries can be highly valuable to CSF training.
CSFs should rate highly burglary reduction efforts to protect facilities
housing elderly and special populations.
Nee et al. (2019) offer a perfectly reasonable parting thought: “law-
abiding citizens are notoriously poor at understanding burglary risk and/or
the opportunities for crime they leave inside and outside their homes and
around their communities because they lack the schematic knowledge of the
burglar. Given the low clearance rates, previous attempts at education of
householders to reduce risk and opportunity have perhaps reached a ceiling
in effectiveness” (p. 503). CSFs offer a new and publicly supported
opportunity to conceptualize and innovate new levels of countermeasures
for even more reductions in burglary rates in Western-law nations.

Recommended Readings
Discussions relevant to learning organizations in the public sector are
relatively new and found mainly in recent texts in American public
administration, such as Shafritz et al. (2017) and Chilton et al. (2019).
Private sector literature is plentiful in the area of organizational
development: Senge (2006), Marquart (2011), Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011),
Leddin and Moon (2018). I recommend classic ethnographic research on
burglar lifestyles such as Cromwell (2006 [1991]), Wright and Decker
(1994) before diving into advanced scholarly works. Some literature
presents realistic perspectives pointing to inconvenient topics such as
citizen responsibility for portions of the burglary problem (Lentzner 1979),
realities of risk and crime (Beck 1992), critical evaluation of political and
administrative claims of successful crime prevention programs (Hope
2004), and problems associated with citizen willingness to pay for security
improvements (Cohen et al. 2006). Venturing into the more advanced
contemporary literature on crime prevention is best launched from catalytic
readings of Cornish and Clarke (1986), Garafalo and Clark (1992), Clarke
(1995), Felson and Boba (2010), Ekblom and Tilley (2000), and Farrell
(2013). The burglar targeting literature is massive and thus a good sample
for those unfamiliar with it should include Coupe and Blake (2006),
Addington and Rennison (2015), Brown (2015), and Vandiviver and
Bernasco (2020).

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https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_11

11. Meeting the Challenges of Fraud in a

Digital World
Cassandra Cross1, 2
(1) Cybersecurity Cooperative Research Centre, Queensland University of
Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
(2) School of Justice, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane,
QLD, Australia

Cassandra Cross
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
Offenders have embraced the use of technology to commit fraud. Through
emails, social networking sites, false websites and data breaches, offenders
are able to easily and conveniently defraud victims globally. Sadly, this
affects millions of victims, and the consequences can be devastating.
This chapter explores what is currently known about fraud. In particular,
it focuses on how fraud offenders are using a combination of offline and
online approaches to deceive, manipulate and exploit unsuspecting victims,
across a variety of communication channels and platforms. The evolution of
the online environment has significantly changed the nature of fraud, from
offender, victim and third party perspectives. This chapter examines what is
currently known about fraud across each of these areas and the challenges
faced by all three. Further, it examines the policing, prevention and support
as it relates to fraud and the unique difficulties that exist, largely as the
result of the online environment.
Overall, this chapter argues that fraud poses a significant problem
globally that requires a change in thinking and practice, in order to make a
positive change in the future.
Introduction
Fraud is defined through notions of lying, cheating and deception to gain
financial advantage (Fletcher 2007). Prenzler (2019: 1) states that “in
official terms, fraud involves the obtaining a benefit illegally by deception”.
Fraud is not a new offence and has existed for centuries. However, the
evolution of technology (particularly the Internet) has enabled offenders to
expand their abilities to target potential victims globally, and as a result,
there is currently a proliferation of fraudulent approaches occurring daily
(Yar and Steinmetz 2019).
Millions lose money to fraud globally. For example, in 2019, the
Internet Crime Complaint Centre (United States of America) recorded over
US$3.5 billion (IC3 2020). In the United Kingdom, UK Finance (United
Kingdom) reported £1.2 billion lost to fraud and scams (UK Finance 2019).
In Canada, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) reported CAD$98
million lost (CAFC 2020). In Australia, the Australian Competition and
Consumer Commission (ACCC) reported losses of over AUD$634 million
(ACCC 2020). In Hong Kong, local police intercepted more than HK$3
billion (USD$384 million) from victims of fraud in Hong Kong and beyond
(Lo 2020). These figures highlight the pervasive nature of fraud across the
globe, also affirming that fraud is not a Western phenomenon that is
contained to the Global North.
The impacts and consequences of fraud are immense. Apart from the
obvious financial losses, there are a wide range of non-financial harms
associated with fraud (Button et al. 2009; Cross et al. 2016). Further, there
are many challenges in the policing of fraud (Button et al. 2015; Cross and
Blackshaw 2015), the power to prevent and disrupt fraud activity (Cross
and Kelly 2016; Prenzler 2019), and the ability to support victims in the
aftermath of these events (Cross 2018c). Fraud may not be new, but there
are continually evolving challenges involving the ways in which law
enforcement, government and society respond to the threat posed by fraud.
This chapter outlines what is currently known about fraud. First, it
provides an overview of some of the more prevalent categories of fraud.
Second, it highlights how fraud is perpetrated, and the diverse array of
approaches offenders use to successfully target victims. Third, it examines
what is currently known about victimisation, and why individuals may be
susceptible to fraud. It further explores the current policing of fraud
globally, before outlining some of the current prevention efforts aimed at
disrupting and preventing fraud. Lastly, it explores victim support, and the
ways in which those who suffer fraud losses are assisted (or not) in their
recovery.
In doing this, it is important to acknowledge the offline/online nature of
fraud. As stated, fraud is not new. However, technological developments
and the Internet have significantly changed the nature of fraud offending
and victimisation. There are scholarly debates as to the impact of
technology on offences such as fraud. Fraud is usually considered to be a
cyber-enabled offence, meaning that it occurs across both online and offline
environment (Wall 2007). This is in contrast to cyber-dependent offences,
which arguably only exist within a virtual sphere (e.g. hacking and
malware).
Fraud occurs across all mediums of communication, and while the
Internet has changed the ways that offenders target victims, and
exponentially increase the pool of potential victims, it is important to
acknowledge that fraud still occurs across other non-technological
mediums. Instead, offenders are combining multiple forms of
communication to defraud an individual (email, telephone, text messaging,
online messaging and face-to-face) (Cross et al. 2016). In this way, the
online/offline distinction is somewhat redundant when applied to the
context of fraud (Cross 2019a). Instead, it is argued that the digital nature of
society has given rise to an inability to detangle one’s offline/online persona
and communications (Powell et al. 2018). Given the popularity of
technology use across all platforms, there is no longer an ability to discern
an arbitrary distinction between online and offline activities. Current fraud
offending highlights this overlap.
This chapter focuses on fraud as a holistic concept encompassing both
online and offline means. Notwithstanding, the majority of fraud referred to
in this chapter is perpetrated primarily in an online environment, and it is
the virtual nature of offending that poses new and complex challenges to
police and victims alike. Current responses to fraud across policing,
prevention and support are clearly inadequate, and the role of technology
can largely be attributed as the cause of many of these difficulties. But it is
not the whole story. Fraud has historically lacked the level of attention and
political will needed to effectively combat the threat (Doig et al. 2001;
Button 2012), and the rise of technology (such as the Internet) has
exacerbated existing issues, as well as contributed to the additional
challenges faced by police and other agencies. Statistics suggest that there
is a continued rise in the number of fraud victims and fraud losses annually
(Prenzler 2019), and an associated increase in the level of harm and
suffering across both financial and non-financial areas experienced by
many. Ultimately, this points to a clear need to rethink current approaches in
the area and provides a much-needed impetus to do better.

Understanding Categories of Fraud

There are an endless number of “plotlines” that offenders use to defraud a
person (Cross and Kelly 2016). Offenders create scenarios that appear
legitimate to potential victims and are likely to speak to different
weaknesses or vulnerabilities of individuals. However, as evident in the
definition of fraud, there is a unifying aspect to all fraud victimisation;
being that of financial advantage. In most instances, this will occur through
a direct request from an offender to a victim to transfer an amount of
money.
While fraud approaches do not always fit neatly into discrete categories,
there are some commonalities in approaches used by offenders to achieve
their deception. The following provides a short summary of some of the
more prevalent and successful types of fraud approaches evident globally.

Advance Fee Fraud

Advance fee fraud (AFF) occurs when an offender/s requests a small
amount of money with the promise of a larger amount of money in return
(Ross and Smith 2011). The reasons underpinning an initial amount of
money are varied, depending on the premise of communications between
the victim and offender/s. Once a victim sends this first amount of money,
offender/s will continue with ongoing monetary requests that may escalate
in their value. Unfortunately, the returns promised to the victim are never
realised, and victims can sustain substantial financial losses. Once involved
in these types of schemes, it is difficult for the victim to disengage and
acknowledge that they have been defrauded. For this reason, many victims
continue to send money (regardless of the amount) for a sustained period of
time (such as weeks, months or even years).
 AFF can also be referred to as “Nigerian fraud” or “419 fraud”, which
points to the section of the Nigerian Criminal Code that prescribes fraud
(Button and Cross 2017). While AFF has historical origins in Nigeria
(Schoenmakers et al. 2009; Smith et al. 1999), it is important to
acknowledge that it is global in scale, and victims are often requested to
send funds to a multitude of countries worldwide. AFF approaches
frequently appear as investment opportunities, inheritance notifications,
lottery prize notifications, employment schemes and charity approaches
(Button and Cross 2017).

Romance Fraud
Romance fraud occurs when an offender uses the guise of a genuine
relationship to deceive an individual for financial gain (Cross 2020).
Offenders engage in what is perceived to be a legitimate romantic
relationship as a means of developing trust and rapport with victims, which
leads to compliance with monetary requests (Rege 2009; Whitty and
Buchanan 2012). The evolution of dating platforms and social media have
seen a proliferation of romance fraud approaches, and online approaches are
a popular and successful means of initiating contact with a victim (ACCC
2020). However, once an offender has made a connection, offenders will
utilise a wide range of communication platforms to maintain the
relationship, which can include email, messenger platforms, text messages,
telephone and even face-to-face meetings.
Whitty (2013) advocates a seven-stage model of romance fraud, entitled
“the scammers persuasive techniques model”. In doing this, romance fraud
is argued to follow a number of phases from the initial connection and
grooming techniques used by offenders to establish a relationship, through
to offenders targeting victims in additional schemes. While the details of all
romance fraud schemes are usually different and somewhat unique based on
the victim, the evidence suggests that there is a distinct pattern to romance
fraud victimisation and the ways in which offenders interact with victims in
order to obtain their financial reward (Whitty 2013).

Business Email Compromise Fraud

In contrast to many AFF and romance fraud approaches, business email
compromise (BEC) fraud targets businesses rather than individuals (Cross
and Gillett 2020). BEC fraud exploits established relationships between
business colleagues or trusted suppliers (Burns et al. 2019) to gain a
financial reward. In many circumstances, BEC fraud occurs when an
offender impersonates an employee, supplier or other trusted business
personnel to obtain funds, account numbers, access codes or other sensitive
information (Jakobsson 2016; Zweighaft 2017). The impersonation can be
achieved through identity crime or account take overs, both of which
deceive the victim into thinking they are transacting with a legitimate
organisation (Cross and Gillett 2020). This type of fraud usually requests a
target (victim) to transfer funds to an offender-owned account, through the
interception of a genuine payment or the creation of a false invoice
directing a genuine payment away from the business account into the
fraudster’s own accounts. Both parties involved are usually unaware that
the fraud has occurred until an organisation follows up non-payment of
invoices only to realise that they were paid to alternative accounts. In these
cases, victimisation includes both the organisation who has not received the
payment and the person (or business) who sent the payment to an offender
account.

Successful Techniques of Perpetrating Fraud

There are many methods used by offenders to defraud an individual.
Offenders can use tactics targeted across entire populations, or they can use
techniques designed specifically to exploit a targeted vulnerability of an
individual victim. Offenders are highly skilled and tech savvy individuals
who know how to identify the weakness or vulnerability of a person, and do
whatever is necessary to manipulate and persuade that person to do
something they would not ordinarily do (Cross and Kelly 2016).
Importantly, offenders are fluid and flexible in their approach to victims,
and can seamlessly transition from one technique to another, and one
storyline to another, to successfully defraud a victim, using the techniques
outlined below.

Social Engineering
Social engineering techniques are well established, particularly in how they
relate to fraud victimisation (Drew and Cross 2013). Social engineering can
be defined as “the practice of acquiring information through technical and
non-technical means” (Manske 2000: 53). Other definitions highlight the
use of social engineering to gain unauthorised access to corporate computer
systems and networks (Abraham and Chengular-Smith 2010), as well as
those which focus on the role of social engineering to deceive people into
sharing sensitive information (Power and Forte 2006). Overall, social
engineering can be understood as “nothing more than exploiting human
beings for malicious purposes” (Beaver 2009: 35) which, in the case of
fraud, results in an array of both financial and non-financial losses for
victims.
Common examples of social engineering techniques are urgency,
authority and scarcity. Offenders will often insist the victim must act
immediately to their request and will invoke a sense of urgency. This is
coupled with the plotline used by the offender. For example, requiring
money for a medical emergency has understandable time restrictions that
offenders can rely upon. The technique of authority uses power and status
to elicit a positive response from the target. Many fraud offenders will take
on identities of professionals or military to perpetrate romance fraud and
other schemes (Cross and Holt 2021). Authority is also seen in the large
number of phishing emails received globally, purporting to be from banks,
government or police agencies and demanding action on the part of the
recipient. Lastly, the concept of scarcity implies that the offer is somewhat
unique and not available beyond a prescribed timeframe. Often linked to
urgency, it implies that if the target does not respond immediately then the
offer will be lost. This reduces the ability of the target to make a rational
decision, informed by their own due diligence about the details of what is
being communicated. This is common across investment fraud approaches
that advocate limited opportunities to potential victims and discourage any
action they might usually take to seek external advice or conduct other
checks and balances.

Psychological Abuse
There is evidence to suggest that offenders use psychological abuse tactics
to gain compliance from their victims. This is demonstrated through the
work of Cross et al. (2018) who assert that there are similarities between
romance fraud and the existing literature on domestic violence. Through an
analysis of 21 romance fraud victim narratives, their analysis highlights the
psychological abuse techniques used by offenders to gain compliance from
victims, usually in the form of sending direct money transfers. Using a
framework of psychological abuse established by Tolman et al. (1999), they
were able to illustrate unprompted evidence for eight of nine categories,
despite not specifically asking questions on this topic. In this way, it can be
argued that the evidence uncovered in this study is likely to be a
conservative estimate of the true nature of abuse, should the research
explore this directly.
The important finding of this study relates to the lack of geographical
proximity required by offenders to exert power and control over their
victims. In the majority of circumstances, victims and offenders will not be
in physical contact with each other and will instead communicate over a
number of different platforms, predominantly online. This study begins to
highlight the ways that offenders work to ensure that regardless of their
physical distance, they can manipulate their victims to achieve their
intended outcomes.
In combination, the ability of offenders to effectively use both social
engineering and psychological abuse techniques renders many victims
vulnerable to the approach, and unable to recognise the situation as fraud.

Understanding Vulnerability to Fraud

There is a strong negative stereotype that surrounds those who are victims
of fraud. This asserts that the individual is greedy, gullible, uneducated and
that they somehow deserve the outcomes of their victimisation (Cross
2015). Victims of fraud are cast as “non-ideal” and, as a result, struggle to
activate their victim status to trigger a criminal justice response or receive
any support or assistance (Cross 2018a). In reality, there is little evidence to
support the substance of this stereotype.
There is no universal profile of a fraud victim. Instead, all individuals
potentially have a weakness or vulnerability, that if targeted in the right way
at the right time can make them susceptible to fraud (Cross and Kelly
2016). Vulnerability to fraud is neither fixed nor static but can change
across different factors at different times. For example, there is evidence to
suggest that those who have recently experienced a negative life event may
be more susceptible (Ross and Smith 2011). Vulnerability encompasses a
range of physical, financial and social aspects (Holtfreter et al. 2006).
However, there has been a large amount of scholarship which has explored
a range of factors (such as demographics, psychological variables and
situational elements) in seeking to determine who is susceptible to fraud.
A considerable amount of research has focused on age and its
relationship to fraud, particularly whether older persons are more
susceptible to fraud. The premise behind this lies largely in the assumption
that older persons have a higher likelihood of experiencing factors which
may increase their vulnerability. Primarily, this relates to cognitive decline
and social isolation or loneliness. There is a high level of contention as to
whether older persons are more likely to be fraud victims compared to their
younger counterparts (Deevy et al. 2012).
While there is research which asserts older persons are more likely to be
victims of fraud than their younger counterparts (Cohen 2006; Pak and
Shadel 2011), there are studies which conclude the opposite (Holtfreter et
al. 2006; Olivier et al. 2015). For example, Ross et al. (2014) conducted a
meta-analysis of 14 studies which explored the hypothesis that older
persons are more vulnerable and therefore more likely to be victims of
fraud. They concluded “our review fails to support the conventional
wisdom that older persons are particularly likely to experience consumer
fraud” (Ross et al. 2014: 437). Schiebe et al. (2014: 273) affirm this by
stating “no conclusive evidence shows older adults are in fact more
susceptible [to fraud]”.
While overall the evidence supporting overall fraud victimisation is
mixed, it is worthwhile noting the distinct categories of fraud which exist
and the ways they may target potential victims differently across age
groups. For example, according to Deevy et al. (2012: 19), “it appears that
general surveys across all scam types tend to find that older consumers are
less victimized, but studies that have analyzed victims by scam type (such
as telemarketing, investment, and lottery fraud) tend to find larger
proportions of senior victims”. Jorna (2016) in specifically examining the
relationship between age and fraud victimisation reported that age was
found to be a significant factor with computer support schemes (more likely
to be an older person aged 65 years and over) and romance fraud
(predominantly 45–54 years).
In looking at factors beyond that of age, the (former) National Fraud
Authority (United Kingdom) published segmentation research which
explored different segments of the UK population based on their risk
profiles and likely fraud victimisation. The report identified seven core
segments and one subsegment based on characteristics that included age,
but also extended to sex, economic status, personality traits and attitudes
(NFA 2011). This demonstrates the versatility of fraud offenders, and their
ability to tailor approaches in efforts to exploit a known factor and increase
their likelihood of success. Research such as this is an important step to
gaining a better understanding of the various ways in which different
segments of the population can be targeted for fraud and how best to
respond to individual weaknesses and vulnerabilities. It also affirms the
pervasiveness of fraud and the fact that there is no one profile of a fraud
victim. Instead, it highlights how offenders can effectively pursue different
schemes and approaches to suit their potential target.

The Impact of Fraud Victimisation

It is a myth to think that fraud is a victimless crime that does not have
discernible impacts on those it affects (Cross 2018c). Rather, fraud can have
devastating consequences across all aspects of a victim’s life. For some
victims, these impacts may be short-lived and contained over a particular
timeframe, but for others, they are ongoing and completely life changing.
The existing fraud research is consistent in documenting the extent of both
financial and non-financial losses on individual victims (Button et al. 2009;
Cross et al. 2014; Deem 2000). While it is easy to identify the loss of
money as one of the impacts to arise from fraud, it is important to
acknowledge that there are non-financial harms that can be equally as
harmful to the individual. This includes effects on the victim’s physical
safety; emotional and psychological well-being; relationship breakdown;
and reputation and social standing, to name a few (Button et al. 2014).
The physical and emotional costs to fraud are not always visible. The
stress and anxiety associated with victimisation can manifest itself in the
physical deterioration of health, as well as impact on psychological and
emotional well-being (Button et al. 2009; Ganzini et al. 1990; Ross and
Smith 2011). In extreme cases, fraud victims will contemplate suicide or
take their own lives (Button et al. 2009; Button and Cross 2017; Ganzini et
al. 1990). To demonstrate the severity of fraud on an individual, it is argued
that in some cases fraud victims “share many of the same devastating
outcomes as their counterparts who have suffered serious violent crime”
(Marsh 2004: 127; see also Deem 2000). The inability to acknowledge this
has tangible impacts on the ability of fraud victims to access support
services.
In addition to the above, there are other impacts of fraud victimisation
which may not be as apparent. For example, for those victims who travel
(often overseas) to meet with their offender/s, there are risks to their
physical safety, including kidnapping and murder (Buchanan and Whitty
2014; Cross 2019b; Cross et al. 2014). A person’s involvement in fraud can
also lead to situations where they are deceived into being money and/or
drug mules, often unaware of the seriousness and potential consequences of
their actions (Cross 2019b). There are numerous examples of fraud victims
who have been incarcerated in prisons across the globe for drug offences,
and those also convicted of money laundering (Cross 2019b).
Overall, this section demonstrates the array of impacts experienced in
the aftermath of fraud. While victims are not a homogenous group, and not
all will experience the full spectrum of effects detailed above, research
consistently points to the need of many fraud victims to warrant support and
assistance. This point is returned to later in the chapter.

The Policing of Fraud

Despite the large numbers of fraud victims worldwide, there is an
overwhelming level of anger and dissatisfaction at police and other
agencies regarding their inability to respond to fraud in a way that is
expected of them (Cross 2018b; Morgan et al. 2016). This is not restricted
to one particular jurisdiction, but is particularly evident across countries
such as Australia and the UK (Correia 2019; HMIC 2015; Skidmore et al.
2018; Cross et al. 2016; Cross 2019c; Morgan et al. 2016).
There are several factors which arguably impede the ability of law
enforcement and other agencies to respond to fraud offences (Cross and
Blackshaw 2015). The first relates to the online nature of many offences
and the use of the Internet to perpetrate the offence. Historically, policing is
reliant on geographical borders to mandate authority and jurisdiction. The
Internet has significantly challenged the ways in which police are able to
operate with regard to offending in an online environment. Police derive
their powers and authority from legislation that is based upon physical
borders. Prior to the Internet, many crimes were perpetrated by offenders in
close proximity to their victims. However, the Internet has seen an
evolution in offending that does not require physical proximity to perpetrate
an offence. In this way, the identification and management of crime scenes;
the collection of evidence; and the ability of police to investigate, arrest and
prosecute are challenged and somewhat restricted by a system that was
designed around physical and geographical factors (Brenner 2006; Finklea
2013).
Further to this is the issue of jurisdiction. Given that offenders do not
have to be in physical proximity to a victim, this often means that offenders,
victims, money transfers and data can be located across multiple countries.
This tests the concepts of sovereignty and territoriality (Brenner 2006;
Svantesson 2016), as police do not have the explicit authority to use their
powers in a state or country outside of their jurisdiction. There are
processes in place to enable the cooperation and collaboration of
national/international police agencies across multiple jurisdictions;
however, these are hampered by their lack of timeliness and burdensome
nature (Finklea 2013).
Third, many (online) fraud cases have a high degree of complexity and
sophistication in the way that they have been perpetrated. The use of
technology to create an identity, to communicate with a victim and to
facilitate a payment from a victim deploy a multitude of systems and
techniques. In many cases, the level of skill and knowledge needed to
adequately investigate these offences is outside the remit of a general duties
police office. While there is arguably a baseline of knowledge required of
all officers, many fraud offences fall beyond this and are tasked to specialist
cyber and/or fraud divisions. There is currently much debate on the skills
needs by police officers to pursue fraud and cyber offences, with
discussions focused on the expectations of general duties police against
those of specialist units (Bossler and Holt 2012; Bossler et al. 2020;
Hadlington et al. 2018; Harkin et al. 2018).
Finally, identity crime greatly impacts the ability to investigate and
prosecute fraud offences. Unsurprisingly, offenders do not use their own
authentic identities. Rather, offenders will either take on the identity of a
genuine person or create an entirely fictitious identity (using photos from a
genuine person). This creates difficulties in being able to attribute offending
behaviour to any individual. While all offending leaves behind some sort of
“digital footprint”, the use of stolen and fictitious identities creates
additional barriers to the effectiveness of a police response.
 Despite the challenges, there have been cases whereby police have been
able to successfully arrest and prosecute those perpetrating fraud. The
Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Nigeria regularly post
details of arrests made in relation to fraud (EFCC, n.d.). This is similarly
the case for the United States, with the US Department of Justice posting
notices of indictments against alleged offenders (Department of Justice
2019). In Canada, police were able to dismantle parts of an international
organised crime group originating from Nigeria called “Black Axe” and
arrest several members for perpetrating fraud. Notably, prominent member
Akohomen Ighedoise was convicted of offences related to the defrauding of
a widow of over CAD$300,000 (CBC News 2015; Mangione 2015). He
was further extradited to the US where he faces allegations of perpetrating
fraud in excess of US$5 billion (CBC News 2015; Mangione 2015).
This section has highlighted the many challenges that exist as they
relate to the policing of fraud. Given the significant challenges that police
and other agencies face in responding to fraud offences, it can be argued
that the prevention of these offences in the first place should be a priority. It
is to this aspect of fraud that the chapter now turns.

The Prevention of Fraud

There is no question that the prevention of fraud is fraught with challenges.
Overall, prevention is difficult to assess and the ability to measure the
effectiveness of something not occurring is fraught with complexities. This
extends to the area of fraud prevention. For example, in his review of what
works in fraud prevention, Prenzler (2019: 9) noted the lack of fraud
evaluations, noting that “the paucity of findings stands in contrast to the
growing size of the fraud problem globally”. There is a clear need to focus
greater attention on the development of fraud prevention programmes and
importantly, to employ a rigorous scholarly framework by which to evaluate
them against robust measures of success and/or effectiveness.
In terms of prevention messaging, there is no consistency in
communications to the public. Of those which exist, they arguably focus
predominantly on the actions (or inactions) of the potential victim, rather
than focusing on the role of the offender in perpetrating fraud. Examples of
this include the Little Black Book of Scams developed in Australia by the
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). This
approach also relies heavily on the categorisation of fraud, into discrete
boxes. However, this fails to capture the flexibility and continued evolution
of offending behaviour. Offenders are constantly changing their methods
and tactics to overcome prevention messaging (Cross and Kelly 2016).
A request for money or personal information is the only aspect that is
common across all approaches, therefore the success or failure of all
prevention messages culminates in a decision by the victim to send money
or not send money as a result of that request. In this way, it is advocated
that prevention messages should focus on the request for money or personal
information rather than the pathways and details that lead to that request
(Cross and Kelly 2016). It is likely to have more success than trying to
educate society on the variety of fraudulent approaches, particularly given
the fact that offenders are currently changing to maximise their success rate.
In addition to targeting individuals and society as a whole with prevention
messaging, there is the potential to increase prevention and disruption of
fraud through banks and financial institutions and enact prevention through
very concrete measures. It was argued earlier that the number of “plotlines”
used by offenders is limitless and all fraudulent approaches will at some
point contain a request for money (unless offenders use indirect means to
gain their financial advantage). The request for money will occur regardless
(and in spite of) the justification used to solicit funds. In this way, banks,
financial institutions and remittance agencies play a pivotal role in the
perpetration of fraud offences. In many cases, they are the unwitting enabler
of fraud victimisation.
Broadly speaking, banks and financial institutions have frameworks in
place to combat money laundering. There is strict anti-money laundering
legislation and provisions in place across the globe to target the criminal use
of money (see Financial Action Task Force n.d.). In a similar fashion, many
banks are well versed in fraud prevention as it relates to credit card fraud,
and have a range of processes in place to identify fraudulent transactions
with the intent to stop the transfer of funds in real time. However, the
established red flags and warning signs of fraud related to the above
categories are likely to be different to that of money laundering and credit
card fraud. In this way, it is increasingly incumbent on banks to dedicate
resources to better understanding fraud victimisation and assessing what, if
any, red flags and warning signs are applicable in this context.
 While acknowledging that prevention is the best way to avoid the
suffering endured as a consequence of fraud victimisation, it is inevitable
that this will not always be effective. Regardless of the best prevention
efforts, there will always be victims of fraud who require support. The need
to address this issue is covered in the section below.

Supporting Victims of Fraud

Despite the considerable aftereffects of fraud, and the long-lasting
consequences for those who experience it, there is a dearth of services
available globally to support victims of fraud and assist with their recovery.
In part, this stems from a lack of recognition of the impact of fraud
victimisation and the inability of individuals to be able to claim “victim”
status needed to access services available to other categories of victims
(Cross 2018a). This is also exacerbated by the categorising of fraud as a
property crime, rather than recognising fraud for the many interpersonal
characteristics and impacts it has (Cross 2018c). Combined, these work
together to exclude fraud victims from any existing services and prevent the
funding or resourcing of new services to assist with the needs of this group.
Cross et al. (2016) specifically asked victims of online fraud about their
support needs in the aftermath of an incident. The findings of this research
are summarised as follows:
Being listened to openly when reporting to authorities, treated with
respect and sensitivity and not blamed for having been victimised.
Receiving an acknowledgement that a crime has been committed against
them.
Reducing channels of reporting to ensure that victims are directed to
appropriate agencies as quickly and simply as possible.
Having official agency staff trained in dealing with victims of fraud and
knowing appropriate ways in which their cases can be handled.
Having open and honest support and understanding from friends and
relatives.
Knowing what support services are available, how and where these can
be obtained, and at what cost.
Ensuring that professional support providers are trained in dealing with
victims of financial abuse.
 Obtaining professional support not only for the consequences of
victimisation, but also for the reasons that precipitated the fraud, such as
relationship difficulties or addictions (taken from Cross et al. 2016: 7).
While this study indicated that many victims did not access support
services, those who did often used existing support services and networks
they were already connected to. This demonstrates the complex needs of
fraud victims, and the links to other areas of vulnerability.
Despite an overall lack of support services available, there are a few
programmes in operation which have begun to demonstrate best practices in
the area. Two of these are summarised below.

Senior Support Unit (Canada)

The SSU is a telephone peer support service that uses older volunteers to
contact older victims of fraud across Canada, or those who may be
vulnerable to fraudulent attempts. It is based within the Canadian Anti-
Fraud Centre (CAFC) in North Bay, Ontario. A prompt is generated when a
person reports an incident of fraud to the CAFC (direct victims or third
parties). The SSU use this as an entry point to contacting the older person
and checking in to see how they are doing and if any assistance can be
provided (through prevention advice or referrals). Primarily, the SSU
volunteer offers an empathetic listening ear to the person and provides peer
support. The SSU volunteer does not investigate the report or provide
assistance related to the incident, rather their focus is on the well-being of
the person and an attempt to increase their resilience against future
fraudulent approaches. In examining the benefits of the SSU, volunteers
indicate that they feel value in the ability of the victim to share their story
and experience with a non-judgemental person; a reassurance that they are
not alone and that they are not at fault; and an ability to gain advice and
support on how to best prevent re-victimisation in the future (Cross 2016).
The SSU was first established in 1993 (in a previous iteration) and
continues operations to this day.

IDCARE
IDCARE (www.idcare.org) is the national support service for victims of
identity theft across Australia and New Zealand. This includes fraud victims
who may have had parts of their identity compromised in some way.
IDCARE offer a confidential counselling service for victims of identity
theft, as well as individual plans for recovery of their identity. In the
recently updated Cybersecurity Strategy 2020, the Australian Government
committed an additional AUD$6.1 million in funding to further support the
services of IDCARE and enable the provision of support to a greater
number of victims across Australia and New Zealand (Home Affairs 2020).
Given the increase in individuals experiencing fraud and identity theft, the
ability of IDCARE to expand its services to provide greater access and
levels of support for an increased number of victims is a welcome
development.

Conclusion
This chapter has highlighted the overall complexity of fraud. It is evident
that there are many challenges associated with fraud and the threat it poses
to the whole of society. While fraud is not new, technology has clearly
played a transformative role through exponentially increasing the ability of
offenders to target victims globally. It has also redefined the techniques and
tactics used by offenders to perpetrate their offences. Further, the use of the
Internet has enabled offenders to use factors such as jurisdiction and
anonymity to their advantage.
The number of persons who experience victimisation and suffer from
fraud continues to increase worldwide. Given the number of fraudulent
approaches is limited only by the imaginations of offenders, schemes are
being targeted to directly defraud individuals. In doing this, the financial
and non-financial range of harms experienced by victims are consistently
highlighted across current academic research. In seeking to reduce
victimisation, it is important to understand how fraud occurs, in terms of the
methods used by offenders (across social engineering and psychological
abuse techniques). Further, it is critical to recognise the potential for fraud
vulnerability across all demographics, and the ways in which offenders
potentially target their schemes to capitalise on perceived weaknesses
stemming from demographics and other variables.
This chapter has summarised existing challenges across the policing,
prevention and support aspects related to fraud. While there are positive
developments in these areas, it is also clear that there are genuine issues
which need to be overcome to deliver better outcomes for both victims and
non-victims alike. Current approaches have arguably been ineffective in
responding to fraud in ways that meet both societal and victim expectations.
Based on known figures, fraud losses and numbers of victims are
projected to increase in coming years. The magnitude of this problem
necessitates greater prioritisation by all to better combat the threat posed by
fraud and the far-ranging consequences of victimisation.

Recommended Readings
Button and Cross (2017) provide a comprehensive overview of cyberfraud
and expand in greater detail many of the topics outlined in this chapter. In a
similar vein, Cross (2019b) provides a shorter account of the field to date,
outlining existing knowledge related to the policing, prevention and support
of fraud victims. In seeking to gain further information about the reasons
underpinning fraud victimisation, Button et al. (2009, 2014) provide
important insights into the lived experience of these individuals, based on
interviews with victims. In examining particular types of fraud, Ross and
Smith (2011) explore AFF and investment fraud in greater detail as do
Shoenmakers et al. (2009) who further provide a historical account of these
fraud types and their emergence. For an in-depth understanding of romance
fraud, Whitty (2013) provides her “scammers persuasive techniques model”
and outlines the seven stages referred to earlier. Similarly, Cross et al.
(2018) advocate for the use of domestic violence and psychological abuse
as an important framework to better understand the dynamics and
complexities of romance fraud. Lastly, Prenzler (2019) summarises the
current state of fraud prevention knowledge and highlights the dearth of
work in this area, despite the ongoing nature and escalation of fraud
offending and victimisation globally.

Acknowledgement
The work has been supported by the Cyber Security Research Centre
Limited whose activities are partially funded by the Australian
Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Programme.

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M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_12

12. Examining Private Sector Strategies

for Preventing Insurance Fraud
Yuriy Timofeyev1 and Michael Skidmore2
(1) Graduate School of Business, HSE University, Moscow, Russia
(2) The Police Foundation, London, UK

Yuriy Timofeyev (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Michael Skidmore
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
This chapter focuses on a complex phenomenon of fraud in the insurance
industry. It reviews the literature on the nature of insurance fraud,
differentiating among intermediary-, insurers-, policyholder- and internal
fraud. The drivers of insurance fraud offending are considered through
prisms of routine activity theory and criminological theory. Other reviewed
studies suggest considering additional factors like public tolerance, public
misunderstanding, boost of online services and weak crime control through
cooperation. The chapter outlines the current trends in the industry, such as
insurance aggregators, identity fraud, mobile applications and ghost
brokers. It summarises the main preventative strategies adopted by insurers,
which includes engaging with the public, using effective detection
mechanisms and developing anti-fraud corporate culture, at the same time,
pinpointing limitations in our knowledge and the potential ways to
rectifying these.
Introduction
Insurance fraud is complex and diverse, perpetrated by people occupying
different positions in the market and using methods that vary in their
sophistication. In broad terms, offending is facilitated by inadequate
internal systems and cultures that prioritise preventing fraud, and
undertaken by consumers providing misleading information when buying a
policy or making a claim, and by corrupt employees who are best placed to
identify and then exploit weaknesses. Offending also occurs in the
commercial sales environment, when consumers are mis-sold policies by
rogue agents. These offences are diverse and they call for different
prevention approaches.
Insurance fraud is commonplace across the world and it is costly. For
example, fraudulent claims have been estimated to amount to 10 percent of
the total value of all insurance claims in the industry (Atlas Magazine
2017a); UK insurers uncovered 125,000 fraudulent claims and in Germany
5 billion Euros are lost to fraud each year (HDI 2018). Fraudulent claims
are believed to be even more rife in other parts of Europe, including Russia,
the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Denmark (Dehghanpour and Rezvani
2015). Conservatively, fraudsters in the U.S. are estimated to cost the
industry 80 billion USD each year (Coalition Against Insurance Fraud
2020). Many cases are not detected or prosecuted, and the ‘dark figure’ is
likely to be particularly high in countries where there is more limited
oversight by the industry, such as in some African, Asian and South
American countries.
Social, political and economic factors can influence the distribution of
insurance fraud perpetrated across different regions. The frequency of
fraudulent activities has been linked to the state of the economy, with rates
of fraud rising during periods of recession and declining during periods of
economic growth (Dionne and Wang 2013). A U.S. study found consumers
are more likely to perpetrate insurance fraud in regions with higher levels of
corruption, the assumption being that people feel more safe to commit these
crimes than they would in other U.S. regions where illicit activity is less
prominent (and tolerated) amongst state officials (Goel 2014).
Insurance companies have developed various protective strategies to
mitigate their losses to the different forms of fraud they suffer, the principal
challenge being for companies to proactively identify potential fraud from
within a high volume of transactions that would otherwise go undetected.
There has been investment into building capability in their workforce to
detect and appropriately respond to suspected frauds and the development
of risk management software which automates the detection of suspicious
transactions using predictive modelling and analytics (Association of
British Insurers 2016; Culp 2014). Success in detecting fraud risk is in part
contingent on the ability to collect the right information and apply it in the
right way (e.g., intelligence on risky individuals or locations), but insurance
companies appear to have historically prioritised commercial advantage
over fraud prevention as evidenced by their reluctance to share data. These
limits on information sharing have constrained the effectiveness of these
intelligence systems, both for individual companies and for the industry
collectively (Coalition Against Insurance Fraud 2012).
In addition, although there is recent research on some types of
offending, such as the nature of internal fraud (e.g., see Gill and Randall
2015) and fraudulent sale of insurance policies (e.g., see City of London
Police 2021), this is less evident with other types. For example, knowledge
about the true scale and cost of internal fraud and ‘ghost broking’ are
limited. This impedes the development of effective responses.
This chapter will discuss the different methodologies adopted by
fraudsters that are common in the insurance sector before moving on to
discuss the drivers for offending. This provides the context for the final
section which discusses the different methods and strategies that facilitate
more effective fraud prevention.

The Nature of Insurance Fraud

The Insurance Information Institute (2020) defines insurance fraud as, “a
deliberate deception perpetrated against or by an insurance company or
agent for the purpose of financial gain”. According to Derrig (2002),
insurance fraud is a criminal act which involves obtaining financial gain
from an insurer or the insured party using misrepresented facts or false
pretences. As with other frauds, these crimes are perpetrated from afar,
commonly requiring no personal contact between offender and victim and
reducing the perceived risk to the offender, thereby lowering the social and
psychological barriers for engaging in this form of offending. This is a point
highlighted by Edelbacher and Theil (2018: 166): “The main feature of an
insurance fraud is that there is no existing personal link between the
offender and the victim. This relationship generally makes it […] so easy to
commit insurance fraud, because there is no criminal energy needed to be
active against a congregate person or victim”. The consequence is for
offending to occur in high volumes.
The diversity of modus operandi reflects the variety of opportunities
available to actors that occupy different positions in the market, ranging
from those who offend using their legitimate position in the industry to
rogue actors who offend from the fringes or outside the industry. These
have been grouped into four discrete categories.
Intermediary fraud: it is fraud committed by professionals, such as
independent brokers or insurance agents who mediate the purchase of
insurance between consumer and provider. Examples include the
submission of exaggerated claims on behalf of policyholders or misleading
policyholders and selling them fake policies (IAIS 2007).
Insurer’s fraud: the offenders masquerade as an insurance company and
mislead customers by selling policies that do not exist, failing to purchase
the premiums that were sold or submitting fake policies to the issuer to
fraudulently claim a commission fee (Gill and Randall 2015).
Policyholder (or customer) fraud: this refers to fraud against insurers by
a policyholder obtaining wrongful coverage or in some way avoiding
payment (Derrig 2002). Examples include the submission of exaggerated
claims, falsifying details, such as medical history, post-dating policies, car
insurance fraud, faking death/kidnapping/murder claims from the
customers’ side (Baesens et al. 2015; Investopedia 2020).
Internal fraud: the employees of insurance companies use their
legitimate position to perpetrate the fraud. For example, they collude with
customers to provide kickback payments for their own respective gain
(IAIS 2007).

Current Trends in Insurance Fraud

There are four key trends which characterise the changing nature of
insurance fraud.
The emergence of insurance aggregators (or comparison sites): These
services provide a one-stop shop to identify insurance companies offering
the most competitive prices, reducing the effort and cost to the consumer. In
the US and Europe, nearly half of insurance policies are sold via an
aggregator acting as an intermediary (McKinsey 2018). These sites
introduce risk for insurance companies that have to relinquish control of
their application process. Aggregator sites facilitate only a surface-level
interaction with consumers online and in some cases collect insufficient
information to adequately detect fraudulent applications (Tardieu et al.
2020). The nature of aggregator sites means they attract people motivated to
minimise their insurance rates and accordingly brings the risk that they will
enter false information.
Stolen or fake identities: The rise of the Internet and digital finance has
seen a proliferation of cybercriminals who steal or trade in personal data,
and a global rise in identity fraud which is easy to commit; it requires
limited specialist knowledge (Cifas and Forensic Pathways 2018). The
consequence has been a rapid growth in identity fraud globally, enabled in
part by companies showing insufficient vigilance and deploying limited
security (Cifas 2017; Iovation 2020).
Mobile applications (‘Apps’): For policyholders, mobile applications
are increasingly the favoured method to interface with their insurance
provider generating a competitive advantage for a company. These
applications store policyholders’ personal information and provide the
means to make payments or claims on their insurance. The increased
reliance on this technological interface has opened up new opportunities for
fraudsters who are able to exploit the vulnerabilities of the mobile devices
themselves or networks in order to access the personal details of
policyholders (Lookout 2017). Fraudsters victimise customers or insurers
by distributing spying software (typically through popular messengers like
WhatsApp, Viber, etc.) and further misusing this stolen personal data, for
example, in falsified applications.
Ghost brokers: ‘Ghost broking’ is a term used to describe the illicit
activity of selling fake insurance policies to the public. Victims can
unknowingly purchase a worthless policy and thereby suffer a financial
loss. These illicit actors adopt the role of intermediary. They deceive
insurance companies and/or consumers by buying insurance on behalf of
clients using false information, including fake identities and then cancelling
the policies without the policyholders’ knowledge. These offences have
become common (Iovation 2020). To illustrate, in 2018 in the UK, the
Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) reported more than 50 ongoing investigations
linked to ghost broking, and each of these cases could involve hundreds of
fake or invalid insurance policies (IFB 2018).
Summing up, the growth of digital services in the insurance sector has
introduced new challenges for companies to collect and analyse information
to adequately assess the risk of fraud, a problem exacerbated when control
of the process is handed over to the flourishing market in intermediary
services. Added to this, the collection and storage of growing amounts of
data on networked IT systems introduce an imperative to secure this
information and protect companies and consumers from offenders who are
able to exploit this personal data, one many fail to meet.

The Drivers of Insurance Fraud Offending

External (Policyholder) Fraud
Originally developed to explain street crime, routine activity theory
suggests offending is principally the product of opportunities that arise in
day-to-day routine behaviours, activities and situations (Cohen and Felson
1979). As originally conceived, for offending to occur, there needs to be a
convergence of three components: a motivated and capable offender, a
suitable target and the absence of a capable guardian. Conceptual
modifications have since occurred and it has been applied to a broader
range of offences including applicable to technology-enabled crimes
(Tillyer and Eck 2009; Reyns and Henson 2016; Reyns and Randa 2020).
Drawing on Rational Choice Theory, a further element is a prospective
offender making a choice about whether to commit an offence based on a
perception of reward against risk, often in terms of the likelihood of
detection and punishment (Cornish and Clarke 1987). These principles have
led to a proliferation of situational prevention measures, commonly
fostering more secure environments, processes and behaviours to reduce
opportunities to offend (e.g., see Sparrow 2016). Notably for a crime like
fraud, characterised by a low detection rate, it is this low risk of detection
rather than the severity of punishment that has been considered most
influential in inhibiting offending (Clarke 1997). Companies able to tip the
balance and increase the perception of risk may deter the least determined
offenders from perpetrating the fraud. That said, the insurance industry has
provided fertile ground for offending, some key trends merit comment.
 Public tolerance. The insurance industry can suffer from a negative
public image. This is due to a perception that companies enjoy high profits
whilst not always treating customers fairly, and consequently insurance
fraud can be perceived as a victimless crime. One national survey in the
U.S. identified a number of factors that contributed to high public tolerance
of insurance frauds. Prime amongst them were an established set of social
norms in certain communities, and a perception of a lack of fairness in their
exchanges with insurers (Lesch and Baker 2013). A permissive public
attitude eases the pathway into insurance fraud for prospective offenders
and mitigates public enthusiasm for a more robust response from
governments and state agencies.
There are at least three other factors which make people tolerate
customer insurance fraud: they are cultural tightness, peers’ effects, and
negative customer experience. First, a high degree of public tolerance of
insurance fraud in some countries leads to a widespread perception of
insurance fraud as low harm and insurers as legitimate targets (Zourrig et al.
2018). Second, and drawing from social learning theory (e.g., see O’Fallon
and Butterfield 2012), public tolerance is fuelled by close peers spreading a
view that insurance fraud is acceptable (Dehghanpour and Rezvani 2015).
Finally, public attitudes are also shaped by their confidence and trust in the
industry, with poor treatment or malpractice cultivating a belief that
insurance companies are ‘fair game’; for example, some customers that
experience discrimination by being excluded them from certain services are
more inclined to behave fraudulently to get the product they want (Cova et
al. 2016).
Public misunderstanding. There is a high level of customisation in the
products provided across the insurance industry. The problem is they are
often sold to customers without sufficient support and advice, and
insufficient care is taken to ensure that products are suitable and
appropriate, thereby increasing the likelihood of retaliatory behaviour from
consumers (Einav et al. 2010; Lesch and Brinkmann 2011). The complexity
and diversity of insurance products can lead to confused customers
mistakenly submitting claims that appear fraudulent, further fuelling their
antipathy towards insurers. In any event, claims can be rejected as not being
covered by a policy which a consumer may have purchased in good faith
but incorrectly.
 Online services. The vulnerabilities to fraud in the industry have been
amplified by the increasing operation of business via digital channels, with
the social restrictions that temper behaviour and offending in offline
settings shown to be reduced in online spaces; the anonymity provided
renders them more open to abuse. The migration to online spaces has
enhanced the overall customer experience, but has created more
opportunities and fewer risks to anonymous online offenders, whilst
creating more challenges for companies that have less time to detect
anomalies and potential fraud due to the speed of online transactions.
Furthermore, companies lack the infrastructure to protect themselves and
customer data from abuse by cybercriminals; one survey of insurance
companies found less than one-in-five considered themselves fully prepared
for a cyberattack (Atlas Magazine 2017b; KPMG 2017).
Weak crime control through cooperation. Information sharing between
insurance companies, regulators and law enforcement is important for
developing intelligence on suspects, for identifying trends, and to facilitate
crime investigation/prevention. However, weak or non-existent
information-sharing arrangements restrict the vantage point for each
individual partner, providing opportunities for the same offenders to
seamlessly evade detection and offend against multiple insurers (Timofeyev
and Busalaeva 2021). One survey found 33 per cent of insurers identified
cooperation between companies as a challenge (FRISS 2019a). The
industry is further restricted by the limitations of law enforcement. This is
due to inadequate capability and limited priority afforded to fraud offending
(e.g., see Skidmore et al. 2020; Stringham 2015), which in turn limits the
scope for cooperation with industry.

Internal Fraud
Fraud that is perpetrated by individuals from within a legitimate company
setting, commonly referred to as white-collar offending, is thought to be
driven by distinctive personal or environmental factors, in part because
many who offend in this setting live otherwise normal, law-abiding lives
(e.g., see van Onna et al. 2014). In this context, the fraud triangle sets out
the conditions that need to converge for these offences to occur; an offender
with motive, which is commonly linked to a personal, financial or
professional difficulty; an opportunity in the workplace to resolve this by
illicit means (such as loopholes in company or regulatory systems); and the
ability for these individuals to rationalise or ‘neutralise’ their rule-breaking
behaviour, including those who perceive their crimes to be victimless
(Schuchter and Levi 2016).
Recent findings by Said et al. (2018) indicate that the strength of an
individual’s ethical values and beliefs are important for determining the
likelihood they will commit fraud and adhere to the corporate rules.
In the context of the insurance fraud industry, several aspects of the
corporate environment and culture shape the likelihood of fraud offending
by employees. Insurance companies have a responsibility to foster
corporate values that deter and divert individuals away from fraud
offending. This should permeate multiple aspects of the business starting
with recruitment strategies that take sufficient care not to employ
identifiable bad actors, which can result in “collusion between suspects,
insurance staff … and persons with insider or expert knowledge”
(Edelbacher and Theil 2018: 171). There is a need to instil values across
employees through the provision of ethical education and also ensure
adequate support is offered to employees to divert less confident or able
employees (particularly those in sales) from adopting unethical means to
achieve company targets (Taek Yi et al. 2012; Tseng 2017). In the
accounting and finance professions, a relationship has been identified
between the ethical culture of an organisation and the ethical behaviour of
employees (Ampofo et al. 2004).
A robust counter fraud culture includes not only establishing the right
values, but also instilling vigilance and capability across employees to
effectively identify and respond to fraud (Anti-Fraud Collaboration 2019),
the absence of which is considered one of the most significant underlying
drivers of internal fraud. FRISS (2019a) reported approximately a quarter of
insurers had not instilled a strong counter fraud culture and only one third
had implemented a zero-tolerance policy. The remaining organisations had
no clear procedures set out for employees to detect and prevent fraudulent
practice. There are even examples in which corporate culture fosters
unethical behaviour, for example by providing corporate targets and
incentives that encourage the commission of fraud (Raftery and Holder
2014).
The effectiveness of counter-fraud measures is contingent on adequate
systems and processes, particularly those that facilitate the identification
and reporting of offending. Some companies have no working systems to
report fraud or suspected dishonest behaviour, such as anonymous hotlines
to facilitate whistle-blowing, the absence of which can deter workers from
reporting due to a fear of losing their job, that they themselves will be
named and exposed, or that simply they will not be taken seriously by
senior management (Bremer 2013; Business Woman Media 2018). A U.S.
study found the internal control systems of insurers, such as internal
whistleblowing to be ineffective at identifying employee fraud (Todd et al.
1999). Other organisational gaps include underdeveloped or highly
fragmented fraud management systems, restricting effective communication
between different departments, in turn reducing their ability to monitor and
detect personnel who engage in unethical behaviour (Oscelynn 2018).

Developing Effective Prevention Strategies

Table 12.1 summarises the respective drivers of insurance frauds identified
in prior research and the key proposed mechanisms to facilitate more
effective prevention strategies at the level of individual organisations, the
industry and government policy-making.
Table 12.1 Causes of insurance fraud and respective preventative mechanisms

Causes Preventative mechanisms

Internal (staff) insurance fraud
Individual level
Lack of developed ethical education Staff ethical training (Association of British Insurers
among insurance employees (Tseng 2017) 2016)
Low self-confidence of insurance agents Adequate reward structure (Pendse 2012)
(Taek Yi et al. 2012)
Organisational level
Weak fraud-fighting culture (Raftery and Well-designed counter fraud culture (FRISS (2019b)
Holder 2014) Corporate code of conduct (Cascarino 2012)
Recruitment of insurance employees with
low ethical standards (Edelbacher and
Theil 2018)
External (customer) insurance fraud
Individual level
Causes Preventative mechanisms
Confusion from inability to make a proper Cooperation with customers (Lesch and Brinkmann
comparison of offered insurance products 2011)
(Einav et al. 2010) Establishing transparency of terms and conditions of
Insufficient involvement in customer co- insurance contracts (Edelbacher and Theil 2018)
creation processes (Lesch and Brinkmann Bonus-malus contracts (Moreno et al. 2006)
2011)
Public relation campaigns on the severity of this crime
Personal disappointment in dealing with category and high detection ratios (Edelbacher and
insurance companies (Edelbacher and Theil 2018)
Theil 2018)
Effective detection based on the reviewed methods
Profiling of a potential fraudster using psychometric
tests (Padmavathi and Sengupta 2019)
Asking customers to submit an honesty statement with
a claim (Leal et al. 2016)
Optical surveillance upon agreement (King 2013)
Online surveillance (Palasinski and Svoboda 2014)
Organisational level
Unethical peers’ effects at organisation Strong internal control (Said et al. 2017)
level (Cova et al. 2016)
Industry level
Weak cooperation among insurers Information sharing (Timofeyev and Busalaeva 2021;
(Timofeyev and Busalaeva 2021; FRISS FRISS 2019b)
2019a) Co-operating with the law enforcement authorities
(Edelbacher and Theil 2018)
Region (country) level
High level of corruption in region (Goel Improving coordination between agencies enforcing
2014) anti-fraud measures and anti-corruption initiatives
Economic recession (Dionne and Wang (Goel 2014)
2013) Information sharing, automation of fraud detection and
Unethical peers’ effects at country level leveraging artificial intelligence (FRISS 2019b;
(Dehghanpour and Rezvani 2015; Zourrig BioCatch 2019)
et al. 2018) Understanding public perceptions of fraud (Ribeiro et
al. 2020) and further improvement of public image
(Edelbacher and Theil 2018)

Many of the solutions in Table 12.1 are encompassed by three

overarching themes which are to cultivate an improved relationship with
consumers in the public in order to inhibit offending behaviour; to improve
the use of technology and data analytics to detect risk and offending; and to
address internal fraud, corporate strategies by instilling a counter fraud
culture. They each merit a comment.

Engaging with the Public

The costs of insurance frauds are ultimately borne by consumers who are
made to pay higher prices for premiums. This shared impact on insurers and
consumers (albeit indirectly) indicates that a united approach to preventing
fraud would be of long-term mutual benefit. Information campaigns might
be employed to draw public attention to the seriousness of insurance fraud
(i.e., one that is punishable by law), the likelihood that frauds will be
detected and the nature of the harm that is caused (Edelbacher and Theil
2018).
However, the first step is to foster more positive public experiences of
the industry, starting with an improved consumer experience, which are
essential to raising current levels of confidence and trust (Iovation 2019).
Ribeiro et al. (2020) suggest perceptions that fraud experienced by insurers
is “deserved” or represents a “restored justice” might be mitigated if the
industry were to implement more consistent, transparent and fair treatment
of consumers and policyholders. More information and transparency from
the industry on their terms of service may help manage consumer
expectations and set the foundation for an improved relationship with
policyholders (Lesch and Baker 2013). Another measure, currently rarely
implemented, is to ask policyholders who submit a claim to complete an
honesty statement, as a means to nudge them away from dishonest conduct
(Leal et al. 2016).
A final measure is to implement more firm deterrents to reduce the risk
of offending by policyholders. This can be incorporated into the terms of
service, such as increasing the cost of premiums with every claim submitted
by the policyholder (Moreno et al. 2006), although this measure might
alienate some customers. Finally, increasing the actual or perceived risk of
detection can be done through enhanced surveillance (King 2013).
Experimental research by Palasinski and Svoboda (2014) found that an
awareness of surveillances measures (such as online monitoring) can in
itself be sufficient to increase public compliance with social and legal
norms in cyberspace. However, a balance needs to be drawn between the
commercial objectives of expanding their customer base and those for
inhibiting offending behaviour; overly intrusive measures to address the
latter may undermine the former.

Effective Detection of Risk

Detecting unusual transactions and how and why they occurred are key
precursors to implementing effective fraud prevention strategies (Baesens et
al. 2015). The insurance industry collects vast amounts of data on
consumers and—with the assistance of technology—these data can be
harnessed to more quickly flag activity or individuals that present a risk in
the different insurance markets. Information technology has had a
significant influence on the capabilities available to insurance companies.
For example, specialist forensic software products that facilitate text
analytics (Zainal et al. 2017); and algorithms that have been developed
using various types of software (e.g., ‘R’) adopting rigorous techniques to
detect anomalies (Sheshasaayee and Thomas 2018; Wang and Xu 2018).
Indeed, predictive analytical models have been found to be highly effective
at detecting fraudulent transactions in the auto insurance market (Nagrecha
et al. 2018). A recent study highlighted the importance of standardised
psychometric tests to assist companies to know more about their consumers
and potential risks (Padmavathi and Sengupta 2019).
Despite the progress in fraud detection by means of technology-assisted
assessments, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning (e.g., see
HDI 2018), the challenges remain for insurers to identify potential fraud
quickly enough within a high volume of transactions. There is an
imperative to keep pace with continuously evolving technology, which
requires active collaboration and shared learning between organisations and
sectors. Different insurance sectors face distinctive challenges, although
there is a scope for crossover, that is, analytical tools developed and found
to be successful in one area can be considered for use in others. For
example, the ontology-based inference model developed to detect medical
insurance fraud (Tang et al. 2017) has potential application in other
industries, such as automobile insurance.
Insurers would also benefit from closer collaboration with specialist
cybersecurity companies (Tardieu et al. 2020) that have developed
technologies, such as behavioural biometrics. Such software monitors
activity while people are signed into accounts or during financial exchanges
to profile each user (e.g., by assessing swipe patterns) and can help identify
behaviours that deviate from normal user activity with a high degree of
accuracy (Information Age 2020). It is these types of behavioural
biometrics that can identify offences, such as account takeovers and the use
of stolen identities in real time (BioCatch 2019).
Technology-based approaches, which include data mining and profiling
of fraudsters, as well as supporting tools, have much to offer the detection
of the risks of fraud. For example, the Mass Detection Tool (MDT) is
targeted at the front-line claims handling process. MDT calculates the
probability of the current claim being fraudulent, based upon the prior
probabilities of claims possessing the same range of fraud indicator ratings
being proven as fraudulent. The Suspicion Building Tool (SBT) supports
the processes of investigating and repudiating claims, providing capture,
review, argumentation and visualisation of anomalies (Ormerod et al. 2012).
However, it is important to recognise that technology is only part of the
solution, and effective detection and investigation is dependent on human
judgement to appraise the legitimacy of insurance claims (Baesens et al.
2015; Skiba and Disch 2014). In reality, fraud arises from specific social
contexts and relationships that can only be discerned by a human assessor;
for example, it is common for insurance fraud to involve collusion between
a policyholder and a service provider that receives a kickback after
submitting a successful insurance claim (Picard and Wang 2015). The
opportunities for quick and efficient fraud detection can sometimes come
from human enquiries instead of data analysis, including personal
interviews and open source investigation online (Dong et al. 2018). To
illustrate, a short discussion with a client’s associate can quickly uncover
dishonesty: ‘I feel so sorry about your husband. He will never be able to
drive again…’ ‘What?!! He has just taken his car and left to go to the
office!’

Corporate Culture
Two core requirements for companies across the insurance sector are to
implement a strong and uniform set of values that encourage ethical
practices by employees, and a robust counter fraud culture both to prevent
malpractice and to help detect it when it occurs. The ingredients of a well-
constructed counter fraud culture include employees receiving unqualified
support from senior management, systematic communication across
departments and effective fraud awareness trainings (FRISS 2019a).
Sometimes insurers do not help themselves, for example, by setting sales
targets which are too onerous and can lead people to consider and pursue
fraud (Pendse 2012).
The success of a counter fraud culture is to a large extent contingent on
the ability to detect and respond to incidents of staff breaching the corporate
ethical code (Cascarino 2012: 120). Effective industry collaboration is key
here, to render it more difficult for bad actors to move across the industry,
including internationally (FRISS 2019b). Moreover, pooling fraud
intelligence from companies across the industry can help in tracking,
fighting and controlling organised fraud and help to keep pace with the
latest modus operandi; one example of this is the Insurance Histories
Bureau or in the UK, Cifas, which provides a cross-industry strategic hub to
direct fraud prevention. The creation of an industry-wide central database in
the UK, that contains information on all insurance fraudsters (Association
of British Insurers 2012), represents a good example of industry
collaboration.
Finally, closer cooperation with the police and other relevant state
institutions may bolster efforts to identify and respond to fraud in the
industry. For example, the Bank of Russia’s Computer Emergency
Response Team (FinCERT) works to prevent cybercrime against the
financial sector (Timofeyev and Busalaeva 2021). At the country level,
fraud prevention measures are often associated with combating corruption,
and Goel (2014) called for better coordination in the policing of anti-fraud
and anti-corruption initiatives. Furthermore, regulatory or civil justice
reform brings the prospect of a more robust response to insurance fraud
(Insurance Fraud Taskforce 2016).

Conclusion
Fraud has always been endemic to the insurance industry. Although the
causes have remained largely the same (van Driel 2018), the methods used
by fraudsters have changed dramatically in recent decades because of the
rise in digital services and the burgeoning range of the offered products and
services. Rapidly evolving systems have created vulnerabilities which have
not always been matched by insurers’ preventative responses. Such systems
can be highly effective if they are blended with practitioner expertise and
the right information is made available, with systematic collaboration and
data-sharing across the industry a central requirement. Moreover, the
substantial rise in international crime requires cross-border cooperation
between companies, the police and the public to prevent insurance fraud.
This chapter has focussed on a much under discussed complex
phenomenon of fraud in the insurance industry. It has considered the nature
of insurance fraud and in the process differentiated between different times,
namely: intermediary, insurers, policyholder and internal fraud. The drivers
of insurance fraud offending have been considered through the prism of
routine activity theory. It was noted that since offenders typically make a
rational choice decision to commit insurance fraud, there is the opportunity
for insurers and their partners to weigh offenders’ decisions against crime.
That said, the limitations to doing this well have been discussed. Prevention
is not helped by factors such as public tolerance, public misunderstanding,
the boost of online services and a lack of cross-sector cooperation. Key
trends were discussed which included consideration of the role of
aggregators, the facilitating effect of identity frauds, the role of mobile
applications and the emergence of a growing band of ghost brokers. The
main preventative strategies adopted by insurers have been discussed
including engaging with the public, using effective detection mechanisms
and developing anti-fraud corporate cultures. All in all, the insurance
industry has a choice about how much fraud it wants to tolerate, and the
balance between sales and prevention is a key one which, if not properly
understood, becomes a key driver of insurance frauds.

Recommended Readings
Brinkmann and Lentz (2006), Farashah and Estelami (2014), Akomea-
Frimpong et al. (2016), Cova et al. (2016), Leal et al. (2016), Button et al.
(2017), Gill (2018), Modic et al. (2018), Ribeiro et al. (2020) explore
potential causes of insurance fraud. Button et al. (2013), Pande and Maas
(2013), Dehghanpour and Rezvani (2015) and Button et al. (2016) depict
insurance fraudsters’ profiles in different countries. Tseng and Su (2014),
Akomea-Frimpong et al. (2016), Timofeyev and Busalaeva (2021) shed
light on the factors affecting the size of loss due to different types of
insurance fraud. Baesens et al. (2015), van Capelleveen et al. (2016), Fang
and Gong (2017), Tang et al. (2017), Li et al. (2018), McGee et al. (2018),
Warren and Schweitzer (2018), Sheshasaayee and Thomas (2018),
Padmavathi and Sengupta (2019), Pani and Tiwari (2019), Prenzler
(2019), Sadiq and Shyu (2019) discuss insurance fraud detective and
preventative techniques, methods and strategies.
There are a lot of articles in the Journal of Business Ethics which
highlight the many causes of insurance fraud. Many studies from the
Security Journal consider fraud prevention mechanisms in the context of
corporate security and have a relevance to fraud. Recent reports by the
Association of British Insurers, the International Association of Insurance
Supervisors and the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud discuss issues
related to insurance fraud prevention.

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https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_13

13. Economic and Industrial Espionage:

Characteristics, Techniques and Response
Mark Button1 and Susanne Knickmeier2
(1) University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK
(2) Ministry of Justice (Brandenburg), Potsdam, Germany

Mark Button (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Susanne Knickmeier
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
The interest in protected information of others is probably as old as
mankind itself. The danger of business secrets being spied on by
competitors, hacker groups or foreign intelligence services or its
exploitation by third parties has the potential for significant economic
consequences. With the increasing digitalisation of corporate and
production processes, cyberattacks are becoming more and more relevant in
the unauthorised outflow of know-how and pose particular challenges for
law enforcement authorities in investigating and providing evidence,
especially when the perpetrators act from abroad. The chapter explores
economic and industrial espionage, uses real examples to illustrate it and
examines the legal basis of the problem in several countries in the European
Union and the UK. Furthermore, it explores the perpetrators and the
techniques they use and considers the extent and cost of the problem.

Introduction
One of the most significant economic crime problems in modern
industrialised countries is industrial and economic espionage. In 2012 the
head of MI5 (the state security service in the UK) noted how one company
had suffered an £800 million loss from a state-sponsored cyberattack
resulting in lost intellectual property and suffered disadvantages in contract
negotiations (Shah 2012). Cumulatively—as this chapter will show later—
this problem costs the world’s companies billions of dollars. It is an issue
which has received very little attention from academics. This chapter aims
to fill that gap by providing a comprehensive overview and introduction to
the problem. This chapter will define it, look at examples and consider the
law surrounding it. This chapter will also examine the perpetrators of it and
the techniques they use. It will also attempt to gauge the size of the problem
and political attention paid towards it. The chapter will draw upon cases and
research from the UK, Germany, the USA and several other European
countries.

Defining Economic and Industrial Espionage

There is a lexicon of terms that are used to describe a variety of problems
that are considered in this chapter that often overlap. These include, but by
no means all: ‘economic espionage’, ‘industrial espionage’, ‘corporate
espionage’, ‘cyber espionage’, ‘commercial espionage’, and ‘intellectual
property crime’, to name some. It is not the purpose of this chapter to
embark on a tortuous discussion to draw out a definition, rather we will
illustrate some and then present our own. Wagner (2012, p. 1040) has
defined the terms as:
Economic espionage refers to targeting or acquiring of? trade secrets
from domestic companies or government entities to knowingly benefit a
foreign state and
Industrial espionage is the same as economic espionage, except that
rather than benefiting a foreign government, it benefits another private
entity.
A similar variety of definitions exists in other European countries. Most
European countries lack a legal definition of industrial or economic
espionage (Carl et al. 2017, p. 95).1 The legal distinction between industrial
espionage and competitive spying, which is usually determined by the
perpetrator (state or non-state actors), is hardly comprehensible for those
affected. Nevertheless, civil law countries draw a clear line between cases
of industrial and economic espionage. The distinction defines the legal basis
upon which the conduct in question is prosecuted, as well as the legal
power of relevant law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Cyber-espionage distinguishes one of the common means for
undertaking it, and ‘intellectual property crime’ covers a broader field to
also encompass the substantial trade in counterfeit goods and piracy of
services. Industrial and economic espionage will both be used in this
chapter. However, Wagner’s definition above is narrow, restricting
espionage to only ‘trade secrets’. Trade secrets2 are defined as:

‘…intellectual property (IP) rights on confidential information

which may be sold or licensed…’ and they must be …
‘commercially valuable because it is secret, be known only to a
limited group of persons, and be subject to reasonable steps taken by
the rightful holder of the information to keep it secret, including the
use of confidentiality agreements for business partners and
employees’. (World Intellectual Property Organisation n.d.)

Intellectual property is also important to define and the WIPO define it

as:

creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works;

designs; and symbols, names and images used in commerce.

Espionage can also be aimed at ‘confidential information’ (which will

be explored shortly), which could include the personal information of staff
and customers, such as personal financial details and so on. For the
purposes of this chapter, the following definition is therefore proposed:

Economic and industrial espionage refers to targeting or acquiring

trade secrets and confidential information from domestic companies
or government entities to knowingly benefit a foreign state in the
case of the former and a private entity in the case of the latter.

Economic and industrial espionage have been occurring for a long time.
In particular, the industrialisation that began in the eighteenth century led to
an increase of industrial espionage (Drescher 2019, pp. 30–31). In one of
the most significant acts of industrial espionage ever, in the 1800s the
British East India Company hired the botanist, Richard Fortune, to smuggle
tea cuttings, seeds and so on out of China which were used to help grow a
tea industry in India, eclipsing the Chinese in a few decades (Rose 2010).
Economic and industrial espionage are still significant problems for many
countries and companies today, although techniques have moved on since
Fortune disguised himself as a Chinese merchant to conduct his work.
Knowledge about modern cases of industrial espionage do not always
reach the public domain for a variety of reasons. They are often
embarrassing for companies and news of the incident could affect their
stock price. For example, in one case, the Austrian company AMSC
Windtec experienced one of their engineers selling important source code to
a Chinese competitor. This case reached the public domain, resulting in a
loss of US$1 billion to the company, a significant reduction in the share
price and 700 staff losing their jobs (US Department of Justice 2018).
Successful action by law enforcement is also highly unlikely further
diminishing the appetite to report. Even if that is a possibility, for some the
likely publicity that might emerge from police action and a public trial stops
some reporting. Consequently, there are surprisingly few cases in the public
domain, compared to the likely reality of a large number of cases occurring.
Below are three famous examples from across the globe to illustrate this
problem further.
In the 1990s the American manufacturer of adhesive products, Avery
Dennison, was victim of a significant case of industrial espionage.
Throughout the 1990s, two Taiwanese business executives running a rival
company had paid an employee of Avery Dennison over $160,000 to pass
on trade secrets on the formulas for adhesives and new innovations. The
scheme was estimated to have cost Avery Dennison over $200 million in
lost revenues by the FBI (Los Angeles Times 1999).
The Avery Dennison case was the result of a corrupt insider, but the
next case known as the ‘Night Dragon’ attacks was perpetrated by hacking.
In this case, Chinese hackers working 9–5 in Beijing were able to access
sensitive information, such as proposed bidding plans from five companies
operating in the oil, gas and petrochemical sector (Reuters 2011). The
Reuters report cites the original writer of the report into the incidents from
McAfee as stating, ‘That information is tremendously sensitive and would
be worth a huge amount of money to competitors’.
The third case involves the dispute between British Airways (BA) and
Virgin Atlantic in the early 1990s, where industrial espionage was exposed
in a libel case that emerged from it (which was settled before trial). A wide
range of ‘dirty tricks’ were exposed and some relating to espionage showed
British Airways had set up a specialist unit, whose task was to secure
confidential information from the computer systems of Virgin. Newspaper
report, on the case claimed Virgin realised ‘…BA employees had been
directly engaged in poaching passengers, as well as tampering with
company files designated “confidential”’ (The Independent 2015).

Purpose of Economic and Industrial Espionage

The three cases above have hinted at the purpose of industrial espionage,
the most common of which is to secure the trade secrets of an organisation.
Trade secrets could be the prototype designs for a new model of car a
manufacturer is developing, the ingredients of a new pharmaceutical
product or the plans for a new type of mobile phone to name some.
Espionage to secure these types of trade secrets can be by competitor
organisations for ultimately profit-orientated reasons through to state
organisations seeking to enhance their security. For example, if the US
designs a new form of armour for military vehicles, competitor countries
will want to secure detailed plans surrounding it to replicate it, but also so
they can better understand weaknesses to defeat it.
Organisations may hold lots of other confidential information, which is
of use to competitors, but which are not trade secrets in the narrow
definition. Lists of customers are a prime example, but it could also include
plans on future investments, reorganisations, finances and proposed bids.
Securing such confidential information is another purpose for industrial
espionage. For example, imagine two companies bidding for a Government
contract. If one was to secure the opponent’s proposed bid and costs, the
competitor could bid lower and stand a greater chance of success. Consider
a large stock market listed company about to publish its accounts. Such
publication can affect share price and thus securing earlier access to them
via espionage may provide the basis for making gains on the stock market
for someone who buys and sells shares. Securing access to customer lists
speaks for itself and how this may be beneficial to a competitor.
 Espionage may also be pursued to secure confidential personal
information of individuals for political reasons. State-backed hackers have
pursued this agenda with the aim of securing information to cause political
harm to organisations/countries. The build-up to the 2016 US Presidential
election was disrupted by the hacking of the Democratic Party’s email and
selected release of emails, reportedly by Russian state-backed hackers
(BBC News 2016). At a corporate level, espionage may similarly take place
to uncover information which can be used to discredit a company or staff
associated with it, as was part of the aim in the BA/Virgin case discussed
earlier.
The purpose of espionage may also be for secondary criminal activities
such as for frauds to take place against the company. Many firms also hold
information on customers with personal details that could be used for
identity fraud. For example, Italian crime groups were implicated in attacks
on Unilever and associated companies aimed at securing information for the
purposes of fraud (Nicola and Scartezzini 2000).

The Law and Economic and Industrial Espionage

Acts of industrial and economic espionage can cover a wide range of
traditional offences such as theft, bribery, fraud and so on. Some countries
have designated specific offences, others use a complex mix of legislation.
In the European Union (EU), the legal regulations of economic and
industrial espionage are manifold. The Member States (with exceptions)
have a single market, but it emerges occasionally that even Member States
engage in economic espionage amongst one another, for example, the
German Federal Intelligence Service in Austria (Schmid and Sulzbacher
2018), which has been legally prohibited since 2016 (§ 6 Sec. 5 German
Act on the Federal Intelligence Service). Since June 2018, the EU Directive
943/2016 for the protection of trade secrets came into force. It does not
include, however, a criminal offence to protect trade secrets, as the
European Parliament has no power to harmonise or establish such rules, as
the phenomenon does not fall within the area of serious or organised crime
listed in Art. 83 TFEU. Since economic espionage is a crime of state
protection, the Member States who spy among each other are
understandably not interested in a common regulation. Criminal regulations
of industrial espionage are fragmented within the European Member States.
Besides that, most European countries lack a single offence of industrial
and/or economic espionage. In accordance with this, the maximum penalty
differs from state to state.
Although the material and non-material damage for the affected
company is the same, the maximum penalty exceeds in cases of economic
espionage those in industrial espionage. In the latter one, the range is
usually from a fine up to three or in serious cases five years, while the
penalty in cases of economic espionage is up to twenty years or life
imprisonment (Luxemburg). An exception is Switzerland, where the
maximum penalty for industrial and economic espionage is in each case
three years. Another legal difference refers to the type of offence. In several
other European states, for example, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland,
industrial espionage is a prosecution upon complaint offence with the
consequence that the aggrieved party has to file a criminal complaint before
an investigation can begin (only if the public prosecutor assumes a
particular public interest in prosecution, a complaint by the affected
company is not required). In serious cases, the existence of a particular
public interest ought only rarely to be denied. Economic espionage, in turn,
is an ex-officio crime in all European Member states and Switzerland, as a
national security breach is considered far more serious.
The differentiation between economic and industrial defines not only
the legal basis, but also the legal competences of relevant law enforcement
and intelligence agencies. In Germany, for example, the Offices for the
Protection of the Constitution are responsible for the prevention of
economic espionage but not industrial espionage. The police force is
responsible for the prevention and criminal prosecution of both economic
espionage and industrial espionage. This distinction is noteworthy, as the
German police system is based on the principle of legality, which is not
applicable to the secret service. The criminal proceedings in cases of
economic espionage can be led by the Federal Prosecutor and the
investigation by the Federal Criminal Office. The following example
illustrates the consequences of the legal differentiation into economic and
industrial espionage, which is insofar incomprehensible as the worth of the
trade secret is the same, whether a state or a competitor spies on it. For
example, a Chinese businessman is detected securing trade secrets during a
factory tour, if his activity for a foreign secret service is suspected, but
cannot be proved, the legal situation changes from an ex-officio offence to
an offence upon complaint and the possibility of being referred to private
prosecution.
Despite the key provisions, criminal activities in the area of economic
and industrial espionage can affect various accessory laws that can be
applicable on a stand-alone basis or in conjunction with the key provision.
Cybercrimes involving technical access to trade secrets stored in electronic
data are anonymous, faster and usually less costly for the perpetrators. The
penal provisions not only protect secrets but also data integrity. Private as
well as official secrets can be the object of economic and industrial
espionage if they concern a trade secret, which is the case whenever trade
secrets are entrusted to an occupational group.
Next to the criminal liability, affected companies can sue the offender
under labour or civil law. The advantage lies in the possibility of a claim for
damages. In some cases, an employee is only reported to criminal
proceedings in order to lend weight to the plaintiff´s arguments in an
already ongoing labour law case (Table 13.1).
Table 13.1 Key provisions, their characteristics and maximum penalty of economic and industrial
espionage in selected countries

Country Phenomenon Key Characteristics Maximum

provision penalty
Member States of the European Union
Austria eco esp. § 256 Intelligence service operating against 3 years
CCa Austrian interests; subject: trade secret

§ 124 CC Exploitation of a trade secret in a foreign 3 years

country
(Foreign country: states that are no Member
States of the EU)b
Ind. esp §§ 122– Disclosure or exploitation of a trade secret § 122 (I):
123 CC by someone whom it has been entrusted or 6 months
become accessible in the course of his work § 122 (II):
(§ 122) or a third party (§ 123) 1 year
§ 123: 2
years
§§ 11, 12 Disclosure or exploitation of a trade secret or 3 months
AAUCc documents and regulations of a technical
nature by an employee by virtue of his
employment relationship
Country Phenomenon Key Characteristics Maximum
provision penalty
Bulgaria eco esp. Art. 104 State secret 20 years
CC or life
sentence
ind. esp Art. 224 Trade secret 5 years
CC
Art. 284 Disclosure of secret information by a civil 2 years
CC servant or an employee of the public service,
a company or an organisation
Denmark eco esp. § 107 CC Disclosure of a secret which should kept 16 years
secret in the Danish interest by or for the
employee of a foreign intelligence service or
a foreign organisation
ind. esp §§ 37 Disclosure of a trade secret by an employee 6 years
Abs. 5, or business partner
23
Marketing
Practice
Act
§§ 263 Disclosure of a trade secret by a natural or 18 months
Abs. 3, legal person
264 Abs.
2 CC
Germany eco esp. § 99 CC Acting as an agent for a foreign state 5 years
ind. esp § 23 Disclosure of a trade secret by another 3 years
TSAd person

Non-EU
Switzerland eco esp. Art. 273 Making a manufacturing or trade secret 3 years
CC available to a foreign country, foreign
company or foreign organisation
ind. esp. Art. 162 Disclosure of a manufacturing or trade secret 3 years
CC to be kept as a result of a legal or contractual
obligation
Art. 23 Exploitation or communication of an 3 years
AAUC unlawfully explored manufacturing and trade
secret

aCC: Criminal Code

bBertel et al. (2018, p. 163)
cAAUC: Act against Unfair Competition
dTSA: Trade Secret Act

In the UK there is no specific offence of economic or industrial

espionage as Heims (1982, p. 171) argued: ‘Industrial espionage as such is
not an offence [within the UK]’, and Wall (2007, p. 102) who states that ‘…
trade secret theft is still not an offence … in the UK’. However, in the act of
engaging in economic or industrial espionage, it is very likely that the
pursuit of trade secrets and business confidential information by either state
or non-state actors will involve acts that are offences under criminal law.
Table 13.2 identifies the principal criminal legislation covering likely
behaviours linked to economic and/or industrial espionage in England and
Wales.
Table 13.2 Principal criminal offences which cover actions linked to Economic and Industrial
Espionage in England and Wales

Legislation Relevant espionage Maximum penalty (indictable only,

action covered unless offence is summary only)
Theft Act 1968 Section 1 (also Stealing assets 7 years (68 Act theft offence)
1978 Theft Act and Amendment
Act 1996)
Theft Act 1968 Section 21 Blackmail of an 14 years
(blackmail) individual
The Official Secrets Act 1989 Disclosure of 2 years
(along with all its associated designated
amendments and additional orders) information/documents
by crown servants and
government
contractors
Computer Misuse Act 1990 Criminalises Access only: 2 years; Access to
unauthorised access to commit other offences: 5 years;
material held on access with intent to impair: 10 years;
computers access causing or risking serious
damage: life imprisonment.
Bribery Act 2010 Bribing for 10 years
information
Fraud Act 2006 Using false 10 years
representations to
induce the transfer of
confidential
information
Legislation Relevant espionage Maximum penalty (indictable only,
action covered unless offence is summary only)
Data Protection Act 2018 Section Unlawfully gaining or Fine up to £5000
170 (Replaced Data Protection Act disclosing personal
1998 Section 55) data (would cover
espionage for customer
lists)
Regulation of Investigatory Unlawful interceptions 2 years
Powers Act 2000 Section 1 of communications
(post or
telecommunications)
Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006 Unauthorised Summary only
Section 48 interception and
disclosure of messages
by wireless
communications
Serious Crime Act 2007 (Sections Encouraging and/or Related to what the offence would be
44–46) assisting someone to
commit an offence
Copyright, Designs and Patents Making, dealing or 10 years
Act 1988 (Section 107) as infringing articles
amended by Copyright, and so on without the permission
and Trade Marks (Offences and of the copyright holder
Enforcement Act 2002

Note: Where summary offences apply in most cases, the maximum sentence
is 6 months imprisonment and or £5000 fine. Some other possible offences
not included in the table include Misconduct in a Public Office (a public
office holder passing confidential information)

In the UK, the civil law is a common alternative route by which such
cases are addressed, where the victim organisation seeks damages. This
route is more likely to be used and lead to a successful conclusion for the
victim should they have suffered from industrial rather than economic
espionage. An example is the 2012 Dyson case, where they launched a civil
claim against Bosch, who it was claimed had placed an insider in Dyson to
steal secrets (The Guardian 2012). Such cases are often settled out of court
with no publicity, so it is difficult to know the outcome. This also makes it
difficult to determine the number of cases that are dealt with by the civil
courts too.
 Some scenarios below illustrate the potential legal ramifications of the
actions of those engaged in espionage in the UK. They illustrate the
complexity and how actions may not always be criminal or even a civil tort:
An employee of company A leaves a document with designs for a new
product in a bar by accident and employee of company B picks up and
starts using. No criminal offence and civil tort against company B more
challenging if no patent, trademark or design registered.
An employee of company A leaves to work for company B and uses
secret knowledge from A to help B develop products. No criminal
offence, but possibly civil tort if employment contract of employee has
relevant provisions (but in Germany such behaviour could be criminal).
Employee of company B pays employee of company A to provide
confidential information. Could potentially be bribery and civil tort.
Employee of company A makes a copy of a list of customers and sells to
company B. Breach of 2018 Data Protection Act and civil tort.
Person A hacks into Company B’s computer and finds the designs for a
new product, copies them and sells to competitor. Breach of 1990
Computer Misuse Act and civil tort.
Person C places covert listening devices in the telephone of key
Company A and records discussions on future plans and sells information
to Company B. Breach of Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006 Section 48 and
possible civil tort.

Perpetrators of Economic and Industrial

Espionage
Research on who engages in industrial espionage has been rare, but drawing
upon anecdotal evidence, the section below provides the main sources:
Competitors: the staff or contractors of companies in some cases have
been tasked to undertake such activities. The BA/Virgin case above is a
good example of this where staff in a small group had this responsibility.
Organisations, however, may lack the expertise to conduct such activities,
so turn to contractors.
Contractors: sometimes contractors might be used, most commonly
unethical private investigators willing to push ethics or even break the law.
In 2007, in the UK, six men were convicted, including two former police
officers, for running a private investigation firm—Active Investigation
Services—which offered a range of illegal services, some of which included
hacking for the purposes of industrial espionage (House of Commons Home
Affairs Committee 2012, Ev 82). The press hacking scandal in the UK and
the subsequent Leveson Inquiry exposed how some private investigators
were willing to conduct illegal surveillance for a fee (Leveson 2012).
Organised Criminals: some criminals of varying level of sophistication
and organisation become involved in this type of activity too. Criminals
may target companies looking for information to sell to competitors or to
secure information to enable secondary criminal activities to take place.
Pohl (2009, p. 113) notes scanning security systems for weakness to sell
gaps to other organised criminals for further use.
States: some states have been linked to espionage and either through
clearly linked staff or proxies have perpetrated espionage. For example, in
2020 an official report claimed Russian state-backed hackers ‘Cozy Bear’
were attempting to hack medical research organisations in the UK, the USA
and Canada developing a vaccine for COVID 19 to secure data useful for
Russian bodies who were also attempting to do this (National Cyber
Security Centre 2020). The Chinese state has also been linked to extensive
economic espionage with a RUSI report stating, ‘in the US, economic
cyber-espionage is thought to be Chinese government policy, and the
Chinese the most active and persistent practitioners of cyber-espionage in
the world’ (Jeffray 2014).
The East German Stasi perpetrated economic espionage on an industrial
scale. Unique analysis of their activities against the West between 1970 and
1989 found substantial economic advantages for East Germany, such that
the ‘East-to-West German TFP (Total Factor Productivity) ratio would have
been 13.3 percent lower at the end of the Cold War had East Germany not
engaged in industrial espionage’ (Glitz and Meyersson 2020, p 1055).
Insiders: they are a common source of industrial espionage. Due to their
insider knowledge, the activities of internal offenders can be particularly
risky, as they know the worth of trade secrets, have usually easier access to
them and are difficult to detect, if they, for example, take photos of trade
secrets with their mobile or transfer data to their USB-stick (Knickmeier
2020a, p. 48). At one level, they might be careless leading to a leak of
information. A member of staff might click on a link to an email that
enables the computers to be hacked; they might leave information in a
public place or put secure documents in a bin un-shredded. Insiders can also
more purposefully seek to pass information on. For this type of insider,
Moore et al. (2011) proposes a model of two types of insider based upon
cases of insiders who leaked proprietary IP. These are the following:
Entitled Independent Model: in this model, the insider has had a role in
the development of the IP and through growing dissatisfaction that might
be fuelled by lack of pay rise, promotion, recognition and so on.
Ambitious Leader Model: in this model, the motive is not dissatisfaction
but gain and the insider is motivated by using his/her position to secure
proprietary information for a competitor to then reap higher rewards and
greater status.
Moore et al. (2011, p. 31) also provide a profile of the 48 insiders:
92% of the insiders who stole IP were male (males comprise 78% of
CERT’s overall case repository where gender is known).
56% held technical positions (technical positions comprised 48% of the
overall case repository where positions were known).
75% were current employees when they committed their illicit activity
(current employees comprise 74% of CERT’s case repository where
employment status is known).
65% of the insiders had already accepted positions with another company
or had started a competing company at the time of the theft.
Findings from a case file analysis (n = 713) in Germany showed that
nearly 79% of the suspects were male and over 80% of the suspects were 30
years and older at the time of the crime (Knickmeier 2020a, p. 48). For the
development of tailor-made preventive measures, the relationship between
offenders and affected companies is of particular interest. While 43% of the
offenders3 were internal, 31% of the offenders came from outside, and 23%
were considered both internal and external. The latter group covered people
who, for example, backed up data as internal offenders and used or disclose
the data after leaving the company. The internal offenders’ field of activity
was mainly staff members (59%), but also executive staff (20%) or
managing directors (6%). Their duration of employment was inconsistent
(see Table 13.3).
Table 13.3 Internal offender: duration of employment
Internal offender: duration of employment
< 12 months 12%
1 to 3 years 15%
3 to 5 years 8%
5 to 10 years 14%
< 10 years 14%
n.a. 36%
n = 277

In the same German study, a victim survey was also conducted with 583
SMEs from manufacturing sectors and industry-related companies and
came—with the exclusion of those companies that had not answered the
question—to similar results. Asked whom they suspected behind the attack:
34% of the companies reported that they suspect an internal offender, 44%
an external offender, 15% an internal and external offender and 8%
indicated that the offender was unknown or another kind of offender
(Bollhöfer and Jäger 2018, p. 6).

Techniques
Economic and industrial espionage is perpetrated by a wide range of both
illegal and legal means. Figure 13.1 illustrates the descent into more clearly
illegal activities that offenders can utilise.
Fig. 13.1 Methods of industrial espionage

Open-source intelligence (trade shows, reports, publications, social

media, photos etc.) can be used, which if in the public domain is perfectly
legitimate. A technique often used by secret services to obtain secret
information is the social engineering (manipulative influencing of
employees). In these cases, even honest and loyal employees can become a
risk (Stirnimann 2018, p. 128). Hiring employees of competitors can also be
a tactic, although this might breach contracts signed between employee and
previous organisation. So-called dumpster diving is another tactic, where
the rubbish of an organisation is sifted for intelligence. Products if available
may sometimes be purchased and reverse engineered. Tactics can also
involve much more clearly criminal acts such as placing insiders to steal
information, bribing or blackmailing insiders are other tactics. Some
perpetrators may resort to illegal surveillance where rooms or devices are
bugged. Finally, the increasing use of cyber in an inter-connected world has
led to numerous new opportunities to hack systems and devices to secure
the necessary information.
 Referring to Bollhöfer and Jäger (2018), a large number of SMEs (66%)
assumed that incidents of industrial espionage were related to the opening
of emails with critical content. Further activities in connection with
incidents include the following: use of private devices (smartphones/tablets)
(24%), visitors in the company (21%), announcement of new
products/processes (10%), business trip abroad (7%), participation/visit to a
trade fair (6%) or cooperation with colleges/universities (5%) (Bollhöfer
and Jäger 2018, p. 41). A victim survey from Switzerland comes to similar
conclusions. From 66 responding companies most stated that the attack was
in connection with the opening of emails with critical content (39%), the
use of private devices (15%) or investment intentions of third parties (12%)
(Zwahlen et al. 2020, p. 20). In contrast to these findings, the analysis of
criminal proceedings revealed that the main means by which offenders
gained access to trade secrets were (free) access to electronically stored data
(49%); taking note of or copying information, for example, those contained
in file folders (25%); or attack on IT systems, for example, through
manipulation, use of security gaps and malware infiltration (3%)
(Knickmeier 2020a, p. 50). The difference can be explained by the fact that
the case files include detected cases in which usually an offender is known,
while suspected cases of cybercrime as mentioned in the victim surveys are
usually not reported to police.

How Much Economic and Industrial Espionage Is

There?
The measurement of most crimes is fraught with challenges, but at least
with a crime such as burglary, there are the recorded cases in police
statistics and often more accurate measures from victim surveys. As already
noted, economic and industrial espionage is not always a crime and thus
even if there were extensive statistics it would still be only a partial picture.
Additionally, there are the challenges of non-reporting and victims not
knowing how or even if they are victims. In the UK where there are no
specific offences gauging the extent of the problem, it would be very
difficult as one would have to search through information on other criminal
cases to determine if they were industrial espionage-related. Searching civil
cases would be even more challenging because many do not directly refer
to the problem in the case title and often they are settled out of court.
Gauging the size of the problem through criminal and court statistics is
therefore of limited use. In countries where there are specific offences, the
number of offences is low, as far as the specific offence is not combined
with other offences and statistics are publicly available (e.g., breaches of
state security are confidential). Referring to the German police crime
statistics, violations of trade secrets4 amounted to 525 cases (2012), 396
cases (2015) and 285 cases (0.005% of all registered cases) in 2019 (BKA
2012, 2015, 2019). In addition to non-reporting, the police crime statistic
does not include cases that are reported directly to prosecution service. In
Switzerland reported cases of industrial espionage are between 27 (2012),
39 (2015) and 41 (0.01% of all registered cases) in 2019 (Bundesamt für
Statistik 2020).
Victim surveys are another indication of the size of a crime problem, but
very few have touched upon industrial and economic espionage. Three
victim surveys have been published in the last two years in Switzerland and
Germany. Bollhöfer and Jäger asked 583 SMEs from manufacturing sectors
and industry-related companies and found 54% of the SMEs reported that
they had no incident or concrete suspicion in the last five years, 22%
suspected an incident, 13% reported one incident and 9% of the SME were
affected more than one time (Bollhöfer and Jäger 2018, p. 31). In the Swiss
study, 362 enterprises of all sizes took part in an online survey. The high
number of 85% of the respondents reported that they had not recognised an
incident of economic espionage (Art. 273 Swiss CC—see Table 13.1). A
German representative company survey on cyberattacks reported that
around 41% of the surveyed companies were affected by a cyberattack
within the last 12 months (Dreissigacker et al. 2020, p. 93).
A very interesting survey conducted in Australia focused upon
‘inventors’ and their awareness of infringement of their IP rights and
whether their patents had been copied and if they had issued a letter of
infringement. The survey found 28% were aware of copying and 14% had
issued letters (Weatherall and Webster 2010). Again, it is not possible to
determine from the survey the extent of industrial espionage involved in
this.
Possibly, the best indicators of the size of the problem have been some
of the estimates of the costs of economic and industrial espionage, which
can be substantial. The sizeable investments many companies make to
develop intellectual property are lucrative targets for those willing to
engage in such acts. Indeed, the technological revolution of the last two
decades has provided many more opportunities to pursue such acts, for both
state and corporate actors, which for some can be done without even setting
foot physically in the country or firm’s premises.
The definitional issues always create a challenge in estimating the
magnitude of the problem, but those few estimates that have been offered
provide little doubt to the substantial size of this global problem. The US
Intellectual Property Commission (2017) estimated trade secret theft costs
1% to 3% of GDP, meaning that the cost to the $18 trillion US economy
was between $180 billion and $540 billion. In the UK, an estimate of the
cost of cybercrime suggested of the £27 billion, £7.6 billion could be
attributed to industrial espionage, including £2 billion financial services,
£1.2 billion aerospace and defence and £1.6 billion mining (Cabinet
Office/Detica 2011). Cyber is only one means to perpetrate espionage, so
this is an underestimate. A report by the European Centre for International
Political Economy (2018) estimated the costs of cyber-espionage in the EU
to be €55 billion and putting 289,000 jobs at risk. The East German
example earlier of the economic benefits to this country of systematic
economic espionage also illustrates the potential huge costs.

Responding to Economic and Industrial

Espionage
The headline numbers, however, have raised very little interest in political
elites, until President Donald Trump. In running for election and in
government he has sought to raise the importance of the problem and
pursue policy to try and address it. On 28 September 2011, he tweeted:
‘China is stealing our jobs. We need to demand China stop manipulating its
currency and end its rampant corporate espionage’ (https://twitter.com/
realDonaldTrump/status/119116243537113088). In office, he has pursued a
trade policy, enforcement agenda among others to try and curb the problem.
The UK and Europe are behind the US in tackling this problem with limited
enforcement action and interest from senior politicians. For instance, a
search through the speeches and announcements of the former British Prime
Minister, Theresa May, at https://www.gov.uk/search/news-and-
communications reveals nothing and only one brief mention in a wide-
ranging speech on emerging threats as Home Secretary in almost nine years
in office in those two senior roles.
This is not to say it is off the British Government’s agenda, because the
heads of both MI5 and GCHQ have given speeches about the problem. In
2012, the head of MI5 warned corporate espionage was happening on an
‘industrial scale’ and in 2016, the head of GCHQ also warned British
companies were experiencing ‘industrial scale’ cybertheft (Shah 2012;
Whitehead 2016).
When the espionage system Echelon became known, the EU and its
Member States obviously realised for the first time that even friendly spies,
for example, from the USA and the UK, were engaged in economic
espionage against European companies (European Parliament 2001). Years
later, in 2016, the European Union adopted the Directive EU 2016/943 to
ensure that trade secrets were protected throughout the EU and to
strengthen the deterrent effect through uniform legal civil law regulations.
Preventive measures to protect their secrets are left to the companies.
Despite Germany’s economic strength, there is a lack of awareness on
political level and, in particular, the criminal law protection of trade secrets
is neglected in Germany as well. However, the threat to trade secrets and its
impact on German economy are increasingly recognised by politicians and
small efforts are being made to support companies. Federal Security
Agencies and some trade associations have joined the “Initiative
Wirtschaftsschutz” coordinated by the German Ministry for Inner Affairs in
2016 and offer information, actual warnings and contact persons (www.
wirtschaftsschutz.info). Already in 1997, the School of Economic Warfare
(École de guerre économique) dedicated to competitive intelligence was
founded in France.
It is also not surprising that the subject has not been extensively
researched either. There have been a handful of English research
monographs and practical guides published on the subject over the last
40 years by Heims (1982), Bottom and Gallati (1984), Cornwall (1991),
Nasheri (2005), Hannas et al. (2013), Roper (2013), to name the most
significant. Searches of abstracts for academic journals also yield only a
handful of studies.
The small body of research that has been conducted can also be
supplemented by other research on issues, which overlap with economic
and industrial espionage. Given the role of hacking via phishing and the
insider risk, the threats of these for other forms of economic crime have led
to a body of research (e.g., Nurse et al. 2014; Phishme 2016; Goel et al.
2017). These, however, are not generally written from an industrial and
economic espionage perspective, although many of their insights are useful.

Conclusion
This chapter has explored the problem of economic and industrial
espionage. It began by defining the terms and then illustrating some
examples, the purpose of it and then in the UK, Germany and several other
countries the legal basis for the problem. This chapter then considered the
perpetrators of this crime, before looking at some of the techniques used.
The extent and cost of it were considered before finally considering the
response to the problem in the USA, the UK and Germany. Industrial and
economic espionage are significant problems, but rarely researched and it is
hoped that this chapter will inspire others to investigate this fascinating
subject further.

Recommended Readings
In German-speaking countries (Austria, Germany, Switzerland), several
monographs that have dealt with the (criminal) protection of secrets have
been published over the past 20 years, for example, Aldoney Ramirez
(2009), Kalbfus (2011). Descriptions of the phenomenon, the legal basis,
terminology combined with recommended actions and best practices for
companies are provided by Lux and Peske (2002), Hofer and Weiß (2016).
However, empirical research is still lacking. In his comprehensive
secondary analysis based on articles and empirical studies from trade
associations and audit firms, Kasper (2015) describes the current state of
research into industrial espionage. Detlinger analysed the awareness of and
knowledge about industrial espionage in Austria by surveying 29
companies. Wallwaey, Bollhöfer and Knickmeier (2020) results about the
phenomenon and criminal proceedings of economic and industrial
espionage are based on an extensive empirical research project including a
literature analysis, analysis of files of criminal proceedings (n = 713), an
exemplary case study and expert interviews with SMEs, authorities and
scientific organisations (n = 63). This study also includes a victim survey,
published by Bollhöfer and Jäger (2018). In English there have been a
handful of research monographs and practical guides published on the
subject over the last 40 years by Heims (1982), Bottom and Gallati (1984),
Cornwall (1991), Nasheri (2005), Hannas et al. (2013), Roper (2013), to
name the most significant. There are not a huge number of journal articles,
and a good gateway to the subject is provided by the special edition of
Security Journal published in 2020, see Button (2020) and Knickmeier
(2020b) as starters and Hou and Wang (2020) for a literature review
published on the subject.

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Footnotes
1 Only four countries (Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland and Hungary) have a legal definition of
industrial espionage and three countries (Lithuania, the Netherlands and Hungary) provide a legal
definition for economic espionage (Carl et al. 2017, p. 95).

2 The European Commission in the Trade Secrets Directive takes a broader definition which could
include confidential information such as proposed pricings for competitive bids (see, European
Commission n.d.).

3 The numbers are based on cases that resulted in a court judgement, penal order or provisional
dispensing with court action (Art. 153a Criminal Procedure Code).

4 Until 2019, the violation of trade secrets was regulated in Sec. 17 to 19 Act against Unfair
Competition.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_14

14. Combatting Money Laundering: Some

Considerations for Security Professionals
Michael Levi1
(1) School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

Michael Levi
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
Mike Levi focusses on money laundering where he analyses why security
experts should be interested in money laundering and its collateral damage
both for companies and for society. It goes on to review how evidence has
been used and can be used in fighting the financial components of
underlying crimes, examining the range of the problem(s) we are supposed
to be fighting—money laundering as an evil in itself and/or the underlying
crimes which give rise to it; it estimates the size and harmfulness of the
problems and identifies improvements/emerging problems in the
assessment of money laundering and how it is combatted.

Introduction
Money laundering is not an obvious area of concern for security
professionals. However, in this edition of the Handbook of Security, the
goal is to explain in what ways it is relevant to private and public security,
as part of the wider role of the reflective practitioner. Its background and
changing patterns will be described and explained, within the context of
international, national and corporate controls, and what we know about the
impacts of those controls will be critically discussed.
 In the past 30 years, the world has witnessed an extraordinary growth in
efforts to control crime for economic and political gain (and, especially
since ‘9/11’, for terrorism) via measures to identify, freeze and confiscate
the proceeds of crime nationally and transnationally. Especially in Europe
and the US, but in different ways throughout the globe, first bankers and
similar functions like building societies in the UK, then accountants,
lawyers, notaries, real estate agents, art and antiquities dealers and even car
dealers have been forcibly co-opted into becoming unpaid agents of the
state: identifying customers (individual and corporate) and overturning
conventional legal constructs such as customer confidentiality, reporting
both their suspicions (if they have them) and more objective data on large
cash or sometimes international transfers to central bodies, on pain of
prosecution and/or regulatory sanctions if they do not. There is pressure
from international bodies and national governments to get an increasing
number of reports from a bigger range of commercial and professional
actors. But what happens afterwards to these reports is far less transparent
and—especially in those jurisdictions where there are the most reports—is
seldom visibly productive in outputs such as prosecutions and asset
recoveries or in outcomes such as the prevention of serious crimes. The cost
of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) implementation in the public and
(mostly) in the private sector dwarfs the quantity of crime proceeds
recovered, and the UK’s 2020 National Risk Assessment (HMG 2020)
proudly proclaims £300 million confiscated without (understandably)
noting what proportion (8.1 per cent) this represents of the £37 billion
officially estimated UK organised crime proceeds (not crime profits, which
would be lower than proceeds). Consider that this ‘confiscation gap’ is an
annual one, and—though the AML regime is valuable—you have some idea
of the cumulative issues even in a relatively well-functioning serious crime
control economy like the UK.
One useful way of conceptualising the issue is as a global exercise in
crime risk management which seeks to drag in as a conscript army those
governments and those parts of ‘the’ private sector that seem unwilling to
demonstrate ‘sufficient’ national and transnational social responsibility. But
what sorts of risks are they managing (and do they believe they are
managing), and how politically coherent, serious and well considered has
the attempt been? The crime reduction priorities and aims of nations can
change over time. National issues gave rise to particular foci of control
interest—sometimes, like ‘drug abuse’, independently in different countries
—before any co-ordinated international activity was even contemplated.
Thus prior to the UN Vienna Drugs Convention of 1988, the Swiss Banking
Commission sought to regulate capital flight, and (post-Watergate and
Lockheed bribery scandals in Japan) the Americans in 1977 criminalised
the corporate bribery of public officials overseas; while the Americans and
British (but almost no other countries at the time) criminalised laundering
the proceeds of drugs trafficking. These actions were prompted by concrete
ambitions and sometimes by international scandals such as bad publicity for
Switzerland as a ‘bank secrecy haven for kleptocrats’ and for the UK’s
Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories (and, to a less publicised
extent, the Dutch Antilles ex-colonies) as ‘corporate secrecy havens’. The
growing attention to money laundering is reflected in the substantial rise in
the number of books that mention the term, alongside critical books about
banking and corporate secrecy, especially over this century: thus, the
positive ‘customer confidentiality’ has been almost wholly replaced by the
pejorative ‘secrecy’ in public discourse around the globe.
I first became interested in money laundering and terror finance in the
mid-1980s as I puzzled over how the Brinks’ Matt gold bullion robbers had
disposed of the proceeds of the £26 million of gold bullion (at historic
prices) they stole from London Heathrow in 1983, before money laundering
was criminalised. As we now know, some of the proceeds were laundered
with the aid of Panamanian companies operated by nominees at lawyers
Mossack Fonseca, as came to light in correspondence in the Panama Papers
(Bowers 2016), but one Brinks’ Matt launderer was jailed for ten years for
handling stolen funds, while other suspects were acquitted or not charged.
In 1988, the then Metropolitan Police Commissioner and senior bankers
asked me to review bankers’ obligations towards the police and vice versa,
but the emerging money laundering legislation and money laundering
reporting system then covered very few business sectors and quite patchily
(Levi 1991). (Young and Woodiwiss (2020) elaborate UK-US tensions in
that period.) In short, a security manager in the 1980s or even the 1990s
would have had little occupational reason to be concerned about or know
about money laundering. This was because it would have been out of scope
for security managers then (mostly focused on physical security from
outside attacks and on ‘stock shrinkage’); and because especially outside
the US, few companies were impacted negatively by money laundering or
foreign bribery allegations (or, if they were, largely kept quiet about them
unless penalised).
However, the security environment has changed significantly in this
century. Even before the ‘9/11’ attacks and the corporate scandals of that
decade, there was in many countries a genuine fear of loss of control over
illicit financial flows and of illegal drugs, which brings together a variety of
themes and a variety of political positions including
1.
financial regulators concerned about unmonitored ‘off the books’
(though often legal) transactions conducted by vast commodities
hedging funds held in less transparent offshore finance centres;
2.
law enforcement agencies and politicians bothered about ‘transnational
organised crime’ and its ability to launder estimated billions;
3.
corporations (especially American-headquartered ones prohibited from
paying bribes to foreign public officials by the Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act 1977) campaigning for a legal ‘level playing field’ so that
they can avoid losing tenders for contracts to bribe-payers;
4.
overseas aid agencies troubled by the theft of aid and bribes by Third
World potentates (Politically Exposed Persons, in AML terminology)
into individual and corporate accounts and luxury property, often
nominally held in offshore finance centres (e.g. Sharman 2017, see also
https://star.worldbank.org/); and
5.
corporations, intelligence and law enforcement agencies and politicians
concerned about the financing of terrorism both from proceeds of crime
and from legal-source income upon which the legally required tax has
been paid.
More recently, President Xi’s strong interest in promoting the Anti-
Corruption drive against both ‘flies’ and (some) ‘tigers’ to reduce the
legitimacy risks to the Chinese Communist Party from actual and perceived
rampant corruption has placed this issue centre stage. China held the
Presidency of FATF 2019–2020, with objectives (https://www.fatf-gafi.org/
publications/fatfgeneral/documents/objectives-2019-2020.html) which
included mitigating the risks and exploiting the opportunities of new
technologies; action on illegal trafficking in wildlife; and developing and
issuing best practices on beneficial ownership. This set of interests
continued under the German Presidency. In the more general setting of the
AML movement, banks and most other institutions (excepting lawyers in
jurisdictions like Australia, Switzerland and the US) have found it
impossible politically to resist the pressure to identify clients, create
monitoring systems and make reports of ‘suspicious activities’, whatever
their private beliefs. The march of AML has continued and become
embedded.
The encouragement by funding of mutual assistance programmes under
the principle of information exchange, combined with sharing of
experiences by members of FATF (a permanent body from 2019, thirty
years after its informal creation) and Egmont—a global organisation of
Financial Intelligence Units, with 166 members in 2021—generates a
partially harmonised global interchange. The increased ‘traffic’ in financial
investigation between countries forces them at an operational level to seek
solutions to their interface problems (though these do not always succeed,
nor are they always intended to), made easier by the growth of Beneficial
Ownership registers. Somewhat belatedly, the US National Defense
Authorization Act 2020 has brought the US into the beneficial ownership
registry fold, though as in the UK, the data to be held by it are not publicly
available but are accessible to law enforcement and financial regulators
there and internationally, via the Egmont group. International policing is
different from local partnership policing, where few marginal costs beyond
staff time and modest sponsorship are involved: pre-COVID-19 costs are
considerably more expensive and generally cannot be found from routine or
training budgets. The FATF has also sought recently to involve the financial
services corporate sector and professionals more in its public-private sector
initiatives.
This century, the European Commission has been involved in
supporting action against organised crime and card payment fraud, and to
sponsor private-public partnerships in organised crime and terrorism
prevention, as well as legal measures including those related to money
laundering and proceeds of crime recovery, as well as Rule of Law
measures. The other key role of the EU has been in relation to the acquis
communautaire, which has enabled it to engage in pressurised policy
transfer of Rule of Law (AML, anticorruption and mutual legal assistance)
legislation and programmes to candidate countries. No other region has
been able to exert analogous pressure, based on (at least formally) shared
values which are under strain at the turn of the current decade. The US has
long exerted its own pressures unilaterally and multi-laterally, and this is
not the place to review its efforts.

What Is Money Laundering, and How Does ‘It’

Work?
The need to launder the proceeds of particular crimes depends on how the
criminal profits are made, how much scrutiny is exercised over how people
have acquired wealth, and the extent to which offenders aim to continue
offending. This depends not just on what laws exist but how much effort,
resource and skill are put into detecting and intervening against criminal
capital. During the 1980s, a three-stage process—placement, layering and
integration—was used to help visualise the laundering mechanism, and
unfortunately, it has become a ritual catechism irrespective of its present
utility. Placement is the introduction of criminal proceeds into the financial
system. Depositing cash or transferring money by money service bureaux
into bank accounts at home or abroad transforms cash into banked assets.
Layering creates a distance between the unlawful origins of the money in
order to give it the appearance of legitimacy: some offenders ‘borrow’
money against the security of funds already deposited in a foreign personal
or business account whose underlying ‘beneficial ownership’ is concealed
by using ‘front persons’; mingle illegal profits with the turnover of a
legitimate business like a restaurant or sports venue; or use front companies
that do little or no real business. If no one investigates intensively or
follows this up with a formal intervention such as prosecution, business
licence removal or active tax claim, they get away with it. In the final
phase, integration, the disguised criminal proceeds are spent or invested in
the legal economy, at home or abroad.
The three-stage process was designed to describe the laundering of
proceeds derived in cash-based crime economies. In many instances, crime
proceeds will already be in the financial system, and with crimes such as
tax evasion and fraud, the actual predicate offence overlaps with the
laundering. Others have added to this model by including a preliminary
stage such as physically smuggling cash abroad or a requirement to account
for the assets (see, further, Levi and Soudijn 2020). What is important is to
understand that real businesses may be purchased, corrupted or placed
under duress to be used for layering or integration. And overpriced or
under-priced contracts can be used to transfer value to a country and/or an
activity that the offenders want the money to end up in. The three-stage
process assumes that the goal of criminals is socio-economic respectability:
but layering may simply make the criminal activities as well as their
proceeds less visible, especially if used in businesses like construction and
transportation, that also can be used to facilitate ongoing crimes. Criminals
use proceeds of crime to boost their lifestyles way beyond what their
legitimate income (if any) would allow, or to purchase real estate in any part
of the world, whether in their own names, that of their families and friends,
or via beneficially owned corporations, trusts and so on. In other words,
whether or not the principals intend to give up crime, layering is useful to
distance them from enforcement agencies who nowhere have the resources
to pursue most intelligence leads or carefully assess the origins of wealth.
Unless the principals become primary targets of enforcement, it takes too
much effort to disprove the criminal sources of their funds. Nevertheless,
the aim of the AML movement is to require as many professionals and
businesses as possible to conduct due diligence into clients’ sources of
income and wealth. The effects of this due diligence alone have not been
measured.
It is a common misunderstanding that money laundering occurs only in
the financial sector. According to the recent FATF/Egmont (2020) report,
which has a better evidence base than earlier efforts, trade-based money
laundering takes four main forms: the over and under-invoicing of goods—
where prices are misrepresented to transfer value (and, I would add, often to
evade tax or currency controls, or to shift assets to a less politically
vulnerable jurisdiction rather than to launder the proceeds of other crimes);
the over and under-shipment of goods—including ‘phantom shipments’
where nothing moves at all; multiple invoicing for the same goods—where
the genuine trade documents are re-used several times; and falsely
described goods—where quality is understated to transfer value. Thus,
potatoes and onions purchased conventionally in the Netherlands and
Germany were exported to companies in North Africa, but the invoices
directed large payments to accounts controlled by drug traffickers. Fruit
exports from New Zealand were paid for by third-party shell companies, for
the fruit to be resold for ‘clean’ funds—but the fake invoices shown to
banks described the shipments as ‘ceramic tiles’. Damaged luxury cars were
sold across borders by criminal gangs with low values declared at the
shipment points, before they were repaired and resold at close to their
undamaged prices. And watches purchased in Switzerland and Spain by
supposed ‘import/export’ companies were simply used to transfer value to
drug traffickers in Morocco and the Netherlands.
The extent to which such criminal value transfers occur in otherwise
legitimate companies for which the readers of this chapter may work is less
clear-cut, outside the evasion of exchange controls in some countries, and
the sometimes fine line between licit and illicit transfer pricing. However,
the range of money laundering techniques is very broad, and is strongly
affected by the types of crimes being committed. In many frauds, the funds
are already in the financial system, which presents different problems from
the ‘service’ crimes like drugs, vice and people trafficking, where criminals
may need to insert the cash proceeds from their crimes into the system, or to
find another mechanism like underground banking or money service
businesses or smugglers to move the funds. Additionally, transnational and
domestic bribes may have to be paid for by otherwise licit businesses to get
contracts, and this may require accounting tricks to defeat internal and
external AML controls. What criminals are paying for is the usability of the
proceeds of crime in licit markets and relative freedom from/anxiety about
confiscation of the proceeds of crime.
In law, there has been a trend that money laundering offences have been
extended to cover anyone who knowingly receives, possesses or uses
money (or other properties) generated by any criminal activity, or if they
actually did or even reasonably could have suspected the money’s criminal
origins. Furthermore, persons who participate in, associate to commit,
attempt to commit and aid, abet, facilitate and counsel on money laundering
matters can also be prosecuted. The offence of laundering does not rely on
actual legitimisation of the funds or the intent to do so. So in practice, it
does not matter whether the transfers were layering or integration.
The history of money laundering and its control has until recently been
subjected to very little intellectual debate in policy circles. Its key driver
appears to be a commonsense appreciation/belief that without the ability to
hide, re-invest and safely use proceeds of crime, there would be less crime.
Many large-scale offenders do save and reinvest the proceeds of crime in
both criminal and respectable enterprises, but the originators of law
enforcement ‘theory’ about the three-stage money laundering process
seriously understated leisure/lifestyle expenditures of offenders, and
perhaps the difficulties of differentiating licit from illicit transactions and
sources of wealth and funds (Levi and Soudijn 2020). There has been
intermittent interest since the 1960s and indeed, even centuries earlier, in
the ‘depth of field’ of organised crime. ‘The fence’ has been an enduring
factual and fictional theme for centuries, and without receivers of stolen
goods, there would be less (but still some) crime. Yet relatively little
attention has been paid to receivers and the Stolen Property System in
criminology or in strategic policing, beyond the setting up of storefronts in
Sting operations, most notably in the US (Langworthy 1989). AML has
received far more attention from national and international policy-makers
than fencing stolen goods ever did, but not to the extent of seriously
evaluating the impacts of AML controls. To use the terminology of risk is
not to show it operationally or to have a sound basis for assessing it. One
cannot easily transfer concepts based around good data on the probability of
bad debt or other hazards to the risks of financial and other transfers being
proceeds of crime, for which the evidence is still quite weak.
These riskiness judgments are not merely rhetorical. The period 2008–
2019 led to regulatory fines on financial institutions totalling US
$36 billion. Two countries—Iran and North Korea—are currently
‘blacklisted’ by FATF, meaning that no bank or regulated person in the
world is allowed to deal with them without committing money laundering
and/or sanctions offences which, if detected and acted upon, could lead to
their being imprisoned (as individuals) or closed down (as businesses).
There are a wider group of countries that are under periodically reviewed
‘grey-listing’ as ‘Jurisdictions with strategic deficiencies’ (http://www.fatf-
gafi.org/publications/high-risk-and-other-monitored-jurisdictions/
documents/increased-monitoring-october-2020.html), with the Bahamas,
Iceland and Mongolia having been removed from the grey list during 2020.
Of the 23 countries on the list in March 2022, only Cayman Islands, Malta,
Panama, Turkey and the UAE could be reasonably argued to be important
to the financial system. Being thus listed can have significant effects in
making it harder and more expensive to find banks willing to process
national transactions and to open accounts with international banks
(‘correspondent banking’): ‘de-risking’ in response to classification as a
‘money laundering risk’ is acknowledged by the IMF, World Bank and
Global South countries to be a problem of concern.
The melding together of a set of disparate components of threats to
society under the AML umbrella is a reason for security professionals to
take account of the issues. For example, the reprioritisation of wildlife and
other environmental crimes, human trafficking/modern slavery and
transnational bribery can bring threats to corporate reputation and penalties
in any stage of the supply chain. ‘Adverse media’—one of the elements that
bankers are obligated to take account of when conducting Customer Due
Diligence, as well as a significant feature in corporate takeovers—can
generate risks that bankers need to take account of in their scrutiny of
corporate clients and, in an extreme case, can lead to the refusal to bank the
business. Every financial or professional services firm in most parts of the
world is required by regulators to have a designated Money Laundering
Reporting Officer and (in the UK) large ones have to have a Money-
Laundering Compliance Officer because the government has deemed it
necessary for them to be able to raise issues at board level, making it harder
for the board and the company to evade legal liability. But even non-
financial firms need to take greater account of the range of legal and
reputational risks that arise from business relationships, including those
with other firms that may be connected to ‘organised crime’ as
conventionally defined. In addition, as national and international targeted
sanctions against persons and firms connected with human rights violations,
terrorism and organised crime have become increasingly popular, security
professionals should have some peripheral awareness of these, even if
primary responsibility has been devolved to compliance/financial crime
departments.

Strategy and Evidence in Fighting Crimes for

Gain
The appropriateness of a strategy depends on where we want to get to, and
on how (if at all) we can get there from where we are now. It has never been
clear where the AML ‘system’ has wanted to get to or how it can or even
should show that it was being ‘effective’. This does not appear to have
inhibited its appeal to policy makers or enforcement agencies, and the
regulated population—including corporations—is often inhibited from
putting their heads above the parapet to critique proposals, possibly for fear
of being singled out for more intensive investigation or more severe
punishment for displaying a negative attitude, or in some cases because the
issues are not that important to it. Thus, the mutterings of concern about the
anti-money laundering ‘headcount’ and transaction monitoring costs have
been modest compared with general business complaints about ‘red tape’
and regulation costs in other fields, which have forced governments to look
very carefully at their regulatory impacts: see the OECD (2020) and the
work of the UK’s Better Regulation Executive.
In addition to the rejection of potential customers and the ‘de-risking’
(i.e. closure of accounts) of current individual, business and charity
customers (which themselves are seldom linked explicitly to crime
reduction), the mechanisms by which formal measures might function look
like this (Fig. 14.1).

Fig. 14.1 A process map of measures to combat crime proceeds

Money laundering is not the only crime not committed against their
business that corporate compliance/security officers have to worry about.
The intentional or inadvertent role of business in facilitating modern
slavery/human trafficking, environmental or wildlife crimes and human
rights violations are also important contemporary components, all of which
might be uncovered by due diligence about counter-parties or staff at all
levels of the organisation. Reviews of effectiveness or even of efficiency
would require a longitudinal flow rather than an annual approach to
accounting of costs and benefits, since identifying and recovering proceeds
of crime will often take place over more than a year, and impacts on
offending presumably longer still. Questions might be raised about whether
governments (and businesses) individually or collectively really want to
evaluate effectiveness and to adjust their policies in the light of it. ‘Crime
control’ is often a matter of expressing values rather than reflecting
evidence from science, and if we assess how important a problem is by how
much business and governments are willing to pay to do it well, then
though it is difficult to discover how much governments spend on handling
money laundering, it does not appear to be very important to them as a
proportion of total criminal justice expenditures. In the absence of evidence
to the contrary, it seems that in every developed country, business—
principally but not exclusively financial services—spends more than
government on anti-money laundering efforts.
First, however, we need to look at what is meant by financial crime and
the harms that it brings. None of the global figures generated and recycled
endlessly as ‘facts by repetition’ are used to assess the effectiveness of
AML or of any other policy (Levi et al. 2018); they are also not useful at
corporate level, except perhaps to attract the attention of CEOs. Large
attention-grabbing figures can even be counter-productive, since any
measure we take is unlikely to generate major impacts.
The criminalisation of transnational (and sometimes national) bribery
affects banks directly via risks (if they ‘fail’ to report any suspicions they
may have) of money laundering charges (a) against their own individual
Money Laundering Reporting Officers and (b) perhaps against the banks
themselves. It also affects banks indirectly because of the risks (however
remote in practice) that companies to whom they have lent money might be
damaged by severe penalties should they be convicted of corruption. The
trend in economic crime legislation in the UK and elsewhere has been to
impose due diligence requirements to the entire supply chain, for example,
in human slavery/people trafficking, under minimum wage payments and
‘failure to prevent’ tax evasion. See, for example, the UK Modern Slavery
Act, 2015, and https://tiscreport.org/our-data. The implications of these
developments are important, and they should be of interest to security
managers inside and outside the financial sector as strategic risks to the
business, even if many components are devolved to specialised compliance
functions.
As used in different countries, ‘financial crime’ and ‘economic crime’
comprise crimes with different categories and levels of harm, committed by
and impacting upon highly diverse sectors of the population. Their sub-
components are investigated (and are investigatable) by very different
policing and regulatory methodologies both before and after ‘crime’
commission (Gelemerova 2011). As a legal category, ‘laundering’ does not
enable us to distinguish between licensed professionals like lawyers who
launder; professional (i.e. regular) intentional money launderers; people
who launder money from their own crimes (like commercial burglars and
ram-raiders putting saved proceeds into their own bank accounts in their
own names); and banks who intentionally or recklessly ignore their
obligations to report suspected money laundering or who may not notice
patterns of ‘smurfing’ by customers making deposits just below the
reporting threshold (e.g. $10,000 in the US, variable elsewhere) (Levi and
Soudijn 2020). The term ‘banks’ hides huge variations in size and activities.
Banks generally counter that any laundering is the result of rotten apple
individuals or small group behaviour, or failures of system integration, and
it is difficult to test this or validly falsify such claims without smoking gun
emails/recorded conversations, or verified whistle-blower accounts, or some
‘market testing’ mystery shopping exercise as conducted by Findley et al.
(2014) and subsequently. What is certain, however, is that violations by
institutions great and small continue, despite occasional regulatory and rare
criminal institutional sanctions.
Some more subtle thinking is needed on metrics of reoffending also: for
example, given their size, should we treat a violation at a large multi-
national bank as being ‘the same’ (or more or less serious) as one at a much
smaller institution. Likewise, with non-financial multinationals versus
SMEs. After all, we would expect risks to be higher among those who
employ many more staff in a wider range of commercial activities and
environments, though large corporations have or should have more risk
management competencies.

Rethinking Risks and Measures

Normally, when we think of risk, we think of harms that can be plausibly or
potentially done to a natural person or to an organisation/legal person (and
perhaps to a sector or other benchmarked entity) or to a country. This has
commonly been extended to ‘reputational risk’ with its implications for
individuals and businesses’ future capabilities and profits, or even—in the
case of money laundering—for countries and their risk ratings for
correspondent banking and inward investment. Many significant financial
crimes occur between people in different legal jurisdictions in the criminal
supply chain, from production/planning to money laundering. An
improvement in laundering statistics therefore needs more breakdown of
sub-types to make sense of these acts, which also are problematic to capture
in national crime and justice statistics.
Business planning needs to take account of risks/events that threaten us.
Wilkins (1965) considered that it might be fruitful to conceive of (recorded)
‘crime’ as more like complaints about which the public thought that
‘something should be done’. In that case, there might be few money
laundering offences, though there might be business concern about
laundering the proceeds of crimes committed against them, whether directly
or for which (like some payment card and other frauds) they were held
responsible. One might take Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) by
regulated firms as a comparable indicator to the Wilkins model, since they
are alerts to possible malefaction: though SARs plausibly reflect firms’
blind obedience to rules and/or fear of being punished by regulators or
criminal courts exercising hindsight. However, to my knowledge, no
government or statistical office has yet taken seriously the task of creating
criminal statistics for money laundering beyond prosecutions or
convictions, which may be set out in Justice statistics rather than in Crime
statistics. Indeed, a word search of UK Home Office, Ministry of Justice
and Office of National Statistics (3 January 2020) yielded zero for ‘money
laundering statistics’, though there were many references to regulations,
procedural risk assessments and some data on convictions and other
impacts (e.g. https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2017/12/11/economic-
crime-factsheet/).
Given the range of predicate crimes of poor estimatability and our
ignorance about the savings ratios of offenders, even working out an order-
of-magnitude figure with a large range raises the question of what is the
value of generating a national estimate of money laundering (see Reuter
2013; van Duyne et al. 2018). Improving money laundering data does not
seem to have been an active priority for any national or international body.
But the data produced for Mutual Evaluation Reports are not particularly
useful for assessing efficiency, let alone effectiveness (Levi et al. 2018).
There have been more modest data-gathering exercises on particular
dimensions of money laundering. One that held promise was the attempt to
develop price discrepancy analysis for testing over and under-invoicing of
physical goods (e.g. de Boyrie et al. 2004): though the under or over-
valuation of professional and virtual services and of Intellectual Property in
international transfers is harder to test. At a national income level, this can
be important in countries which are entrepots for smuggling wholly illegal,
counterfeit or tax-evaded products, from drugs to wildlife. Statisticians—
and those corporate security personnel engaged in anti-counterfeiting efforts
—might have to consider issues of customs and high-level bureaucratic
corruption in trade in legal, counterfeit and wholly illegal commodities
which might be career-threatening if exposed.

The Harms of Money Laundering

One contested area, often taken for granted in public rhetoric about money
laundering, is the assessment of harm (see e.g. Ferwerda 2013).
Conceptually, what is the marginal harm arising from the laundering of the
proceeds of domestic crimes that is not also a harm of the crimes
themselves? Bribery and/or blackmail of financial service staff, regulators
and law enforcement may occur in any country, and we know a certain
amount about those behaviours, even if commonly used international
indicators like the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index
are merely perceptions studies. But as with prohibition of alcohol or drugs,
some of those crimes may be an artefact of the criminalisation of laundering
rather than the direct result of the laundering itself: in the ‘good old days’,
proceeds of crime might simply have been accepted and used, so there was
no need to bribe or pressurise staff; bank regulators might have been
interested in the loan book and internal theft risks but not in customer
integrity except as fraud risks. Some serious banking problems—for
example in parts of Asia—have been the result of non-arm’s length ‘loans’
to politically well-connected businesspeople that then are defaulted or never
pursued by the banks: but that is a harm resulting from fraud or corruption,
not (or not just) a laundering harm. Some fraudsters will seek havens where
they and their assets will be protected and from which they can launch their
scams, but this protection (till their money runs out) often accompanies
crime commission as well as laundering.
The availability of secrecy havens may stimulate a range of crimes and
it can lead to moral outrage at the unfairness of elite offenders ‘getting
away’ with their corruption, tax or mainstream crimes. However, in the
laundering country, the laundering of crimes committed elsewhere might be
regarded as socially harmful only if it undermines democratic controls and
legitimacy and/or if international bodies impose extra costs and sanctions.
Past ‘adverse media’ is a factor in which customers are accepted and in
ongoing risk assessments, though except for those who decide to conduct
‘market intelligence’ as part of Enhanced Due Diligence on natural or legal
persons, future adverse media predictions are not commonly applied to
jurisdictions as a whole. One could predict more critical scrutiny for
Lebanese AML efforts in the aftermath of Carlos Ghosn’s flight there from
‘home custody’ in Japan in 2020, as there has already been from Hezbollah
organised crime and terror finance activities internationally. Likewise, on
those financial and non-financial businesses dealing with Russian oligarchs
or Russian businesses in the aftermath of the attacks on Ukraine in
2022. Some shifts of focus are not easily foreseeable.

Effectiveness: Time for a Serious Re-think

Effectiveness is a term that is readily used in policy circles, for
understandable reasons: most of us want to believe and get others to believe
that our actions are having a positive effect. However, it often entails a
confusion between activity—legislating or arresting or seizing assets or
‘doing something’ and getting publicity about a problem—and outcomes
such as less crime (or fewer particular sorts of crimes), less ‘organised’
crime (a term that needs to be thought about more carefully than it usually
is) or less social harm. To a populist politician, visible actions against
community harms may be sufficient as an outcome, though few are brave
(or perhaps self-aware) enough to admit that popularity is their only goal.
But there are few criminal justice or business policies whose impact on
crime can be so easily and quickly judged. And the more complicated and
broad the target offences are, the longer is likely to be the time taken for
evaluation and for the linkages between actions and effects to be
demonstrable. Whereas we might measure economic transfers (e.g.
burglary, robbery, theft, some frauds) by crime/victim surveys of the
general population or of sub-populations like big business (the target of
most professional services surveys) or SMEs, service crimes (illegal drugs,
sex, gambling) are harder to measure accurately, though they can be
measured by anonymous self-report general population surveys or (more
speculatively) by fancy econometric techniques. Money launderers may
include not only ‘underground’ businesses but also mainly legitimate
players, whose intentional wrong-doing would be deeply contested, whose
misconduct tends to come out only in investigations by the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the Organized Crime and
Corruption Reporting Project, or by NGOs such as Global Witness or
Spotlight on Corruption. If one broadens the lens, one might look at
Google, Facebook and other social media platforms and individual
‘influencers’ who are paid by scammers and others to advertise and trick
victims, or to engage potential money mules for laundering. If paid from
proceeds of crime, they are properly labelled as ‘professional enablers’ (see
generally, Levi and Soudijn 2020; May and Bhardwa 2018), though they
may not be prosecutable and to date have not been prosecuted.
Whatever the rhetoric of organised crime, the logic has seldom been
carried through of treating money laundering as a system, beyond individual
investigations of ‘core nominals’, ‘Mr. Bigs’, Designated Drug Trafficking
Organizations or individual targets. The closest to a systematic approach for
laundering is the US Geographic Targeting Orders (see McPherson 2017,
and FinCEN), though the World Bank/UNODC Stolen Assets Recovery
Initiative is an important ex post facto systematic effort at recovering assets
from elite bribery. Close attention should be paid to the routes through
which illicit products pass and who needs to be paid where for their
contributions to particular crimes (which patterns can change over time).
Beyond media headlines, long prison sentences for individuals, or the direct
economic costs of large financial penalties and monitorships against
financial intermediaries, the impacts of such approaches are unclear, except
on employment and consultancy income in the AML sector, which benefit
substantially. ‘Policing for profit’ asset confiscation obviously stimulates
investigative activity, but the positive and negative effects of that on levels
and organisation of different crimes are only partially understood.
 The total elimination of serious and organised crime, of corruption
and/or money laundering, is too severe a test against which to judge policy
effectiveness, and the collateral damage from high effectiveness would be
likely to be intolerable (as it is for other offending). Even if the number of
crimes remains the same, a reduction in the social threat posed by some
combinations of criminals may be a positive move: though disrupting
criminal monopolies/oligopolies can lead to more short-term violence. But
it is not currently viable to conclude that any type of crime has been
substantially reduced let alone eliminated altogether by AML/CTF
measures. It is also important to be clear about what component has
plausibly impacted on which crimes. In short, despite the huge effort
involved in combatting money laundering, extending ‘the state’ into the
banking, high-value goods and (although variably) the professional sectors
like lawyers and accountants (FATF 2018; Middleton and Levi 2015; Levi
and Soudijn 2020; Levi 2020), working out what data we need to evaluate
risks and intervention impacts remains a work in slow progress.
There are also some important issues of national (and
personal/institutional) self-presentation: a good risk or threat assessment
requires ruthless self-examination, but this might lead to lower gradings
from the FATF or FATF-style regional body, possibly including being grey-
listed, with serious economic consequences. Given this, in addition to
national pride or shaming, which may vary in different parts of the world, it
is hardly surprising that countries aim to present themselves in the best
light. (In theory, one can be ruthlessly self-critical in internal reviews, but
put on a brave face externally: but leaks apart, this ignores the fact that
without external pressures, it may be hard to get resources for more AML
action.)
There has been very little conceptual or empirical research funding for
money laundering or AML/CFT compared with ‘mainstream’ areas of
crime and crime control. In addition to thinking through how activities
contribute to the reduction of particular forms of crime or threatening crime
groups, much work requires good datasets to play with and perhaps create.
These do not exist in the public sphere, and academics have not succeeded
in doing this at the national level. Even court and prosecution data are not
routinely accessible or are not conveniently classified in many countries.
Private commercial risk-analysis bodies like Refinitiv, Lexis-Nexis and
Bureau van Dijk do have datasets, which in principle feed into their risk
assessments of countries and activities which in turn influence decisions to
take or reject clients, though the risk raters may not over-ride the FATF
judgments about the relative and absolute ‘riskiness’ of jurisdictions.
Individual financial institutions and professions, and regulators, have much
live data, but access is hard to obtain.
It seems unlikely that our data on a range of crimes and laundering
mechanisms will ever be good enough to meet the rigours of full evidence-
based policing standards (though if such methodological ‘Gold Standards’
are not appropriate or realistic for analysing some of the most important
social problems in our societies, perhaps that suggests the standards need
greater flexibility). However, one of their aims of this chapter is to get
security managers to engage with the conceptual as well as empirical issues
involved in measuring crime problems and the connections between ‘anti-
criminal finance’ interventions and criminal behaviours, as others have
done in the analysis of drug markets (MacCoun and Reuter 2010; UNODC
2019). It may be time for us to devote more sceptical attention to claims
about how money is laundered, to claims about the efficiency and
effectiveness of AML processes and to the likely effects on crime of efforts
to combat laundering and the financing of terrorism.
This should include attention to the possible counter-productive impacts
(Grabosky 1995) of some AML control measures on social welfare. This
includes the impact of extra financial transparency on the efficiency of
extortion by officials and on the suppression of political opposition, for
example in China, Russia and Hong Kong. Analysis of criminal markets
and of different offences—including the impact of evolving technologies in
financing crime, crime commission and laundering—can play a part in
generating a better baseline for criminal and regulatory policies, and more
work needs to be done to link changes in them to AML efforts of various
types. In the final analysis, we need to decide how much investment of
resources in both public and private sectors AML efforts merit, and this
requires a more critical and detailed analysis than has been common to date.
Much expenditure is ‘buried’ in private sector financial and civil liberties
costs passed on to customers and shareholders, and in general it is viewed
as merely a regulatory burden rather than as a private or public welfare
choice subject to normal cost-benefit criteria. Law enforcement and
regulatory expenditures on AML often have been viewed as marginal
additions rather than as a substitute for other forms of policing, though the
UK government’s Economic Crime (Anti-Money Laundering) Levy 2021
funds improvements in the UK Financial Intelligence Unit by a
hypothecated tax on the regulated sector rather than from general
taxation. (See the Finance Act 2022 (c. 3).) Around the world, there is a
general under-exploitation of financial intelligence.
People in security management should take seriously the task of
enhancing their own understanding and their governments’ understandings
of criminal economies and of the intended and unintended effects of control
efforts on their societies as well as directly on their employers. Potentially,
National Risk Assessments and Mutual Evaluation Reports offer an
opportunity to think seriously about domestic and transnational crime issues
and their underlying ‘crime scripts’ that include their financing and what
happens to the money they make. But if this issue is treated merely as an
exercise in how to maximise country AML ratings, this opportunity will be
lost. There are no good or easy role models in the world to copy for this
process, and it has both conceptual and empirical challenges: but even if
rational people may still fight over what crimes to prioritise, thinking about
the financial aspects of crimes offers one route to more evidence-influenced
and comprehensive crime control in the interests of businesses and citizens.

Recommended Readings
For general security professionals, good books on money laundering are
hard to find. Grossey (2017) provides a good, clear and simple guide to
basic concepts and (evolving) responsibilities for UK bank staff and non-
executive directors; Madinger (2012), Parkman (2019) and Teichmann and
Sergi (2018) provide international guides to investigating and managing
money laundering, and insights/case studies. The Association of Certified
Anti-Money Laundering Specialists and some private businesses offer
courses, but they are aimed at specialised AML staff. Former investigators
and offenders have written case-oriented books. There is a range of
academic work, some quite technical by economists (Unger and Van der
Linde 2013) or lawyers (e.g. with a European focus, Vogel and Maillart
2020). Sceptical analyses include van Duyne et al. (2018) on the money
laundering evidence base; Levi and Soudijn (2020) on the organisation of
money laundering; Lord et al. (2019) on the market dynamics of the misuse
of ‘corporate vehicles’, and open access articles critically analysing policy
(e.g. Levi et al. 2018). In addition, the best written academic work on
money laundering is by Petrus van Duyne, R. Tom Naylor, Peter Reuter and
Melvin Soudijn; with thoughtful strategic articles on policing by Kenneth
Murray. There are good general books on kleptocracy and the links between
politics and laundering (e.g. Belton 2020; Bullough 2019; and Sharman
2017). The Journal of Financial Crime and the Journal of Money
Laundering Control contain many relevant studies. There are many
interesting social media sites such as https://www.thedarkmoneyfiles.com/.

Declarations
Funding: The author is grateful for the support of the UK Economic and
Social Research Council PaCCS (Grants ES/S008853/1; RES-051-27-0208;
and L216252037).

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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_15

15. Corruption, Bribery and Corporate

Crime: Victims and Perpetrators
Branislav Hock1 , Mark Button1 and David Shepherd1
(1) University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK

Branislav Hock (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Mark Button
Email: [email protected]

David Shepherd
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
Hock, Shepherd and Button focus on corporate corruption and start by
arguing that categorising those tainted as either perpetrators or victims is
reductionist. They show that corporations in many instances occupy dual
roles as both perpetrators and victims and that their victimisation and
culpability are a matter of degree. Drawing on the court papers in bribery
cases involving Airbus and Rolls-Royce, they use pathogen theory to
explain the situational factors that may lead a person to engage in bribery.
They provide an alternative explanation of why people and organisations
engage in international bribery.

Introduction
The UK and other countries, which have historically failed to prosecute
corporates and their managers for complex economic crimes, have adapted
their approaches to increase their enforcement activities. The increased
enforcement has made the culpability of corporations and their directors a
practical problem and a societal dilemma.
Sutherland (1949) famously argued that the spread of white-collar
criminality within a corporation depends on associations with people who
are favourable to such criminality. However, this assertion needs to account
for the complexity of corporations, which rely on extensive networks of
groups and individuals within and between organisations. Some of these
relationships may be toxic in favouring crime whilst others are highly
ethical and law-abiding. We therefore argue that simply categorising those
tainted by corporate corruption as either perpetrators or victims is
reductionist. In many instances, corporations occupy dual roles as both
perpetrators and victims. An organisation that engages in a corrupt act may
also be victimised by the corrupt activities of another organisation. A
corporation that is accused of failing to prevent bribery could be regarded
as the victim of a delinquent subsidiary or an errant employee. To
investigate this societal dilemma and the influence of corporate networks,
we use policing of international bribery as a case study.
The rest of this chapter is organised as follows. The first section
contextualises bribery as a form of corruption. The second section
investigates why individuals and corporations engage in bribery. The third
section analyses international bribery cases in order to illustrate key issues
associated with policing international bribery. The last section concludes by
discussing the link between corporate offending and corporate
victimisation.

Corruption and Its Consequences

Concept of Corruption
Corruption is a term for which there is no universal definition or
understanding (Lambsdorff 2006). The Transparency International
definition, “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain,” is often quoted
and used to support analyses (e.g. Sullivan 2009: 6). Although this
definition is helpful in focusing attention on the crimes of the powerful, it
does not adequately capture all the characteristics of corrupt exchanges. It is
clearly relevant to public officials and corporate executives who abuse their
positions, but it excludes the powerless who are compelled to comply with
the demands of the powerful in a fleeting or enduring corrupt relationships
(Button et al. 2019).
One way to deal with the complexity of corruption is to simply view it
as the taxonomic name for a group of economic crimes. The United Nations
Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), for example, is the most wide-
reaching and comprehensive international treaty against corruption signed
by 187 countries, yet it avoids defining the term corruption, preferring
instead to rely on a set of specific types of corruption (for an analysis, see
Zagaris 2015: 137–138):
Article 15—Bribery of national public officials
Article 16—Bribery of foreign public officials and officials of public
international organisations
Article 17—Embezzlement, misappropriation or other diversion of
property by a public official
Article 18—Trading in influence
Article 19—Abuse of functions
Article 20—Illicit enrichment
Article 21—Bribery in the private sector
Article 22—Embezzlement of property in the private sector
Article 23—Laundering of proceeds of crime
Although corruption is often used as a synonym for bribery, the
UNCAC framework clearly illustrates that bribery is just one of a range of
corrupt acts. The UNCAC also includes occupational fraud
(embezzlement), theft (misappropriation) and money laundering as well as
the broadly framed offences of trading in influence and abuse of functions.
Except for money laundering (Article 23), an explicit and important feature
of all the crimes in the UNCAC approach is that at least one party
perpetrates the corrupt act during the course of their occupation.
The literature offers alternative ways to classify corruption and provides
various descriptive typologies (see generally Fletcher and Herrmann 2012).
The most important are set out below:
Grand corruption: is associated with high-level, high-value exchanges
between political elites, corporations and powerful interest groups.
Political elites abuse their position to distribute a variety of resources in
exchange for political support. For example, in economies with large
state ownership, they often privatise state ownership in a way to enrich
 themselves and those that support them (Dávid-Barrett and Fazekas
2020).
Petty corruption: as opposed to a high-level corruption, petty corruption
involves low-value exchanges, usually associated with lower ranked
government officials and others that can misuse their position for their
own benefit. For example, a citizen that has a right to be issued with a
public document, such as a marriage license or a birth certificate, might
in some countries be required to pay an unofficial fee. Many forms of
petty corruption are the so-called facilitation payments, or speed
payments, that might be required by certain administrators in order to act
in a timely manner, for example to speed up a business-related licencing
process.
Active versus passive corruption: these terms are used to distinguish
between the actions of those that are seeking to corruptly influence
another to obtain a favourable outcome (active corruption) and those that
require or receive an improper advantage (passive corruption). They are
sometimes referred to as the supply side and demand side of corruption.
For example, active bribery relates to the supplier who pays a bribe to
win a contract, and passive bribery relates to the customer who takes a
bribe to place the contract.
Domestic and foreign corruption: domestic corruption refers to corrupt
exchanges which take place within a country. International or foreign
corruption refers to corrupt exchanges that cross international borders.
The distinction between domestic and foreign corruption is particularly
important as it represents a legal dichotomy for law enforcement. This
dichotomy is central to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development’s (OECD) Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign
Public Officials in International Business Transactions, which was adopted
in 1997 to solely address active bribery of foreign public officials. It does
not address the passive bribery of the official.
The dichotomy is also explicitly recognised in the UNCAC in two
respects. Firstly, whilst Article 15 requires signatories to criminalise both
active and passive bribery involving domestic public officials, Article 16
mirrors the OECD convention by only requiring nations to make active
bribery of foreign public officials illegal. The logic here is that the foreign
country’s own justice system is best placed to prosecute its own public
officials under domestic legislation. These conventions follow the logic of
the America’s 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) criminalising
only the bribe payer in corrupt exchanges with foreign officials. Secondly,
the UNCAC only asks signatories to consider criminalising trading in
influence, abuse of functions, illicit enrichment and the private sector fraud
and bribery offences.
Although the structural logic and flexibility built into the UN and
OECD conventions are pragmatic in seeking to influence as many countries
as possible, it permits a wide interpretation of what acts should be
criminalised. Corruption cannot be regarded just as a simple, unitary
concept involving an improper economic exchange (Johnston 2010). The
complexity of the corruption problem can be framed in terms of the rule of
law, morality, economic development, poverty, social equality, trust,
competition and tradition. However, because the values and meanings
attached to these concepts are neither universal nor static, the notion of
what constitutes corruption is subject to the dynamics of cultural influences,
societal values, accepted beliefs and political tensions (Johnston 2010;
Lambsdorff 2006). This conceptual discussion is closely related to the
discussion about the consequences of corruption.

Consequences of Corruption
Economic exchanges are variously regarded as criminal, unethical or
legitimate practice depending on local cultural norms and their expression
in national laws. Furthermore, the cultural flexibility inherent in
international law enforcement creates a legal, social, economic and
utilitarian dilemma at the heart of the corruption problem: who is the
perpetrator and who is the victim?
Early commentators advocated that corruption is in some instances an
efficient phenomenon that serves to insert “grease in the wheels” of
commerce and overcome the dysfunctional inefficiencies of bad
administrations (Huntington 1968). However, this is primarily a utilitarian
perspective from the supply side that sees corruption as a tool to get things
done. It ignores the huge, long-term harm caused on the demand side,
especially in developing nations. Corruption might indeed overcome a
government’s administrative failings in the short term, but in the long term
it amplifies systemic inefficiencies (Bardhan 1997; Hock 2020a: 22–23). It
becomes a corrosive problem that pervades public administration and
commerce (Fletcher and Herrmann 2012). Corruption contributes to
poverty, inequality, social divisions, political instability, lowers rates of
economic growth, lowers incentives to invest, and diverts public funds to
useless vanity projects (Rose-Ackerman 1999; Vishny and Shleifer 1993). It
is a deadly problem worldwide: over $500 billion in lost health resources
and 140,000 childhood deaths are attributable to corruption each year
(Bruckner 2019; Hanf et al. 2011). According to the Stanford Law School
(n.d.), the healthcare industry is second only to the oil and gas industry in
the number of actions brought under the FCPA for foreign bribery,
accounting for 12% of all such actions, and just ahead of the aerospace
industry.
From a policy perspective, both the UN and OECD conventions make
clear moral statements that corruption is unacceptable. The conventions
represent collective agreements on how corruption should be tackled and
why it should be tackled. The introduction to the UNCAC describes
corruption as an “insidious plague” and an “evil phenomenon” that
threatens “the stability and security of societies, undermining the
institutions and values of democracy, ethical values and justice and
jeopardizing sustainable development and the rule of law” (UNCAC: 2).
The Preamble of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention describes bribery as a
widespread phenomenon “which raises serious moral and political
concerns, undermines good governance and economic development, and
distorts international competitive conditions.” These are fine words, but
policy makers worldwide need hard evidence to turn the sentiments into
action. The justification for building sufficient capacity to tackle corruption
mainly rests in quantifying the aggregated harmful consequences and costs
of the phenomenon, that is, measuring the extent of the problem.

Extent of Corruption
Measuring the extent of corruption is fraught with challenges (Sampford et
al. 2006). The basic measures of crime, such as police recorded crime
statistics, are largely useless when applied to corruption. In part this is
because the secrecy of corruption means that the large majority of cases
remain hidden. Those that are discovered are often not reported to the
authorities, and many that are reported are not investigated. Investigations
then often fail to determine whether a crime has actually occurred. Unlike
burglary, where there is usually clear evidence of a crime, such as a broken
window and missing property, corruption often involves just a suspicion
and little actionable evidence.
Another important issue is that the broad concept of corruption is not
always coterminous with specific pieces of legislation. In the UK, acts of
corruption could, for example, fall under the Bribery Act 2010, Misconduct
in Public Office (common law offence), the Fraud Act 2006, the Theft Act
1968 and the Competition Act 1998. Identifying which specific cases
prosecuted under these laws involved corruption is very difficult.
Misconduct in Public Office is itself a broadly framed offence that
encompasses, for example, the wilful neglect of a person in police custody
to intentional acts of fraud, theft and bribery perpetrated by public officials
(Crown Prosecution Service [CPS] 2018). Consequently, official statistics
relating to corruption cases represent the tip of the iceberg. Based on the
Bribery Act 2010 and the assumption that all Misconduct in Public Office
offences involve corruption, Table 15.1 sets out the number of corruption
offences recorded in the UK between 2017 and 2020 (Office for National
Statistics [ONS] 2020). At less than 150 cases per year, the data erroneously
suggests corruption is a very small problem.
Table 15.1 Recorded corruption offences in the UK

2017–2018 2018–2019 2019–2020

Offering bribes 7 12 8
Accepting bribes 6 3 2
Corporation—failure to prevent bribery 0 1 0
Misconduct in a public office 92 127 118
Total corruption offences 105 143 128

Source: ONS (2020)

However, a variety of other methods have been developed to improve

estimates. Surveys of the general population, business leaders and
procurement specialists are used to quantify the perception of the extent of
corruption. The European Commission (2017) survey found that 68% of the
public across Europe believed corruption was widespread. The results
varied widely from 21% in Finland to 96% in Greece. A total of 55% of UK
respondents thought it was widespread, a figure which stands in stark
contrast to the small number of recorded cases.
Perception, however, is not the reality and some of the most influential
surveys such as the Transparency International’s Corruption Perception
Index have been heavily criticised (Andersson and Heywood 2009). An
alternative approach is to conduct an experience survey. In addition to
capturing perceptions, the European Commission (2017) survey asked
respondents whether they had been victims of corruption in the prior year.
The results were much lower than the perception figures. Overall, 7% had
been victims of corruption, 10% in Greece, 2% in Finland and 2% in the
UK. The findings indicate that perceptions substantially exaggerate the
scale of the problem. Nevertheless, the UK finding suggests that the
authorities are scratching at the surface of the problem in delivering less
than 150 justice outcomes per year.
As an alternative, some studies used econometrics and big-data to
estimate the extent of corruption (see Fazekas et al. (2013). Many of these
approaches relate to corruption in public procurement. The European
Commission (2013) report, for example, indicates that direct costs of
corruption in public procurement is between 2% and 10% of the overall
value of procurement depending on the industry sector. When applied to the
€2 trillion annual procurement budget of public authorities in the EU, the
lower 2% figure is equivalent to €40 billion per year.

Why Do People and Corporations Perpetrate

Corruption?
Although research into the motivations of bribery offenders is sparse, a
number of criminological theories can and have been applied to such
offenders and will now be considered (see Andresen and Button 2018;
Button et al. 2018). After considering key theories in this field, we offer the
pathogen theory that is well suited to explain the situational factors in
commercial bribery.

Understanding Offenders’ Motivations in Commercial Bribery

Students of criminology quickly learn that there are significant overlaps
between criminological theories, they can be broadly divided into two
principal theoretical groups: positivist and classicist. Positivist theories
attempt to explain criminality through deterministic factors that predispose
persons to becoming criminal, and are grouped under biological,
psychological and social categories. Classical criminology, by contrast,
argues that everyone has an inherently equal propensity to crime and
everyone is a rational calculator (Matthews 2014). Six of the most relevant
theories that can be applied to commercial bribery will now be considered.

Rational Choice Theory

Rational choice theory has emerged as a modern development of the
classical approach, suggesting that persons act rationally in assessing the
benefits of committing a crime against the risks and the negative
consequences of detection (Steele 2015). A person is more likely to commit
bribery when the prize is high and the chances of detection are low.

Strain and Anomie Theory

The basis of strain and anomie theory is the societal pressures on
individuals to achieve a set of social goals. These goals focus on wealth,
materialistic and professional attainment measure of success. However, not
everyone has the ability or access to the opportunities to achieve the
socially prescribed lifestyle, sometimes characterised as the “American
dream” (Tierney 2013). The combination of societal expectations and
frustrated ambitions can create sufficient psychological strains that some
people resort to illegitimate means to achieve those objectives. This theory
is well suited to white-collar criminality in general and to bribery in
particular. Both the bribers and bribees use the outcomes and proceeds of
their corruption to diffuse the strains created by their inability to achieve
their aims by legitimate means

Differential Association
Sutherland’s theory of differential association is a very important social
learning theory that has been used to explain both white-collar and other
types of criminality (Sutherland et al. 1992: 88). The essence of the theory
is that criminality is learnt, and that person is more likely to commit crimes
if he or she is exposed to an excess of cues favouring criminality. Proximal
social groups such as family, communities, gangs and workplaces provide
the behavioural cues for engaging in or rejecting criminality. Bribery is
more likely to occur in organisations where corrupt practices are tolerated
or even incentivised.

Control Theory
Control theory is a broad group of ideas that are based on the classicist
notion that everyone is born into this world with an equal propensity to
criminality. It then turns the deviance question on its head and asks why
everyone does not commit crime (Hirschi 1969). Control theory seeks to
understand the interaction between internal self-restraint controls and
external controls. The external controls are broadly divided into two areas,
informal and formal controls. Informal controls are the non-regulatory
social controls which nurture and guide individuals into conformance with
normative values. The theory borrows from social learning theory in
postulating that positive nurturing and associations in the early years
promotes the internalisation of controls, thus leading to self-restraint (Jones
2017). Bribery is not a salient nurturing topic, so it is more reliant on
external controls in adulthood.

Neutralisation or Rationalisation Theory

One of the most important theories explaining white-collar crime is
neutralisation or rationalisation theory. Rationalisation is a psychological
process which enables otherwise moral people to neutralise the cognitive
dissonance stimulated by moral tensions when they engage in immoral
conduct (Sykes and Matza 1957; Benson 1985; Goldstraw-White 2012). In
other words, rationalisation makes it easier for offenders to cope
psychologically with their criminality. Rationalisations are the justifications
that people construct to justify their criminal behaviour to themselves. The
“higher loyalty” rationalisation is particularly important in the context of
bribery (Sykes and Matza 1957); it enables corrupt employees to justify
their crimes as altruistic actions in support of their employers’ financial
welfare.

Opportunity Theory
A very important set of theories surround opportunity. Routine activity
theory argues that crime is linked to the everyday routine activities of
offenders and victims (Cohen and Felson 1979). The theory states that
crime is more likely to occur in a situation when a motivated offender, an
opportunity in the form of a suitable target and the lack of a capable
guardian converge in time and space. Rational choice underpins this theory
as it assumes that all offenders rationally weigh up the costs and risks of
offending against the perceived benefits in every situation (Cornish and
Clarke 1986). In the context of bribery, the routines of work, the absence of
effective controls or regulations and the appearance of a suitable conspirator
provide the opportunity for the corrupt exchange.
The fraud theory developed by Cressey (1953), commonly known as the
fraud triangle, links opportunity with strain and rationalisation theories to
explain the criminal pathway of lone occupational fraudsters. The theory
states that fraud is more likely to occur when an employee motivated by
financial distress has the workplace opportunity to commit a crime to
alleviate those strains and is able to rationalise his actions. It is equally
applicable to bribery in the workplace because it involves opportunity (at
work), motivation (strain or coercion) and rationalisations.
All the above theories have an application in bribery. In combination,
the likelihood of bribery occurring is bound to increase as the social,
psychological and situational features underpinning these theories converge,
that is when the person is:
1.
motivated by strains
2.
presented with an opportunity during routine activities at work
3.
surrounded by noxious cultural messages
4.
subject to weak external controls
5.
with a negligible chance of detection
6.
psychologically rationalises their actions
7.
and overcomes self-restraint controls
These theories have been rarely applied to corruption and none have
offered detailed insights on the recruitment of individuals to corrupt
schemes. One of the few exceptions is differential association theory which
explores how individuals through exposure to deviant behaviours and
norms can become criminal too, but it does not explore the wider
organisational context of controls too. The next section offers an insight of
not only how persons become recruited, but also how the organisational and
situational factors affect this too through the metaphor of pathogens.

Explaining the Situational Factors in Commercial Bribery:

Pathogen Theory
The above theories offer a variety of insights into the internal and external
influences that may lead a person to engage in bribery, but they do not
adequately address the situational factors. Unlike most other crimes,
commercial bribery always involves a conspiracy between at least two
persons. The relationship between the actors is initially developed in
parallel with the commercial contract under consideration. The relationship
then turns into an illicit conspiracy when the actors negotiate and agree the
terms of the corrupt exchange prior to the finalisation of the commercial
contract. The following discussion uses the metaphor of pathogens to
explore how the relationship and situational factors facilitate the negotiated
conspiracy.
Reason (2000) developed the metaphor of pathogens to explain safety
failures. It is an interactionist idea which recognises the social context of
the organisation. It highlights the potential for safety failures arising from
latent weaknesses, which Reason called “resident pathogens” within the
structures, practices, norms and scripts embedded in an organisation’s
culture and systems of self-control. A latent, resident pathogen does not
cause a safety failure on its own: it can only become activated in
combination with other situational factors. Button et al. (2018) contend that
the concept is equally applicable to white-collar crimes. For a bribe to occur
there must be a convergence of at least three pathogens and at least two
types. There must be a human “corruptor pathogen”, a “resident pathogen”
within the organisational systems and the third pathogen must be either a
human “submissive pathogen” or a second “corruptor pathogen.” These
notions are explained in the following sections.

Corruptor Pathogen
The corruptor pathogen is the predatory parasite who initiates the corrupt
relationship, whether an assertive briber or an assertive bribee. It may be a
person seeking a private gain for himself or to benefit others, their company
or community. An example is a company manager who offers an unsolicited
bribe to a customer’s buyer to secure a valued contract for her employer. In
the reverse case, the corruptor pathogen is the bribee, the manager who
demands a bribe for awarding a contract. A more extreme instance involves
extortion: knowing that a supplier’s business is dependent on its
commercial relationship, the corrupt bribee threatens to terminate the
supply arrangement unless bribes are paid.

Submissive Pathogen
The submissive pathogen, whether the briber or the bribee, is the person
who is sufficiently motivated to submit to the solicitation of the corruptor
pathogen. Again, the submissive pathogen may be a person seeking
personal gain or for others. It may be a bribee motivated by the lure of easy
money, or an individual who is offered respite from personal financial
strains, or a victim of extortion. It is also a business person who rationally
calculates that they have, for the sake of their business, no alternative and
consents to corrupt demands.

Resident Pathogen
Resident pathogens are the latent weaknesses lurking in organisational
structures, policies, norms, systems of control and routine activities. They
are implicit in the opportunity limb of Cressey’s (1953) fraud model: the
shortcomings exploited by both bribers and bribees using their insider
knowledge and expertise. Common examples are inadequate vendor
appraisals, ineffective recruitment screening, superficial control of
transactions and self-authorisation of expenditure (Tunley et al. 2018).
Resident pathogens are not restricted to the systems of oversight, they also
include factors which promote criminal acts, for instance, undue
performance pressures and perverse incentives. In more extreme
circumstances, bribery is so deeply embedded in an organisation’s cultural
norms that the system is not just infected by pathogens, the entire system
can be regarded as the resident pathogen.

The Corruption Pathogen Model

Despite its limits, the fraud triangle paradigm is enduring partly due to its
heuristic simplicity and because it lends itself to graphical presentation
(Schuchter and Levi 2013; Wolfe and Hermanson 2004). The pathogen
model extends this simple approach using social network techniques.
Whilst there is some precedence in applying network techniques to
corruption (Nash et al. 2017; Peoples and Sutton 2015), the Button et al.
(2018) model is unique in providing a formal, yet flexible, visualisation
framework. The nodes in the corruption pathogen model represent the three
types of pathogens:
C—Corruptor pathogen
S—Submissive pathogen
R—Resident pathogen
Figure 15.1 sets out the network for classic contractual corruption,
where an external assertive briber (C) corrupts a customer’s submissive
employee (S) by exploiting the latent weaknesses within the customer’s
operational controls (R). In this case, the submissive pathogen is co-located
with the resident pathogens inside the customer’s organisational boundary,
whilst the corruptor pathogen sits outside. It represents a scheme in which
the customer organisation is a victim of an active, external corruptor (C)
and a passive, submissive employee (S). The nodes are sized to represent
the relative influence or strength of the pathogens in the aetiology of the
corruption. In this illustration, the corruptor pathogen is the most salient.
The positions of the corruptor and submissive pathogens are exchanged
when it is the buyer who demands a bribe from a submissive supplier.
Where the human actors are equally assertive, both would be corruptor
pathogens and equally sized.

Fig. 15.1 Simple pathogen network

 The pathogen network can be as extended and complex as the analysis
requires to understand the interactions between the actors and the systems,
environments, routine activities, rules, norms and shared rationalisations.
The technique can be used to examine the pathogenic relationships between
employees, systems, situations and external agents to highlight the
vulnerabilities of a victim organisation. For an offending organisation, it
can assist in visualising how the convergence of pathogens creates a
contagion which infects the corporate body. At the organisational level, the
method supports the examination of relationships between organisations,
marketplaces and regulators. With careful application, the model has the
capacity to further our understanding of what Slapper and Tombs (1999:
110) call the pathology of organisations. It is particularly useful for
understanding the complex network of actors, systems, environments,
routine activities, rules, norms and shared rationalisations that interact in
the transnational space of international bribery.

The Problem of International Bribery

International bribery remains largely under-researched by criminologists
(Lord 2014). Historically, policing of international bribery was limited to
individuals and corporations under the jurisdiction of the FCPA, which was
enacted in 1977 to prohibit the active bribery of foreign public officials.
This statute has far-reaching jurisdiction and is backed by well-resourced
enforcement authorities—the United States Department of Justice (DOJ)
and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) (see Hock 2017). The
vast majority of cases are resolved out of the court through administrative
sanctions and negotiated settlements involving plea agreements, deferred
prosecution agreements (DPA) or non-prosecution agreements (NPA).
Between 2010 and 2019 corporations paid penalties of $19.1 billion and
individuals paid $1.3 billion in cases brought by the DOJ and the SEC
(Stanford Law School n.d.). These settlement agreements very often include
binding undertakings for the corporations to introduce robust ethics and
compliance programmes. The prosecutors often impose external monitors to
ensure the programmes are delivered (Ford and Hess 2008).
However, international bribery has recently become an enforcement
priority in a number of countries, including the UK, France, Brazil,
Singapore and Canada. An increase in enforcement activity is evidenced by
the emergence of the so-called global enforcement bundles whereby an
offending corporation agrees to settle a package of charges out of court with
prosecutors in multiple jurisdictions (Hock 2020b). Rolls Royce, a UK
aeroengine manufacturer, admitted to paying substantial bribes to corporate
executives and public officials between 1989 and 2013 in several countries,
including Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, Russia and Thailand. Rolls Royce
settled the allegations to avoid prosecution in 2017 by way of DPAs with
the Brazilian, US and UK authorities and over $800 million in penalties
(SFO 2017). Similarly, Airbus, an aerospace corporation registered in the
Netherlands and with operational headquarters in France, settled allegations
of international bribery by concluding a $3.9 billion global settlement
involving DPAs with the French, UK and US authorities (SFO 2020).
Airbus also admitted to systematic bribery in multiple jurisdictions to win
aircraft orders in China, Ghana, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Taiwan.
Rolls Royce and Airbus share a number of common characteristics.
They are large, complex, publicly listed corporations with multiple
subsidiaries, divisions and offices across the world; they operate in the
aerospace industry selling low-volume, high-value products so every
contract is important to their financial health. In addition, the official
prosecution documents in both cases (SFO v Airbus SE; SFO v Rolls-
Royce plc) identify a number of common, pathological features which
contributed to the aetiology of the crimes. The features identified in the
court papers are mapped onto the pathogen network in Fig. 15.2.
Fig. 15.2 International bribery scheme

The network illustrated in Fig. 15.2 focuses on the relationship of both

companies with a common Malaysian airline customer, AirAsia, to explore
the victim-perpetrator dilemma in corporate bribery cases. The nodes are
sized to represent the relative influence of the pathogens in the corrupt
outcomes. The larger nodes indicate the more salient pathogens in the
corrupt schemes.
The court documents indicate that the dominant feature in both schemes
is the relationship with two executives of AirAsia: they are represented as
corruptor pathogens in Fig. 15.2. In the Airbus case the executives
demanded $50 million in stages to favour Airbus in a very high-value
contract involving the purchase of 180 aircrafts (SFO v Airbus SE). In
relation to an early-stage payment, one of the executives emailed Airbus:

I want my money and I want compensation … pay up. I want my

whole 16 million now. (Regina v Airbus SE: 14)

The $50 million was paid to a sports team, Caterham F1, as

sponsorship. The team was owned by the AirAsia executives (Das and Lee
2020) and turned out to be a short-lived vanity project (Benson 2014). The
corrupt relationship was managed by the Strategy and Marketing
Organisation (SMO), a department within a French subsidiary of Airbus.
The SMO sought and obtained approval for the arrangement from a
dysfunctional senior management group, the Company Development and
Selection Committee (CDSC). Knowing that the payment was improper, the
CDSC in turn sought advice from a compliance team, whose primary role in
the affair was to “engineer” a solution so that the scheme could be
rationalised as legitimate sponsorship. The compliance team was
particularly concerned that the AirAsia executives were abusing their
positions so recommended greater transparency to the board and
shareholders of AirAsia:

The purpose is to mitigate the risk of being accused of conspiracy

on transfer value from the airline to the majority shareholder private
interests. (Regina v Airbus SE: 18)

The SFO v Rolls Royce court documents reveal a similar pattern. The
AirAsia executives demanded a significant discount on a maintenance
programme for a private jet, or the cash equivalent, in return for substantial
maintenance contracts for the commercial fleet. The private jet was owned
by a syndicate including the executives and others. The relationship was
managed by Rolls Royce Deutschland (RRD), a German subsidiary. RRD
sought approval from the compliance department which advised that the
arrangement would breach the FCPA and the Bribery Act and should be
made transparent to the board and shareholders of AirAsia. Like Airbus,
Rolls Royce managers sought a solution to the problem involving a
structure and language that would navigate a way round the laws. Frustrated
by progress, the AirAsia executives linked the bribe to the payment of
outstanding debts to Rolls Royce, demanded cash instead of a discount and
demanded the removal of the Rolls Royce account manager by email: “I
will not meet with liars next week.” The parties eventually settled on a
credit arrangement that gifted the private syndicate $3.2 million worth of
maintenance.
The court papers in both these schemes portray the AirAsia executives
as the aggressive, assertive corruptor pathogens and Airbus and Rolls
Royce management as submissive pathogens. Despite having anti-bribery
policies and structures in place which raised warnings, senior managers in
both companies acquiesced to the corrupt demands to win very substantial
contracts. In both cases management did not possess sufficient moral
integrity to countenance the risk of losing the substantial commercial
opportunities. Whilst higher loyalty rationalisations were undoubtedly an
important factor (Sykes and Matza 1957), they also negotiated internally
over the construction of specific rationalisations to assuage any moral
dissonance and deflect regulatory scrutiny: Airbus managers characterised
their bribe as sponsorship, Rolls Royce managers characterised their bribe
as commercial credit. Dysfunctional committees and senior managers then
accepted these rationalisations and their purpose in overriding management
controls. Crucially, the compliance functions lacked the power and
independence to reject the rationalisations.
Following detection and investigation by the SFO, Rolls Royce and
Airbus accepted that the rationalisations were vacuous and admitted to the
corruption charge of failing to prevent bribery under Section 7 of the
Bribery Act 2010. However, the absence of equivalent domestic oversight
in Malaysia meant that neither AirAsia nor its executives faced justice or
any kind of regulatory intervention. Indeed, a committee formed by AirAsia
to review the Airbus case with the assistance of accountancy firm, BDO,
concluded after just one month that the executives had acted properly
(AirAsia 2020).
Discussion and Conclusion: Beyond Victims and
Perpetrators
Categorising those tainted by international bribery as either perpetrators or
victims is reductionist. The case of international bribery shows how
corporations rely on extensive networks of groups and individuals within
organisations and between organisations. Pathogen theory suggests that this
complexity might be difficult to be dealt with by underlying laws and
regulations. For example, laws should be enforced equitably to both sides of
the corrupt exchange and enforcement should prioritise the human corruptor
pathogens. Currently international enforcement usually fails in both regards
because its primary strategic focus is the supply side where prosecution is
conveniently feasible.
The pathogen networks in the Rolls Royce and Airbus cases illustrate
the tensions and dilemmas at the core of the international commercial
bribery problem. The most obvious problem is the inequity created by the
dichotomy in law enforcement structures: a private exchange negotiated in
parallel with a commercial contract is conventionally prosecuted in some
jurisdictions but hardly ever in others. This leads to the absurd situation
where submissive bribers are heavily penalised for specific and general
deterrence purposes, whilst aggressive corruptors are not punished. The
international treaties have demonstrated an influence in choking the supply
side within some developed nations; however, their impact on the demand
side is much more limited.
The Rolls Royce and Airbus managers decided to play at times by the
rules of the same corrupt aerospace marketplace and chose bribery instead
of legitimate market competition. Both corporations concluded a DPA
based on their failure to prevent bribery. However, it is arguable that the
corporations were victims of the schemes, as opposed to perpetrators, in
two ways. Firstly, whilst the Rolls Royce and Airbus managers were
criminal in their behaviour, they were also victims of the aggressive
coercion of the most salient pathogens, the AirAsia executives.
Secondly, it can be argued that the two corporations are victims of their
own human pathogens, their employees. From a conceptual perspective, all
the theoretical explanations previously explicated are relevant to the corrupt
outcomes. The combination of ever-present strains to secure profits and
jobs, corrupt opportunities within work routines, toxic associations, weak
management controls, minimal likelihood of detection due to conspiratorial
secrecy and shared constructed rationalisation which overcame self-
restraint, all led the managers in both companies to the economically
rational choice of engaging in bribery. Although these are features of what
white-collar criminologists have called criminogenic corporations (see
Braithwaite 1985: 93), they represent very human constructions, attitudes,
behaviour, calculations and choices. Corporations are mindless legal entities
which are incapable of such things. In both cases the corporations had
policies and structures to prevent bribery, yet people working in the
organisations chose to circumvent the policies and controls. The
corporations were simple bystanders to the unfolding dramas.
The Rolls Royce and Airbus examples demonstrate that espoused ethics
policies are mere window dressing if they are not backed up with
meaningful intent and action. Without meaningful intent, ordinary people
can easily be drawn into corrupt relationships, especially when the
corporation operates in a vulnerable industry and in regions that have little
regard for the concept of corruption. Employees need the constraints of
robust ethical governance in order to protect the integrity and interests of
the corporate entity. The corporation should not have to rely on external,
regulatory intervention to prevent it from becoming a victim of its own
employees. It is the responsibility of management to provide the
corporation with a resilient ethics function that is capable of identifying and
mitigating both human and latent, resident pathogens.
As the representation of the organisation’s conscience, the compliance
and ethics function should be independent of the operations and sufficiently
remote from everyday routines so as not to be caught up in the strains, toxic
associations, opportunities and constructed justifications for bad behaviour
(see Miller 2015; Pasculli 2021; Vozza 2022). It should be invested with the
authority to intervene at the nascence of corrupt deals and with the integrity
to report corrupt events to the authorities when controls do fail. To achieve
its aims, an effective compliance function should be empowered to reject all
“engineered solutions” that are really rationalisations constructed in support
of corrupt relationships, and to reject all rationalised excuses for turning a
blind eye to corruption (Shepherd and Button 2018).
To characterise Rolls Royce and Airbus as victims or bystanders does
not mean that they should not be subject to the rule of law, particularly as
they unjustly benefited from the illegal actions of their employees. The
question is, which law? For national states, as well as international
organisations that states form, to be successful in their primary ambition of
reducing corruption globally, pathogen theory suggests that:
1.
The criminal law should be applied equitably and proportionately to
both sides of corrupt exchanges.
2.
Criminal enforcement should focus on the human pathogens.
3.
Criminal enforcement should prioritise the corruptor pathogens, being
it a pro-active briber or a bribee.
4.
Corporations should be subjected to regulations which indirectly force
management to self-police their operations.
Presently international anti-bribery enforcement regime usually fails
with regards to the first three conditions for two reasons. Firstly, its primary
strategic focus is the supply side where prosecution is considered feasible.
Secondly, very few individuals are prosecuted either because effective laws
are absent, or because criminal justice systems cannot cope with white-
collar conspiracies. International anti-bribery enforcement is becoming
more successful on the supply side in regulating corporations: DPAs and
NPAs are in effect regulatory regimes that avoid criminal prosecution
(Grasso, 2016; Hock 2020b). They impose fines, relieve the corporations of
their illegal benefits and force managers to develop ethics programmes.
This is, however, a strategy of convenience which fails to deal with corrupt
politicians and the corrupt human pathogens within corporations.

Recommended Readings
The work of Fletcher and Herrmann (2012) provides good insights into the
study of international corruption, it highlights various conceptual and
analytical approaches to the matter but also how corruption is linked to
transnational crime networks. Hock (2020a) provides a more specific take
on the role played by international anti-bribery enforcement and the
analysis of international bribery cases. For a more detailed discussion on
policing corporate bribery through non-trial resolutions such as DPAs see
Hock (2020b). When it comes to relevant theoretical approaches, Button et
al. (2018, 2019) provide a helpful framework of co-offending and bribery,
and especially the recruitment of participants to corrupt schemes and the
implications for prevention. In addition, Shepherd and Button (2018)
provide an interesting analysis of organisational behaviour once it discovers
occupational fraud. Braithwaite (1985) and his other works then present the
state of the art of policing corporate crime, including the various private,
public and hybrid regulatory alternatives.

References
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Competition Act 1998, c. 41.

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, 15 U.S.C. s 78dd-1 ff.

Fraud Act 2006, c. 35.

OECD, Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business

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Regina v Airbus SE, Statement of Factsd

SFO v Airbus SE, 31 January 2020

SFO v ROLLS-ROYCE PLC Respondents ROLLS-ROYCE ENERGY SYSTEMS INC, 17 January

2017

United Nations, Convention against Corruption, New York, 31 October 2003, in force 14 December
2005, 2349 U.N.T.S. 41, 43 I.L.M. 3

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Part III
Crime and Security in Different Domains
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_16

16. Securing the Bioeconomy: Exploring

the Role of Cyberbiosecurity
Patrick F. Walsh1
(1) Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, NSW, Australia

Patrick F. Walsh
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
Patrick Walsh discusses threats to the bioeconomy sector. He presents
cyberbiosecurity, a growing cross-disciplinary knowledge area that
intersects cybersecurity, security and biosecurity and provides a different
way of understanding security threats to the bioeconomy. He argues that
synthetic biology and biotechnology are exponentially growing sectors of
the global economy, however the nature of emerging threats and risks
associated with these sectors are not well understood. Discussing IP theft,
foreign interference and malevolent exploitation of dual-use bio-agents
Walsh provides a more comprehensive understanding of threats, risks and
vulnerabilities in this little understood sector.

Introduction
The chapter is divided into three main sections (the bioeconomy, risks and
threat contexts and mitigation strategies). First, in order to provide
necessary context to the discussion on cyberbiosecurity this chapter surveys
the bioeconomy. The second section maps out the cyberbiosecurity
risk/threat landscape across key sectors (national security,
pharmaceuticals/health and biotechnology) to the bioeconomy including the
ongoing challenges in understanding them. Thirdly, this chapter summarises
thematically several factors that will be critical to mitigating against current
and emerging cyberbiosecurity risks/threats. Before, however, commencing
a contextual discussion of the bioeconomy, it is necessary first to clarify
how the term ‘cyberbiosecurity’ will be used in this chapter.
Cyberbiosecurity is a relatively new multi-disciplinary field made up of
several disciplines such as cyber, biology, biosecurity, biosafety amongst
others. The term was first used in the literature only relatively recently in
2018 (Peccoud et al. 2018: 4–7). The field of cyberbiosecurity is still
emerging so it is unsurprising that several definitions have been suggested
thus far (Peccoud et al. 2018: 4–7; Mueller 2020: 2; Murch et al. 2018). A
detailed discussion of the varying merits of these definitions is not germane
to our focus here. Suffice it to say, most scholars working in this area
describe ‘cyberbiosecurity’ as a field that seeks to assess and mitigate
against risk/threats that occur at the intersection between cyberspace and
the rapid transformations underway in the biological sciences, particularly
biotechnology. As discussed in detail below, it is the profound and
exponential growth in the digitisation of biology and biotechnology that
raises concerns about new risks/threats that are not exclusively in either the
‘cyber’ or ‘biosecurity’ domain. In particular, and in addition to the
digitisation of biology, it is also the automation of many processes that were
once completed by scientists in labs, which are now creating significant
benefit to biosciences and the bioeconomy—yet also highlight real and
emerging risks/threats (Bajema et al. 2018). With ‘cyberbiosecurity’
defined, we now shift attention to surveying the ‘bioeconomy’. A
contextual understanding of the ‘bioeconomy’ is important because it is
where cyberbiosecurity risks/threats are raising concerns for governments,
the private sector and those working in the security sector.

The Bioeconomy
The ‘bioeconomy’ is a subset of the larger global economy and
encompasses several sectors in health care, biotechnology and biological
research. The literature reveals no commonly agreed definition of the
bioeconomy. Depending on one’s perspective, there are several sectors and
combinations of subsets of ‘traditional sectors’ that could be included or
excluded from the bioeconomy (NAS 2020: 41). The common denominator
seems to be economic activity that uses biological resources to make
products (e.g. pharmaceuticals, food, energy, medicine). The difficulties of
trying to define the bioeconomy are well illustrated just by looking at the
biotechnology sector globally. The biotechnology sector alone produces
biological products that can be used in multiple sectors of the global
economy (e.g. pharmaceuticals, food, energy, medicine and environment).
While it may be easier to see how potentially significant ‘the bioeconomy’
is for international trade, national income and employment, it’s less clear
given the diversity and intersection of fields and sub-fields making up the
biotechnology sector to measure what outputs should be considered as part
of the bioeconomy. Leaving aside this issue of where the parameters of the
bioeconomy should be, this chapter adopts the straightforward and holistic
definition cited in the 2020 US National Academies of Sciences,
Engineering and Medicine report on Safeguarding the Bioeconomy. The
report defines the bioeconomy as ‘economic activity that is driven by
research and innovation in the life sciences and biotechnology, and that is
enabled by technological advances in engineering and in computing and
information sciences’ (NAS 2020: 3).
The rate of research and innovation in the life sciences and
biotechnology has increased exponentially in the last three decades. For
example, when the entire human genome was sequenced in 2003 it took a
team of scientists 13 years at a cost of nearly a half-billion dollars to
identify the approximately 20,500 genes in humans. In contrast, today
biotechnology companies can decode a human genome sequence in a day
for only $1000 using smaller and more efficient equipment (such as a
benchtop Ion Proton Sequencer) (Walsh 2016: 351).
Building on developments in genome sequencing has led to other life
science innovations and techniques such as CRISPR, which allows the
editing of an organism’s genome resulting now in breakthroughs in the
development of drugs, vaccines, medicines, foods and agriculture in the
bioeconomy. Other innovations such as the development of organisms with
synthetic genomes have been made possible not only due to breakthroughs
in biological research but also advances in engineering, computing and
information sciences (NAS 2020: 1).
Advancements in the life sciences and biotechnology have also seen
developments in chemicals made from bio-synthetic processes rather than
traditional chemistry. For example, ‘microorganisms are now used to act as
environmental biosensors, fabrics made from biosynthetic spider silk, and
novel foods and food additives made from yeast or bacteria’ (NAS 2020: 1).
New innovations in computing and bioprocessing are producing new foods,
fuels, cosmetics and drugs.
The net result is a transformed life sciences and biotechnology sector
with significant benefit to human health, research and commercially to
individuals and the companies involved. The growing amount and pace of
innovation, products and jobs continues to fuel the expansion of the global
bioeconomy. For example, the bioeconomy is estimated to consist in the US
of as much as 25% of GDP (Vinatzer et al. 2019: 2). While the production
of pharmaceuticals, hospital equipment, food products, ‘green fuels’ and
agricultural products two decades ago were more labour intensive, the rapid
development in computer algorithmic performance and biotechnology
processes now means companies operating in the bioeconomy can
completely or semi-automate production processes. The expectation is that
the investment by companies in the bioeconomy in automation of various
bioprocesses facilitated by advanced algorithms will also rely increasingly
on information technology (IT), the Internet and the IoT to make even
further advancements and efficiencies in the quality, costs and production of
various bio-products (Murch and DiEuliis 2019; Murch et al. 2018; NAS
2020). Despite the dividends for the bioeconomy, the growing complexity
of biotechnologies now more enabled and connected by IT/computing
systems creates a suite of potential risks/threats to both public and private
sector agencies working in the bioeconomy. The increased reliance of the
bioscience fields on cyber systems to source supplies, manufacture,
distribute bio-products including research and development creates
vulnerabilities for attack by state and non-state actors (Ney et al. 2017:
765–799; Vinatzer et al. 2019; Bajema et al. 2018). Mueller encapsulates
well the significance of vulnerabilities, risks and threats to public/private
sector research, biotechnology companies and other sectors involved in the
development of bio-products.

[D]ue to the increased reliance of the bioscience fields on

cyberphysical systems potentials for exploitation exist at each point
where bioengineered or biomanufactured processes or services
interface the cyber and the physical domain. Thereby, attackers may
exploit unsecured networks and remotely manipulate biologic data,
exploit biologic agents, or affect physical processing involving
 biological materials which may result (whether intentionally or
unintentionally) in unwanted or dangerous biological outcomes.
(Mueller 2020: 2)

Given the increasing use and integration of cyberphysical systems for

bioengineering and biomanufacturing processes what are the vulnerabilities,
threats and risks to companies, research institutes, clinical institutions
amongst others working in the bioeconomy? How do research institutes,
biotech companies and their workforces mitigate against cyber-biosecurity
risks/threats and achieve what some scholars are describing as
‘cyberbiosafety’? (Rees 2019). In the next section, this chapter shifts the
focus to a survey of current and emerging cyberbiosecurity risks/threats
before discussing key mitigation factors.

Risk and Threat Context

Space limitations preclude a comprehensive analysis of all current and
emerging cyber-biosecurity risks/threats to the bioeconomy. Instead, this
section provides a thematic discussion of key risks/threats along with
additional resources for readers wishing to explore more deeply particular
issues. Before however providing a thematic analysis of key cyber-
biosecurity risks/threats it is important to note that our knowledge about
many cyberbiosecurity risks/threats remains limited. The limitations are due
to two factors. First, while researchers are working towards a better
understanding of cyberbiosecurity risks/threats (Millett et al. 2019), there
are few rigorous risk/threat methodologies currently available to reliably
assess them. Other threat and risk methodologies that have been deployed
to assess biodefence (e.g. bioterrorism) or biosafety (e.g. security access in
controlled labs) issues do exist (Walsh 2018; Burnette 2013). However,
questions remain whether such risk/threat methodologies are applicable to
assessing cyberbiosecurity risks/threats, which as noted earlier present
additional levels of complexity because of the integration of cyber and bio-
processing systems.
Several evolving factors are at play in the advances of synthetic biology
and biotechnology, which suggest ‘traditional’ biodefence and biosecurity
risk/threat methodologies will likely be deficient in understanding current
and emerging vulnerabilities to the bioeconomy. Mueller identifies four
issues, which support the argument that cyberbiosecurity risks/threats need
to be assessed using new metrics. First, Muller suggests the current
biosecurity and biodefence threat/risks models, which have long debated
the central role of tacit knowledge in the development of malicious use of
biology is less important in the cyberbiosecurity context given the growing
emphasis of cyber-enabled biological production (Mueller 2020: 2–3;
Walsh 2018; Vogel 2013: 61–88). Tacit knowledge refers to the training and
social collaboration experience scientists obtain when working/researching
in a lab in addition to their ability to use effectively their expert knowledge
or technical skills. Mueller argues, however, that traditional assumptions
that a threat actor needs to be trained in biology may matter less now than
ten years ago. The increased automation and integration of biological
processes to computer networks open up new ‘attack vectors and risks’ not
dependent on developing this tacit knowledge (2020: 2–3). This suggests
that new cyberbiosecurity risk/threat methodologies need to reconsider the
impact of ‘tacit knowledge’. Mueller’s three other points that will likely
impact on the development of robust risk/threat methodologies can be
distilled down to two broader issues that require further consideration. The
first is a lack of awareness by many sectors in the bioeconomy about the
‘severity of cyber-physical attacks. And second, Mueller argues that
currently there is an inadequate capacity, expertise or training by many
working in the biosciences to deal with these complex risks/threats’ (Ibid.:
3). We will come back to these points in the final mitigation section. In
summary, the absence of reliable risk/threat methodologies means
stakeholders (including security personnel) responsible for identifying
vulnerabilities within and across sectors in the bioeconomy may be
operating largely in the dark.
The second limitation in understanding cybersecurity risks/threats
relates as noted earlier to the sheer size of the bioeconomy and the number
of public and private institutions and individuals involved in one sort of
biomanufacturing or another. The growing reliance on cyber-physical
systems for bioengineering and biomanufacturing processes combined with
the physical domain can result in both intentional and unintentional
malicious biological outcomes at any point in a bioproduction process. It
can be difficult therefore to assess what threat actors and associated risks
are potentially involved through a continuum of complex bio-
manufacturing processes. For instance, are the manufacturing processes of a
private sector biotech company working on a new vaccine most vulnerable
to threat actors at the customer, supplier, research, manufacturing, quality
control or distribution phase? Or a combination thereof? Types of risks and
threats are also likely to manifest differently at each stage. For example, it’s
possible that risk/threats in a biotech company may be different for a
medical sciences company making hospital equipment; or a global food
company making genetically modified products.
As Murch and DiEuliis (2019) point out ‘mapping the topology of
cyberbiosecurity has just begun’(2019: 1–2). Once topologies are more
defined researchers and stakeholders in the bioeconomy will then be able to
hopefully develop a ‘common language’ in order to define and identify both
risks/threats (Millett et al. 2019: 4). Leaving aside these very real
limitations in governments, public and private sector entities being able to
detect and assess vulnerabilities, some key risks/threat trends are
discernible, and the remaining part of this section will discuss them.

National and Transnational Security Risks

National and transnational cyberbiosecurity risks transcend every sector of
the bioeconomy. Hence transnationally and nationally significant
cyberbiosecurity risks cross over all sectors of the bioeconomy including
the pharmaceuticals/health and the biotechnology sectors discussed in the
following sections. As George (2019) notes there is a diverse range of
critical infrastructure where biology converges with chemistry,
manufacturing, energy, public health and the defence sector—that if
attacked can all have significant national security impacts. As COVID-19
has highlighted starkly, this pandemic is not just a global health crisis but a
national security threat (Walsh 2020). During COVID-19, there have been
threats to health critical infrastructure and supply chains from state and non-
state actors, which impacts adversely on the political, economic and social
wellbeing of nations (Hoffman 2021: 17–45; Javorcik 2020). For example,
during the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020), evidence
emerged of foreign interference (linked to Russian and Chinese intelligence
services) including hacking into global pharmaceutical companies working
on COVID-19 vaccine research and development (Lawless and Kirka
2020). Such attacks can have a number of adverse impacts. Industrial
espionage can result in sabotage, IP theft/commercial losses, significant
public health outcomes and privacy breaches. State actors, criminal groups
and terrorists can through hacking of cyber and bioprocessing systems in a
biotechnology company or a university research facility also produce
dangerous and novel pathogens without the need to do so using physical
samples (Bajema et al. 2018).
In addition to foreign interference, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) has raised national security concerns about foreign access to genomic
data of US citizens through legitimate scientific collaboration, funding of
scientific research, investment in genomic sequencing companies and
purchase of companies, particularly by China (Berger and Schneck 2019:
2). There are other state actors such as Russia and Iran that raise national
security concerns because of both their legitimate (but more often foreign
interference) in ‘Five Eyes’ countries biotechnology sectors. But of most
concern for the foreseeable future is the national security implications of
China’s biotechnology sector and its influence globally. China’s Communist
Party’s (CCP) strategic national security planning begun to prioritise the
development of its biotechnology sector several decades ago. The CCP has
declared that biotech is one of seven priority emerging industries that will
transform China’s economy and ministry of health officials have stated $US
11.8 billion has been invested between 2015–2020 to grow the sector
(Greenwood 2013: 62).
China’s Ministry of Science and Technology is the main driver for
advancing biotech strategies such as ‘Made in China 2025’ aimed at
improving a range of bio-enhanced products that can be produced locally.
The Ministry released a Biotechnology Development Plan, which provided
several goals and milestones for China’s biotechnology industry to achieve
by 2020 and beyond. A key focus in the development plan is to accelerate
research and development and identify new technologies and products
rather than add onto existing ones developed in other countries (Gryphon
Scientific 2019).
China’s advancements in biotechnology have been facilitated in part
through Chinese biotech companies, scientists and students working with
counterparts in the US, Australia and other ‘Five Eyes’ countries in the last
few decades. However, concerns remain in these and other liberal
democracies whether China’s collaboration on biotech research and
development may lead to adverse national security outcomes in the West
(Kania and Wilson 2019; Eshoo and Schiff 2019). For example, Article 6 of
China’s 2017 national intelligence law gives the CCP legal authority to
compel Chinese companies and citizens to collect commercial intelligence
of national security significance abroad if required (Allen 2019: 21). There
is evidence that most major technology firms in China (e.g. in
telecommunications, biotechnology, AI) cooperate extensively with China’s
military and state security services (Ibid.). In addition, since Xi Jinping
became president in 2013, the CCP has actively sought a closer military-
civilian integration in a range of technology areas including biotechnology.
This latter point is particularly concerning to ‘Five Eyes’ countries as
reports suggest China’s military (the PLA) is seeking to weaponise
innovations in biotechnology that may put its military at advantage in case
of conflict with the US and its allies (Kania and Wilson 2019). And as
noted earlier, the growing evidence of foreign interference by China by
hacking into research institutes, universities and biotech companies in the
West during COVID-19 is causing a policy rethink by ‘Five Eyes’ countries
in collaboration with Beijing in biotech R &D. Australia’s new foreign
interference legislation including the government’s closer scrutiny of
research collaboration with certain foreign entities via a taskforce to protect
universities from foreign interference are in response to concerns in
Canberra about the impact of Chinese influence in sensitive dual-use
research areas like biotechnology research and development in Australia
(Medcalf 2019: 109–118; Fair and Farrant 2019).

Pharmaceuticals and Health

The cyberbiosecurity risks to the pharmaceutical and health sectors are
linked given the former supports the latter. The risks to the pharmaceutical
sector are multi-faceted. The extensive research, development and capital
investment in pharmaceuticals make the sector attractive to a range of threat
actors. In particular, the acceleration in the biopharmaceutical industry that
is producing cutting-edge biologic therapies, precision medicines, vaccines
and recombinant proteins are vulnerable to attacks by extortionists looking
for large renumerations to release files back to companies (Guttieres et al.
2019: 2). For example, in 2017, pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co was
attacked by a malicious worm NotPetya (Erman and Finkle 2017). The
malware affected the company’s computer systems used to control its
manufacturing processes—that resulted in shortages of the Gardasil
vaccine. The incident resulted reportedly in $700 million losses for Merck.
The company also had to borrow $240 million worth of Gardasil vaccine
from the US Center for Disease Control’s stockpile—making the total
estimated cost of the cyberattack close to $1 billion (Guttieres et al. 2019:
2). In February 2018, the US and the UK publicly attributed the attack to
Russia (Marsh 2018).
Further attempted cyber-attacks were reported in 2019 by Roche and
Bayer pharmaceuticals using malware believed to be sourced to hackers in
China (Rees 2019). Deliberate/malicious attacks, espionage and criminal
extortion obviously can have a significant impact on the financial health
and reputation of large pharmaceuticals. In the case of economic espionage,
between 2014 and 2015, the FBI (FBI) reported a 53% increase in incidents
of industrial or economic espionage targeted at the US (Barrett 2015).
Pharmaceutical and health care companies are attractive targets due to their
large profits, IP and cutting-edge therapies not available potentially in other
parts of the world. The consequences of either malware attacks or economic
espionage impact on human health as production delays can be life
threatening; and poor-quality therapies that have been tampered with
intentionally can lead to adverse health outcomes. Additionally, the
intentional or accidental release of personal data of patients involved in
clinical trials can be psychologically damaging.
In addition to the vulnerabilities in the pharmaceutical sector, the health
care industry is likewise at increased risk of cyberbiosecurity attacks. Both
industrial/economic espionage and malicious ransomware attacks are two
modes of cyber-attacks on the rise across the health care sector. Accurate
data for malicious criminal attacks in the health care sector have not been
assembled in most countries; however, the US Department of Health and
Human services has noted a 10% increase in industrial espionage each year
since 2010 and that the health care industry accounts for 18% of all data
breaches with 63% caused by criminal or malicious attacks (Guttieres et al.
2019: 2). One recent ransomware attack in the UK shows the scale of
damage such attacks can have on the health care sector. In May 2017, a
WannaCry ransomware attacked several hospitals in the UK’s NHS
resulting in disruption to over 6912 medical appointments and impacting on
1200 pieces of IT-connected diagnostic equipment (NAO 2018). It’s clear
that these ransomware attacks and also sabotage of digital and physical
health infrastructure can have serious consequences on patient welfare
including loss of life.
Biotechnology
As defined by Berger, biotechnology ‘means the exploitation of biological
processes for industrial and scientific purposes and includes genetic
manipulation of microbes, plants, animals, human cells, nucleic acids (the
building blocks of genomes) and proteins (the functional units in
cells)’(Berger and Schneck 2019: 3). And as discussed earlier, advanced
biotechnology applications are increasingly more common across a range of
sectors in the bioeconomy including research, health, pharmaceuticals,
agriculture, energy and national security. Innovation and discoveries across
the diverse biotechnology sector are being particularly facilitated by the
application and generation of digital forms of biological data. Bio data is
‘made online via databases, generated in labs, shared across teams globally
via online or cloud-based software’ (Ibid.: 3). In some areas of
biotechnology, it is likely that software and broader IT architecture may be
sufficiently secure to cyber-attacks, though researchers argue that there
remains limited understanding about several potential cyber security
weaknesses in the use of many genomic databases (Vinatzer et al. 2019: 1).
Substantial sums of money have been invested in research that generate
genomic data, which can be used to detect diseases in different contexts
such as food-borne diseases, bacterial infections in hospitals and more
recently assisting in contact tracing and identifying new strains of COVID-
19 (Ibid.: 2; Randhawa et al. 2020; Seemann et al. 2020: 1–9). Over the
‘last 30 years public genomic databases have now assembled as Vinazter et
al. point out, the entire body of genome research knowledge gained’ (2019:
2). Large genomic databases such as the National Center for Biotechnology
Information (NCBI) located at the US National Institutes of Health provides
researchers access to query these databases. The concern is that the
confidentiality, integrity and availability of genomic data that is relatively
open to scientists/academics via open-source software could also be easily
accessible to others with more malicious intent. Malicious actors acting as
‘insiders’ could access personal genomic data, use the sequencing data to
produce a dangerous pathogen or steel the data for commercial gain. For
example, in 2017 four former employees of a US biotechnology company
(Genentech) were indicted for stealing trade secrets to assist a new
employer (JHL Biotech Inc) based in Taiwan in developing and
manufacturing a product similar to the versions of Genenetech’s medicines
(NAS 2020: 312). Likewise, an external attacker could via an email
phishing attack gain access to a research facility’s open access to a genomic
database to steal IP, disrupt research or make bacteria, virus or medical
therapies that are highly toxic to humans with little knowledge of the
penetration.
As noted earlier, the cyber-physical nature of biotechnology raises
unprecedented security concerns. Computers can be compromised by
encoding malware in DNA sequences, and biological threats can be
synthesised using publicly available data. For example, in an experiment
conducted in 2017 scientists at the University of Washington were able to
insert malware in DNA strands. When the DNA was sequenced the
malware was activated and the scientists were able to take over the
computer analysing the DNA (Knapp 2018). The NAS report lists several
other cyberbiosecurity attacks to the bioeconomy in the period (2015–19)
ranging from data breaches, IP theft, equipment vulnerabilities and hacking
of biotech companies by state actors including Iran (NAS 2020: 303–304).
Similarly, the increasing number of biotech companies involved in ever
more advanced DNA sequencing lowers the cost to both legitimate and
illegitimate customers sourcing biomaterials. ‘Customers’ who are bad
actors may be able to order either dangerous sequences or ones that have
that potential from a company whose screening systems do not pick up the
bonafides or lack thereof of the customer. Similarly, biofoundaries may
inadvertently produce components of high consequence biological agents
solely from digital information provided by a customer (Diggans and
Leproust 2019).
But it is not just vulnerabilities related to access or manipulation to
biodata such as genomic data that can have adverse high-impact
consequences across the biotech sector. Cyber-attacks on biological,
medical and agriculture infrastructure can result in a cascading amount of
uncertain or unintended effects to human health and the environment if
biotech products and systems have been attacked by state or non-state
actors. For example, the bioprocesses involved in a medicine that is
designed to be inhaled or ingested may be manipulated in a way that the
altered biological pathways adversely impact other aspects of human health.
Similarly, an altered biotech agricultural product designed to activate at a
certain temperature or wind speed could damage water supply or agriculture
if released accidentally or intentionally (Bajema et al. 2018; Wintle et al.
2017; Heinemann and Walker 2019: 113–123; DiEuliis and Giordano 2017:
296–302). The uncertain yet potentially adverse consequences of a threat
actor circumventing normal bioprocessing channels and security controls in
biotech companies have not been studied extensively. Additionally, the
growing trend in the digitisation of biotechnology and companies applying
AI to partially or fully automate bioprocessing devices, mechanisms,
equipment and infrastructure enhances vulnerabilities to a range of attack
vectors. Attack vectors include: biodata attacks, operational security
attacks, sabotage, foreign interference and inhibiting quality control. The
consequences of vulnerabilities and their potential for attacks on semi- and
automated bioprocesses are concerning because they remain largely
unchartered.

Mitigation Strategies
In this final section, the focus shifts from surveying cyberbiosecurity
threats/risks to what can be done to protect, disrupt and manage them. As
discussed earlier, the threats/risks across the bioeconomy are diverse,
complex and multi-layered. Hence, it is unlikely that there will be one ‘off
the shelf’ set of mitigation strategies to deal with all threat/risk in all
contexts. Here we will briefly discuss three key areas where effective
mitigation strategies are likely to come from regardless of the particular
sector of the bioeconomy one examines. These are: policy and legal
measures, risk and threat management and workforce planning issues. In
the remaining space, the objective is to briefly scope how each area
working together will improve the effectiveness of all mitigation measures.
It is not possible to expand fully on each issue given the complexity of each
could be a chapter on its own. But the brief discussion provides the reader a
foundation for further detailed investigation about how different ‘Five
Eyes’ and other liberal democracies may build on the broad mitigation
principles discussed below.

Policy and Legal Measures

As discussed, cyberbiosecurity threats/risks are neither solely cybersecurity
nor biosecurity issues that can be managed by traditional security measures
that have been put in place to manage these issues in the past. It is clear that
in the last decade most ‘Five Eyes’ countries have recognised that effective
mitigation measures against cybersecurity threats/risks require the whole of
government strategies that include working closely with the private sector
(e.g. Australia’s Cyber Security Strategy 2020 and US Cyber Security
Strategy 2018). Managing cyberbiosecurity risk/threats will also require the
same broad approach adopted in these strategies that seeks to involve all
sectors of government (justice, national security and intelligence, law
enforcement, universities, agriculture, energy and industry). In short, the
rapid technological changes underway in the bioeconomy require a national
strategic plan for managing cyberbiosecurity risks/threats that methodically
articulates how multi-disciplinary public and private partnerships should
manage these risks/threats. Leaving aside the terrible loss of life, the impact
of COVID-19 has also laid bare other risks and threats, which could also
lead to loss of life, poor health outcomes and the weakening of the nation’s
economic and social resilience. As noted, during COVID-19 there have
been threats to critical health infrastructure, cyber-attacks and attempted IP
thefts of biosciences R & D. COVID-19 has underscored how a pandemic
can make nation’s national security vulnerable in range of interconnected
ways. This suggests that any government’s national strategic approach to
cyberbiosecurity should be drafted within a broader refashioned national
health security strategy, which contextualises both the significance of these
threats and managing future pandemics. A national health security strategy
could demonstrate how various health security risks/threats (including
pandemics and cyberbiosecurity) are related to each other—or even in some
cases converge—and what are the best ways to mitigate against them in the
future (Walsh 2020: 586–602).
At the time of writing, it is not clear whether ‘Five Eyes’ countries will
include cyberbiosecurity threats in a broader health security strategy along
with pandemics or whether they again become siloed away—the former
being absorbed into national cyber security strategies and the latter included
in national public health preparedness or biodefense strategies. In January
2021, the incoming Biden Administration issued a National Strategy for
COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness and National Security
Memorandum on US Global Leadership to Strengthen the International
COVID-19 Response and Advance Global Security and Biological
Preparedness (White House 2021a; White House 2021b). Both documents
particularly the latter show the Administration sees the links between
pandemics and other health security risks/threats including protecting
infrastructure from cyber-attacks, IP theft and the strategic challenges from
emerging biotechnologies (White House 2021b). But given that the US and
allies such as the UK, Australia, Canada and NATO countries are still
dealing with the post-acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, it remains to
be seen two years from now (2023) whether governments have developed
and operationalised coherent national health security strategies that take a
broader view of risks/threats that includes the cyberbiosecurity dimension.
It is possible in the US, the UK, Australia and other liberal democracies that
once their populations are effectively vaccinated against COVID-19, some
of the current policy focus on broader health security issues such as
cyberbiosecurity risks/threats may receive less policy attention as busy
policymakers go onto the next big national security priority.
However, if governments were able to articulate coherent and well-
resourced national health security strategies other mitigation measures need
to be also included. In addition to articulating how government could
support public and private institutions across the bioeconomy against such
risks/threats, a national strategy would also need to identify regulatory and
legislative measures that will help with risk/threat mitigation. Legislation in
many areas of security, but particularly cyber and biology, tends to lag
behind technological advances in these field (Walsh 2018). Hence while it
is important for governments to improve legislative responses to these
risk/threats the extremely complex and growing integration of both cyber
and biological risks will not be easily or effectively captured legislatively
for many countries in the short to medium term. Arguably, other more
effective policy responses will include reviewing the regulatory architecture
that currently sits over parts of the bioeconomy in various sectors such as
biological research, biotechnology, biosecurity, biosafety, agriculture and
the environment.
The often unique and multi-disciplinary solutions required to mitigate
against cyberbiosecurity risks/threats suggest current regulatory
frameworks in place, for example, to regulate physical biosafety in labs or
vet individuals working in labs with dangerous pathogens are not going to
be fit for purpose to mitigate against risks/threats that can be instigated
remotely through malware attacks (Walsh 2018). There are no easy or
single set of regulatory solutions that will mitigate against all
cyberbiosecurity risks/threats. It may be that regulatory mechanisms might
involve different compliance and enforcement mechanisms depending on
whether a company is working in bio-agriculture or clinical research. But
developing standards for a particular sector of the bioeconomy will help
build better regulatory mechanisms and legislative responses over time for
all sectors. As in more recent traditional government national cyber security
strategies, national governments will need to work closely with private
sector companies in pharmaceuticals/health, biotechnology and others to
establish standards that ideally industry can use to self-regulate, but these
will also need to articulate penalties for poor compliance. Similarly, as we
have seen recently with national cyber strategies and their objectives to use
all aspects of government including national SIGINT agencies to protect
private sector critical infrastructure if required, a similar approach is needed
in mitigating against serious cyberbiosecurity risks/threats in the private
sector where regulation measures are insufficient (Australia’s Cyber
Security 2020: 21).

Risk and Threat Management

As noted earlier, both an understanding and rigorous assessment of many
cyberbiosecurity risks/threats across the bioeconomy are limited. This in
part is due to them not being either traditional cyber or biosecurity threats
that can be assessed using existing assessment methodologies and also
because the increasing reliance on cyber-physical systems and the
automation of biomanufacturing makes assessment difficult. Nevertheless,
it is critical that detailed classification of both risk and threat pathways are
achieved within and across sectors in the bioeconomy. Again, a
comprehensive national health security strategy, which details strategic and
operational responses to these complex risks/threats, can provide guidance
to the public and private sector on how to approach risk/threat identification
and classification. Some research has begun to address critical knowledge
gaps of cybersecurity risks/threats. For example, Murch and colleagues’ in-
depth testing for vulnerabilities in a specific bio-manufacturing facility
underscores the type of work required to better understand and assess
risks/threats (Murch et al. 2018: 4). But testing vulnerabilities needs to be
expanded within and across different sectors in the bioeconomy in order to
both classify risk/threat types, but also to provide evidence to inform better
risk/threat assessment methodologies.
Clearly all stakeholders in the bioeconomy: governments, national
intelligence communities, company CEOs and their boards, security
managers, scientists, researchers, suppliers, distributors—just to name a few
—have a stake in improving cyberbiosecurity risks/threats assessments so
they can be more effectively managed and mitigated. As with the policy and
legal measures discussed above, a multi-disciplinary and whole of
government approach to developing evidence-based risk and threat
assessments are the way forward for putting in place effective mitigation
strategies.

Workforce Planning
A final area that will be crucial to improving mitigation strategies against
cyberbiosecurity risks/threats will be a greater sustained focus on training
the bioeconomy workforce about them. Since 9/11, significant
improvements have been made in most Western countries in countering
intentional biosecurity threats (e.g. weaponising dangerous biological-
bacteria, viruses and toxins, the deliberate misuse of dual-use technologies)
and bolstering biosafety policies, guidelines and regulations (e.g.
background checks, guidance for construction and operation of secure BSL-
3 and 4 labs) (Walsh 2018: 37). Additionally, from 2001 onwards greater
efforts have been made in many ‘Five Eyes’ countries to train scientists,
researchers and others working in the bioeconomy about security risks in
their working environments (Sture et al. 2013: 289–321; Salerno and
Gaudioso 2015; Slayton et al. 2013: 51–70). But as several researchers have
observed, security and safety training in the life sciences has not necessarily
been consistent, sufficient or kept up as new bio-threats and risks have
evolved (Richardson et al. 2019; Moritz et al. 2020: 856–858). Moritz et al.
provide a useful summary of biosecurity credential core competencies for
security awareness training of life sciences workers, but further work is
needed to develop this across sectors in the bioeconomy including
certification that workers have been trained and training standards remain
contemporary given the significant changes in the bioeconomy. It is not just
scientists and researchers that need security awareness training, but also
security managers and their teams responsible for keeping their institutions
safe. As noted earlier, there are in some institutions across the bioeconomy
a kind of organisational cultural bias that view some cyberbiosecurity
risk/threats as merely just more examples of a ransomware attack that can
be dealt with using traditional IT security solutions (Mueller 2020: 3). The
convergence of cyber, physical and biological systems across sectors in the
bioeconomy presents new risks/threats and security managers operating in
health, biotech or other bio-sectors need also further training to manage
these.
The broader biosecurity and bioterrorism sectors, where security and
health experts have both been involved in managing them, have been
likened to two tribes working on the same problem, but rarely together
(Walsh 2020: 586–602). So too one could argue is the case in
cyberbiosecurity with biotech experts not understanding the security issues,
and the security personnel not understanding the intricacies of the
biological process involved (Mueller 2020). Clearly effective mitigation can
only occur when these two tribes begin to work together more effectively.

Conclusion
Cyberbiosecurity represents a new field where significant advancements in
computers, artificial intelligence, automation, engineering come together
with equally profound changes in synthetic biology and biotechnology. The
net result are innovations in health, medicine, energy, food, agriculture and
even in national security. Yet, as the integration of these multi-disciplinary
technologies brings beneficial outcomes to nations, numerous
vulnerabilities and risks are arising. At this point, detailed risk/threat
analysis of sectors in the bioeconomy is not available to provide evidence
of where the greatest risks are as well as the type of threat actors that may
wish to exploit weakness in companies involved in biomanufacturing,
research and development. However, research is growing and now
beginning to highlight cyberbiosecurity risks/threats and what some of their
impact on health, critical infrastructure, national security, economic and
social resilience may be.
This research effort needs to grow in pace and scale, but most critically
mitigation strategies that are framed within a national health security
strategy which clearly articulates risk/threat management responsibilities of
governments and the private sector are urgently needed. COVID-19 has
underscored that pandemics or indeed any other health security risk/threat
are not just owned by public health authorities. Vulnerabilities in
biotechnologies used for pharmaceuticals, agriculture, medicine, health
could be adversely exploited in ways that don’t just result in profit or IP
loss for bioscience companies, but other high-consequence impacts such as
loss of life, environmental damage and significant privacy breaches. While
not all security managers work in the bioeconomy, its broad intersection
with many other public and private institutions in the broader economy
suggests that most in their careers will come across issues that overlap
cyberbiosecurity risks/threats. Hence, this chapter has sought to provide a
general awareness to all in the security sector about the need to understand
these growing and complex risks/threats.

Recommended Readings
Cyberbiosecurity is an area where there are a diverse number of disciplines
contributing to the field, including but not limited to those working in
public health, biology, epidemiology, plant and animal health, national
security studies, cyber and engineering. The suggested readings listed here
are focused on the national security, dual-use research and biotechnology
dimensions of cyberbiosecurity. For an accessible introduction to
cyberbiosecurity issues as they impact on the broader bioeconomy, see
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2020).
Safeguarding the Bioeconomy. Washington, DC: The National Academies
Press. For perspectives on the role of national security intelligence in
managing biosecurity and cyberbiosecurity threats see Walsh’s Intelligence
Biosecurity and Bioterrorism (2018). For a good introduction overall to the
threat and risk-scape for cyberbiosecurity see, Mueller’s article, Facing the
2020 Pandemic: What Does Cyberbiosecurity Want Us to Know to
Safeguard the Future? (2020). For a good discussion of vulnerabilities of
data produced in the bioeconomy see Berger and Schneck’s article, P. A.
National and Transnational Security Implications of Asymmetric Access to
and Use of Biological Data (2019). Finally, the journal Frontiers in
Bioengineering and Biotechnology is a good place for readers to access
regularly given its focus on many cyberbiosecurity issues.

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M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_17

17. Border Security: An Essential but

Effective Tool in Combatting Cross-
Border Crime
Anthony Minnaar1
(1) Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of
Limpopo, Sovenga, South Africa

Abstract
Effective border security (excluding the function of borderline protection),
within overarching border control structures at ports of entry and land
border posts, is an essential part of state strategies for combatting cross-
border crime. However, to be effective and in anyway moderately
successful requires a co-ordinated multi-level agency co-operative
approach. Such an approach is crucial given the diversity of criminal
activities that can and do occur at border points of entry be they air, sea or
land. Critical to modern-day border security is the use and implementation
of a range of technology and aids (equipment) allied to efficient
management structures to effectively combat any cross-border criminal
activity, usually of a transnational organised form. In addition, local
agencies need to adhere and comply (full enforcement) to several
international treaties, conventions, protocols and policies in implementing
any border management model with an embedded border security regime.

Introduction
Essentially border controls refer to states/governments’ efforts to regulate
and monitor the movement of people, animals and goods across their
recognised international borders (US Legal n.d.). In other words, the
facilitation of legitimate travel and trade. Within this framework of border
controls there is so-called border security, namely: the border control
policies adopted by a country or group of countries to combat unauthorised
travel or trade (movement of illicit goods) across its borders; to limit illegal
immigration; combat transnational crime and prevent wanted criminals
from travelling or entering a country, and more latterly incursions by
terrorist groupings (US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) n.d.).
The primary objective then of border security is more to deal with the
threats and pressures of crime, whether that emanates from illegal
migration, terrorism, or criminal attacks on the tax base—the latter usually
being from large-scale smuggling and trafficking of illicit substances,
counterfeit goods and other contraband and other fraudulent transactions—
thereby evading customs and excise dues or undervaluing goods brought
into a country via fraudulent and/or forged documentation, often facilitated
by bribery and corruption at the borders. Border security also implies the
protection (securing) of the border itself, the international transport
networks (land, air and sea) and the people using them and working on
them (UK Cabinet Office 2007, p. 5).
However, ancillary to border control and security services there is also
the matter of borderline protection, often handled by paramilitary or regular
military units or a special militarised unit of border police that have the
requisite protection equipment and vehicles for land/sea patrolling of
extensive borders, as well as air surveillance capabilities. But if poor
borderline protection exists the resulting porous borders are also a factor in
facilitating the growth of smuggling and trafficking of illicit goods across
borders, without having recourse to official entry points. Accordingly, for
border controls and security overall to be effective in combatting
transnational and cross-border organised crime activities the borderline also
needs to be ‘hardened’ with crime combatting responses then not only being
co-ordinated in a co-operative framework at ports of entry and border posts
but also integrated with the borderline protection functions.
While the control and regulation of the international movement of
people and goods across borders grew apace in the twentieth century, so too
was it matched by the growth in the extent of criminal exploitation of
systemic border control shortcomings, loopholes and other weaknesses—all
in an ever more professional, sophisticated and organised manner within
expanding international criminal network(s) of syndicate groupings. Such
criminal exploitation is also more and more exhibiting co-ordination and
co-operation between criminal syndicates (organised crime) representing an
array of different primary crime products or categories of criminal
activities.
Not only does such transnational cross-border crime rob the fiscus of
the state of much needed income from taxes and customs and excise duties,
but more often than not exploits a range of lax, ineffective or even non-
existent border control and weak security systems at international ports of
entry (sea, land and air), but also takes advantage of human weakness of
officials by bribing and corrupting border control officials.

International Regulatory Framework with

Reference to Border Controls/Security and
Transnational Organised Crime
Post-First World War (1914–1918), there has occurred great strides in both
international standardisation of border management protocols but also the
global implementation of more effective border controls and allied security
measures, essentially by means of an internationally accepted Border
Control Management Model (BCMM) framework of minimum standards—
based on a number of border controls focused international treaties and
conventions, such as the 1919 International Air Convention, which
provided for the implementation of secure border controls at international
airports. In 1945 this Convention was expanded by the so-called Chicago
Convention on International Civil Aviation that not only governed all
aspects of civil aviation from passenger safety to technical aspects of flying,
but, in April 1947, also set up the International Civil Aviation Organisation
(ICAO). Each signatory to ICAO was given the responsibility of ensuring
that all operators at any airport designated as an international port of entry
adhere to the security requirements and safety measures as contained in the
comprehensive Annex 17, which included the so-called Aviation Security
Mechanism (ASM) (International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) n.d.).
Together with ICAO, the International Air Transport Association
(IATA), has also had a significant impact on security and cargo handling at
airports, the latter by developing a Security Manual, which sets out the
standards for the protection of civil aviation and air cargo against unlawful
interference or criminal acts. In addition, IATA has a Cargo Security Task
Force (CSTF), which was established to define the airline industry’s
position on cargo security and to ensure that all members implement cargo
security measures properly, and is actively involved in promoting the
implementation of harmonised cargo security standards worldwide. CSTF,
together with IATA Cargo, works with airline members, freight forwarders,
customs administrators, shippers and government authorities to improve
standards in shipment documentation and the automated tracking of cargo.
Furthermore, the Global Aviation Security Action Group (GASAG) collates
all information on security from the aviation industry, in order to provide an
effective worldwide security system (International Air Transport
Association (IATA) n.d.).
Since such a large proportion of global passengers and goods have the
USA as their destination, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
has had a seminal influence on security and safety requirements for the
international aviation industry. If goods and passengers do not comply with
the FAA’s security requirements they run the risk of not having entry
accepted by the American authorities. Accordingly, it has become doubly
important for operators and carriers worldwide to comply with the FAA
rules and standards. In essence the FAA regulations have become an
international benchmark for best practice. In addition, the USA’s
International Security and Development Co-operation Act, passed in 1985,
significantly expanded the FAA’s role in aviation security. This Act
specifically requires assessment of the effectiveness of the security
measures at foreign airports that are departure points for passengers and
cargo to the USA. As a result, international airports and air carriers outside
the USA are periodically inspected by FAA Special Agents, to ensure they
continue to meet the requirements of the FAA Air Security Programmes
(ASPs). As its criteria, the FAA country assessments apply the minimum
standards and recommended practices established by ICAO under Annex 17
(US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) n.d.).
FAA aviation strictures were also complemented by the US Customs
Service operations, especially at the land borders. In 1996 the US Customs
Service had assisted in the establishment of the Business Alliance for
Secure Commerce (BASC) as a customs and business anti-smuggling
coalition. The goal was to protect the US border by enlisting business in the
fight to keep drugs and illicit goods from entering the USA inside
containers, trucks, ships and aircraft, as well as to complement and
strengthen the Carrier Initiative Programme (CIP) and the Land Border
Initiative Programme (LBCIP). The LBCIP was specifically designed to
prevent smugglers of illicit drugs from utilising commercial land
conveyances for their contraband. The BASC, CIP and LBCIP programmes
were voluntary but encouraged businesses to implement preventative
measures to protect their supply chains from point of foreign origin to the
end destination in the USA (Business Alliance for Secure Commerce
(BASC) n.d.).
In 1948, in terms of international regulatory frameworks for sea
transport and cargo, an international conference in Geneva adopted a
convention that formally established the Inter-Governmental Maritime
Consultative Organisation (IMCO) (renamed in 1982 as the International
Maritime Organisation (IMO)). In 1958 this Convention entered into force,
thereafter IMCO/IMO took responsibility for the safety and movement of
shipping traffic and cargo containers by promoting more effective maritime
safety, and turned its attention to revising the International Convention for
the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) (adopted 1 November 1974; entry into
force: 25 May 1980) (International Maritime Organisation (IMO) n.d.-a) &
n.d.-b). Unlike ICAO, the IMO does not have specific security and safety
manuals relating to port side security (i.e. the securing of restricted areas,
e.g., berths/offloading bays, warehouses and stores, and goods at harbours).
These responsibilities are left to the local port authorities, the cargo and
warehouse operators or their agents, and the border police and customs and
excise inspectors at harbours (Minnaar 2003, p. 22).
The so-called Schengen Agreement, signed on 14 June 1985, is of
importance within the context of international border control regulations
and security at borders, since it aimed for the gradual abolishment of
internal border controls of EU Schengen member signatories, but
simultaneously leading to the imposition of stricter controls on their
external borders. However, it was only on 19 June 1990 that the Schengen
Convention was signed which dealt directly with the practical issues of the
elimination of internal border controls of member countries, with
signatories only deciding to abolish their internal border checks as from 26
March 1995. The signing in May 1999 of The Treaty of Amsterdam
formalised the Schengen Agreement within the legal framework of the
European Union. By February 2008 26 EU member states had signed the
Schengen Convention (European Union (EU) n.d.).
In 2006, to standardise border controls at external borders of member
countries of the Schengen area, the EU published a Practical Handbook for
Border Guards (updated in 2019) (EU 2006, 2019). This handbook covered
the whole range of functions/services at Schengen area external land, air
and sea borders. However, it also included such law enforcement functions
as searches and seizures; surveillance; intelligence gathering; and (crime)
risk assessments—the latter all aimed at the prevention of cross-border
transnational crimes, inter alia smuggling/trafficking and the use of
fraudulent documents to enter the Schengen Treaty area. The
implementation, in close co-operation with all member states, of the
Schengen Area border control regulations, as outlined in the Convention
and made practical by the handbook, is overseen by the European Border
and Coast Guard Agency (also known as FRONTEX) and was formally set
up in 2004 to reinforce and streamline co-operation between all EU
Schengen area national border authorities (EU 2019). Overall, the Schengen
handbook provided a good deal of direction for other countries to follow
and implement for their own more effective and efficient border controls
and security at borders.
The abovementioned conventions and treaties provided the foundational
international regulatory frameworks for the implementation of standardised
safety and security controls at borders (air, sea and land ports of entry), that
is, the so-called Border Control Management Model. But, similar to many
regulatory frameworks, with full acceptance and implementation left to
local jurisdictions, adherence to the security requirements for border
controls was at best patchy and inadequate with overall poor compliance to
minimum standards, at worst non-existent—all of which created exploitable
opportunities for penetration by organised crime groupings. In particular,
the regular inspection/reviews of foreign border controls and security
measures by officials of the US immigration, border police, aviation
administration and coast guard services consistently revealed numerous
shortcomings in various foreign countries’ border controls.
A case in point being the countrywide assessment in December 1996 by
a US team of inspectors of the existing border control regime of South
Africa. In their report to the South African government, they noted that,
overall, the South African border control command structure (covering all
functions, not just policing) appeared to be ‘disjointed’, and at each port of
entry visited it was noted that there was “an unacceptable level of security”,
with the harbours exhibiting a notable absence of security personnel (US
Immigration and Naturalization Service 1997, p. 17). The report concluded
that, overall, the situation at South Africa’s land, sea and air borders was
unacceptable and inadequate, and that: “a general lack of security leaves the
ports [of entry] vulnerable to the smuggling of people, goods, weapons and
drugs” (US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) 1997, p. 9).
In the five years after the US assessment of the South African border
controls, nothing much seemed to have changed in terms of controls and
security at international borders. After the issuance of the Trafficking in
Persons Protocol, which came into effect in December 2003, the United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) had developed a Toolkit to
combat trafficking in persons, to assist all member states to improve, inter
alia, their border controls. However, one of the justifications for the
Toolkit’s issuance was that the UNDOC had found that:

The permeability [penetrability and porosity] of borders aids

criminal organizations [both] …regionally and internationally. The
technical capacity of border control agencies to detect and prevent
trafficking is often inadequate and needs to be improved. For
instance, at border crossings in many States there are no
telecommunication facilities or even manual recordkeeping of the
crossings of commercial carriers. Border control agencies and
border police lack staff, infrastructure and funding. Criminal
networks benefit from that situation and are transporting groups
across borders where there are no regular inspections. (United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) 2003, p. 216)

It would, therefore, appear that, notwithstanding attempts to implement

more effective and internationally regulated border controls overall and in
particular security measures to curb transnational organised crime activities,
these problematic border control issues were widespread across the globe
but more so in the poorer and underdeveloped regions of the world where
funding for more effective border controls and security measures was
always in short supply, largely being needed for more urgent social poverty
alleviation programmes in most poor countries. These problems at borders
continued, irrespective of the fact that, in particular, US agencies such as
the FAA, INS and the Customs Service provided extensive training
programmes via manuals, workshops and seminars for improving the
professionalism of border control management, while similar law
enforcement at borders training was provided by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI), to countries worldwide. These training programmes
were usually reinforced by US, UK and EU funding of requisite border
control and security equipment.

Reinforcement of Border Security with United

Nations Conventions
However, in the course of the early 2000s, three additional international
conventions, with reference to border controls, are of special importance
since they reinforced the border control structures as outlined in the above
foundational measures as formulated by ICAO, IMO, FAA and Schengen.
These were, namely: (i) United Nations Convention against Transnational
Organized Crime (signed 12 December 2000; entry into force 29 September
2003); (ii) The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in
Persons, Especially Women and Children (signed 12 December 2000;
effective 25 December 2003) (also referred to as the Trafficking in Persons
Protocol and being an adjunct protocol to the United Nations Convention
against Transnational Organized Crime); and (iii) United Nations
Convention against Corruption (adopted 31 October 2003; entry into force
14 December 2005).
All three of these UN Conventions had sections dealing with border
controls and border security measures and established a range of minimum
standards to which all signatories were compelled to adhere, but were free,
as they saw fit, to implement stricter measures. In addition, all three were
designed to operate in concert and symbiotically with each other but also to
deal with other criminal activities and not only of the broadly defined crime
categories of each convention’s focus (UNODC 2003, p. 8). Accordingly,
these two Conventions and Protocol aimed, in a comprehensive manner and
across borders, in law enforcement terms, at the facilitation of the
investigation and prosecution of all these criminal activities. For instance:
using specialised investigation techniques (reactive, proactive, disruptive
and parallel financial investigations); instituting the seizure of assets and
confiscation of the proceeds of crime; intelligence gathering and exchange
of information between country and international law enforcement agencies
(e.g., Interpol, Europol, FBI, etc.), including joint investigations and law
enforcement co-operation. With specific reference to border control
measures all signatories to the Conventions and Protocol were required to
strengthen their border control regimes in the most effective and efficient
manner possible (and to the extent to which they were able to fund such
improvements). Overall, this bolstering of borders was premised on the
need to enforce full co-operation between all border control agencies and
roleplayers at a state’s borders, which co-operate to include the
establishment of direct inter-agency channels of communication (UNODC
2003, pp. 173–243; United Nations (UN) 2004).
Similarly to the pre-2000 conventions and treaties, all three UN
Conventions were premised on the provision of comprehensive training
programmes, inter alia for border control management—individually
focused on each convention’s core crime category—mostly funded by the
UN and provided by the UNODC or specialist consultants contracted by the
latter.
Irrespective of these regulations bolstering border controls and security
the growth in the 1990s of global traffic, both in trade (goods) and persons
(travellers), was matched with the advance in the size and sophistication of
operating transnational organised crime groupings. This growth in border
traffic revealed the existence of persistent shortcomings and weaknesses in
many country’s border controls. These ‘opportunities’ were exploited and
manipulated by organised crime in a number of ways.

Exploitation of Problems at Ports of Entry/Border

Posts by Organised Crime
At poorly organised border ports of entry or where there has been the
failure to implement strict controls, effective security measures and
monitoring procedures, organised crime groupings have routinely exploited
the resulting disorganised chaos, namely: inadequate search methods and
structural shortcomings of port of entry (sea and air) and land border post
facilities (physical buildings), where officials are only able to deal with a
very small percentage of all vehicle and cargo moving through these access
control points. Such deficiencies and weaknesses in control measures
enable organised crime syndicates to transport illicit goods in and out of a
country. Many of the criminal syndicates, because of the lack of search and
inspection of border traffic, utilise many standard smuggling techniques,
such as hidden compartments in vehicles (both cars and trucks and trailers),
baggage/luggage and containers or even hidden among other legit goods
and products (unfortunately containers are not exclusively limited to the
transport of legal goods and are also used to ‘hide’ a range of illicit
merchandise and products/goods). This is particularly the case at land
border posts, especially at times of peak traffic volumes. In other words,
illegal goods are suspected to be moved by organised crime syndicates
under cover of the large volumes of traffic at border posts. The small-time
smugglers, who used to carry drugs, firearms and other illicit goods on foot
across porous ‘soft’ borders, also began to manipulate and exploit the
opportunities provided by the general disarray at border posts caused by the
high volumes passing through, so as to conceal illegal goods and bring them
into a country by truck or car (see Hennop 2001). In addition, several
exploiting organised crime drug trafficking networks make use of so-called
drug mules to transport a variety of drugs through ports of entry (see Van
Heerden and Minnaar 2016).
Other deficiencies encountered at borders during the 1990s that
intensified border control limitations ranged from inadequate or lack of
integrated co-operative information systems and databases, which often
resulted in the failure to apply advance intelligence and crime information
analysis to co-ordinated inspection and detection processes for smuggled
goods at borders. This was also frequently compounded by a lack of
suitable equipment (e.g. container scanner x-ray machines) to search and
inspect goods consignments, vehicles and incoming containers. This
situation was also exacerbated by staffing shortages, lack of specialised
training and professionalisation of border control management structures
and border personnel.
One of the primary underlying issues of poor or lax border controls has
been the ever-present and continuous attempts by organised crime to
subvert the integrity and honesty of border officials by means of bribery and
corruption, and if that does not work then by threats, intimidation and on
occasion even by murder. By means of such corrupting activities, organised
crime try to circumvent and bypass any existing border controls aimed at
combatting all cross-border crime. However, the organised crime syndicates
can usually succeed in their cross-border crime operations only with the
assistance of persons (both officials of the state and private employees) at
border ports of entry. The extent of cross-border criminal activities would
certainly not have reached the levels they did in the 1990s if there were no
corrupt officials at grassroots level (extending to border police, immigration
officers to the customs and excise officers at the ports of entry). Such
officials at operational grassroots level are susceptible to bribery and are
therefore in the best position to assist criminals and organised crime
syndicates in obtaining false or fraudulent documents or of accepting forged
documentation. Such persons, being lower down the earning-capacity chain,
are vulnerable and often easily ‘bought’ (bribed) by organised crime
syndicates. The enlistment of such corrupt officials is an essential
ingredient in the survival and success of the transnational organised crime
syndicates. This bribery and corruption at borders by organised crime
syndicates follow the usual pattern of fraudulent documentation, non-
declaration or false values, forged goods manifests or bills of lading, paying
certain officials to ‘turn a blind eye’ or not to search containers, cargos and
goods consignments too closely or merely to approve of their through
passage without inspecting and rubber stamping inspection forms.
Organised crime uses many innovative ways to enmesh officials in their
corruption networks at borders, inter alia by concealing bribe payments
(‘compensation for services rendered’) by giving officials, and even
members of law enforcement, ‘under-the-counter’ ‘perks/gifts’ (Minnaar
1999, pp. 3–5, 2003, pp. 23–24).
All of the abovementioned shortcomings in the application of border
security created the space which, during the 1990s, was fully exploited by
organised crime to pursue their cross-border criminal activities with greater
ease and a degree of impunity. However, into the border controls and
security context of the late 1990s and the existing regulatory and
convention/protocol mix came the events of 11 September 2001 (commonly
referred to as 9/11), namely: the terrorist attacks on the USA.

The Impact Significance of the 9/11 Attacks on

Border Security
The 9/11 targeted attacks had the effect of almost instantaneously raising
the awareness among the global community of the need for the stricter
monitoring of the cross-border movement of people and goods. In the post-
9/11 period, worldwide, there occurred a renewed emphasis on security
measures at land-, air- and sea-ports of entry. The USA and the UK almost
immediately introduced mechanisms to tighten entry and screening
procedures for all travellers, their baggage and cargo wishing to enter these
two countries. Goods were also to be more stringently inspected, and the
USA refused to allow entry to cargo containers unless they had been
certified as having been properly checked and cleared at their points of
departure (country of origin) (Minnaar 2003, p. 11).
Until the events of 11 September 2001, the ICAO model was regarded
as adequate and sufficient to ensure the safety of passengers, aircraft and
goods. However, in December 2001 the ICAO adopted an amendment to
Annex 17, called Amendment 10, which came into effect on 15 April 2002,
and set out a number of additional safety and security requirements (as an
expansion of the objectives of the ASMs). These amendments, prompted by
heightened security concerns, contained a significant new emphasis relating
to improvements requiring better co-ordination of border security
arrangements; the sharing of information; the enlargement of secured areas
and the extension of security to domestic flights. In the overall scheme of
aviation and airport security, they represented a distinct hardening of airport
controls and security measures with stricter application of all forms of
security, especially the screening of goods, passengers and baggage (see
Minnaar 2003, pp. 14–16, for more detail on these additional security
measures).
The 2000s also saw a re-focus on maritime security, and the events of
9/11 also raised the question of the vulnerability of ships and the possibility
of shipping being used as a vector of terrorist activity. As a result, a
Conference on Maritime Security, held in London in December 2002,
adopted a number of amendments to the 1974 SOLAS Convention. The
most far-reaching of which made mandatory a new, comprehensive security
regime for international shipping, which included the new International
Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code (entry into force in July 2004).
The 2002 Conference also adopted a series of resolutions designed to add
weight to the amendments and encourage the application of the measures to
ships and port facilities not covered by the Code, inter alia: establishing of
an international framework to further foster co-operation between
governments, government agencies, local administrations and the shipping
and port industries, so as to implement preventive security measures against
any threats (terrorist or criminal) aimed at maritime shipping and port
activities; to ensure the early and efficient collation and exchange of
maritime security-related information, at national, regional and international
levels; to provide a methodology for ship and port security assessments,
which in turn facilitate the development of ship, company and port facility
security plans and procedures; and to ensure that adequate and
proportionate maritime security measures were in place on board ships and
in ports. All these measures, similar to aviation security, were based on the
undertaking of risk and security assessments and preparation and
implementation by designated professional security officers of effective
security plans that can manage and respond to any potential security threat
(based on the identification by the risk assessments of any threats) (see
IMO 2004, for more detail on the 2002 amendments to SOLAS and the
security measures outlined in ISPS Code). The overall security of port areas
was left to further joint work between the International Labour Organisation
(ILO) and the IMO. Emanating from this co-operation was the resulting
Code of Practice titled: Security in ports, which contained the practical
recommendations for addressing the issue of security in and at ports, that is,
landside security at harbours. It outlined in a practical way the kind of
security measures that needed to be implemented at a harbour, based on
Port Security Assessments leading to the formulation of a Port Security
Policy and a Port Security Plan—the latter with a focus on aspects of
physical security and the training of security personnel (International
Labour Organisation (ILO)/International Maritime Organisation (IMO)
2004, pp. vii & xv).
Besides the stricter border control measures instituted in the immediate
aftermath of, and as a direct response to, 9/11, the USA set about setting up
an entirely new federal department, namely: The United States Department
of Homeland Security (DHS), established by the enactment in 2002 of The
Homeland Security Act (often referred to as the 9/11 Act). The DHS,
incorporating as it did into a single organisation 22 government agencies,
began operations in 2003. Among the most important coming together
under the DHS umbrella, with reference to border management and control,
were, inter alia: Citizenship and Immigration Services (formerly
Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS)); Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) (amalgamation of Customs Services and Border Patrol
departments); Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); the US Coast
Guard; and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) (initially set up
by the Aviation Transportation Security Act, signed into law on 19
November 2001 but moved to DHS in 2003). In addition, while the FAA
still resides within the US Department of Transport, in 2003 the TSA, under
the DHS umbrella, assumed the previous FAA responsibility for civil
aviation security (Perl 2004, p. 179; Sweet 2009, p. 29).
One of the additional border security requirements of the 2002
Homeland Security Act was that the increased screening—especially for
explosives and other considered high-risk cargoes—of all cargo transported
on passenger aircraft, together with the screening of passenger-checked
baggage (including carry-on luggage) departing US airports and
reciprocally for international flights bound for the USA, be implemented
(Sweet 2009, pp. 33 & 134). The TSA was responsible for these security
screening initiatives and after 2001 set about improving and intensifying
security measures. (Levels of screening to be incrementally increased with
targets of 50 per cent by February 2009; 75 per cent by May 2010; and
100 per cent by December 2012) (Transportation Security Administration
(TSA) 2012b.)
In addition to heightened screening levels, the US Customs Service,
within months of the 9/11 attacks, had created the Container Security
Initiative (CSI) (as one of anti-terrorism programmes to help secure the
USA). The CSI was composed of a security regime to ensure all containers,
especially those considered and identified to pose a risk to US security,
were inspected, which included searching for concealed illicit goods, at
foreign ports before they were placed on vessels destined for the USA. To
that aim the CBP subsequently stationed teams of officers in foreign
locations to work together with counterparts of foreign host governments.
These CSI port teams pre-screened targeted containers, usually before they
are shipped, that is, as early in the supply chain as possible, generally at the
port of departure, while concurrently investigating any leads related to the
terrorist threat to cargo destined to the USA. The pre-screening of identified
high-risk containers utilised technology, such as large-scale X-ray and
gamma ray machines and radiation detection devices (US Customs and
Border Protection (CBP) 2019a). Ten years after being implemented CSI
had become operational in 58 major foreign seaports in 32 countries (TSA
2012a), and by 2019 over 80 per cent of all maritime containerised cargo
imported into the USA was being pre-screened (CBP 2019a).
Allied to the US CSI programme was the Customs-Trade Partnership
Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), initiated in November 2001, whereby CBP
and the international trade community co-operated to secure and facilitate
the movement of legitimate international trade. In February 2011, the
existing and more comprehensive C-TPAT replaced the old 1996 LBCIP
programme (CBP 2011). While voluntary, C-TPAT is but one layer in
CBP’s (CBP) multi-layered cargo enforcement strategy, focusing as it did
on improving the security ‘best practices’ employed by participants
throughout the international trade supply chain. However, to become a part
of the programme, an applicant had to conduct and fully document a
security risk assessment of their operations. Thereafter they had to complete
a supply chain security profile explaining how the company/organisation
would meet C-TPAT’s minimum security criteria, whereupon they could
apply to CBP for certification. The Security and Accountability for Every
Port Act of 2006 provided the statutory framework for the C-TPAT
programme and imposed strict oversight requirements. By launching C-
TPAT and getting participants to undertake much of the business
management formalities of the trade supply chain, CBP were able to
increase their supply chain law enforcement visibility (and counter-
terrorism activities) by improving resources allocation to better focus on
higher risk and possible criminal smuggling of shipments into the USA (US
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) 2020).
In July 2003, the EU also followed the USA with their own raft of
stricter border security procedures, based on fundamental concepts
underlying their new security-management model for the EU’s external
borders, such as, a harmonised risk assessment system. The new 2003 EU
proposals aimed specifically at tightening the security around goods
crossing international borders by involving more efficient and better-
targeted checks. The EU border control measures addressed three major
areas: advance information on goods; recognition of the status of
Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) to reliable traders and rewarding
them with trade facilitation benefits; as well as setting up a mechanism for
developing uniform risk-selection criteria for controls, assisted by
computerised systems. For the development and application of these
measures, the EU designed a set of provisions regarding activities forming
part of the so-called Customs Security Programme to ensure the
implementation of harmonised standards throughout the EU customs area
(Buzdugan 2005, p. 46).
Another initiative, aimed at hardening borders post-911, was that of
UNODC and the World Customs Organisation (WCO), who, in 2003,
initiated the Container Control Programme (CCP) for the purpose of
assisting governments to create sustainable enforcement structures (Port
Control Units) at selected seaports to minimise the risk of maritime
containers being exploited and used for illicit drug trafficking, transnational
organised crime and other forms of black-market activity. The CCP
initiative was specifically developed to deal with the large increase in the
shipping of containers worldwide (for instance in 2019, some 811 million
20-foot containers were in service around the world, up from 220 million in
2000 (GIATOC 2021, p. 27)), and to deal with the: “…sophisticated and
often ingenious concealment methods, along with the diverse routings
adopted by illicit drug traffickers and other smugglers, [which] …invariably
[made] successful interdiction difficult” (UNODC/World Customs
Organisation (WCO) 2009, p. 2).

‘Smart’ Borders
Particularly post-9/11, strong arguments were advanced for the
implementation of fully digitised and computerised border controls and
security activities, that is, the gradual increase in capacity for monitoring
borders, as well as goods, while also providing fast and improved
information on where goods are when in transit, and providing advanced
information to respond to any suspicious activity (i.e. suspected organised
crime smuggling/trafficking operations), all of which in turn translate into a
greater ability to prevent, combat and respond to these illicit/criminal
activities (O’Hanlon 2006, pp. 1–2). The exchange of advanced information
included the pre-flight sending of passenger lists and goods manifests to the
border authorities at the end destination country (see Minnaar 2003, pp. 50–
51).
Post-9/11 the USA also increasingly made use of biometric indicators to
control foreign travel into the country. Initially this required foreign visitors
from all countries, except Canada, to submit to fingerprinting (of right and
left index fingers) and digital photography upon arrival in the USA. A
subsequent expansion of the US Biometric Visa Programme required that
fingerprints and a digital photo be taken of visa applicants before they
travelled to the USA. The digital fingerprints and photo were then
compared to those in a DHS database (known as IDENT) to check whether
any applicant was on a Watch List (databases were also subsequently
integrated of both listed terrorists and identified criminals and of persons
listed as ineligible for American visas for other reasons). Upon arrival in
America, a visitor’s fingerprints and photo were then checked against those
on the visa to confirm that the individual in question was indeed the person
to whom the visa was granted (US General Accounting Office (GAO) 2004,
pp. 1–9).
Slowly at first but from 2006 onwards, and at the prompting of the
USA, countries around the world made a start in issuing digitised passports
with biometric indicators which closed a substantial loophole in US border
security, that is, the prevalence of the use of stolen and forged passports
around the world (O’Hanlon 2006, p. 4). This, in effect, put more pressure
on organised crime in their efforts to circumvent entry controls. For
instance, organised crime drug traffickers were forced in making more use
of private individuals with no connection to drug syndicates or other crimes
to transport drugs around the world (see Van Heerden and Minnaar 2016,
for more detail on this use of drug mules).
As all these post-9/11 initiatives and systems were implemented there
were regular improvements and new initiatives being instituted to continue
the tightening up (hardening) of border controls and security, and within the
ambit of border security to combat the activities of transnational organised
crime syndicates and groupings.
An additional US initiative was the Air Cargo Advance Screening
programme (first piloted in late 2010). The ACAS programme is a joint co-
operative public/private initiative between the CBP, TSA and airline
partners and was initially a voluntary process in which many airlines had
participated, but was made mandatory as from 12 June 2018. As part of the
ACAS programme, participating carriers electronically submit a subset of
required pre-arrival air cargo data, on shipments destined to or transiting
through the USA from any foreign departure point, to CBP at the earliest
point practicable and prior to loading the cargo onto aircraft. This pre-
departure submission of the required cargo information enabled the CBP to
identify and intercept high-risk shipments before they were loaded on
aircraft. This measure raised the DHS’s worldwide baseline on aviation
security (CBP 2018, 2019b).
The ACAS was allied with the full implementation of the
UNODC/WCO’s CCP initiative where the Port Control Units (PCUs), set
up in training around the world by these two organisations, were formed by
integrating the various enforcement bodies at harbours into a single
representative unit. The CCP proved to be extremely effective by enabling a
co-ordinated approach to container profiling, targeting and examination
(full inspection based on risk assessment and suspicious activity reports by
Customs and Law Enforcement officers), with the PCUs demonstrating
considerable success in achieving high-profile seizures of a range of illicit
goods (UNODC/WCO 2011, p. 7).
Other ‘smart’ border security measures that have more-and-more
latterly been implemented at borders are blanket CCTV surveillance
systems, these days increasingly linked to facial recognition capabilities,
and the use of drones for ‘in-the-air’ surveillance within integrated control
room surveillance monitoring command systems—all operating in real time
to rapidly alert law enforcement agencies of any suspicious activity or
persons at border control access/egress points and thereby activate
immediate response action.

Some Concluding Remarks

By 2010 there had occurred notable improvements in overall global border
security measures but the 2010s saw these border security gains slowly
being eroded as political and civil unrest erupted in Central America, North
Africa and in the Middle East. Subsequent conflict and warfare
conflagrations drove an incremental growth in refugee and migration flows
—mostly destined either for the USA or the EU. Besides the breakdown in
border controls in most countries of origins suffering from such disorder
conditions, these flows were often accompanied by chaos at the borders of
destination countries. In addition, the 2010s also saw the unparalleled
growth in the use of containers in world. The huge annual increases in
container volumes making monitoring extremely difficult, especially at
ports subjected to heavy traffic and congestion, all of which assisted and
facilitated the illicit movement of goods and allowing drug traffickers and
criminal groups to operate undetected (Global Initiative Against
Transnational Organized Crime (GIATOC) 2021, p. 27; UNODC/WCO
2011, p. 4). As a consequence of both the increased people and container
trade flows, organised crime, once again, were quick to exploit this disorder
and breakdown in primary border security measures and utilised such flows
to not only infiltrate target countries by posing as refugees but also
exploited desperate migrants by utilising them as smugglers to transport
illicit goods.
Of even more concern, since the mid-2000s, has been the exploitation
by organised crime of new technologies, including information
communications technology (ICT), that has led to the expansion in both
size and diversity of illicit markets and the greater professionalisation of
their operations and covert communications. This all provided clear
indications of the increased adaptability of organised crime groups to all
law enforcement measures at borders (GIATOC 2021, p. 17).
Over the last decade, the increasing organisational sophistication on
multiple levels of inter-criminal syndicate co-operation and co-ordination
has forced most governments to re-organise and replan their border control
policy frameworks in order to ‘harden’ border controls and security by
improving, modernising, streamlining and extending their existing border
control/security infrastructures and their law enforcement responses.
In the modern era of international border controls, with its requirement
for co-ordinated and integrated multi-task border control, protection, safety,
security and law enforcement agencies have led to the increasing
amalgamation into one overarching agency with numerous divisions
focused on specialist enforcement roles, such as the US Department of
Homeland Security in 2003 and the UK Border Agency (UKBA) in 2008—
the latter formed as an executive agency on 1 April 2008 by a merger of the
Border and Immigration Agency, UKVisas and the detection functions of
HM Revenue and Customs thereby establishing a unified and integrated
Border Force (Cabinet Office 2007). However, such large agencies need to
implement ever-increasing levels of policy, planning and management co-
operation. This need is directly coupled to the growth, not only in
operational and organisational sophistication, but also in extent of the
lucrative cross-border and transnational criminal activities linked to
increases in smuggling and trafficking of illicit goods ranging from drugs,
wildlife to counterfeit goods and a variety of other products. Such criminal
activities include the trafficking in humans.
 Furthermore, the law enforcement aspects of border control, safety and
security need to be run and managed congruently with the other functions at
border entry points, namely the facilitation of lawful international travel and
trade (i.e. the controlled and regulated movement of people and goods in-
and-out of a country). Hence, functions of border controls, such as customs
procedures and processes, traveller (arrivals and departures) and cargo
(import and export) management and immigration services, need to operate
within an overall integrated port-of-entry structured framework of
efficiency (Border Control Management Model). However, the growth, not
only in international air travel but also in global trade, has led to vast daily
movements of both people and goods into and out of regions worldwide.
These burgeoning volumes have put further pressures on dealing with,
combatting and preventing the illicit cross-border trafficking of people and
goods by organised criminal syndicates and groupings.
Unquestionably, transnational organised crime has become a great
global concern. Over the past twenty years the illicit economy has grown
inexorably—despite the adoption in 2000 of the UN Convention Against
Transnational Organised Crime (UNTOC)—and currently poses a serious
threat to world security, stability and economic growth and development.
Accordingly, Organised Crime Groups have become one of “the biggest
beneficiaries of globalization [and] … have taken advantage of the opening
of new markets, supply chains and technologies, while exploiting weak
regulation in financial markets and cyberspace” (GIATOC 2021, p. 9).
Consequently, border security at every international border, as an
integral component of border controls, needs to update, upskill, re-equip,
re-organise and implement a better co-ordinated and co-operative border
management regime for a more effective global response in combatting
transnational organised crime.

Recommended Readings
Buzdugan (2005), in assessing that air cargo systems would potentially
become the primary target for terrorists, presents an overview of the
potential risks to cargo and argues that only an international approach based
on best available cargo security practices could adequately and efficiently
address the post-9/11 emerging air cargo security vulnerabilities.
 D’Arcy, M., O’Hanlon, M., Orszag, P.R., Shapiro, J. & Steinberg, J.B.
(2006). Protecting the Homeland 2006/2007. Washington, DC: Brookings
Institute Press. Focuses on the key post-9/11 policy challenge facing US
border controls, namely: assessing and improving [US] homeland defense
and security. Makes specific recommendations on intelligence reform;
science and technology policy; protection of critical infrastructure; and
greater integration and co-ordination between all roleplayers at borders for
the improvement of homeland security.
Sweet (2009) is considered the definitive seminal resource on the
terrorist threat to commercial airline, airport, cargo and passenger security
and examines business practices and how security considerations are
factored into business processes.
Von Lampe, K. (2016). Organized crime: Analyzing illegal activities,
criminal structures and extra-legal governance. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage,
provides a systematic overview of the processes and structures of organised
crime, adopting an analytical approach by placing the main emphasis on
underlying patterns and dynamics that transcend any specific historical
manifestations and captures the multi-faceted and dynamic nature of
transnational organised crime.

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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_18

18. Security in the Chemical Industry:

Theory and Practice
Chao Chen1 and Genserik Reniers2
(1) School of Petroleum Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University,
Chengdu, China
(2) Safety and Security Science Group, TU Delft, Delft, The Netherlands

Chao Chen (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Genserik Reniers
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
Chao Chen and Genserik Reniers focus on security in the chemical industry
which has attracted increasing attention in the academic and industrial
domains since the “9/11” terrorist attack in 2001. With reference to three
different security theories and five security risk assessment and
management methods used in the chemical industry, they trace documented
improvements in security management. They argue the case for integrating
safety and security to avoid protection overlaps.

Introduction
The chemical sector is one of the critical infrastructures identified by the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which plays an important
role in economics and daily life (Reniers 2009; Chen et al. 2019). Different
from other infrastructures, chemical plants are always characterized by
many hazardous facilities that process, transfer, and store various hazardous
materials (HAZMAT) (Khakzad 2015; Chen and Reniers 2020). Due to
accidental disruptions or natural disasters, HAZMAT may be released from
these facilities, possibly resulting in fire, explosion, and a toxic cloud.
Moreover, the primary hazardous scenarios may further escalate, resulting
in a chain of major accident scenarios, leading to overall consequences
more severe than the primary scenario, such knock-on events are called
“domino effects” or “escalation events” (Reniers and Cozzani 2013). In
light of the consequences of major accident scenarios and domino effects,
adversaries may intentionally attack chemical facilities, possibly leading to
catastrophic disasters and resulting in human losses, damage to
installations, environmental pollution, political effects, and psychological
effects (Khakzad and Reniers 2019; Chen et al. 2020). On November 23, an
Aramco oil facility in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was attacked using missiles,
resulting in a fire in an oil tank (Arab News 2020). Since the attackers are
intelligent and strategic, they may exploit attack devices and identify
defensive flaws. The latter observation makes the prevention of intentional
attacks more difficult than the prevention of accidental events.
Security has received increasing attention in the chemical industry since
the terrorist attack in New York City on September 11, 2001 (Baybutt 2002,
2003; Bier et al. 2005; Reniers et al. 2008; Lee et al. 2010). In 2004, the
American Petroleum Institute (API) issued a recommendation on security
risk assessment (SRA) for the petroleum and petrochemical industries
(American Petroleum Institute (API) 2004). A systematic security risk
assessment (SRA) methodology based on threat, vulnerability, and
consequence analysis is provided in its recommendations. In 2013 the SRA
method was improved by expanding its functional utility while retaining the
basic methodology (API 2013) which is that security risk depends on
threats, the vulnerability of installations, and the consequences caused by an
attack. Each of these presents a challenge. For example, the quantification
of the threat is complicated by the need to understand the motivations,
intentions, characteristics, capabilities, and tactics of adversaries (Paté-
Cornell and Guikema 2002; Baybutt 2017), while vulnerability analysis
requires a detailed understanding of the design and operation of
installations (Moore et al. 2007; Staalduinen et al. 2016; Matteini et al.
2018). Security measures can improve the capability of installations against
attacks while adversaries may change their attack strategies to adapt to
these measures (Powell 2007; Cox 2008, 2009). One suggested way of
making sense of these complexities is via game theory, a tool that can be
used to analyze adversaries’ strategies and optimize the defenders’ response
via optimal allocation of security resources (Liu et al. 2008; Reniers and
Soudan 2010; Tambe 2011; Rios and Insua 2012; Zhang and Reniers 2016).
Another is consequence analysis which involves modeling the potential
scenarios related to the attack, such as fire, explosion, and toxicity, and the
subsequent domino effects (Willis 2007; Chen et al. 2019).
This chapter thus aims to illustrate the security theories and practices in
the chemical industry to better protect chemical industrial areas from
intentional attacks. Specifically, it discusses Detection-Delay-Response
(DDR), rings of protection (RoP), and the Swiss cheese model. In this way
this chapter serves to highlight how security management can be practiced
albeit the focus here is exclusively on the chemical industry.

Security Theories
API (2013) defines security risk as a likelihood of a threat successfully
exploiting the vulnerability and includes the resulting degree of damage or
impact. A security risk is a potential for negative consequences caused by
deliberate acts while a safety risk is a potential for negative consequences
induced by unintentional events. A list of the differences between safety
and security is shown in Table 18.1.
Table 18.1 A list of differences between safety and security

Safety Security
The nature of an incident is due to The incident is caused by a human act
a hazard
Non-intentional Intentional
Non-intelligent Intelligent
Non-strategic Strategic
No human aggressor Human aggressor
Quantitative probabilities and Due to the lack of statistical data, in more cases, only
frequencies of safety-related risks qualitative (expert opinion based) likelihood of security-related
are available risks may be available
Risks are of rational nature Threats may be of symbolic nature

Reniers and Cozzani (2013)

 Since understanding security in the chemical industry is working in
progress while safety research has a rich and long history, safety theories
such as Swiss cheese are adapted here to explain security.

Detection-Delay-Response Theory
Security in the chemical and process industry (CPI) may be divided into
two categories, physical security and cyber security (Casson Moreno et al.
2018). A physical protection system (PPS) in the chemical industry consists
of people, procedures, and facilities, and equipment to protect installations
in chemical plants from terrorism, theft, sabotage, or other malevolent
physical attacks (Garcia 2007; Reniers et al. 2015). PPS should be designed
with regard to chemical plant characteristics (e.g., location, layout,
chemicals, process, and hazardous installations), the threats posed (e.g.,
attacker type, attack objective, and motivations), and the protection
objective (e.g., avoiding human loss, reducing environmental protection,
protecting facilities, and shortening operation disruption). There are three
types of protection measures: detection, delay, and response measures
(Chen et al. 2020).
(1)
Detection Measures
Detection measures are used to identify adversaries. The detection
function consists of four sequential sub-functions: discovering adversary
actions, sending an alarm about them, assessing the incident, and generating
a response. A detection for an unusual action is successful only when the
four functions are correctly executed. As a result, the detection performance
depends on the probability that detection sensors or persons successfully
discover abnormal events, the probability that alarms related to the
adversary events are successfully communicated, the probability that the
alarm is successfully assessed, and the speed with which the entire
detection process is executed (detection time). An additional detection
performance indicator is the false alarm rate. A false alarm is any alarm that
is not caused by an intrusion. In an ideal detection system, the detection
probability would be 1 and the nuisance alarm rate would be zero.
However, in a chemical plant, all sensors interact with their environment,
and they may be disturbed by adversary actions and also other disturbances
in the detection zone area, such as the movement of vegetation (trees and
weeds), wildlife (animals and birds), and weather conditions (wind, rain,
snow, fog, and lightning).
Besides detection sensors, response personnel can also identify
adversary actions. For instance, guards at fixed posts or on patrol may play
a pivotal role in discovering an intrusion (Garcia 2007; Chen et al. 2020). In
a chemical plant, a typical intrusion detection system may consist of
exterior and interior intrusion sensors, video alarm assessment, entry
control, and alarm communication systems. Outer sensors are sometimes
used at the perimeter of a chemical plant (e.g., wall and fence) and interior
sensors inside. CCTV has a range of benefits; it facilitates a visible alarm
signal and can be a more cost-effective way of monitoring access controls
than guards, with the further advantage that this can be undertaken in one
place remotely (Garcia 2007; Reniers et al. 2015).
(2)
Delay Measures
Delay measures are barriers that can increase the time that an adversary
needs to carry out an action and thus delay the onset of an attack. An
effective PPS first requires that the detection system successfully discovers
the malevolent action, and then that it is correctly assessed, so that the
response (e.g., guards and police) can intervene effectively. Speed though is
crucial; the response needs to be ahead of the offenders perpetrating and at
least completing the act. The key here is that after an adversary action is
detected, delay measures can be employed to delay the implementation of
the attack until an effective response force is available. There are three
types of delay barriers: passive barriers, active barriers, and guards. Passive
barriers are physical barriers that do not need to be activated, such as fence,
door, wall, and locks. Active barriers in contrast do need to be activated
specifically when an attacker enters the coverage area and take a number of
forms such as chemical fogs and smokes, foams, and irritants (Garcia 2007;
Chen et al. 2020). Guards can both by their presence and if necessary by
use of force help delay the access and progress of adversaries.
(3)
Response Measures
Response is the last function of a PPS and it can be used to prevent an
intentional attack or mitigate its consequences. In a chemical plant, a
response force may include personnel measures—onsite as well as offsite—
security guards, police, medical emergency teams, fire officers, and so on.
Guards and police officers may be regarded as a preventive response,
provided they are alerted in time of course. Medical emergency teams and
fire brigades can be used to mitigate the consequences of attacks. Since
chemical plants always involve tons of hazardous materials, an intentional
attack may trigger major accident scenarios such as fire, explosion, and
toxicity. The protection of different targets will likely require different
response plans. For example, it is almost impossible to use security guards
to prevent drone attacks. This is one of the reasons that the drone attack on
the Abqaiq oil plant in 2019 led to a 50% reduction in Abqaiq’s oil
production and a nearly 15% increase in the crude oil price (Chen et al.
2021). Different chemical plants likely need different PPSs and an effective
PPS requires a reasonable arrangement of detection, delay, and response
measures (Garcia 2007; Reniers et al. 2015; Chen et al. 2020).

Rings of Protection
The DDR theory requires three kinds of measures (detection, delay, and
response) to sequentially work for the purpose of protecting a chemical
installation. The three types of measures constitute a PPS and the system
does not work if one or more than one type of measure fails. Different from
the DDR theory, the theory of rings of protection (RoP) divides a protection
system into independent protection layers (CCPS 2003). Each protection
layer can independently protect a chemical installation and the defense
performance increases with increasing the number of layers. Figure 18.1 is
a RoP with three security rings. The security risk of the installation
decreases with increasing the number of effective protection rings.
Fig. 18.1 A chemical installation protected by three security rings

The concept of “Layers of Protection Analysis” is usually used for

safety barrier management in chemical process plants (CCPS 2003) and the
“Rings of Protection” for security are derived from this concept. The
effectiveness of a protection layer is independent of the likelihood or
consequences of the initiating event and it is not influenced by other
protection layers (CCPS 2001). In terms of security, the concept of layers of
protection is also known as “Layered Defenses” and is based on the
“Defense in Depth” principle (Reniers et al. 2015). Each defense layer
consists of any device, system, or action that is capable of preventing the
success of an attack. If the current security risk is higher than the tolerance
criteria, additional protection layers may be needed. In chemical plants,
safety layers such as fireproof coatings and water delivery systems that can
prevent possible escalation or so-called domino effects caused by attacks
may be regarded as mitigation rings while security barriers such as a locked
door and a fence can be considered to be preventive rings.
According to the theory, the most critical or vulnerable assets should be
put into the center of concentric levels. In that case, an attack has to
penetrate numerous defense rings, such as a fence, a locked exterior door,
an alert receptionist, an elevator with key-controlled floor buttons, and a
locked door to the control room (CCPS 2003). For instance, the control
room may be set in the center while the maintenance facility for repairs
possibly is placed in the most off-center area since the control room is more
important than the repairs. Besides, the defense of external attacks is more
difficult than that against attacks from within the company, since insiders
obviously can freely penetrate part of the rings of protection (Reniers et al.
2020).
The effectiveness of a ring heavily depends on the skills, knowledge,
and resources of adversaries and the extent to which they are conversant
with the mitigation measures in place. They may of course use more
extreme attack methods, such as explosions that can result in widespread
mitigation failures, or release toxic gases to incapacitate all inhabitants of
the control room simultaneously, or otherwise bypass defense layers. If
there are these risks, the defense layers or rings would need to be
particularly robust. Besides, the details of the protection information may
be secret to the public.

Swiss Cheese Model

In ideal conditions, a defense ring would be invulnerable and without
weaknesses. Yet in reality, it is more like a slice of Swiss cheese with many
holes that are vulnerable to attacks. The weakness or holes of the defense
layer can be explained by the Swiss cheese model (Reniers et al. 2020). The
Swiss cheese model is a popular accident causation model developed by the
British psychologist Reason (1997) for explaining the weaknesses of
barriers that may induce a safety-related accident. In the Swiss cheese
model, a series of barriers against accidents are modeled as slices of Swiss
cheese with holes known as “eyes.” The holes in the slices represent
weaknesses or errors in individual parts of the barrier system; the location
and size of the holes in different slices may vary. The holes in one slice of
Swiss cheese do not always lead to undesired events. An undesired event
occurs only when the holes in different slices are lined up even for a brief
second to form a trajectory of undesired event opportunity (CCPS 2003).
The holes in the Swiss cheese model can be divided into two categories:
latent holes and active holes. Latent holes are the result of the
organizational system or design failures that will allow active holes to form
while active holes refer to failed or absent defense measures (Collins et al.
2014). Since the number, size, and type of holes may vary over time, Swiss
cheese is a dynamic model. Holes may increase in number or size, and
latent holes possibly evolve into active holes due to aging, errors,
violations, and so on. If solid risk management is conducted and adequate
countermeasures are adopted, the number or size of the holes may decrease
and active holes may evolve into latent holes. The holes in Swiss cheese
can be kept small by good inherent security design and/or adequate security
risk management. As a result, good security practice should include hole
detection and the identification of suitable measures to decrease the number
and sizes of them (Reniers et al. 2020).

Security Risk Assessment and Management

Approach
This section will illustrate some practices for security risk assessment and
management in the chemical industry.

SRA Method
To provide a universal approach for assessing security risk for the
petroleum and petrochemical industry, the American Petroleum Institute
(API) issued a recommendation on security risk assessment (American
Petroleum Institute (API) 2004) in 2004. The recommendation provides a
systematic security risk assessment (SRA) method based on threat,
vulnerability, and consequence analysis. In 2013, the SRA method was
improved by expanding functional utility without changing the basic
methodology (API 2013). Security risk (Rs) is defined as a function of
threat, attractiveness, vulnerability, and consequence. The SRA method
consists of five main steps for determining the variables of the function.
(1)
Characterization of the Facility
Step 1 of this methodology is the characterization of the facility to
identify the critical assets. Critical assets are important to a mission,
function, or continuity of operations, and they can be obtained by the
following steps: (i) identification of assets and screening out critical assets;
(ii) identification of the internal and external infrastructures and their
dependencies and interdependencies; (iii) identification of internal and
external countermeasures; (iv) assessment of severity of consequences and
impacts; (v) assignment of initial severity of consequence without
consideration of any existing countermeasures ranking (C); and (vi)
identification of the list of critical assets.
(2) Threat and Attractiveness Assessment

Step 2 is to obtain the likelihood of an attack by assessing possible

threats and the attractiveness of the asset to the threats. First, potential
threats should be identified and evaluated; then, all available information is
used to rank threats to obtain the probability of each threat. Next, asset
attractiveness for each threat is analyzed and each asset-threat pairing is
ranked to obtain the conditional probability of an asset attacked by a threat.
(3)
Vulnerability Assessment
Step 3 aims to determine the vulnerability of the asset exposed to a
defined threat. To obtain the objective, the following steps should be
conducted: (i) scenario definition and evaluation of specific consequences;
(ii) assessment of attack sequence and potential consequences; (iii)
evaluation of the effectiveness of existing countermeasures; (iv)
identification of vulnerabilities and estimation of the degree of
vulnerability; (v) assessment of mitigated severity of consequences (C).
(4)
Risk Evaluation
According to the results of steps 3 and 4, the likelihood of a successful
attack can be obtained. Combining the likelihood and consequence of
attacks, security risk can be determined. For further reading on the risk
evaluation method, please refer to more detailed work (API 2013)
(5)
Identification of Countermeasures
If the security risk obtained in step 4 does not meet the desired level of
security, additional countermeasures need to be identified. Then, the
likelihood of an attack and the severity of the scenario consequence should
be recalculated. Further, the residual risk needs to be determined. If the
residual risk is less than the desired risk, the calculation ends; otherwise,
step 5 continues.

Game-Theoretical Approach for Security

Threat analysis, especially for quantification of the threat, is a considerable
challenge since it requires a multitude of data and knowledge, and modeling
the motivations, intents, characteristics, capabilities, and tactics of
adversaries (Paté-Cornell and Guikema 2002; Baybutt 2017), which is very
challenging. Vulnerability analysis requires a detailed understanding of the
design and operation of installations in combination with threat information
(Moore et al. 2007; Staalduinen et al. 2016; Matteini et al. 2018). Security
measures can improve the capability of installations against attacks but also
may change the attackers’ strategies because of the intelligent character of
the adversaries (Powell 2007; Cox 2008, 2009). To address the attacker’s
strategies, game theory may be used in security risk management. Figure
18.2 shows the flowchart of a non-cooperative game used to achieve the
optimal defensive strategy.

Fig. 18.2 Procedures of game theory approach for security

(1)
Player Characterization
The first step of the game-theoretical approach is to characterize
players. In the context of the chemical industry, there are normally two
players: an attacker (the terrorist) and a defender (a chemical plant), as
shown in Fig. 18.2. In a chemical cluster, multiple players may be involved
because different companies are located in the cluster. Following the
identification of players in the game, the questions of whether the players
are rational and the extent to which they are informed need to be assessed.
Since the attackers are always considered to be strategic and intelligent and
the security managers usually have some experience and are educated, both
the attacker and the defender can be regarded as rational players (Zhang and
Reniers 2016). If the defender and the attacker can obtain complete
information of each other, the game is a complete information game with
certain strategies for both players. However, the defender usually does not
have complete information about the attacker. In that case, a Bayesian game
may be more suitable (Zhang and Reniers 2018).
(2)
Strategy Identification
The second step is to identify the strategies of the players. Each player
has a set of strategies. The attacker’s options include attack objective, attack
type, attack path, and so on. A combination of these options comprises an
attack strategy. The defender formulates a defense strategy by selecting
security measures, the installation position of security measures, the number
of RoP, and so on. All the possible attack strategies and defense strategies
should be identified in this step.
(3)
Payoff Calculation
Step 3 calculates the payoffs (objectives) of each player. In a game, the
payoff represents the motivation of players, such as profit, property
destroyed, casualties, or other desired outcomes. For instance, the defender
possibly aims to reduce the total costs of damages while the objective of the
attackers may be causing as many casualties as possible. The payoff of a
player depends on the player’s motivations, strategies, and the strategies of
other players, and so on. Based on the payoff calculation results, we can
obtain a payoff matrix containing the payoffs and strategies of defenders
and attackers (Reniers and Soudan 2010; Zhang and Reniers 2016).
(4)
Game Solution
 A solution to a game is a combination of all the players’ strategies. For
the defender-attacker game, a Nash equilibrium is always considered to be
an optimal solution in which a player will obtain less payoff if the strategy
of the player changes while the other player remains stagnant. Therefore, a
Nash equilibrium is a stable status where players are not willing to change
their strategy. A Nash equilibrium can be a pure strategy (a specific
strategy) or a mixed strategy (a multi-strategy consists of multiple strategies
with a probability distribution). Its equilibrium can be computed by using
specific algorithms such as the Lemke–Howson algorithm (Lemke et al.
1964; Gibbons 1992).
(5)
Equilibrium Analysis
The final step of the game-theoretical approach is to obtain the optimal
defense strategy by analyzing the equilibrium. If a pure strategy is obtained
in step 4, the optimal defense strategy is equal to the pure strategy. If a
mixed strategy is obtained, the optimal strategy should be obtained
according to the defender’s knowledge and preference. For example, the
defender can select the strategy with the highest probability or select each
pure strategy in the mixed strategy, alternately.

Network-Based Security Approach

In the API security risk assessment (SRA) methodology, security risk
mainly depends on four factors: threats, attractiveness, vulnerability, and
consequences. The dependencies between different factors are ignored,
which may undermine the results of security risk analysis and subsequent
rank ordering of assets (Khakzad et al. 2017). To overcome the weakness,
network-based approaches such as analytic network process (ANP)
(Khakzad et al. 2017; Casciano et al. 2019) and Bayesian network (BN)
(Misuri et al. 2018) are used for security risk assessment and management
to better model the dependencies between different factors influencing
security risk.
(1)
ANP Approach
ANP is a more general form of AHP (analytic hierarchy process) used
for multi-criteria decision making. AHP has a hierarchical structure with a
goal, decision criteria, and alternatives, from top to bottom (as shown in
Fig. 18.3a), while ANP structures a decision problem into a network (as
shown in Fig. 18.3b). Different from AHP which is a linear structure (the
goal at the top and alternatives at the bottom), ANP has a nonlinear
structure (network), more suitable for tackling the dependencies among
decision parameters (Saaty and Vargas 2006).

Fig. 18.3 A scheme of (a) an AHP structure and (b) an ANP structure. (Adapted from Saaty and
Vargas (2006))

In ANP, the decision factors are incorporated in cluster Ci. The factors
of clusters should be compared pairwise and scored. The matrices are then
populated in an unweighted supermatrix. The unweighted supermatrix
should be normalized to form a weighted or stochastic supermatrix. Raising
the weighted supermatrix to sufficiently large power, the elements of the
limit matrix represent the final scores of corresponding decision factors
(Saaty 1990).
(2)
Bayesian Network Approach
Bayesian network (BN) has a powerful capability to incorporate multi-
state variables, dependent failures, functional uncertainty, and expert
opinion which may be encountered in security risk assessment and
management (Khakzad et al. 2011). Compared to ANP, BN does not have
bidirectional edges and clusters (as shown in Fig. 18.4a), which is more
suitable to model probabilistic dependencies and updated probabilities.
Besides, a BN can be transferred to a limited memory influence diagram
(LIMID) for decision making (Shachter 1986; Lauritzen and Nilsson 2001).
LIMIDs have two more types of nodes: decision nodes and utility nodes (as
shown in Fig. 18.4b). Decision nodes denote the decision alternatives (the
square in Fig. 18.4b) while utility nodes (hexagon in Fig. 18.4b) represent
the preferences of decision-makers with respect to the outcome of decision
alternatives (Khakzad and Reniers 2017). The dotted edge in Fig. 18.4
denotes a time sequence of events. Solving a LIMID, the optimal decision
alternative that maximizes the expected utility can be obtained.

Fig. 18.4 A scheme of (a) BN and (b) LIMID structure

Economic Security Approach

Safety and security strategies have a great impact on the effectiveness of a
company’s prevention policy as well as the company’s profitability in the
long term (Reniers and Van Erp 2016). In decision making on the optimal
investment in security measures, micro-economic issues need to be
considered because chemical companies have a security budget. As a result,
economic approaches have been used to optimize the investment and
allocation of protection resources in chemical plants, such as research
describing the prevention investment decision model based on cost-benefit
analysis (Villa et al. 2017; Chen et al. 2020). To apply economic approaches
to security management, the first step is to calculate the costs related to
security, including the costs of security measures and the costs of possible
attack scenarios. The costs of security measures consist of investments that
occur at present time such as initial costs and installation costs, and also the
costs that occur throughout the remaining lifetime of the facility (Reniers
and Brijs 2014). The latter should be discounted to the present value.
Due to many hazardous installations situated nearby in chemical
industrial areas, both the costs caused by domino effects and the costs of
direct attacks need to be considered. The loss of containment of hazardous
materials may cause toxicity, pollution, fire, and explosion; the costs of
intentional attacks should take into account casualties, economic loss,
environmental pollution as well as any other indirect influences such as
psychological and political effects (Chen et al. 2019; Khakzad and Reniers
2019). Both the direct losses that are immediately visible and tangible and
the indirect losses that are intangible and invisible are important to analyze
avoided losses (Jallon et al. 2011; Reniers and Van Erp 2016). The direct
avoided losses consist of these avoided losses caused by damage to
installations, products, equipment, medical expenses, paying fines, and
insurance premium rise, while the indirect avoided losses include capacity
losses, production schemes, recruitment, and wage costs (Gavious et al.
2009). The quantification of indirect losses is more difficult since they
consist of hidden or invisible components, usually resulting in
underestimation of the avoided losses (Jallon et al. 2011; Chen et al. 2020).
Based on cost calculation results, a cost-benefit analysis may be
conducted to obtain the optimal defense strategy. In a cost-benefit analysis,
the avoided cost caused by a security strategy can be assumed to be the
benefit of protection. Normally, a defense strategy is regarded as profitable
if the net benefit of the strategy is greater than zero, and the strategy that
maximizes the net benefit is the optimal defense strategy. Besides cost-
benefit analysis, other economic approaches such as cost-effectiveness
analysis and economic optimization may also be used to make the defense
more effective and profitable.

Security of Domino Effects in Chemical Plants

Domino effects are a discriminate characteristic of undesired escalating
events in the chemical industry in which many hazardous installations are
usually located together. As noted above, an intentional attack on a
chemical plant may induce domino effects (Chen et al. 2020). The
consequences of domino effects can be much higher than the primary
attack, since multiple installations may be damaged. Besides, attackers may
simultaneously attack multiple installations or attack that installation that is
more likely to trigger domino effects. As a result, a chemical installation or
plant that is more vulnerable to domino effects may be more attractive to
adversaries. Therefore, it is good practice to address domino effects in
security risk assessment and management. In that case, not only the
vulnerability of installations subject to intentional attacks but also the
vulnerability of installations subject to possible domino effects should be
considered. Many approaches are available for the vulnerability assessment
of chemical installations exposed to domino effects, such as the Bayesian
network approach (Khakzad et al. 2016) and the dynamic graph approach
(Chen et al. 2019).
According to the vulnerability model, the total consequences (direct
damage and the damage caused by domino effects) can be estimated. Then
the above security risk assessment and management methods can be used to
obtain the optimal defense strategy. Due to possible domino effects, safety
barriers such as fireproof coatings may also be used to mitigate the
consequence of intentional attacks and reduce the attractiveness of chemical
plants (Chen et al. 2019). Besides, safety and security may be integrated to
avoid the overlaps between safety and security.

Conclusions
Security in the chemical industry needs to consider the attractiveness of
hazardous materials and hazardous installations to adversaries and the
possible major accidents induced domino effects. As a result, security
management is quite relevant to safety management in the chemical
industry. The management theories used in the safety domain can be
adapted and used in the security of the chemical industry, such as the Swiss
cheese model. Besides these security theories, five security risk assessment
and management methods used in the chemical industry are illustrated,
including the SRA method recommended by API, a game-theoretical
approach to consider strategies of adversaries, network-based approaches to
tackle dependencies and uncertainties, the economic approaches to make
the protection more profitable, and approaches to deal with intentional
domino effects. Other advanced methods such as dynamic security risk
assessment methods, big data-based approaches, and Artificial Intelligence
(AI)-based methods may be enhanced in the future to better protect
chemical plants.
Recommended Readings
Readers who are interested in security in the chemical industry can read the
following recommendations: chemical security theory (Reniers et al. 2018;
Reniers et al. 2020), detection-delay-response theory (Garcia 2007), SRA
method (API 2013), vulnerability analysis (CCPS 2003; Argenti et al.
2017), game theory approach for chemical security (Zhang and Reniers
2016, 2018), economic models for chemical security (Reniers and Van Erp
2016; Villa et al. 2017; Chen et al. 2020a), intentional domino effects (Chen
et al. 2019; Khakzad and Reniers 2019; Chen et al. 2020b), and layers of
protection analysis (CCPS 2011).

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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_19

19. The Evolution of College and

University Campus Security in the United
States: Congressional Legislation,
Administrative Directives, and Policing
Bonnie S. Fisher1 , Michelle E. Protas1, Logan J. Lanson2 and
John J. Sloan III3
(1) University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA
(2) Wadsworth, OH, USA
(3) University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA

Bonnie S. Fisher
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
The history of institutions of higher education (IHE) in the United States
reveals that criminal victimization, ranging from sexual assault to physical
assaults to harassment to thefts, have been part of the collegiate life since
the founding of the first colleges in New England during the colonial era to
recent Carnegie Foundation estimates of over 4440 IHEs. For decades IHEs
dealt with the security of their respective campus and students with little
oversight or accountability to the federal government. This changed in 1990
when Congress passed and George H.W. Bush signed into law the Student
Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act (renamed the Clery Act)
mandating Title IV financial aid eligible IHEs to publicly disclose an
annual security report with their annual crime statistics and security
policies. The Clery Act set in motion continued federal legislation over the
last 25 years that has focused on improving campus security and students’
safety, including a White House Task to Protect Students from Sexual
Assault during the Obama Administration. Interest in preventing and
responding to campus victimization has continued through the Trump
Administration, including proposed changes in IHEs’ response to a report
of sexual harassment and sexual violence.
This chapter will:
track the evolution of campus security mandates by the US federal
government,
describe the safety and security measures implemented by IHEs to
address campus criminal victimization, and
take stock of the campus security mandates and safety and security
measures directed at reducing criminal victimization among college
students.

Over 19 million students were enrolled in two- and four-year institutions of

higher education (IHEs) in 2019—a sizable cohort comprising over 7% of
the United States’ adult population and the majority of which are young
adults between the ages of 18 and 24 (US Department of Education 2019).
Along with students, faculty and staff and daily visitors comprise the
campus community. Similar to other communities, the campus community
experiences threats to its security, chief of which is criminal victimization
of its members and their property.
Beyond serving as a learning environment, students live, work, and
engage in leisure activities on and adjacent to IHEs. Their “party culture”
lifestyle and amount of property owned create ample opportunities for
personal and property victimization. To illustrate, in 2017 (the most recent
year data are available), there were 28,873 criminal incidents against
persons and property on IHE campuses reported to police and security
agencies, a rate of 19.6 incidents per 10,000 full-time students (see Tables
21.1 and 21.2, Wang et al. 2020). Among all on-campus incidents, property
crimes were the most common, 52.3% of the total, with burglary
comprising 38%, motor vehicle theft 12%, and arson 2.1% of the total
reported incidents. Interpersonal violence comprised 47.7% of the total,
including forcible sex offenses (rape and fondling) constituting 36.0%,
robbery 3.6%, and aggravated assault 7.7% of the total reported incidents
(see Table 21.1, Wang et al. 2020).
 Daily interactions among members of the campus community,
especially between students, create ample opportunities for victimization
involving sexual harassment, sexual assault, dating violence, domestic
violence, and stalking. The 2019 American Association of Universities’
Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Misconduct reported that
13% of students experienced at least one nonconsensual sexual contact
(penetration or sexual touching) by physical force or inability to consent
since they enrolled at school, with rates for women, gender identity
minorities, and undergraduates significantly higher than rates for men and
graduate/professional students. Prevalence rates for sexual harassment
(18.9%), stalking (5.8%), and intimate partner violence among those in a
partnered relationship (10.1%) since enrolled as a student also are
considered alarming threats to students’ wellbeing and security (Cantor et
al. 2020).
It is thus not surprising that IHE security policy has maintained a solid
footing with the federal government and IHE campus security and police
departments. In this chapter, we document the evolution of security issues at
IHEs in the United States along with government and institutional
responses to them as shaped by two separate, yet complementary,
dimensions: Congressional legislation coupled with US Department of
Education administrative regulations and guidance and the formalization of
campus security resulting in creation of campus security and police
departments. As discussed below and presented in Tables 19.1 and 19.2,
these dimensions have both changed and expanded over time.
Table 19.1 Congressional legislation, amendments, and administrative guidance and rulemaking
addressing campus security

Year/action Security issue Name of legislation or Selected requirement

administrative directive or outcome
 Year/action Security issue Name of legislation or Selected requirement
administrative directive or outcome
1990/Amends Higher • Epidemic of Student Right-to-Know & • ASR public disclosure
Education Act of 1965 violence claims Campus Security Act (1990) of crime statistics,
• Lax physical (Pub. L. 101-542) arrests for drug,
security weapon, and alcohol
violations
• Lack of IHE
transparency • ASR public disclosure
and of disciplinary hearing,
accountability and security policies
of campus and procedures
crime data and
security
1992/Amends Campus • Sexual Campus Sexual Assault • Report policies,
Security Act assault Victims Bill of Rights (1992) procedures, and
survivors and (Pub. L 102-325, §486 [c]) services of all sexual
accusers assault survivors
denied rights in • Same basic rights for
disciplinary both parties
process
• Sanctions for
• Lack of IHE noncompliance
compliance
1994/Amends Higher • Unknown The Violence Against Women • Funds a national
Education Amendments prevalence of Act of 1994 (1994) (Pub. L baseline study on
of 1992 campus sexual 103-322, Title IV) campus sexual assault
assault • Funds grants for
• Campuses campus sexual offenses
unsafe for education and
women prevention programs
1997/Guidance from • Significant Sexual Harassment Guidance: • Describes IHE
OCR number of Harassment of Students by liability for harassment
students School Employees, Other by employees, peers, or
experiencing Students, or Third Parties a third party
sexual
harassment
 Year/action Security issue Name of legislation or Selected requirement
administrative directive or outcome
1998/Higher Education • The Jeanne Clery Disclosure • Report arson and
Amendments of 1998 Nonuniformity of Campus Security Policy & negligent manslaughter
(HEA98) renames & in disclosure Campus Crime Statistics Act statistics
amends the Campus requirements (1998) (Pub. L. 105-244, Sec • Expands geographic
Security Act 486) locations for crime
reporting on campus
property
• Campus
security/police
departments maintain
daily public crime log
• Distribute ASR to
current students and
employees
2000/ VAWA • Dating Violence Against Women Act of • Requires dating
reauthorization violence, 2000 (2000) (Public Law No: violence to be included
especially date- 106-386, Division B) education & prevention
rape drugs programs
2000/ VAWA • Threat of The Campus Sex Crimes • Requires registered
reauthorization amends sexual Prevention Act (2000) (1601, sexual offenders to
Jacob Wetterling offenders on Pub. L 106-386) disclose their status on
Crimes Against campus campus
Children & Sexually • Requires IHEs to
Violent Offender disclose where
Registration Act information on
registered sex offenders
can be obtained
2001/Guidance from • Lack of Revised Sexual Harassment • Explains compliance
OCR, revises original compliance Guidance: Harassment of responsibilities
1997 document standards for Students by School • Provides the
investigating Employees, Other Students, or circumstances that
and enforcing Third Parties *Rescinded by sexual harassment may
Title IX Department of Education constitute
discrimination
2005/VAWA • Prevalence of Violence Against Women • Funds grants to
reauthorization violent crimes Reauthorization Act of 2005 combat violence
against women (2005) (Pub. L 109-162) against women on
on college campus
campuses • Standards of training
for campus security
personnel and
disciplinary judicial
boards
 Year/action Security issue Name of legislation or Selected requirement
administrative directive or outcome
2008/Amends Clery Act • Lack of Higher Education Opportunity • Develop and
transparency in Act (2008) (Pub. L 110-315) distribute immediate
emergency campus emergency
response response and
procedures and evacuation procedures
fire safety • Report bias-related
reporting hate crime to crime log
• Lack of and crime statistics
communication • Publicize missing
on disciplinary student reports and
hearing results policies
• Implement fire safety
reporting
• Disclose relationship
of campus security with
state and local law
enforcement agencies
• Disclose disciplinary
proceedings results to
the victim of
violence/non-forcible
sex offense
2011/Guidance from • Lack of Dear Colleague Letter • Describes obligations
OCR immediate and guidance to respond to sexual
effective steps *Rescinded by Secretary of harassment and
to respond to Education Betsy DeVos in violence
sexual violence 2017 • Proscribes procedural
by schools requirements for
complaint and
proceedings
• Recommendations on
prevention and
provisions for victim
resources
 Year/action Security issue Name of legislation or Selected requirement
administrative directive or outcome
2013/VAWA • Lack of Violence Against Women • Requires targeted
reauthorization services for Reauthorization Act of 2013 programs for
minority (2013) (Pub. L 113-4) underserved
populations populations on
campuses
• Minimum training
requirement for
effective responses to
sexual violence
• Develop prevention
and intervention
materials on sexual
violence
2013/Amends Title IV • Lack of Campus Sexual Violence • ASR include national
of the HEA65 transparency Elimination Act (SaVE Act) origin and gender
regarding (2013) identity as hate crime
incidents of *Part of the Violence AgaInst categories
sexual violence Women Reauthorization Act of • Report domestic
on campuses 2013 violence, dating
violence, and stalking
statistics
• Protect victim
confidentiality when
reporting community
threats
• Requires primary
prevention and
education programs on
sexual violence
2014/Guidance from • Request by Questions & Answers on Title • Explains schools’
OCR schools for IX & Sexual Violence obligations when
technical *Rescinded by Secretary of responding to sexual
assistance on Education Betsy DeVos in violence
Title IX 2017 • Reviews Title IX
obligations procedural
• Sexual requirements
violence • IHEs must make a
included as a good faith effort to
form of sexual comply with statutory
harassment provisions until final
regulations go into
effect
 Year/action Security issue Name of legislation or Selected requirement
administrative directive or outcome
2020/Final Rule • Definition Nondiscrimination on the • Narrowed definition
and Basis of Sex in Education and location
setting/location Programs or Activities • Mandatory response
of sexual Receiving Federal Financial obligations for
harassment as Assistance (2020) (34 CFR grievance process,
per Title IX Part 106) investigation,
• Lack of due disciplinary hearing,
process in Title appeal, and informal
IX proceedings resolution
for both parties

Table 19.2 Campus policing safety and security issues, milestones, and their impact on campus
police/security

Year/time Safety & security issue Campus policing Impact on campus

period milestone police/security
1894 • Town versus Gown rift • Yale University • Formalization of campus
• Rule-breaking by students hires two New security begins
Haven police • Systematic patrol of campus
• Destruction of campus officers
property
1900– • Loss of physical plant due to • “Custodian- • Expanded popularity among
1920 fire, flood, or vandalism watchman” era IHEs of systematic patrol of
• Rule-breaking by students campus

1920s– • Traffic congestion on • “Watchman- • Continued formalization of

1950s campus guards” era campus security via creation of
• Rule-breaking by students “campus security departments”
• Loss of physical plant to • Transfer of security
fire, flood, or vandalism responsibilities from physical
plant department to “campus
security department”
• Creation of professional
association for campus security
“directors”
1960s– • Loss of physical plant due to • State authorized • Bifurcation of campus security
1970s fire, flood, or vandalism and statutorily into nonsworn “security guards”
• Maintain order enabled campus and sworn “police officers”
police departments • Adoption of municipal police
• Rising crime rate created at IHEs organizational model
Year/time Safety & security issue Campus policing Impact on campus
period milestone police/security
1980s • Criminal victimization • Professionalization • Formal efforts to recruit/retain
• Order maintenance of campus policing new officers
• Widespread use of • Police academy training and
alcohol/recreational drugs field training for new officers
• Campus policing as a
“vocation”
• Continued bifurcation of
campus security
1990 • Epidemic of violence claims • Student Right-to- • ASR public disclosure of crime
• Lax physical security Know & Campus statistics, arrests for drug,
Security Act of weapon, and alcohol violations
• Lack of IHE transparency & 1990 (1990) (Pub. L.
accountability of campus • ASR public disclosure of
101-542) disciplinary hearing, and security
crime data & security
policies and procedures
• Enhanced transparency of
campus crime data
• Continued bifurcation of
campus security
Early • College women sexually • Community- • Reorientation of campus
1990s victimized Oriented Policing policing to follow COP precepts
• Drug/alcohol-related (COP) introduced on • COP used to help legitimize
victimization campus campus police
• Continued bifurcation of
campus security
1998 • College women sexually • Jeanne Clery • Report arson & negligent
victimized Disclosure of manslaughter statistics
• On-campus violent crime Campus Security • Expands geographic locations
Policy & Campus for crime reporting on campus
• Drug/alcohol-related Crime Statistics Act
offenses property
(1998) (Pub. L. 105-
• Non-uniformity in 244) • Maintain & make publicly
disclosure requirements available a daily crime log
• Continued emphasis on
professionalization via academy
training
• Continued expansion of COP
on campus
• Continued bifurcation of
campus security
Year/time Safety & security issue Campus policing Impact on campus
period milestone police/security
2000s • Post-9/11 terrorist threats • Widespread • Widespread adoption of COP
• Drug/alcohol-facilitated adoption of COP on campus
victimization • Select campus police
• College women sexually departments create Special
victimized Weapons & Tactics (SWAT)
teams
• Beginning of militarization of
the campus police
• Continued bifurcation of
campus security
2008 • Active shooter(s) on campus • Higher Education • Develop & distribute
• Firearms on campus Opportunity immediate campus emergency
Act (2008) (Pub. L. response & evacuation
• Terrorist threats 110–315) procedures
• Lack of transparency in • Report bias-related hate crime
emergency response to crime log & crime statistics
procedures
• Implement fire safety reporting
• Cybervictimization of
institution/students • Disclose relationship of
campus security with state &
• Physical plant loss due to local enforcement agencies
human/ natural disaster
• Active shooter training for
campus police
• Jurisdiction of campus police
slowly expands
• Joint-training exercises,
exchanges of in-service training
between campus & local police
• Continued militarization of
campus police
• Continued bifurcation of
campus security
Year/time Safety & security issue Campus policing Impact on campus
period milestone police/security
2013 • College women victims of • Violence Against • New reporting requirements for
dating and domestic violence Women incidents involving stalking &
and stalking Reauthorization Act dating & domestic violence on
• Active shooter(s) on campus of 2013 (2013) (Pub. hate crimes to include national
L. 113-4) origin & gender of victims
• Firearms on campus
• Expansion of campus police
• Violent victimization on jurisdiction beyond
campus neighborhoods adjacent to
• Cybervictimization of campus
institution/students • Continued militarization of
• Loss of physical plant due to campus police via procurement
human/natural disaster of surplus military-grade
weapons & equipment through
U.S. Department of Defense
1033 & 1122 initiatives
• Continued bifurcation of
campus security
2015– • Terrorist threats • Militarization of • SWAT teams common in
present • Active shooter incidents campus police campus police departments
• Mass casualty events • Continued procurement of
surplus military-grade weapons
• Cybervictimization of & equipment through U.S.
institution/students/employees Department of Defense 1033 &
• Threats to public order 1122 initiatives
• Facial recognition software
becoming common
• Continued bifurcation of
campus security

The Evolution of Federal Legislative and

Administrative Directives
Table 19.1 presents a timeline of Congressional legislation and amendments
to the legislation, as well as administrative guidance and rulemaking
occurring over the period 1990 to the present. As shown in Table 19.1,
security issues at IHEs led to federal intervention, resulting in specific
outcomes (e.g., new requirements for reporting crime statistics) that
expanded the scope of IHEs’ responsibility for providing security to the
campus community. Importantly, as the number of legislative mandates
increased, so did the threat of IHEs losing their eligibility to receive federal
financial aid funding for students or being fined for noncompliance.

Congressional Legislation
Below, we describe relevant legislation and amendments to it that addressed
specific security issues at IHEs and created new, or expanded existing,
policies and practices.

Amendments to the Higher Education Act of 1965

After the rape and murder of Jeanne Clery at Lehigh University in 1986, her
parents Connie and Howard Clery, convinced that security lapses at the
school were the cause of their daughter’s death, were determined to raise
awareness about the problem of security lapses at IHEs and foster
improvements resulting in a safer environment for all students (Sloan and
Fisher 2013). The Clery’s grassroots activism ultimately led to
Congressional passage of The Student Right-to-Know & Campus Security
Act of 1990 (Campus Security Act) deemed “consumer protection
legislation” for current and prospective IHE students and their parents
(Fisher et al. 2010).
As shown in Table 19.1, the Campus Security Act is landmark
legislation specifically addressing campus security issues. Amending the
Higher Education Act of 1965, the Campus Security Act responded to
claims of a violence epidemic occurring at IHEs—despite a dearth of
empirical evidence—along with lax physical security and a lack of
transparency in, and accountability for, IHEs’ compiling and publicly
sharing their crime data and security information. The Campus Security Act
now requires all IHEs eligible for federal financial aid funding to make
publicly available an annual security report (ASR) containing crime
statistics for selected offenses (including murder, rape, robbery, aggravated
assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft) reported to police or other
legislatively authorized IHE officials, information on on-campus arrests and
disciplinary referrals for specific violations including liquor laws, drugs,
and illegal weapons possession, and descriptions of security policies and
procedures.
With new requirements for public disclosure, supporters of the Campus
Security Act believed that IHEs would be more transparent by disclosing the
number of crime incidents on campus and their security policies and more
accountable through federal oversight of institutional compliance. However,
as shown in Table 19.1, transparency and accountability issues were soon
raised by sexual assault survivors who claimed IHEs were denying them
various rights during disciplinary hearings, including disclosure of their
outcomes. In response, Congress amended the Campus Security Act in 1992
by passing the Campus Sexual Assault Victims Bill of Rights. The new law
now requires IHEs to report all policies, procedures, and services to sexual
assault survivors. Additionally, both the accused and the accuser are given
the same basic rights during disciplinary hearings, including the right to
have others present and be informed of the outcome. Noncompliance could
result in institutional sanctions imposed by the US Department of
Education.
The Campus Security Act was further amended in 1998 and renamed the
Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy & Campus Crime
Statistics Act (Clery Act). The Clery Act creates new requirements designed
to address apparent nonuniformity in IHE ASRs. Additionally, IHEs are
required to compile and report statistics on arson and negligent
manslaughter counts in their crime statistics, along with statistics for not
only crimes occurring on campus property, but also incidents occurring on
non-campus properties used in support of educational purposes or on public
property within a reasonably contiguous geographic area. To further
reinforce transparency and accountability in reporting crime statistics,
campus police and security departments must maintain a publicly available
daily crime log that includes the general location, date, time, and nature of
each incident reported to police or security personnel. Reinforcing the
initial consumer protection aims of the Campus Security Act, the
amendments’ requirement that ASRs include more details about incidents
that annually occurred on—or near—campus enhances IHE transparency.
By making this new information easily accessible, current and prospective
students and their families could make more informed decisions about
enrolling based on more complete safety and security information.
The Clery Act was again amended in 2008 by the Higher Education
Opportunity Act (HEOA) to remedy oversights such as not requiring IHE
disclosure of emergency response procedures and fire safety,
inconsistencies in communications relating to disciplinary hearing results,
and loopholes in security-related requirements. Mindful of the need to
further expand IHE transparency and accountability, the HEOA requires
IHEs to distribute campus emergency response contingencies (including
evacuation procedures), implement fire safety reporting, include bias and
hate crime-related incidents in daily crime logs and statistics, and publicize
missing student reports and policies relating to them. The required “fire
safety report” must disclose the number of fires, their presumed causes, and
any injuries or fatalities resulting from them, along with providing a
description of building sprinkler systems, number of fire drills held
annually, and future plans for fire safety improvement. Additionally, HEOA
requires results of disciplinary hearings of non-forcible sex offenses or
violence be disclosed to the complainant on request. IHEs must also
disclose the relationship between campus police or security and local law
enforcement (e.g., the parties have signed a mutual aid agreement).

The Violence Against Women Act

As part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, The
Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) is the first comprehensive
federal legislation whose overarching goal is to address and reduce violence
against all women. Since the prevalence of campus sexual assault was
largely unknown at the time and feminists, researchers, and victim
advocates pressed Congress with their concerns over unsafe campuses for
women, VAWA earmarks funds to complete a national baseline study of
campus sexual assault and for grants to IHEs for sexual assault education
and prevention programs (Sloan and Fisher 2011).
As shown in Table 19.1, since initial passage, VAWA has been
reauthorized three times. The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act
of 2000 broadens the scope of “violence against college women” to include
dating violence and allocates funding for grants to address dating violence.
The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2005 addresses the
prevalence of violent crimes against college women while also creating
training standards for responses to campus violence programs and standards
for disciplinary boards. The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act
of 2013 addresses the lack of services for underserved populations. This
reauthorization requires IHEs to implement targeted programs for
underserved populations and develop and disseminate prevention and
intervention materials on campus sexual violence. VAWA grantees now have
minimum requirements to meet regarding mandatory prevention and
education programs, coordinated community responses—including external
organizations and relevant institutional divisions—and training campus law
enforcement on responding to sexual violence incidents.
The Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act (SaVE Act) is part of the
2013 VAWA Reauthorization Act and is designed to strengthen the Clery
Act. Included among its aims is addressing the continuing lack of
transparency surrounding campus sexual violence statistics. To achieve this
goal, IHEs must now include national origin and gender identity of victims
of hate crimes in the ASR, collect and report domestic violence, dating
violence and stalking statistics in ASR crime statistics, and protect victim
confidentiality when reporting threats to the campus community.
Completing sexual violence prevention and education programs are also
required for incoming students and new employees. These programs must
now include a statement that the IHE prohibits sexual violence; definitions
of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, and consent
to sexual activity; options for bystander intervention; and information on
the warning signs of abusive behavior.
The enactment and reauthorizations of VAWA continue to enlarge the
scope of IHE transparency and accountability by expanding how grant
funding can be used by IHEs. By creating standards for training
requirements, IHEs are held accountable for the (in)actions and responses
(or lack thereof) by campus personnel.

Administrative Guidance and Rulemaking

In addition to federal legislation, the US Department of Education Office
for Civil Rights’ (OCR) (2011, 2014) administrative rules and guidance for
their meaning and implementation have shaped federal involvement in
campus security. As shown in Table 19.1 and discussed below, much of this
activity has involved Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972
rules and guidance on their meaning and implementation.

Guidance on Title IX
Originally enacted in 1972, Title IX of the Education Amendments Act
(1972) is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis
of a person’s sex in any education program or activity receiving federal
financial aid. As shown in Table 19.1, in the name of increasing both IHE
transparency and accountability, the US Department of Education provided
additional guidance and directives specifically aimed at security issues
created by/associated with sexual harassment and violence.
In 1997, the OCR issued a document, Sexual Harassment Guidance
(1997 Guidance), for Title IX that describes IHE liability for [sexual]
harassment by an employee, peer, or third party (US Department of
Education Office for Civil Rights 1997). The 1997 Guidance was updated
in 2001 by the document Revised Sexual Harassment Guidance:
Harassment of Students by School Employees, Other Students, or Third
Parties, which explains IHE compliance responsibility and defines
circumstances under which sexual harassment constitutes sex-based
discrimination. Instead of providing a distinct definition of sexual
harassment for administrative enforcement, the 2001 Revised Guidance
urged IHEs to consider the totality of the surrounding circumstances,
expectations, and relationships of the parties involved for determining if
alleged harassment is actionable under Title IX (US Department of
Education Office for Civil Rights 2001).
Omission of standards for IHE compliance when investigating and
enforcing Title IX complaints resulted in additional OCR guidance. The
2011 Dear Colleague Letter outlined IHE Title IX standards for responding
to sexual harassment complaints, expanded IHE responses to include
incidents of sexual violence, and stipulated procedural requirements
necessary for IHE handling of sexual harassment complaints. The letter
recognized that, for too long, IHEs had swept these issues under the rug and
emphasized the federal government’s expectation that IHEs would fulfill
their responsibility to create a safe environment for all students (Jordan
2019). Supporting this agency initiative, President Obama created the White
House Task Force in 2014 to Protect Students from Sexual Assault with its
primary goal being to end college sexual assault and initiate a grassroots
strategy, “It’s On Us,” aimed at IHEs to change the culture of support for
sexual assault that exists on many campuses (Jordan 2019).
A second guidance resource, Questions and Answers on Title IX and
Sexual Violence, was issued by OCR in 2014 in response to IHEs’ requests
for technical assistance on their Title IX obligations. By reviewing Title IX
procedural requirements and stating that IHEs must make a “good faith
effort” to comply with Title IX statutory provisions until final regulations
took effect, IHEs would have a better idea of their responsibilities when
responding to complaints of sexual harassment and violence.
 In 2017, however, both guidance documents were rescinded by then
Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. Secretary DeVos instead
implemented her final federal rule (Final Rule) relating to Title IX actions
arising from incidents of sexual harassment and violence contained in the
document Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or
Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance in 2020. DeVos’ Final
Rule narrows the definition of sexual harassment and identifies to which
educational settings and locations Title IX requirements apply. This Final
Rule also includes mandatory response obligations for IHEs for the
complaint process, as well as for investigations, disciplinary hearings,
appeals, and informal resolutions. Not all parties, however, were satisfied
with DeVos’ Final Rule. For example, Know Your IX, a survivor-led project
whose goal is to end sexual and dating violence, wrote and published a 58-
page critique noting that Secretary DeVos’ Final Rule would “increase the
length of Title IX investigations, invite law enforcement interference [with]
school investigations, and allow schools to use harmful mediation
procedures to resolve cases of sexual assault and domestic violence” (Know
Your IX 2019, p. 2).

Additional Amendments
As shown in Table 19.1, to address the threat of sexual offenders enrolling
as students or being hired as IHE employees, Congress passed the Campus
Sex Crimes Prevention Act in 2000 to ensure the campus community would
have access to information about the presence of registered sex offenders on
campus. This act amends the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children &
Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act and requires registered sexual
offenders to disclose their enrollment at IHEs to relevant local authorities.
Schools must then inform the campus community where information about
registered sex offender enrollments can be found. While solely providing
the location of this information is a step forward for improving the
transparency by IHEs, at least one study has shown students believed
providing offender pictures, offense type, and posting this information on
the IHE’s website is preferred (Garland et al. 2018).

The Evolution of Campus Security and Policing

Largely unknown in the United States is the fact that a majority of four-year
colleges and universities operate their own campus police departments.
Most of these departments employ sworn and armed officers possessing full
arrest powers, and may patrol outside the boundaries of the campus (Reaves
2015). Many departments often have specialized weapons and tactics
(SWAT) units and use military-grade weapons and equipment (Delehanty et
al. 2017).
Table 19.2 presents a timeline for the evolution of campus security at
US IHEs and includes the year/time period of interest, the safety and
security issue(s) prominent at the time, the milestone(s) that occurred, and
the impact of the milestone(s) on campus police/security. As shown in Table
19.2, if Yale University’s hiring two New Haven (Connecticut) police
officers in 1894 to “patrol” the campus and form a “police department”
began the formalization of campus security at US IHEs, formalization
culminated during the 1960s and 1970s with the creation of campus police
departments. Further, as campus security became entrenched at American
IHEs, it also bifurcated along two lines: use of either sworn officers, or non-
sworn security guards. Of final interest is the fact that as campus police
departments became common, questions about their transparency,
accountability, and, most importantly, legitimacy have been raised and
remain at issue (Wada et al. 2010).
One way to understand the evolution of campus policing is to view it as
revolving around efforts by campus police executives and their IHE
overseers to adequately answer questions about transparency,
accountability, and legitimacy. As shown in Table 19.2, sometimes the
answers came in the form of requirements via federal legislation, such as
the Campus Security Act. Most times, however, answers came from campus
police executives hired to administer these agencies or IHE executives
seeking to limit outside involvement in efforts to protect the campus
physical plant, enforce state law and institutional rules, and maintain order
on campus.

In Loco Parentis and Campus Security

Although IHEs first appeared in the United States during the seventeenth
century, “campus security” as it is understood today did not exist until the
early decades of the twentieth century. The reason for this was simple: the
legal principle of in loco parentis (“in the place of the parents”) that guided
IHEs until the 1960s. Under in loco parentis, faculty and staff were
responsible for students’ physical and moral development and wellbeing
(Newcomer 2017) as well as for detecting rules-breakers and helping
protect the physical plant (Gelber 1972). Deans of students and even
college or university presidents then served as judge and jury in disciplinary
hearings in which students had few rights and there were no appeals to
sanctions imposed on them. This was the general state of affairs when it
came to campus security during the seventeenth through early twentieth
centuries.
At the turn of the twentieth century, rapid expansion of educational
opportunities occurred as states created postsecondary Normal Schools to
educate and train teachers and the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862, which
provided federal grants to the states in the form of tracts of public land,
spurred creation of public IHEs devoted to agriculture, and the “mechanical
arts” (Peshek 2018). Importantly, municipal police departments, what
became the organizational model for campus police departments, were well-
entrenched in major cities in the United States at this point.

Watchmen and Campus Security

Yale’s hiring of two New Haven police officers to patrol the campus,
combined with the spirit of in loco parentis, helped create a model for
“campus security”—watchmen—that other IHEs emulated and which
evolved over the next 50 years from using custodians and maintenance
workers as watchmen to hiring retired law enforcement officials to serve in
that role (Gelber 1972). While tasked mainly with addressing threats to the
campus physical plant involving fire, flood, or vandalism, early custodian-
watchmen could also report student rule-breaking to faculty and thus served
as additional eyes and ears for IHE faculty and administrators when it came
to student misconduct and resulted in students according little legitimacy to
them.
During the 1920s and 1930s as automobiles became popular on campus
and rules had to be drafted to address the myriad of problems they created,
IHEs hired watchmen-guards and tasked them with enforcing traffic rules
and reporting their infraction to faculty or administrators. Watchmen-guards
also became increasingly associated with newly emerging “campus security
departments” rather than campus maintenance (Bordner and Petersen 1983).
The 1950s even saw the creation of a professional association for “campus
security directors” that ultimately morphed into the International
Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA), the
largest professional association of its type in the world (IACLEA 2020).
However, with the oncoming demise of in loco parentis and the advent of
campus police departments, change was in the making.

Campus Police Departments

The 1960s saw dramatic changes in campus security as US IHEs
experienced large increases in enrollments as the “baby boomers” went to
college. Physical expansion of campuses continued and additional crime
and traffic congestion occurred. The 1960s also witnessed the end of in loco
parentis and a reorientation of the relationship between college student and
IHE sparked in large part by increasing levels of student activism in the
form of on-campus protests, sometimes violent, over civil rights, the
Vietnam conflict, women’s rights, and the “free speech” movement
(Johnson and Feinberg 1980). Maintaining order, addressing rising levels of
crime, and protecting the campus physical plant all became paramount for
IHE administrators who quickly learned that having local, county, or state
law enforcement or National Guard units on campus was no solution.
Outside agencies’ presence too often resulted in violent clashes between
students and police, resulting in the deaths of, and injuries to, members of
both groups.
IHE administrators instead turned to the states for help, convincing state
legislatures to pass enabling legislation or state attorneys general to issue
legally binding opinions that granted IHEs the authority to create their own
campus police departments (Gelber 1972). IHE administrators believed that
campus police would become part of the fabric of the community and thus
achieve more legitimacy than would outside law enforcement agencies
brought to campus to address crime, order maintenance, and physical plant
protection.
As more campus police departments were created, bifurcation occurred
in how security at IHEs was handled. Most schools chose to centralize
physical security in a campus police department. The remaining schools
chose to use non-sworn security guards they either hired or were provided
by third-party vendors (e.g., Wackenhut Corporation). Both campus security
and campus police departments, however, were modeled after municipal
police agencies to include a quasi-military style rank structure, relative
specialization, and top-down communication (Paoline and Sloan 2003).
Officers and security guards alike wore distinctive uniforms and carried
various authority symbols, such as handcuffs, badges, batons, and portable
communication devices; sworn officers were issued firearms which they
openly carried while on duty.

Professionalization of Campus Policing

As shown in Table 19.2, if the 1960s and 1970s represented the period
when campus police became established and interwoven into the fabric of
campus communities, the 1980s and 1990s witnessed concerted efforts to
professionalize campus policing to not only legitimize their presence, but
enhance their stature as “real cops” among both students and members of
the law enforcement community (Sloan 2020). Additionally, many campus
police chiefs created programs, similar to those used by other law
enforcement agencies, to formally recruit college students to “join the
ranks.” Departments also began requiring new hires to complete basic law
enforcement training at the same academies that train new recruits hired by
municipal, county, and state police departments (Reaves 2016); new
officers also had to complete a period of field training and complete
regularly scheduled, department-sponsored, in-service training. The result
was the transformation of campus policing into a new vocation for those
interested in law enforcement careers.

The Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act of 1990

As described above, the 1980s witnessed widespread claims that violence at
IHEs was reaching near epidemic proportions and lax physical security was
a contributing factor (Sloan and Fisher 2011). Critics claimed IHE-based
police and security departments possessed neither transparency nor
accountability which was unacceptable. Knowles (2020) suggests the lack
of accountability was because, unlike other law enforcement agencies, US
campus police departments are not directly accountable to elected officials.
Instead, they are accountable to university administrators, boards of
trustees, state legislatures, and accrediting entities (where applicable)—
venues that are far less open to members of the public making them difficult
to directly influence. Campus police departments also receive special legal
protections such as being exempt from public record laws and possess
immunity from civil lawsuits (Okeke and Abrahams 2018).
 Successful grass-roots lobbying efforts in the late 1980s led to multiple
congressional hearings on campus crime, resulting in passage of the
Campus Security Act (see Tables 19.1 and 19.2). This law became the first
instance of federal involvement with campus police and security operations
and was designed to enhance agency transparency for crime statistics
collected and accountability for publicly reporting them.

The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and

Campus Crime Statistics Act
A second federal intervention into IHEs’ police and security departments
occurred in 1998 with passage of the Clery Act (see Tables 19.1 and 19.2).
In addition to the new crime statistics reporting requirements, these
departments had to now create and make available in real time a publicly
available “daily crime log” of reported offenses. These new requirements
and the concerns driving them also facilitated campus police adopting
community-oriented policing (COP) as a new organizational model for their
departments during 1990s.

COP on Campus
Table 19.2 indicates that as part of the professionalization of campus
policing, during the 1990s shifts occurred in the organizational model of
campus police departments due to their adopting the philosophical,
administrative, and tactical components of COP. Adopting COP would not
only reorient campus policing to prioritize relations with the community but
also change how departments were organized by decentralizing and de-
specializing them, not to mention flattening their rank-structure. COP also
promised to help legitimize campus police not only among students, but
among members of the law enforcement community more broadly as many
of them worked at agencies also experimenting with or fully implementing
COP (Paoline and Sloan 2013).
Although widespread adoption of COP occurred during the 1990s and
into the 2000s, post-9/11 concerns relating to terrorist attacks at IHEs,
ongoing concerns over drug- and alcohol-facilitated victimizations
occurring on campus, especially those involving sexual victimization of
college women, helped limit many of the promised COP reforms. Instead,
the 2000s saw the beginnings of campus police militarization as increasing
numbers of departments created special weapons and tactics or SWAT
teams to address terrorist threats and procure military-grade equipment and
weapons. Bifurcation of campus security continued, and as shown in both
Tables 19.1 and 19.2, the 2000s witnessed a third intervention of Congress
into the operations, policies, and procedures of campus security agencies
intended to again address issues over agency transparency and
accountability.

Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008

Mass shootings at Virginia Polytechnic and State University in 2007 and
Northern Illinois University in 2008 resulted in “active shooters”
(Greenberg 2007) as a new security threat to IHEs and ongoing debate over
the utility of concealed carrying of firearms on campus (Sloan and Fisher
2018). Security concerns over terrorist threats and physical plant loss from
human causes or natural disasters continued, along with emerging concerns
over the cybervictimization of IHEs and/or their students (McQuade 2013).
In 2008 Congress passed the HEOA which included additional
requirements for campus police designed to enhance transparency (see
Tables 19.1 and 19.2). For example, campus police now had to help IHEs
develop emergency response and evacuation procedures and publicly report
them. Departments also had to compile statistics on and publicly report
counts of bias-related hate crimes involving larceny, simple assault,
intimidation, and destruction/damage/vandalism of property. Additional
requirements included developing and publicizing IHE policies for
responding to reports of missing students, fire safety reporting, and
disclosing campus security’s relationship with local law enforcement.

Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013

Moving into the 2010s, new security concerns emerged over dating and
domestic violence and stalking. Continuing security concerns over terrorist
threats, firearms and active shooters on campus, cybervictimization, mass
casualty events, threats to public order posed by student protests, and the
ever-present concern over protecting the campus physical plant remained.
The 2010s also witnessed continuing militarization of the campus police
and additional intervention by Congress in 2013 when VAWA was
reauthorized and sought even greater transparency in the types of data being
collected, analyzed, and made public by campus police (see Tables 19.1 and
19.2). For example, provisions from the SaVE Act included campus police
having to compile and report statistics on cases of reported domestic
violence, dating violence, and stalking, and added two new categories of
bias—gender and identity—applicable to hate crime reporting. The new
regulations were once again focusing on enhanced transparency and
accountability.

Conclusion
The evolution of IHE security in the United States has involved two
legislative “streams.” The first involved the states, occurred in the 1960s
and 1970s, and involved them passing enabling legislation (or having
attorneys general issue binding opinions) that IHEs could create their own
police departments staffed by sworn, armed, officers. While not all IHEs
chose that particular route resulting in a bifurcation of campus security, the
fact campus police/security guards were available to protect person and
property represented a sea change in campus security. The second stream
involved the US Congress. Beginning in 1990 with passage of the Campus
Security Act, over the next 15 years Congress passed a series of
amendments to the Higher Education Act of 1965 designed to address
growing concerns over the extent and nature of criminal victimization
occurring at IHEs and schools’ apparent failure to address them. While the
specific issues addressed by legislation varied, much of their focus was with
(1) the sexual victimization of college women, (2) victims’ rights, and (3)
ensuring current and prospective students, their parents, and employees had
easy access to documentation of IHE security and safety policies and
procedures. Sanctions for noncompliance, ranging from civil fines to loss of
access to federal financial aid, incentivized IHEs to take seriously the
changes in security policies and procedures mandated by legislation.
Beyond addressing specific security issues, the legislation, amendments,
and administrative rules—either explicitly or implicitly—sought to increase
transparency in, and accountability for, how IHEs were addressing campus
security issues.
On March 8, 2021, President Biden signed an executive order directing
the Department of Education to review all existing policies and regulations,
including the 2020 Final Rule. This action effectively begins his promise to
dismantle Trump-era changes to Title IX (Rogers and Green 2021).
President Biden’s executive order is among the first changes by his
administration directed at the 2020 Final Rule. Only time will tell what the
federal government’s foci on campus security will be during the Biden
administration.

Recommended Readings
Across four editions, Fisher and Sloan’s edited volume, Campus Crime:
Legal, Social and Policy Perspectives is a collection of original chapters
whose topics cover different aspects of crime and security at IHEs. Each
edition (newest edition, 2022) offers new and updated chapters that focus
on legislation, college student victimization research, campus policing, and
physical and cyber security. Sloan and Fisher’s The Dark Side of the Ivory
Tower: Campus Crime as a Social Problem (2011) identifies four disparate
groups of “claimsmakers” who separately socially constructed campus
crime, victimization, and lax security as a “new” social problem in the
United States during the 1980s and 1990s.
Focused more on campus security, Sulkowski and Lazarus (2011)
review various IHE’s efforts to reduce the risk of violence on campus, by
utilizing emerging technologies, allowing conceal carrying of firearms on
campus, and using active shooter profiling tools to enhance campus
security. Jacobson (2017) examines the effect of IHE campus security
measures and student reporting of victimization by gender on-campus
violent crime patterns.
Narrowing the foci of campus security to specific types of crimes,
Rasmussen and Johnson (2008) present results from a survey of student life
and campus safety officials after the 2007 Virginia Tech mass shooting and
discuss notification systems and security monitoring and enhancements
implemented in the wake of the mass shooting. Fox and Savage (2009)
present findings and discuss recommendations for enhancing campus
security from various task forces convened after the mass shootings at
Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University.
Sources of campus crime statistics and security policies include not only
annual security reports from Title IV eligible IHEs (i.e., those participating
in federal financial aid programs) but also Indicators of School Crime and
Safety published annually and includes a chapter devoted to IHE crime and
security (Wang et al. 2020). The US Department of Educations’ online
Security Data Analysis Cutting Tool (https://ope.ed.gov/campussafety/#/)
provides the past three years of data on crime (from 2005) and fire (from
2010) statistics submitted annually for the entire IHE or by campus, along
with an option to view crime rates (the number per 1000 students), for
download.

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Cantor, D., Fisher, B., Chibnall, S., Harps, S., Townsend, R., Thomas, G., Lee, H., Kranz, V.,
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Delehanty, C., Mewhirter, J., Welch, R., & Wilks, J. (2017). Militarization and police violence: The
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M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_20

20. Addressing the Security Issues Related

to Illegal Commercial Fishing
G. A. Petrossian1 , J. Lettieri1 and R. V. G. Clarke2
(1) John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA
(2) Rutgers School of Criminal Justice, Newark, NJ, USA

G. A. Petrossian (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Abstract
Illegal commercial fishing, commonly referred to as IUU (illegal,
unreported, and unregulated) fishing, is one of the most complex and
serious environmental crimes. The harms of this crime are numerous and
significant, spanning from economic and social to environmental, affecting
not only people but also marine life alike. This chapter will broadly outline
and discuss the harms caused by illegal fishing. It will then focus on the
facilitators of this crime and lay the foundation for security issues
associated with each. Subsequent discussions will focus on identifying the
interventions that have been proposed or implemented to remove these
facilitating conditions, as well as on proposing alternative intervention that
can better address the issue while holding the issue of security in mind.

Introduction: The Harms of IUU Fishing

Every year, global fisheries lose an estimated $36 billion to illegal,
unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing (Pauly and Zeller 2016). The
rapid decline and severe depletion of fisheries resources in many parts of
the world makes IUU fishing one of the most serious environmental crimes
of our century. IUU fishing is ubiquitous, spanning all parts of the world
and affecting all fisheries alike. It is also complex in its structure,
incorporating a broad spectrum of activities, including fishing in prohibited
areas, fishing without a license, using prohibited gear or methods, fishing
over the quota, and fishing juvenile fish. IUU fishing is now at the forefront
of international discourse because of its broad environmental, economic,
social, and security implications.
Over 90% of all commercial fishing activity occurs in the exclusive
economic zones of coastal countries. Exclusive economic zones, which
stretch 200 nautical miles from the baseline (i.e., shoreline) into the seas,
have been established by the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS),
which gave maritime nations sovereignty over the marine resources found
within their waters. This has forced many fishing countries to seek new
fishing grounds farther into the oceans. This has also allowed others to take
advantage of the inability of certain developing maritime nations to
effectively govern their waters, so as to steal their resources. With over
100,000 pounds of wild-caught fish lost every minute to illegal fishing
(Pew Charitable Trusts 2013), IUU fishing not only raises severe maritime
security concerns but also leads to significant economic losses. The
countries most affected are those in the Western Africa coast (Petrossian
and Clarke 2020) and in South East Asia.
Depleting fish stocks in many developing countries often means much
more than suffering economically. Several of these countries obtain about
50% of their protein input from seafood (U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organization, 2018a), aon the border of Iran their protein source often
means increased pressure for basic survival (Crowell and Turvold 2020).
For example, in Africa, fishing is a vital source of food and nutrition
security for more than 200 million people, and it provides direct income for
over 10 million people on the continent (African Union 2014). As a result
of the loss of this vital source, many fishermen in poverty-stricken
communities have little choice when searching for work but to be recruited
by foreign fishing vessel owners, who often overlook various human rights
abuses onboard their vessels, including beating, imprisonment onboard the
vessel, withholding food and water, subjecting fishers to sexual abuse, and
forcing them to work under dangerous conditions (EJF 2010). These fishers
become the “de facto prisoners of the sea” and are often forced to work
more than 18 hours a day under severely deprived conditions (UNODC
2011). This lack of jobs in poverty-stricken fishing communities has also
forced young fishers to work with drug traffickers (Dyer 2014), putting both
themselves and their families at significant risk.
Additionally, illegal fishing vessel owners often use illegal methods to
fish, such as bottom trawling, blast fishing, muro-ami nets, and drift nets
(FAO 2007). Blast fishing, which is common in over 30 countries
(Chevallier 2017), uses dynamite to explode under water, as a result of
which demersal plankton and many reef fish, which are important
components of the marine ecosystem, are damaged (White et al. 2000).
Muro-ami nets, which are pounded to startle fish out of corals and crevices,
have caused irreparable damage to coral reefs. Bottom trawls, one of the
most destructive gears in use, have destroyed vast areas of seafloor habitats,
as, when dragged, they crush everything in their path, including bottom
dwelling fish and corals. Drift nets, also known as the “walls of death” (EJF
2007), are synthetic nets that stretch over several dozen miles and are used
to catch salmon, tuna, billfish, and swordfish, also accidentally catch non-
target species (collectively known as by-catch), such as seals, dolphins, sea
turtles, whales, and sharks, many of which are critically endangered
(Petrossian 2019). The environmental impact of IUU fishing is profound
and difficult to quantify.
While a significant body of research has been undertaken in the past
several decades to illustrate the economic, social, and environmental
impacts of IUU fishing, far less is known about its security implications,
especially as these relate to the convergence of IUU fishing with serious
transnational crimes. The aim of this chapter, therefore, is threefold: (a) to
demonstrate how various transnational crimes converge with IUU fishing
and to highlight the security implications and concerns that arise as a result;
(b) to highlight how IUU fishing (and associated crimes) has been dealt
with in the past, especially through national and international regulatory
mechanisms; and (c) to propose other solutions that derive from the Crime
Science approach that can be used to reduce the security risks of IUU
fishing. Considering that 90% of the global legal trade moves through the
sea (Bruwer 2019), and recognizing the critical role the oceans play in
promoting trade (Guilfoyle 2009), an in-depth review of the convergence of
IUU fishing and other crimes and its security implications is urgently
needed. The following section, therefore, will discuss the security
implications of IUU fishing in more depth.
IUU Fishing and Associated Crimes
The numerous crimes associated with IUU fishing include piracy, drug
trafficking, labor trafficking, terrorism, corruption, and money laundering.
This section will explore these crimes and highlight the associated security
vulnerabilities in different environments, such as the high seas, the
exclusive economic zones, inland waters, and ports.
IUU Fishing and Piracy. While this is rare, pirates have targeted IUU
fishing vessels (Bergenas and Knight 2015; Hansen 2011; Weldemichael
2019). In a study examining Somali piracy incidents from the late 1980s to
the 2010s, it was found that pirates have the most success with fishing
vessels (Hansen 2011). In one recent incident, three Thai fishing vessels
were targeted by Somali pirates more than 1000 nautical miles off the coast
of Somalia. Seventy-seven crew members were taken for ransom, of whom
only 62 were accounted for and the remaining 15 were presumed dead
(Weldemichael 2019). Research shows that Somali pirates are often former
fishermen, who, due to the distant water fishing fleets’ plunder of their
country’s resources and their subsequent loss of jobs, resorted to piracy as a
means of making a living (Crowell and Turvold 2020). With over 1000
piracy and armed robbery incidents reported in the hotspots of Southeast
Asia and the Gulf of Guinea since 2016 (Office of Naval Intelligence 2020),
piracy remains one of the most significant security threats.
IUU Fishing and Drug Trafficking. A study conducted in 2020
revealed that drug traffickers increasingly rely on fishing vessels to carry
out their operations. In the years 2010–2017, drug trafficking using fishing
vessels has tripled, accounting for 15% of the total retail drug market and
$16.5 billion in value. Most drug seizures take place in the Western Indian
Ocean, Central America, and South America (Belhabib et al. 2020). In the
Western Indian Ocean, the Southern Route is one of the most frequently
used routes for transporting heroin from Afghanistan, which makes use of
fishing vessels. Processed heroin destined for Eastern Africa is trafficked
from Afghanistan to the Makran coast on the border of Iran and Pakistan
(Bruwer n.d.).
In Central America, drug traffickers often recruit fishermen from
villages in Costa Rica to move the drugs through open seas into the USA
(Dyer 2014). Two primary reasons drive these fishermen to engage in drug
trafficking. First, due to depleting fish stocks globally, fishing has become
unsustainable. Second, the average fisherman in Costa Rica makes between
$200 and $300 per month, while drug traffickers can offer $25,000 to those
willing to traffic drugs or deliver supplies (Dyer 2014). Drug traffickers
find Costa Rican fishers especially useful because these fishers hold
knowledge of sea routes, know what areas are highly patrolled and what
areas are void of security, thus providing the traffickers vital intelligence
(Dyer 2014).
The overlap between IUU fishing and drug trafficking can happen at
any stage of the fishing process. In October of 2020, Ecuadorian anti-drug
trafficking agents stopped a truck on the highway headed to Guayaquil, a
major port city (El Telegrafo 2020). The truck, filled with cans of tuna
ready to be shipped to Europe, was investigated by a drug-sniffing dog
which determined that the cans of tuna actually held cocaine (El Telegrafo
2020). This case shows that drug trafficking can happen not only on small
fishing boats but also on large commercial vessels as well.
IUU Fishing and Labor Trafficking. IUU fishing vessels often use
crews that are recruited illegally and include both children and adults who
don’t have proper paperwork to work in a given country. Victims of labor
trafficking are often subjected to harsh working conditions, long working
hours, physical and sexual abuse, and other human rights abuses (EJF 2010;
Moreto et al. 2020). One such example is in Thai fisheries, where IUU
fishing vessels rely on illegal labor from within their borders and from
neighboring countries (Moreto et al. 2020). Cambodian men are smuggled
into Thailand where they are promised between $100 and $200 a month, but
soon find themselves in bonded labor, and subjected to various physical,
psychological, and emotional abuses, often for several years before they are
rescued, if at all (Moreto et al. 2020). One such case involved a Cambodian
fisherman who was kept onboard a Thai fishing vessel for over two years,
shackled with a rusty metal collar around his neck (Urbina 2015).
The picture is the same in other areas of the world, including Britain
and Indonesia (Chapsos and Hamilton 2019; Moreto et al. 2020). Chinese
workers are often willing to be smuggled to Britain to work in the fishing
and fish processing sectors, often living in dilapidated conditions, working
long hours, and facing human rights abuses. Fishing illegally can
sometimes turn deadly. On February 5, 2004, about 20 Chinese laborers
were killed while fishing for cockles. Early that morning, illegal laborers
were brought to Morecambe Bay to collect the cockles. Ignoring the
warning signs that prohibited fishing, the fishers were dragged out to sea to
collect cockles, and many ended up being washed away and never returning
to shore (Tilley 2020).
The Indonesian fishing industry also uses illegal workers who are often
recruited from the country’s poor villages, as well as from neighboring
countries of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar. Workers are forced
to pay a recruitment fee and sign a debt contract. They are then subjected to
16, and at times 21 hours of work per shift, often under dangerous and
insanitary conditions. To prevent escape, armed guards often escort these
workers (Chapsos and Hamilton 2019).
Children in Ghana are often trafficked within the country into the
fishing industry by recruiters through their parents or guardians (Moreto et
al. 2020). The work for these children is gendered: boys fish while girls
partake in processing. The children are controlled through physical
punishments and access to food. Furthermore, boys are often rewarded with
sex, while both boys and girls face sexual abuse. The majority of these
children are under the age of 12 (Moreto et al. 2020). Four percent of
children from Laos are trafficked into labor to engage in IUU fishing. The
Mekong River is known to have the highest rate of child workers (Bergenas
and Knight 2015). Children recruited by the Senegalese IUU fishing vessel
owners are used as divers to guide fish into purse seine nets, and this has
exposed them to the danger of drowning (Petrossian 2019).
Terrorism and IUU Fishing. There is some anecdotal evidence that
IUU fishing and lack of maritime security could serve as a source of income
for terrorist organizations (Bergenas and Knight 2015). One such example
involved a long-established route of hashish from Morocco to Spain, where
the hashish gets distributed to other European countries. The hashish is
grown in the Rif Mountains of Morocco, then transported using fishing
vessels to Spain (UNODC 2019). In 2004, an Al Qaeda affiliate exploited
this established route and used fishing vessels for income generation. The
money generated is believed to have been used to fund the 2004 Madrid
terrorist attacks (Wood 2004).
IUU Fishing and Corruption. The corruption associated with IUU
fishing can take place at any point in the fishing process. There are various
types of corrupt practices associated with IUU fishing, which include
corruption to gain licenses to fish or to gain access to fishing areas, as well
as political corruption and corruption to evade law enforcement. Case
studies of each type are discussed below.
Corruption for Access. In 2015, Brazilian Federal Police was able to
dismantle a corruption operation that eventually led to the indictment of
over 400 people. An organized crime syndicate operating in the Brazilian
fishing industry was able to get access to Mullet fishing areas even though
their commercial ships did not meet the legal requirements to operate. This
was achieved through bribery of officials and document fraud. An estimated
$320 million was reported in environmental damage. Leaders of
governmental agencies, like the Brazilian Institute of Environment and
Renewable Natural Resources, as well as officials in the shipowners’ union,
were involved in this scheme (UNODC 2019).
Corruption to Evade Regulation. A chairman and director of Hout Bay
Fishing Industries in South Africa pleaded guilty to corruption in 2002
(UNODC 2019). The company paid Fishery Control Officers over $50,000
dollars in order to have them turn a blind eye to the illegal overfishing
committed by Hout Bay and the export of the fish to the USA. The Hout
Bay officials were also found guilty in the USA of Violating the Lacey Act,
which forbids the introduction into the country of any fish or wildlife taken
in contravention of the laws of another country (Witbooi et al. 2020)
Political Corruption. Politicians using their position for individual
profit are also common within IUU fishing (Nunan et al. 2018). On Lake
Victoria, Tanzania, Beach Management Unit Committee members, who are
elected officials, were linked to corruption and bribery practices that
allowed IUU fishing vessels to operate unabated (Nunan et al. 2018).
Fishery officers reportedly intervened in the election process of the Beach
Management Unit Committee members in order to maintain the bribery
system put in place (Nunan et al. 2018). In one East African country, three
major commercial fishing companies were co-owned by the country’s
president and the former and current Ministers of Fisheries (Petrossian
2019).
IUU Fishing, Tax Crime and Money Laundering. IUU fishers
launder their money from illegal catches. After processing, the fish are sold.
This is where money laundering is most likely to happen as large sums of
money are being transferred between various parties. In 2009, a
representative for a Norwegian fishing company was sentenced to an
imprisonment for financial crimes including bribery and money laundering.
This individual paid bribes using off-shore accounts to ensure continued
IUU fishing (UNODC 2019). In Indonesia, the Tax Directorate General
identified unpaid tax revenues of more than $16 million from 187 fishing
companies in 2016 (Witbooi et al. 2020).
Illegal Transshipment of Fish and Non-fishery Cargo. IUU fishing
vessels often carry out their activities for months or even years at a time.
This is possible because refrigerated cargo vessels, or reefers, support their
activities by laundering the illegally caught fish and offloading these
catches at ports (Petrossian et al. 2015a). Thus, illegal transshipping
activities have complicated sustainable fisheries management and fish
traceability and have allowed for illegally caught fish to enter legitimate
seafood markets (Boerder et al. 2018). These reefers also provide the
necessary refueling, gear, crew rotation, and other services (Gianni and
Simpson 2005). The illegal transshipment activities have facilitated
transferring of non-fishery cargo (Chapsos and Hamilton 2019), such as
weapons, drugs, and other wildlife (Ewell et al. 2017). These vessels have
also been implicated in human trafficking (SkyTruth and Global Fishing
Watch 2017).
Ports of Convenience and Flags of Convenience. The lack of effective
regulation has created other loopholes in controlling IUU fishing, among
which are flags of convenience and ports of convenience. Illegal offloading
of catches and other illegal non-fishery cargo have been possible due to the
availability of ports of convenience, which are ports with lax regulations
and inspections. IUU fishing vessels often carry out their activities under
flags of convenience, which are flags of open-registry third countries (that
is not the country of the nationality of the captain and the crew of the
fishing vessel), that are reluctant, unwilling or simply unable to effectively
monitor these vessels’ activities (Petrossian et al. 2020). The lack of
surveillance of the activities of IUU fishing vessels have provided them
with the opportunity to carry out other illegal activities, including drug and
human trafficking (Warner-Kramer 2004), as well as maritime terrorism and
weapons trafficking (Hamad 2015).

Regulation and Management

Fisheries regulations and controls over the national fish stocks have been
proposed at national and international levels. These responses date back
several decades and involve international and inter-governmental responses.
These regulations were geared toward addressing some of the concerns that
pertain to IUU fishing, such as fishing illegally, offloading the illegally
caught fish at designated ports of convenience, carrying out transshipments
at sea and at ports, reporting catches, license regulations, and so on. Some
of the main regulations are discussed in the following section.

Regulation
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982 (UNCLOS)
is the primary international regulation pertaining to the sea. This
“Constitution for the Seas” provides the basis for exercising jurisdictional
power over waters that stretch 200 nautical miles from the shore. These
powers not only pertain to the responsibilities of the states to engage in
equitable and efficient utilization and conservation of living resources
found within their boundaries, but also provide the states with the legal
basis to deal with criminal matters. For example, while the states whose
flags a fishing vessel carries are responsible for imposing penalties if the
vessel engages in illegal activity, in accordance with Articles 92 and 94 of
UNCLOS, the coastal states may act against foreign fishing vessels found
within their exclusive economic zones with or without the flag state’s
consent. Interdiction and boarding of foreign vessels by the patrol of the
coastal state may also be allowed under such U.N. Security Council
Resolutions (Bruwer 2019) as 2240 (2015), 2312 (2016), 2380 (2017), 2437
(2018), 2491 (2019), 2546 (2020) (United Nations Security Council 2020).
Beyond the states’ exclusive economic zones, activities carried out in
the high seas are far more difficult to control. Jurisdictionally, no state has
the right to claim sovereignty over these vast swathes of the ocean. As a
way to manage and control the fishing operations of global fleets, various
regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) have been
established. These RFMOs, which are inter-governmental organizations and
are composed of members from different regional fishing nations,
coordinate access to mutually shared resources and engage in the overall
governance of these fisheries. In essence, these RFMOs can be divided into
three types based on the three primary roles they engage in: (a) conduct
scientific research, (b) perform regional coordination and advisory services,
and (c) govern and manage fishery resources (Palma et al. 2010). In order to
achieve the latter, which is specifically focused on addressing the problem
of IUU fishing within their management area, the RFMOs engage in setting
and allocating fishing quotas and establishing mechanisms to monitor,
control, and protect fish stocks that fall not only within the exclusive
economic zones of the states that are party to the RFMO but also in the high
seas within its management area. To achieve this goal, various mechanisms
are in place, which include granting authorization to transship or land fish at
a member state’s port, requiring observers onboard foreign fishing vessels
fishing in their management areas, requiring that member states utilize
inspectors at ports when offloading catch, and requiring that member states
report their catches on an annual basis in conformity with their internal
regulatory frameworks (Petrossian 2019). To deal with identified IUU
fishing vessels, RFMOs maintain blacklists, which then significantly limit
the listed vessel’s ability to engage in economic activity with the RFMO’s
member states.
The European Union, which imports about 38% of world’s fish (FAO
2014) and is among the three top importers of seafood in the world, has an
especially significant role and a vested interest in regulating IUU fishing.
Through the EU-IUU Regulation, the European Union has established three
main operational strategies to help its member states in their efforts to deal
with IUU fishing more effectively. First, it requires that its member states
implement the established catch certification programs through which a
rigorous verification of the legality and the origin of the fish is established.
Second, should its member states engage in IUU fishing, it will carry heavy
penalties that include fines five times the value of the illegally caught fish
for first-time offenders, and eight times the value of the illegally caught fish
for repeat offenders, if the repeat offending took place within a five-year
period from the first offense. Third, non-EU countries are “carded” (green =
good; yellow = warning; red = failed) based on EU’s assessments of their
efforts to curb illegal fishing in their exclusive economic zones. Should a
country receive a red card, the EU activates a temporary ban on the imports
from the fisheries of that third country until the country demonstrates
sufficient improvements in their efforts to address the problem (The EU-
IUU Regulation 2016).

Management
The United Nations Fish and Agriculture Organization’s Port States
Measures Agreement (PSMA), which became a binding international
agreement in June 2016, specifically deals with IUU fishing by preventing
the vessels engaged in such fishing from entering ports to offload their
catches. The Agreement, which currently has 67 Parties, has been
developed to harmonize port state regulatory practices and provide
guidance to the states in terms of the effective measures to prevent IUU
vessels from entering their ports, and, eventually, releasing their catches
into international markets. The PSMA has been designed to complement
and reinforce flag states’ controls over fishing vessels (Rosello 2020). It has
such provisions as requiring that the port state deny landing and
transshipment at its ports to vessels that have been blacklisted by RFMOs
or are carrying the flags of known flag-of-convenience states. Additionally,
the PSMA requires that the states adopt rigorous port state measures, such
as requiring arriving fishing vessels to provide authorized details of its
identity, such as vessel identification, flag, license, fishing trip, vessel
monitoring system, and so forth. Port states are also required to designate
only specific ports that will accept foreign fishing vessels.

Crime Science and the Prevention of IUU Fishing

While these global regulatory mechanisms are in place, it is difficult to
assess their effectiveness in terms of the recorded success in dealing
effectively with IUU fishing, both within the Exclusive Economic Zones
(EEZs) of the fishing countries and on the high seas. The ability of these
regulatory mechanisms in dealing with the significant security issues that
arise from the convergence of various transnational crimes with IUU fishing
is significantly limited in scope. The primary reason for this is that these
regulatory mechanisms are designed to deal only with IUU fishing, and
often see IUU fishing as a fisheries management rather than a transnational
crime problem. In fact, it is important to treat IUU fishing as a criminal
activity that has severe security implications so that the regulatory measures
employed to deal with it incorporate the various complexities associated
with IUU fishing in order to deal with it more effectively. As such, it is vital
to equip individual countries and their surveillance apparatus with the tools
necessary to deal with this crime more effectively. One such analytical
toolbox is Crime Science, which offers a theoretical lens through which
IUU fishing can be analyzed and preventive responses can be developed.
Three specific approaches are discussed below, but first more explanation is
needed about Crime Science.

Brief Account of Crime Science

Crime Science falls under a larger category of Environmental Criminology.
It differs from most other versions of that category by adding punishment to
the repertoire of preventive mechanisms to bring about behavioral change.
Despite this, like the remainder of Environmental Criminology, it too
departs from the positivism that characterizes most other forms of
Criminology which explain involvement in crime as dependent on the
individual’s (or group’s) social, biological, or psychological background. A
central tenet of Environmental Criminology, on the other hand, is that
equally important to background in explaining involvement in crime are
current life circumstances, including chance and opportunity. This provides
a far more flexible way of thinking about the determinants of crime and, in
particular, that allows more promising preventive options to be developed
(Clarke 2018).
One important component of Environmental Criminology is Situational
Crime Prevention, which is built on the assumption that if crime depends to
a degree on chance and opportunity, so can it be prevented by reducing
chance and opportunity. There now exist some 200 evaluated case studies
of successful applications of situational prevention which are listed on the
website of the Center of Problem-Oriented Policing (www. popcenter.org),
and these include the following:
responsible drinking practices in pubs and clubs in Australia;
street closures to prevent drive-by shootings in Los Angeles;
video cameras at the entrances of sheltered housing for retirees;
anti-cloning measures for U.S. cell phones;
gated alleys to reduce burglaries of row housing in Liverpool;
airline baggage and passenger screening worldwide;
cash reduction in U.S. convenience stores;
anti-robbery screens in London post offices;
automated checking of income by applicants for housing subsidies in
Sweden;
systematic cleaning of graffiti on New York City subway trains;
electronic and ink tags on merchandise in U.S. clothing stores;
speed cameras and random breath tests in Australia;
 exact change and drop safes on U.S. buses to prevent robbery of bus
drivers;
safes with time locks to prevent betting shop robberies in Australia;
removal of gas and electric coin meters from council houses in England
to prevent burglary.
These examples illustrate situational prevention’s versatility and there is
little doubt it can be deployed effectively, under the umbrella of Crime
Science, to deal with the many manifestations of IUU fishing. Three
specific approaches that have already been developed are discussed below.

Three Specific Crime Science Approaches to Prevent IUU

Fishing
Spatio-temporal Analysis of IUU Fishing. This refers to a set of tools used
to understand the temporal and geographic distribution of crime. This
method has been used to study IUU fishing in the EEZs of 23 Western
African countries (Petrossian 2018), as well as illegal recreational fishing in
the Great Barrier Reef (Weekers et al. 2020). Both studies showed that IUU
fishing is spatially concentrated both in space and in time, suggesting that a
country’s fisheries patrols can be significantly enhanced through focused
intervention and detection.
The CRAAVED Model and IUU Fishing. While there are hundreds of
fish and crustacean species traded globally, only a small number of species
are significantly more desirable to IUU fishers due to their unique
characteristics: they are easily concealable, removable, available, abundant,
valuable, enjoyable, and disposable (Petrossian and Clarke 2014; Petrossian
et al. 2015b). As a result, focusing the enforcement and fisheries
management efforts on these specific species by inspecting the fishing
vessels carrying these species is likely to have a deterrent effect.
Risky Facilities Framework and IUU Fishing. Earlier in this chapter, we
touched on the use of ports of convenience to offload IUU catches
inconspicuously. Empirical literature has shown that these ports possess the
characteristics of typical “risky facilities” and are, indeed, frequently used
by IUU fishing vessels to offload their catches (Petrossian et al. 2015;
Marteache et al. 2015). It is the lack of enforcement and inspection at these
facilities that puts them at risk of not only offloading IUU fish but also
using these ports to offload the non-fish cargo, such as drugs and weapons.
Conclusion
If one were to design a system that permits, nay encourages IUU fishing, it
might differ little from that in place. This includes the ability for fishers (1)
to purchase flags of convenience at will, (2) to find sympathetic ports of
convenience to offload catches, or to offload them at sea to massive,
anonymous refrigerated vessels, (3) to find markets for their stolen fish
hundreds, even thousands of miles distant from where they were taken, (4)
to plunder with impunity the EEZs of countries too poor or disorganized to
protect their own resources, (5) to abuse cynically so-called access
agreements, (6) to make ready use of corruption, (7) to exploit international
confusion and self-interest, and (8) to sail almost unhindered on the high
seas.
Furthermore, those seeking to apply Situational Crime Prevention, or
more generally, seeking to reduce opportunities for IUU fishing, are denied
a benefit—the lack of displacement—that usually accompanies these efforts
in other spheres of action. However, in the ocean environment, with its
almost unbounded distances and the negligible possibility of unplanned
encounters with other vessels at sea, displacement can confound the best
efforts of those seeking prevention or control.
It is little surprise therefore that the U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organization (2018b) estimates that nearly 60% of the world’s commercial
fish stocks are now fully fished and a third of the global fish stocks are
overexploited. Nor is it surprising that on the basis of 2009 figures it has
been estimated that 18% of the global catch was lost to IUU fishing
(Widjaja et al. 2019). Looming population pressures and global warming
can only exacerbate the situation. Giant aquaculture projects might seem to
offer a solution, but even those with a strong scientific basis are almost
certain to run into substantial public opposition on environmental and other
grounds. This is certainly the case with the aquaculture project currently
proposed for the Gulf of Mexico (Cufone 2020). In other words, there is a
crisis in global fishing with no ready solutions in sight, in which IUU
fishing plays a substantial part. These circumstances enjoin security
scientists working to protect the world’s fisheries to make use in their work
of techniques that not only help them understand and explain fishing
patterns but also, like Crime Science, which we have advocated in this
chapter, help to suggest practical means of prevention and control.
Recommended Readings
Petrossian (2019) provides an in-depth overview of the problem of illegal,
unreported, and unregulated fishing, as well as the Crime Science
perspective, and bridges the problem to the solutions that can be derived
through this theoretical lens. Bergenas and Knight (2015) provide useful
arguments and frame IUU fishing as a national security threat rather than a
solely environmental problem, drawing on examples of drug trafficking,
human trafficking, and terrorism to illustrate several important points.
Crowell and Turvold (2020) and Rosello (2020) frame the issue of IUU
fishing as one of the manifestations of maritime security threats that require
closer scrutiny. Marteache et al. (2015) examine port vulnerabilities and
security concerns thereof that are manipulated by IUU fishing vessels
allowing for inconspicuous landing of illegally caught fish. Weldemichael
(2019) closely scrutinizes the convergence of IUU fishing with maritime
piracy and the security implications of this. Witbooi et al. (2020) approach
the issue of IUU fishing and security from the organized crime threat angle.

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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_21

21. Crime on the Darknet: The Case of

Brand Abuse
Victoria Wang1 , Jim Gee2 and Mark Button1
(1) University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK
(2) Crowe LLP, UK

Victoria Wang (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Jim Gee
Email: [email protected]

Mark Button
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
In recent years, the Darknet has become synonymous with a wide range of
potential criminal activities from the purchase of fraudulent credit cards,
sale of drugs to access to child pornography. This chapter reports on a
recent small-scale research on brand abuse on the Darknet. The research
project emerges from a desire to begin to understand of how the Darknet is
used by fraudsters and cyber-criminals to support, plan, execute and
monetise attacks on companies by abusing their brand names. Our empirical
research focuses on the top 50 UK brands, as identified in the 2017 UK
brand directory league table. We quickly discovered discussions, and
attempts to market services and products, intended to defraud or perpetrate
cybercrime against 21 of the top 50 UK brands, which could be grouped
into four categories: (i) banking and finance, (ii) telecommunications, (iii)
retail and entertainment, and (iv) energy and transport. For example, in line
with current research on cybercrime against businesses, it appeared that the
banking and finance section was the biggest target of brand abuse—
sensitive personal data were easily accessible, readily available and cheap
to purchase.

Introduction
Cyber-attacks/security breaches can be potentially catastrophic for
businesses. Globally, the annual cost of cybercrime is predicted to be more
than $6 trillion by the end of 2021 (Cybersecurity Ventures 2020). An
official government source suggests that the average annual cost of a cyber
security breach (up to the winter of 2019) in the United Kingdom is £1010
across all businesses and higher, at £3070 for medium and large business
(DCMS 2020). Actually, these numbers seem surprisingly low, which
suggest that many businesses under-report the true costs of breaches, as
some (e.g., banks and financial institutions) fear reputational damage if a
major breach becomes public knowledge. The same source reports that the
most common type of cyber-attack by far is phishing—staff receiving
fraudulent emails or being directed to fraudulent websites, followed by
impersonation of a trusted individual or business, and viruses or other
malware (DCMS 2020). Following all these, a question arises: where do
fraudsters and cyber-criminals obtain the basic data and technical tools
needed to carry out these attacks?
In recent years, the Darknet has become synonymous with a wide range
of criminal activities and has become associated with serious security risks.
Particularly, it has become a primary environment for the exchange of ideas
and the trading of goods and services amongst cyber-criminal groups; stolen
data in the form of goods and services would surface rapidly on Darknet
marketplaces and forums following cybersecurity breaches with data loss
(Henry 2018). Currently, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, most businesses
are operating under digital-first deployments in that individuals are fast-
shifting to remote working. This in turn opens countless opportunities for
accessing less-protected computers and makes understanding and thus
preventing threats on the Darknet even more critical to business security
and continuity (Bonderud 2020). Businesses that are well-equipped with the
capability to extract threat intelligence from Darknet markets and forums,
place themselves in a position of significant security advantage. In fact, an
understanding of the Darknet is now critical to business security.
This chapter reports on a small-scale research project conducted in
March and April 2018 to investigate brand abuse on the Darknet (for the
commercial report, see Gee et al. 2018). The research project emerges from
an initial desire to begin to understand how the Darknet is being used by
fraudsters and cyber-criminals to support, plan, execute and monetise
attacks on businesses by hijacking and abusing their brand names. Brands
have a huge potential financial value. The internationally recognised
standard on Brand Valuation, ISO 10668, defines a brand as ‘a marketing
related intangible asset including, but not limited to, names, terms, signs,
symbols, logos and designs, or a combination of these, intended to identify
goods, services or entities, or a combination of these, creating distinctive
images and associations in the minds of stakeholders, thereby generating
economic benefits/value’ (Brand Finance 2017, p. 4). Huge investments,
financial and otherwise, are made in the design, launch and continuing
marketing of brands (ibid.). Unfortunately, many businesses fail to invest in
the continuous monitoring of brand performance (Bullock 2020).
This research focuses on the top 50 most valuable UK brands identified
in the 2017 UK brand directory league table. Darknet markets were
searched, and the researchers quickly identified dialogue to trade illegal
services and products, with the intention to defraud or perpetrate crime,
against 19 of the top 50 UK brands. These brands can be grouped into four
categories: (i) banking and finance, (ii) telecommunication and energy
companies, (iii) lifestyle and (iv) critical infrastructure. Brands in the
category of banking and finance were the more prominent targets of abuse
with sensitive business and personal data easily accessible, readily available
and cheap to purchase. Considering the potentially existential threat that the
Darknet presents to businesses, we suggest that threat prevention—cyber or
otherwise—is a much-ignored area. We, thus, call for more research in this
area to develop more effective preventative measures.

The Darknet and its Dark Side

What exactly is the Darknet? The Internet that we all know and (mostly)
love originated in the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network
(ARPANET), which was launched by the US Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) in 1966 (Pace 2017). The most important
scientific breakthrough between the ARPANET and the Internet that we use
today is the idea of a global hypertext space that was first proposed by Tim
Burners-Lee in 1989 (Burners-Lee 1989). Simply put, he wanted to create a
common information space, in which people could communicate by sharing
information. On 6 August 1991, Berners-Lee’s idea turned into a published
short summary of the World Wide Web (WWW) project.
Since then, the two terms Internet and WWW have been used
interchangeably by the public. Technically, however, the WWW is only the
indexed part of the Internet which in fact consists of (at least) three layers—
the Surface Web, the Deep Web and the Darknet. The Surface Web, (also
known as the WWW) as noted, is accompanied by indexed information that
anyone can gain access to via common search engines albeit this occupies a
small percentage of the Internet. For example, in 2015 Google’s former
CEO—Eric Schmidt—estimated that the entire Internet contained about
five million terabytes of data, and Google’s web search only indexed about
200 terabytes of this data—0.004% of the Internet at that time (Dominguez
2015). What remains is the Deep Web (also known as ‘the Hidden Web’)
with unindexed information, which mostly consists of historical databases
(e.g., government), members-only websites, libraries, and academic
resources, and poses no cause for alarm. Most of this unindexed
information is actually publicly accessible albeit only by directed access,1
and not through common search engines. The Deep Web is the anonymous
part of the Internet to the general public.
The Darknet or Dark Web is a subset of the Deep Web, which is
approximately 400–500 times the size of the Surface Web/WWW (Rudesill
et al. 2015). It is not only unindexed (anonymous), but also requires
specialised software, configurations and authorisations, such as Freenet, I2P
and Tor, in order to gain access (inaccessible) (Byrne and Kimball 2017).
With over 3,000,000 directly connecting users on the 1st of February 2021,
‘The onion router’ (Tor) network is the most popular network (The Tor
Project n.d.). Connections here are only possible between trusted
volunteers, thus all connections are transient (Moore and Rid 2016). By
transient, it means that a link to a website is only sustained at a particular
time. A key characteristic of engagement is that the identities and locations
of the users of these platforms remain anonymous. The extent of anonymity
provided by the Darknet’s distributed network is further strengthened by its
anonymous payment systems using one of hundreds of available
cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin (Hardy and Norgaard 2016). Thus, within the
Darknet, both web surfers and website publishers are almost entirely
anonymous. Their operations are not under the control of any state or
publicly managed organisation. Whilst large government agencies are
theoretically able to track some individuals within this anonymous space, it
is very difficult and requires huge amounts of resources and isn’t always
successful (Holt and Bossler 2015).
Naturally, with such a distributed technical structure, the Darknet with
its numerous hidden markets is an environment where criminal activities
flourish. Darknet markets have three main components: (i) vendors, (ii)
buyers and (iii) market administrators. Much like Amazon in the physical
world, buyers of Darknet markets can leave reviews, message vendors and
dispute transactions. Vendors present product descriptions (at times very
detailed ones) and other necessary details, including prices, quantities and
shipping services. Administrators receive around 3–8% commission from
each sale and offer escrow services and monitor the market and its website
(Broadhurst et al. 2018). Fuelled by the rise of the Silk Road2 (Silk Road
1.0) and the link to cryptocurrencies (e.g., Bitcoin) (Bartlett 2014), by 2011,
these markets had rapidly ripened into hot beds for criminal activities,
particularly in the forms of selling and buying of illicit good and services
(e.g., Van Buskirk et al. 2014). Examples of these goods and services
included (i) stolen identities and credit card information (Chertoff and
Simon 2015; Holm 2017), (ii) illegal drugs (Duxbury and Haynie 2017),
(iii) hacking tools (Van Buskirk et al. 2016), (iv) weapons (Broadhurst et al.
2020), (v) ideas behind the making and using of Malware and ransomware
programmes (Wyke and Ajjan 2015), (vi) the trafficking of human beings
(Reid and Fox 2020) and even (vii) contract killing (Popper 2020).
These activities are extremely lucrative. In 2015, the entire Darknet
marketplace ecosystem was estimated at between $150 million and $180
million in revenue annually (Soska and Christin 2015). Five years later, a
report released in December 2020 indicated that there were 37 active
Darknet markets, which had generated more than $1.5 billion in that year
(Chainalysis 2020). The rise of Darknet markets and their continuing
performance demonstrate the degree of resilience of these anonymous
online ecosystems. Unsurprisingly, these markets are difficult to police. For
example, even when the Silk Road was successfully taken down (BBC
2015; Rushe 2014; Olson 2013), it was quickly replaced by other thriving
illegal markets, generally with better protections in place. In fact, ironically,
the popularity of Darknet markets surged following the shutdown of the
Silk Road 1.0 in 2013 (Ball et al. 2019).

Method: Collecting Secondary Data in Darknet

Markets
A small-scale research project was conducted in March and April 2018,
which investigated how household brands were used and traded on the
Darknet. In particular, we were interested in obtaining an initial
understanding of how the Darknet is used by fraudsters and cyber-criminals
to support, plan, execute and monetise attacks on companies by abusing
their brand names as leverage. To do this, we sourced a list of the most
valuable British brands 1–50 from the United Kingdom 150 (2017)—the
annual report on the most valuable British brands (Brand Finance 2017, p.
14).3 We grouped these 50 brands into four categories: (i) banking and
finance, (ii) telecommunication and energy companies, (iii) lifestyle and
(iv) critical infrastructure (see Table 21.1 in Section ‘Findings’). We then
gained access to the Darknet to search for the brands in order to record the
ways in which they were abused. We also took note of some possible
indicators of the frequency of abuse when possible.
Table 21.1 The brands that were found to be abused on the Dream Market

Banking and finance Telecommunication and energy Lifestyle Critical

companies infrastructure
HSBC Vodafone Tesco Shell
EY (Ernst & young) BT Sky (TV, GO) BHP
Barclays 3 Mobile ASDA British Airways
Lloyds EE Land Rover EAE Systems
Standard Chartered SSE BBC Royal Mail
Aviva Virgin media Sainsbury’s British Gas
Prudential O2 Dove Rio Tinto
Nationwide building Johnnie Walker BP
society
Halifax Unilever
Banking and finance Telecommunication and energy Lifestyle Critical
companies infrastructure
NatWest Marks & Spencer
Royal Bank of Scotland Burberry
(RBS)
Capital Rolls-Royce
Aon ITV
Scottish Widows Pall Mall
GlaxoSmithKline
Holiday Inn
Morrisons
Boots
Compass Group
Axe/Lynx

The identification of suitable Darknet markets to conduct our empirical

research was difficult, since they predominantly dealt with the illegal
trading of drugs (Kruithof et al. 2016; Owen and Savage 2015, 2016;
Dolliver 2015). Other more prominent illegal transactions included the
trading of weapons, credit card and other personal information, and exotic
animals (BBC 2017; Holm 2017; Chertoff and Simon 2015). Further, most
of Darknet markets focused specifically on the American market or
European market. In addition, we also needed to consider the extent of
technical stability of these markets in that due to their unstable technical
nature and the fact that they can be taken down by law enforcement
agencies at any time. For the purpose of this research, we needed to identify
a couple of markets with simpler user interfaces and search facilities, had
UK vendors, and were relatively more stable (i.e., they had a higher uptime
status).
At that time, the best place to obtain an overview of Darknet market
was on the site of deep.dot.web.4 It could be located via a simple surface
web search using Google to provide a ‘Dark Net Markets Comparison
Chart’5 (see Fig. 21.1; 30/05/2018). Next, a Tor Browser6 was downloaded
in order to gain access. We then simply copied the URL of each of the
markets and pasted it onto the Tor Browser, one by one. However, some
patience is required since all Darknet markets are unstable—links to sites
on the Darknet are changing frequently, and they can take a very long time
to load. In one case that of the Dream Market, the link provided in Fig. 21.1
did not work, we had to try other ‘onion mirrors’ (see Fig. 21.1; additional
web addresses on the left-hand side).

Fig. 21.1 Darknet markets comparison chart

At the time of the empirical research only three of the nine markets in
Fig. 21.1—Dream Market, Wall Street Market and Tochka—had been ‘live’
for more than a year and half (see Fig. 21.1; the ‘Created’ column). The
CGMC market was created on the 7th of June 2016 (see the ‘Created’
column), but its access was by ‘Invite Only’ (see the ‘Open registration?’
column) which usually indicates some extreme illicit activities, way beyond
the remits of our ethical approval. Further, during the empirical research,
we discovered that the Tochka market was continental European facing and
drug focused. Thus, we had to search the Olympus Market, a very new
marketplace instead which, inevitably, generated less insights. These
empirical hurdles highlight the fast-shifting Darknet environment and bring
to light the struggles faced by law enforcement to monitor or control such
an environment.
Dream Market was our main source of data. It contained many UK
vendors and products, as well as many custom searches for UK vendors. It
had a simpler user interface, which was linked to a dedicated search engine
with an advanced ‘Filter’ to facilitate searching (see Fig. 21.2). At the time
of empirical work, it contained almost 130,000 listings. They included
50,948 listings of digital goods; 63,461 listings of drugs; 337 listings of
drugs and paraphernalia; 4680 listings of services and 3482 listings of
others (see Fig. 21.2; ‘Browse by category’; 30/05/2018).
Fig. 21.2 A screen shot of the Dream Market listings

It was very difficult to search for brands in the Wall Street Market itself.
The technological structure of this particular market made it impossible to
search without more advanced techniques and tools, which would have
taken us beyond our timeframe, technical capability and ethical permission.
Fortunately, the Wall Street Market has a categorised forum system. Thus,
we decided to study the posts in this forum instead. We obtained a complete
‘crawl’ of the ‘Other Reviews & Discussions’ section (see Fig. 21.3) on the
forum (http://x7bwsmcore5fmx56.onion/) and saved it into an excel sheet.
By—complete ‘crawl’—we mean all forum discussions in this section from
the creation of the Wall Street Market Forum up to the 11th April 2018. We
also obtained a complete ‘crawl’ of the Dream Market forum and loaded
into an excel sheet, which contained all forum discussions since the creation
of the Dream Market Forum to the 11th April 2018.

Fig. 21.3 The ‘other reviews & discussions’ section of the Wall Street Forum

Findings
We searched the market for the top 50 most valuable brands one by one and
found a range of brands were being abused (see Table 21.1; the italicised
ones in each of the four categories). In fact, almost to our surprise, the
various types of abuse of 19 out of 50 brands were very easily discovered in
the Dream Market via simple searches (see Fig. 21.2; search for brand name
via the ‘Filter’ function) again given clues to a good focus for brand
protection approaches.
Although very limited, we also identified a few cases of brand abuse in
the Olympus Market, including Lloyds, HSBC, Virgin media and Tesco. In
the banking and finance category, we found phishing pages with code to
grab data targeted at Lloyds and HSBC. In the category of
telecommunication and energy companies, we found sales of templates of
bills and receipts for ‘Virgin TV anywhere’ accounts. In the category of
lifestyle, we found the sales of information that could be used to crack
Tesco customer accounts easily. Combining the information that we
discovered in both the Dream Market and the Olympus Market, we
discovered that the 19 brands in our four categories (see Table 21.1) tend to
be abused in the following 18 different types of manner (see Tables 21.2,
21.3, 21.4 and 21.5).
Table 21.2 Types of brand abuse in the category of banking and finance

Banking and Type of brand abuse

finance
1 Sales of statements and other banks and financial institutions’ letters, templates
and cards
2 Sales of credit card details, personal information (named Fullz), including account
numbers, sort codes, credit reports
3 Sales of statements and other banks and financial institutions’ letters and templates
4 Sales of general personal information of customers

Table 21.3 Types of brand abuse in the category of telecommunication and energy companies

Telecommunication and energy Type of brand abuse

companies
1 Sales of templates for fake bills and receipts
2 Sales of guides on how to obtain unlimited data, calls,
and so on
3 Sales of fake vouchers, coupons and loyalty cards
4 Sales of dumps of hacked customer data
5 Sales of guide to rig gas and electricity metres
Table 21.4 Types of brand abuse in the category of lifestyle

Lifestyle Type of brand abuse

1 Sales of stolen goods/accounts, including tools to easily gain access to accounts
2 Sales of fake vouchers, coupons, and loyalty cards and guides
3 Sales of templates for fake bills and receipts
4 Sales of fake goods
5 Sales of drugs branded with the names of top brands, including logo

Table 21.5 Types of brand abuse in the category of critical infrastructure

Critical infrastructure Type of brand abuse

1 Sales of personal information of customers
2 Sale of hacked customer accounts
3 Sales of fake vouchers, coupons and loyalty cards
4 Sales of templates for fake bills and receipts

Based on our findings, in the banking and finance category, the most
frequently discovered type of brand abuse is the ‘sales of statements and
other banks and financial institutions’ letters, templates and cards’. This is
followed by the ‘sales of credit card details, personal information, including
account numbers, sort codes, credit reports’ and ‘sales of statements and
other banks and financial institutions’ letters and templates’. In particular,
there is an abundance of editable UK bank statement templates, and UK
bank full bank account numbers and sort codes for anyone to purchase.
Besides these three types above, there is also the fourth type, namely the
‘sales of general personal information of customers’. Based on our research,
the bulk-selling of customers’ personal information appears to be a general
type of abuse across all banking and financial institutions. At the time of the
empirical work, we could not identify exactly which institution/s these
customer information came from without contacting the sellers or making a
purchase, and neither of these activities were within our permitted ethical
boundaries.
With regard to telecommunication and energy companies the two
dominant types of brand abuse were the ‘Sales of templates for fake bills
and receipts’ and the ‘Sales of guides on how to obtain unlimited data, calls
etc.’. In particular, there is an abundance of Tesco Sentry MBA7
Config/Snapshots, accompanied by product descriptions with headlines of
the following fashion: ‘you will receive a snapshot and Sentry MBA, so you
have everything you need to start cracking some accounts’. Besides these,
we identified evidence of the general bulk-selling of fake vouchers,
coupons and loyalty cards; dumps of hacked customer data; and guides to
rig gas and electricity metres of various telecommunication and energy
companies. At the time of empirical work, we could not identify the origins
of these data.
In term of the lifestyle category the most common type of brand abuse
was the ‘Sales of stolen goods/accounts’. This is followed by the sales of
fake vouchers, coupons, and loyalty cards and guides; templates for fake
bills and receipts; fake goods; and drugs branded with the names of top
brands, including logo.8 In particular, there is an abundance of Tesco
Voucher Cashout (purchase a link and download the PDF) and Tesco
receipts in PSD (a Photoshop document).
In terms of the critical infrastructure category, we discovered two
victims of brand abuse: British Airways and British Gas. Most common
were the sales of personal information of customers; hacked customer
accounts; fake vouchers, coups and loyalty cards of British Airways; and
the sales of fake vouchers, coups and loyalty cards of British Gas. There is
an abundance of British Airways milage points for sale, as well as British
Gas utility bills (including names and addresses).
In the complete ‘crawl’ of the Dream Market forum, we did discover
that the following banking and finance-related brands were discussed to be
potential victims of crime: HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, Halifax, NatWest, the
Nationwide Building Society and RBS. Further, in the Wall Street Forum,
we obtained a complete ‘crawl’ of the ‘Other Reviews & Discussions’
section on the forum (http://x7bwsmcore5fmx56.onion/) (see Fig. 21.3).
The following brands were found in the discussion forum without clear
evidence of brand abuse (see Table 21.6):
Table 21.6 Brands discussed in the Wall Street Forum

Category Brand
Bank and finance Lloyds, HSBC, Halifax, Barclays
Telecommunication and energy companies Vodafone
Lifestyle Tesco, Sainsbury
Category Brand
Critical infrastructure British Airways, Royal Mail

Although we did not find a lot of direct evidence to indicate any type of
brand abuse in the Wall Street Forum, some of the posts were strongly
suggestive of such and other criminal activities. For example, a forum
participant wrote:

Is there anyone selling UK hacked accounts such as Argos,

Sainsbury, Ocado, Tesco, shopping places and that. Any UK hacked
account. [posted on 12th November 2017]

Further, it seems that financial fraud is a service in high demand. This is

reflected in some of the topics and their related requests. We discovered
three discussion topics named:
UK finance work/need partners asap;
Need help with finance fraud UK and
Anyone into UK finance fraud?
Some vendors use this forum as a place to advertise their products (e.g.,
see Fig. 21.4). Others use the forum as a pace to find accomplices. For
example, under the ‘Topic: A Bank Drop Partner is Needed!’, a participant
wrote:
I have a HSBC bank drop aged over 10 years, if you are interested pm
me*EXTERNAL CONTACT/LINK NOT ALLOWED, PLEASE, READ
THE RULES>>>(Clink there to read the forum rules)<<<- By
Med3I1n*. [posted on 20th February 2018]
Fig. 21.4 A product advertisement in the Wall Street Forum (posted on 15th January 2018)

Discussion
It is evident that the Darknet, with its numerous markets and forums, is a
cyber security nightmare for businesses. Clearly, there are extensive
amounts of business and customer/personal data, as well as malicious
software tools being traded on Darknet markets. Even our small-scale
research is sufficient to demonstrate this. Such trading not only damages
brand names and thus business reputation/continuity of the companies
involved but also leads to more security threats. As we have shown, data
purchased on these markets is being used to facilitate all sorts of security
breaches and criminal activities.
As noted above, the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2020 states that
the most common type of cyber-attacks by far are phishing related,
followed by impersonation, and the spreading of viruses or other malware
(DCMS 2020). It is unsurprising that we were unable to directly track
evidence that linked these activities to the Darknet with actual cyber
security breaches and attacks against businesses; it is after all a deeply
encrypted hidden marketplace. However, we could conclude that the
Darknet, with its countless markets and forums, is an important source of
goods and services used to facilitate breaches and attacks; if there was no
market for these resources, Darknet markets would not exist. Based on our
findings, financial fraud as a service is in high demand. Data and
documents are sold to enable breeder documents to be created to carry out
fraudulent activities, such as applications for loans, credit cards, store
accounts, and so on, all undertaken using stolen identities (Holm 2017).
The potential victim pool is enormous since, even as monitored prior to
the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020, at least half of all UK businesses have
online bank accounts, have social media pages, and hold personal data
about customers (DCMS 2020)—that is a phenomenal amount of data, all
potentially at risk. Besides the trading of business data and malicious
software tools, it is apparent that Darknet markets and their associated
forums are places of gathering and information/technique/training
exchanges for many fraudsters, cyber-criminals and/or criminal wannabes.
To recap, in this research, we only conducted a superficial search of three
Darknet environments, which is barely scraping the surface. There are
obviously many more hidden criminal resources in the countless deeper
layers, which are exclusive and protected environments of Darknet markets.
Thus, improving Darknet intelligence is critical to the future security and
business continuity of all businesses.
Businesses are there to make money. Naturally, most of them rightfully
focus on developing and expanding their primary trade, and thus consider
cyber security a cost, which could be minimised (e.g., Brown 2018). The
consequences of a ‘successful’ attack or breach are more than just financial:
they can lead to reputational damage; the loss in customer and investor
confidence; bad press coverage and thus lowered public opinion; and the
potential damage to the careers of senior management leaders. (e.g., DCMS
2020). In short, generally, the motivations behind cyber security attacks and
breaches against businesses tend to fall into two main categories: (i)
financial and (ii) reputational. Financial attacks are generally conducted for
monetary purposes, such as a ransom for valuable business data, or to scam
money from businesses and/or their customers (e.g., with fake invoices or
redirected payments). Reputational attacks could be a response to the nature
of a business’ main trade, such as fossil fuel extraction, live-animal
research, arms sales, to name but a few. Of course, sometimes, an attack
may also be revenge-based, perhaps by an ex-employee, or even a current
employee, with a grudge (Nurse et al. 2014).
Following all these, there is clearly a need for more proactive research
into the methods to search the Darknet for client information. Of course,
businesses are already embracing techniques of proactive and preventative
stances to detect and prevent attacks coming from the Darknet (Robertson
et al. 2017). In fact, there is an abundant amount of parallel Darknet
monitoring software: some focus on employee identity theft protection,
whereas others focus on threat intelligence. These software tools are
sometimes ranked by various security companies in order to help businesses
choose suitable ones, and to surreptitiously promote their own products (see
Fig. 21.5). Some of the more advanced software packages are able to
identify mentions of targeted businesses, particularly the sharing and
trading of compromised business data on Darknet markets and forums.
Common techniques embedded in these products are automated scanners,
web crawlers, scrapping techniques for constant monitoring and real-time
detection and analyses, and ticketing systems to enable real-time alerts to
destinated parties, for example a security or IT team (e.g., Adewopo, et al.
2019). Top of the range software packages would include Artificial
Intelligence (AI) capabilities to identify active zero-day vulnerability
exploits (Foy 2019).

Fig. 21.5 Darknet monitoring software. (See https://www.g2.com/categories/dark-web-monitoring)

However, the use of Darknet threat intelligence software would only

provide its full benefit, if used appropriately as a part of a holistic security
package, and in conjunction with other techniques of a more social-
technical nature, for example, a cyber security/crime vulnerability
scorecard.9 Therefore, more research is required to assist in the selection of
existing suitable software products and to develop more advanced new
ones. More importantly, the development of effective preventative measures
to counteract cyber security threats and cyber-criminal activities on the
Darknet requires more research on both technological solutions and human-
oriented professional guidelines. In fact, more generally, the Darknet could
be an indispensable source of cyber intelligence (e.g., Arnold et al. 2019;
Fachkha and Debbabi 2016).

Conclusion
The Darknet presents a serious security risk due to its unique
characteristics, the anonymity attached to transactions, the presence of
virtual markets and the use of cryptocurrencies, unsurprisingly a range of
criminal activities are commonplace. Certainly, the Darknet ought to be
investigated more seriously. Such investigations, however, should be carried
out under that pretence that its inherent purpose is not to harm individuals,
organisations and societies. Ultimately, we have to accept the Darknet is
‘free market in action’ in that if there was not a market for every piece of its
online content, then it would not exist.
Thus, there is little prospect of the Darknet ceasing, micromanaged, or
its content effectively restricted anytime soon. It is also clear that a more
holistic sociological understanding of the Darknet’s social characteristics
and technological infrastructures is now needed. Ultimately, the Darknet is
a sophisticated technological platform that is used by a wide variety of
individuals for a wide variety of purposes, both legal and illegal, that
represent the nature of human interests (cf. Mirea et al. 2019). Thus,
perhaps, we should carefully consider those business and government
policies, laws and actions that generate much of the market for Darknet
content.
Further and ongoing research is required to monitor the security threats
and criminal activities that occur on the Darkweb and the brands targeted. It
is also important to evaluate some of the tools that are emerging to help
companies better protect themselves in this area, as well as the extensive
and growing law enforcement interventions that are emerging, which have
been beyond the review of this chapter. Only by better grasping the nature,
scale and effectiveness of the responses to the Darkweb can we better
protect individuals, brands and legitimate businesses.

Recommended Readings
Gee et al. (2018) provide a short commercial report of a project that
identifies discussions, and attempts to market services and products,
intended to defraud or perpetrate cybercrime against the top 50 most
valuable UK brands, as identified the 2017 brand directory league table.
Mirea et al. (2019) suggest that various characteristics that are rooted in the
Darknet’s technological structure, such as anonymity, privacy and the use of
cryptocurrencies, provide a wide range of opportunities for good as well as
for evil; it is based on an empirical study and highlights a potential role for
security on the Darknet but also some of the barriers to achieving it. The
work of Ball et al. (2019) describes a series of open-source tools that could
be used to collect and analyse data obtained from illicit Darknet markets,
and illustrates how to use these by applying them to a typical Darknet
market. The broader trends of malware on Darknet cypto-markets are
discussed by Broadhurst et al. (2018). There are some interesting critiques
of technology-related criminal opportunities, see, for example, the work of
Holt and Bossler (2015) and Byrne and Kimball (2017). The role of the
Darknet as a source of cyber intelligence is explained in detail in Fachkha
and Debbabi (2016).

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Cham.

Robertson, J., Diab, A., Marin, E., Nunes, E., Paliath, V., Shakarian, J., & Shakarian, P. 2017.
Darkweb Cyber Threat Intelligence Mining. Cambridge University Press; 1st edition.
[Crossref]

Rudesill, D., Caverless, J., & Sui, D. 2015. The Deep Web and the Darknet: A Look Inside the
Internet’s Massive Black Box. Wilson Center.

Rushe, D. 2014. Silk Road 2.0’s Alleged Owner Arrested as Drugs Website Shuttered by FBI. The
Guardian, 6 November. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/06/silkroad-20-owner-
arrested-drugs-website-fbi.

Soska, K. & Christin, N. 2015. Measuring the Longitudinal Evolution of the Online Anonymous
Marketplace Ecosystem. Proceedings of the 24th Usenix Security Symposium; 12–14 August 2015,
Washington, D.C: Advanced Computing Systems Association.

The Tor Project. n.d. Tor|Metrics. Retrieved from https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-relay-

country.html.

Van Buskirk, J., Naicker, S., Bruno, R.B., Breen, C. & Roxburgh, A. 2016. Drugs and the Internet.
Issue 7. Australia: National Drug & Alcohol Research Centre.

Van Buskirk, J., A. Roxburgh, M. Farrell, & L. Burns. 2014. The Closure of the Silk Road: What has
This Meant for Online Drug Trading? Addiction 109 (4): 517–518.
[Crossref]

Wyke, J. & Ajjan, A. 2015. The Current State of Ransomware. SOPHOS. A SophosLabs Technical
Paper.

Footnotes
1 Mostly, such direct access needs permission from the authority with known URL addresses,
usernames and passwords, case numbers, and other parameters (Bergman 2001).

2 Silk Road was the first modern Darknet market, which was known as a platform for the transaction
of illegal drugs.

3 See http://brandirectory.com/league_tables/table/uk-150-2017 (Accessed 8th March 2021).

4 See https://www.deepdotweb.com/dark-net-market-comparison-chart/ (Accessed 8th March 2021).

At the time of writing, the website appears to be seized by the FBI.
5 See https://www.deepdotweb.com/dark-net-market-comparison-chart/ (Accessed 8th March 2021).
At the time of writing, the website appears to be seized by the FBI.

6 See https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en (Accessed 8th March 2021).

7 Sentry MBA is an automated attack tool, which could rapidly test millions of usernames and
passwords to find valid ones of targeted websites.

8 This might, to a certain extent, damage brand name.

9 See, for example, Cybercrime Vulnerability Scorecard: https://www.crowe.com/uk/croweuk/news/

cybercrime-vulnerability-scorecard.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_22

22. Representing Security: A Popular

Criminology of Private Policing in Film
Steven Kohm1
(1) The University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

Steven Kohm
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
Film analysis in criminology and criminal justice studies has flourished
over the past two decades. Groundbreaking work by Rafter (Shots in the
Mirror: Crime Films and Society, 2nd edn. New York: Oxford, 2006)
delineated the subject matter and set out new conceptual and theoretical
approaches. Importantly, Rafter (Theoretical Criminology, 11(3): 403–420,
2007) and Rafter and Brown (Criminology Goes to the Movies: Crime
Theory and Popular Culture. New York: NYU Press, 2011) called for the
development of a popular criminology that takes up film and other popular
culture as efforts to understand crime and justice that can be read alongside
academic discourses (see, e.g., Kohm and Greenhill, Theoretical
Criminology, 15(2): 195–215, 2011; Kohm, Popular Criminology, in Rafter,
Nicole and Eamonn Carrabine, eds. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of
Crime, Media, and Popular Culture, 2017). Since this time, film analyses in
criminology and criminal justice studies have generally followed the
normative organization of the discipline, examining criminal etiology and
the institutions of the public criminal justice system: police, criminal law
and corrections. However, there is a dearth of criminological scholarship on
films that explore private security (for a notable exception, see Walby and
Lippert, Security Journal, 30(4): 1134–1150, 2017). Rafter (Shots in the
Mirror: Crime Films and Society, 2nd edn. New York: Oxford, 2006)
argues that crime films are ideological in the way they represent ideas about
social life both in content and in the gaps between reality and cinematic
representation. This chapter is an effort to expose some of these gaps in
films about private security. Like early twentieth century cop films prior to
concerted efforts to professionalize policing in America, most
contemporary films about private security treat their subjects with
irreverence or as unidimensional players in the criminal justice apparatus
despite the exponential growth of private security and its penetration into
nearly all areas of the justice system. Using Rafter’s (Theoretical
Criminology, 11(3): 403–420, 2007) popular criminology framework, this
chapter examines the way private security is represented in Anglo-North
American films since the 1980s in order to explicate the ideological framing
of security more broadly within late modern criminal justice. I also analyze
several international films that suggest the emergence of an alternative film
tradition that takes up critical issues in private security such as colonialism,
corruption, and surveillance. I demonstrate that films are an important and
underutilized resource for critically analyzing the shifting cultural
significance of private security in contemporary times.

Introduction
Film analysis in criminology has flourished over the past two decades.
Groundbreaking work by American criminologist Nicole Rafter (2006)
delineated the subject matter, set out new conceptual and theoretical
approaches, and provided the first comprehensive analysis of nearly a
century of Hollywood crime cinema. Works in this vein explore the
discursive interplay between crime films and broader historical socio-
political shifts and public policy underpinning the (American) criminal
justice system. Importantly, Rafter (2007) and Rafter and Brown (2011)
called for a popular criminology that takes up film and other cultural works
as efforts to understand crime and justice alongside theoretical academic
discourses (Kohm 2017). Popular criminology has been applied to a range
of subjects including film (Kohm and Greenhill 2011), television (Kennedy
2017; LaChance and Kaplan 2020), true crime literature (Linnemann 2015)
comic books (Phillips and Strobl 2013) and even videogames (Fawcett and
Kohm 2020; Steinmetz 2018).
 Scholarly work on film and popular culture in criminology has come a
long way in the past two decades, yet there are still unexplored areas that
beg scholarly analysis. Film analyses have generally followed the
normative organization of the discipline, examining criminal etiology and
the institutions of the public criminal justice system: police, criminal law
and corrections. However, there is a dearth of popular criminological
scholarship on private security (for a notable exception, see Walby and
Lippert 2017). I argue that this omission is telling because it reflects
broader cultural assumptions and demonstrates the invisibility of private
security work. Rafter (2006) argues that the ideological content of crime
films helps shape the “myths that a society lives by” (p. 9). Likewise, in his
sociological analysis of American cop action films, Neal King (1999: 3)
contends that “Movies can seem right if they reflect common assumptions
about the world and offer ways to make sense of it.” Indeed, these common
assumptions or myths about society are also reflected in what films omit.
For example, if Hollywood was unable to imagine a strong leading female
police character until much more recently in the development of the genre,
this reflected broader societal ambivalence about female participation in
policing (Rafter 2006). This chapter is an effort to expose the cultural gaps
that contribute to commonsense myths or ideologies about society by
exploring private security films. Like early twentieth century cop films
prior to concerted efforts to professionalize policing in America, many
contemporary films about private security treat their subjects with
irreverence or as junior players in the criminal justice apparatus despite the
exponential growth of private security and its penetration into nearly all
areas of the justice system (Van Steden and De Waard 2013). I argue that
private security films—films in which the plots, themes and characters are
focused significantly on the private provision of security—reflect and at
times challenge popular societal assumptions about the nature of security
itself as well as the private provision of security in contemporary society.
Using Rafter’s (2007) popular criminology framework (further refined
and explicated by Kohm and Greenhill 2011 and Kohm 2017), this chapter
analyzes private security in cinema since the 1980s in order to explicate the
ideological framing of security more broadly alongside shifts in late modern
criminal justice (Garland 2001). The discussion focuses predominantly on
mainstream Hollywood films, but also includes several international
examples that depict private security provision in contexts beyond the
United States. These latter films suggest the nascent development of a cycle
of alternative private security films that take up critical issues in private
security such as colonialism, corruption, and the dark side of surveillance. I
demonstrate that films are an important and underutilized resource for
critically analyzing the shifting cultural significance of private security in
contemporary times.

Police and Private Security Films

Given private security’s complex and sometimes symbiotic relationship
with public policing, I begin by outlining the features of private detective
and cop films. I wondered if private security films would share some of the
common themes, plots, and character types of these films as they have been
described in the literature. While early twentieth-century Hollywood films
struggled to portray rule-bound government agents as compelling
protagonists, the brooding narratives of a cycle of cynical mid-century
movies known as film noir established a new type of outsider hero (Rafter
2006). By the 1940s, morally ambiguous private investigators became
established as stock noir characters and anticipated later cinematic interest
in matters of private policing. Two well-known exemplars of film noir—
The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Double Indemnity (1944)—featured a
hardboiled private detective and an insurance investigator as lead
protagonists. In these films, “the criminal justice system has been replaced
by the profit-seeking private sector” (Valverde 2006: 93). The cynicism of
these films toward state agencies of criminal justice resulted in a subversive
cinematic ideology: “Telling audiences that only insurance companies (or
other private interests) care about the truth and have the means to discover
it is a more subtly radical message than showing incompetent, flat-footed
bobbies” (Valverde 2006: 95). The private justice figures of film noir
provided complex and satisfying film protagonists who worked outside the
formal justice system and operated on a for-profit basis (Rafter 2006).
The contemporary cop film genre emerged in the early 1970s as an
outgrowth of the Hollywood western (King 1999; Rafter 2006). Like in the
western, heroes of the cop film genre patrol “a border between barbarity
and society, abandon and self-control” (Rafter 2006: 116). Considered the
inaugural film in the genre, Dirty Harry (1971) featured Clint Eastwood in
the role of “dirty” Harry Callahan—a gun slinging lone cop figure who
refused to play by the rules and who eschewed the procedural rights of the
accused. The film, marked by “adulation for police” and “liberal-bashing”
(Rafter 2006: 114), directly engaged contemporary tensions between due
process concerns about police procedure and a desire for crime control in an
era of rapidly rising crime rates (Packer 1968). Dirty Harry was a popular
cultural reflection of the “rightward movement of popular thinking about
crime” (Lenz 2003: 105). Infamously, the film depicted Callahan using
excessive force and torture to extract a confession from a suspected serial
killer. When admonished by the District Attorney for violating the suspect’s
constitutional rights, Callahan retorted, “Well I’m all broken up about that
man’s rights!” Dissatisfied with the results of due process, Callahan ignores
the orders of his superior officers, harasses the suspect, and uses violence
rather than negotiation in a hostage situation involving children.
Demonstrating his distrust/disgust for the formal justice system, Callahan
dramatically throws away his badge in the film’s denouement.
Consequently, Dirty Harry firmly established a foundational theme often
revisited in cop films: the requirements for due process as an obstacle to
justice and the need for an outsider hero who is unafraid to work around
legal constraints to produce a more satisfying—and indeed conservative—
form of justice. In this way, Callahan and other similar cinematic police
protagonists shared much in common with the outsider heroes of other
crime films types—the gangsters and criminal outsiders who appeal to
audiences because they provide a cinematic “double movement” whereby
audiences can experience the vicarious pleasures of criminal transgression
knowing that in the end, justice will be served (Rafter 2006). In addition,
police films address what film scholar Leitch (2002) describes as an
ambivalence on the part of audiences who may fear government overreach
but who also desire order and security: “It is a primary task of police films
to mediate between these two attitudes, expressing audiences’ skeptical
fears about the justice system while leaving them ultimately confident in its
workings” (p. 220).
Rafter (2006: 109) noted several cop film subgenres including the
buddy-cop film, corrupt cop films, cop comedies, and even cyborg/science
fiction cop films. Rafter also identifies alternative cop films that
ideologically subvert expectations about justice. These subgenres explore a
number of themes, including gender and the performance of masculinity.
Cop films articulate ideas about the “ideal” man—“fearless, heterosexual,
independent, unemotional, and superhumanly powerful” (Rafter 2006: 119).
Similarly, cop films thematically articulate ideas about race and often
confer preferred status upon whiteness (Rafter 2006: 122). Alternatively,
critical cop films subvert and critique expectations about cop heroes (e.g.
Fargo [1996]) and sometimes give us “unredeemable cops, lost souls
doomed to wander forever in a maze of cynicism” (Rafter 2006: 131).
These cop film subgenres provide additional thematic points of departure
for an analysis of private security films.
In sum, the core thematic tension animating the cop film genre is
conservative law-and-order versus a liberal focus on individual civil rights
(Lenz 2003). However, there are important distinctions between public and
private police that make this theme an uneasy fit for private security films.
Private security is less concerned with the moral dimensions of justice (e.g.
detecting and punishing wrongdoing) and is focused on loss prevention and
cost efficiency—particularly in relation to private property and mass private
properties like shopping malls and sports stadiums (Shearing and Stenning
1981, 1985; Jones and Newburn 1999; Kempa et al. 2004). However, in
shifting the focus from justice to protection of property, private security
films may reflect growing concern about the (in)ability of public police to
protect society. So while cop films contain conservative ideological
tendencies and an obsession with punishment and order (Lenz 2005),
private security films reflect neoliberal ideological tendencies favoring
market-oriented security solutions and increasing public worry about risk in
late modernity. Indeed, the popular cultural depiction of private security
may be read alongside theoretical developments in late modern criminal
justice that have shifted the focus away from the social or developmental
roots of crime to theories stressing rational choice, opportunity and routine
activities (Garland 2001). As well, economically derived ways of the
thinking about crime underpin the rise of private policing as a cost-effective
response to the state’s inability to provide security and reflect
commodification (Loader 1999; Newburn 2001). The refashioning of the
state under neoliberal political rationalities valorizing the free market and
demanding similar performance-driven measures in the public sector have
contributed to the growth of private policing alongside expansion of the
criminal justice state (Garland 2001). Private police have significantly
outnumbered their public counterparts for several decades (Shearing and
Stenning 1981), and while private entities are responsible for a growing
swath of activities in all branches of the criminal justice system (Van Steden
and De Waard 2013), popular cultural depictions remain scarce and focused
almost entirely on the guarding of private property.

A Popular Criminology of Private Security Films

The remainder of this chapter presents an exploratory analysis of private
security films. Using The Internet Movie Database (IMDb.com) as well as
secondary literature on crime film, we identified an initial list of feature
length, theatrically released films that appeared to be about private security.
We further refined and narrowed this list by reviewing films and
eliminating false positives—films that did not significantly focus on private
security. The qualifying criterion of significant focus on private security
mirrors Nicole Rafter’s (2006) approach to crime films. In practice, this
meant that the lead protagonist in a film must be directly engaged in work
falling within academic and popular conceptions of private security
provision. Additionally, to be included in the analysis, films were required
to focus specifically on the work of private security. In other words, films
like Night at the Museum (2006) were eliminated because, although the
central character was employed as a security guard, the film did not focus
attention on the work of security in any sustained or significant way. While
there may be value in examining films where private security was a minor
subplot or performed by secondary characters, for consistency and
conceptual clarity, we kept our focus solely on films in which security was
a central plot point and key to the unfolding of the narrative action. Table
22.1 lists the final 12 films selected for in-depth qualitative analysis.
Table 22.1 Private security films

1) Armed and Dangerous. 1986. Director Mark L. Lester.

2) Chopping Mall/Killbots. 1986. Director Jim Wynorski.
3) Metro Manila. 2013. Director Sean Ellis.
4) National Security. 2003. Director Dennis Dugan.
5) Neighboring Sounds/O Som ao Redor. 2012. Director Kleber Mendonça Filho.
6) Observe and Report. 2009. Director Jody Hill.
7) P2. 2007. Director Franck Khalfoun.
8) Paul Blart: Mall Cop. 2009. Director Steve Carr.
9) Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2. 2015. Director Andy Fickman.
10) Red Road. 2006. Director Andrea Arnold.
11) Security. 2017. Director Alain Desrochers.
12) Unbreakable. 2000. Director M. Night Shyamalan.

Our analysis followed the approach outlined by proponents of popular

criminology (Rafter 2007; Rafter and Brown 2011; Kohm and Greenhill
2011). We treated the films as cultural texts that may be used to understand
issues of security and crime, and we placed them alongside and in
conversation with academic discourses about these issues. In particular, we
were attuned to the way these films might shed light on some of the
neglected dimensions of academic criminal justice and criminology—the
philosophical, ethical, and psychological dimensions of crime, justice, and
security (Rafter 2007).
Drawing from research on the cop film genre, we began our analysis of
private security films with an eye toward the major themes noted in that
literature. The following themes were used as a starting point to guide our
analysis of the films:
Crime Control versus Due Process. Tension between procedural and
substantive justice and a general conservative political orientation toward
law-and-order.
Masculinities and Gender Performance. How do films reflect and/or
subvert notions of the “ideal man”? How are women represented as
significant characters or protagonists?
Race (or invisibility of race). Is “whiteness” given a preferred status?
How are non-white characters represented in these films?
Genre and Subgenre. Do private security films reflect any of the features
of cop films subgenres—for example, buddy cop, corrupt cop, sci-
fi/cyborg cop, or critical/alternative?
We also drew a number of themes from the academic literature on
private security. The following themes were also used to guide our initial
qualitative analysis of the films.
(Junior) Partners in Crime Prevention. What is the relationship between
public police and private security in film?
Training. How do films depict the training provided to private security
officers?
 Public and Private Spaces. How do films represent issues of jurisdiction
and scope of duties for private police in different types of spaces/places?
Class and Oppression. How do private security films represent broader
systems of class or economic oppression within society?
Technology. How is the use of technology by private security represented
in film?
Using a grounded and thematic approach to qualitative analysis (Corbin
and Strauss 1990), we worked through the films first attending to the
themes and concepts noted above but also remaining open to additional
recurrent or prominent themes and concepts that we may not have
considered at the outset. Following detailed review, analysis, and coding of
the films, as well as frequent discussions between the two coders,1 several
primary themes emerged from the analysis: (1) the spaces, places, and
jurisdictions where security unfolds was a key theme that cut across nearly
all the films, with a clear emphasis on mass private spaces like shopping
malls, office buildings, and university campuses. However, a few films
contested binary divisions between public and private spaces as well as the
boundaries of private security. (2) The performance of gender was another
theme that found prominent expression across nearly all films. This theme
was particularly notable in films that adopted the generic codes of the cop
comedy. (3) Private security as a junior partner to public law enforcement
was emphasized in many of the films we analyzed and typically played on
public stereotypes and misconceptions about the industry. In addition to
these main themes, we also note where aspects of other themes found
significant expression in the films, for example technology and systems of
class and economic oppression. Following discussion of the significant
themes, I move to a general discussion about the significance of carrying
out popular criminological analysis of security films.

The Spaces and Places of Private Security

Cultural criminology has become attuned to the way space is produced
through social interaction and broader systems of political and economic
power (Hayward 2012). Private policing and security are key players in the
social production of space, and their work is often structured by space and
place in important ways. Shearing and Stenning (1981) advanced the term
“mass private property” referring to places that, while accessible on a large
scale to “the masses,” are privately owned and operated, thus providing a
peculiar form of territory or jurisdiction for private security. Spaces like
office complexes, sporting facilities, university campuses, shopping malls
and theme parks epitomize mass private property and private security’s new
territories. In the intervening years, the mass private property thesis has
been challenged, reconfigured, and reconsidered (e.g. Jones and Newburn
1999). Nevertheless, our analysis reveals that mass private property is the
dominant space of private security in film and therefore provides a cultural
context for understanding the spatial and jurisdictional limits of that work,
and suggests spatial hierarchies of public and private policing. Unlike the
complex, real-world spatialities of policing and security, cinematic
representation renders sharp jurisdictional boundaries and is blind to the
many gray areas noted in the literature (Hermer et al. 2005; Sleiman and
Lippert 2010). Mainstream filmic representations of private security
reassure audiences that the boundaries between public and private police
are clearly drawn. While the utility of such a distinction may be left an open
question within some film narratives, most private security films maintain
public and private as watertight categories with clear implications for
popular conceptions about the workings of the justice system.
Mass private properties form the backdrop and primary setting for seven
of the films. Shopping malls were most frequently associated with private
security and formed the locus of action for Observe and Report (2009),
Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009), Chopping Mall (1986), and Security (2017).
Other mass private facilities included a university football stadium
(Unbreakable [2000]), an office building parking garage (P2 [2007]), and a
Las Vegas casino convention center (Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 [2015]). While
most mass private facilities found in security films were spaces familiar to
the suburban middle classes, one film setting was a low-rent shopping
center in a high-crime neighborhood. The shopping mall in Security was
fortified with anti-riot gates and reinforced doors to prevent breaches and
damage from civil unrest. Vance, overnight security supervisor tasked with
defending this citadel of consumption, provided an overview of external
threats when training new guard Eduardo “Eddie” Deacon (played by
Antonio Banderas):

Vance: Down this way, it’s got a population of 12,640 people. Last year
it had 48 murders. Right? Over this side, you’ve got another town
population of 25,328. Last year had 81 murders.
Eddie: Meth.
Vance: A whole lot of meth. Seriously. And a really, really nasty gang
controlling it. So you got a whole lotta people stealing to feed habits, you
know what I mean?

The mall possesses a high security, crusty exterior (Flusty 1997) in

order to protect private property within the facility from incursion by
undesirable outsiders. This cinematic high security mall echoed Mike
Davis’s (1992) discussion of the spatial redesign of shopping facilities in
South Central Los Angeles in the aftermath of riots in the 1980s and reified
a clear distinction between public and private spaces.
Setting private security films in mass private properties suggests a
simple division of policing labor between private and public realms. For
example, while Chopping Mall is firmly positioned within the teen horror
subgenre, it centrally depicts private security arrangements within a
commercially oriented mass private property facility. A demonstration of a
new automated robotic security system installed by SecureTronics
Unlimited targets a would-be shoplifter. This epitomizes private security’s
interest in property crimes in relation to tenants of the mall, rather than
serious crimes occurring external to the property, such as the drugs and
gang violence described in Security. These more serious crimes are depicted
as being the purview of the public police. In Observe and Report, fictitious
suburban Forest Ridge Mall is tormented by a flasher, whose random (but
relatively minor) obscene actions threaten the wholesome character of the
shopping center and drive bipolar head of mall security Ronnie Barnhardt
(Seth Rogen) to extreme violence. While Ronnie is repeatedly warned by
public police not to interfere with their work, Ronnie is a wannabe cop and
can’t help but meddle in the investigation. Ronnie’s gradual mental
breakdown explains his failure to make the grade as a police recruit but also
confirms his failure to meet expectations for the ideal man. His gross
display of excessive violence at the climax of the film can only be read as
pathetic and deranged, rather than an expression of masculine power and
self-control. In Paul Blart: Mall Cop, ten-year mall security veteran Paul
Blart (played by Kevin James) encounters a host of minor problems inside
the shopping center. For example, he responds to a dispute at a women’s
lingerie store where two women fight over the last bra in their size. When
the women refuse to comply, Blart asserts his legal authority: “Ma’am, I
should warn you, I do have the authority to make a citizen’s arrest.” To
which the woman retorts: “So does anyone, I could arrest you right now.”
Using comedy and its setting inside a mass private property facility, Paul
Blart: Mall Cop affirms a clear distinction not only between public and
private police, but suggests a clear hierarchy with private security relegated
far below the status of public law enforcement. Aside from mass private
property, two of the films focused on the protection of other types of private
property. Armed and Dangerous (1986) depicted an unlikely duo of
inexperienced private security officers tasked with guarding several private
sites including a pharmaceutical warehouse and a landfill. In National
Security (2003) another mismatched duo of private security officers is
assigned to guard a warehouse.
Only three films focused on private security’s incursions into public
spaces. Notably, all were international productions. In the Brazilian feature
Neighboring Sounds (2012), the city street itself is patrolled by a ragtag,
low-tech private security outfit that aggressively inserts itself into a
neighborhood dominated by an influential landowning family with ties to
rural-colonial power. Public police are mostly absent in the streets as well
as in the corridors of the condominium towers that shelter well-heeled
residents from the urban underclass. In the UK production Red Road (2006)
the streets of an impoverished section of Glasgow fall under the constant
gaze of the CCTV operator, a private employee hired to act as the “eyes” of
the public police. In Red Road, private security and public police partner to
bring order to the public spaces of a low-income neighborhood of the city.
Private security and public police become intertwined and form part of a
nodal network for the governance of crime and in so doing disrupt simple
binary notions of public/private space as well as clear distinctions between
the spatial limits of public and private forms of police. Lastly, Metro Manila
(2013) follows Oscar Ramirez (played by Jake Macapagal) and his family
who leave their rural farming community for the promise of a better life in
the city. Immediately upon arrival in Manila, Ramirez and his young family
are exploited and swindled out of their savings. However, a stroke of
apparent good luck sees Ramirez hired as an armored car guard and the
remainder of the narrative is woven into the daily routine of private security
that is in turn entwined in the urban fabric of central Manila. Moving from
streets to high-rise corporate towers and into the apartments of its wealthy
criminal denizens, the transportation and protection of private assets is
mobile and seamlessly transcends public and private spaces within the city.
Meanwhile, public police seem completely absent and unconcerned with
the corruption and violence that erupts in the final part of the film.
In sum, the spaces and places of private security in film primarily
reinforce the simple dichotomous categories of private and public,
reassuring audiences that private security is mainly limited to the purview
of mass private spaces like shopping centers and office buildings. However,
all three international private security films actively disrupted these binary
categories and suggested permeable spaces that are neither fully public nor
private, necessitating a joined-up approach to policing where the private
sector takes on the lion’s share of effort. In mainstream films, police are
represented as a force of final resort that is called upon only after private
efforts at security have failed to deter or prevent loss or damage to private
property interests. However, in the harsh streets and housing developments
of the international city (Manila, Philippines; Glasgow, UK; Recife, Brazil),
private policing intrudes more deeply into public spaces while the public
police seem primarily focused on containing the urban poor within the
boundaries of their barrios and ghettoes. Through unsettling the binary
categories of public and private space, these international films address
broader forms of class, social, and economic oppression that are absent in
mainstream Hollywood films about security. This suggests that the
development of a distinct alternative and critical private security film
subgenre may be limited to markets beyond the influence of Hollywood.

Gender and Masculinities in Private Security Films

The performance of gender in private security films was a prominent theme,
and it played out in ways that were distinct from the Hollywood cop film
genre. While most cop films feature powerful, unemotional, heterosexual
male leads that embody the qualities of the “ideal man” (Rafter 2006),
private security films positioned their male protagonists in opposition to
this ideal construction. First, it should be noted that with the exception of
Red Road, all the films had male lead private security characters. Apart
from this unique film, female private security officers were seldom seen. If
they were depicted, it was as a secondary character with little screen time
(e.g. Security) or as a potential love interest in need of saving by more
powerful male lead protagonists (e.g. Armed and Dangerous). Leading male
characters in private security films were all variations of failed masculinity.
Some were men who failed in prototypically masculine ways. In Security,
Eduardo “Eddie” Deacon (Antonio Banderas) was an emotionally damaged,
ex-special forces veteran who was unable to find work except as a security
guard in a low-rent shopping mall. Deacon failed as a man because war left
him mentally and emotionally unstable and estranged from his family.
However, in every other way, Deacon conforms to the ideal male architype:
tough, handsome, heterosexually virile, and able to act calmly under
pressure. His narrative journey was toward redemption and reunification
with his family. Similarly, Unbreakable’s private security officer David
Durn (Bruce Willis) is an emotionally distant, aging former high school
football star whose knack for security work stems from a supernatural
ability see crimes before they occur—perhaps the ultimate expression of the
preventative logics of private security. His narrative arc also culminates in
redemption and reclamation of his family. However, most other private
security films including both Paul Blart installments, Observe and Report,
and Armed and Dangerous feature men who are the inverse of the perfect
masculine architype and crime fighter. These men of private security are
overweight and physically out of shape. They are beset by physical and
mental illnesses and unable to qualify as police recruits. In Armed and
Dangerous and National Security, the male protagonists are also disgraced
former cops. In Armed and Dangerous, LAPD officer Frank Dooley (John
Candy) is framed for stealing a television while in National Security, LAPD
officer Frank Rafferty (Steve Zahn) is wrongly accused of a racially
motivated assault of African American man and failed police recruit Earl
Montgomery (Martin Lawrence). Both lose their jobs as police officers, but
Rafferty is also wrongly sent to prison. In both films, the disgraced men are
forced to work as private security officers—a direct indictment of the hiring
practices of the industry where it is assumed a criminal conviction is no
barrier to employment. As in most private security films, training is
nonexistent or at best, brief and inadequate. These films evolve quickly into
the buddy-cop formula when the disgraced cops are forced to team up with
partners who appear to be diametrically opposite: in Armed and Dangerous,
Dooley is partnered with a disgraced lawyer (Norman Kane, played by
Eugene Levy) and in National Security, Rafferty finds himself working
with Montgomery, the man who falsely accused him of assault. However,
the partners learn to work together and form a bond of begrudging respect
while also journeying toward redemption. In the end, all are offered jobs as
police offers when they prove their mettle solving crimes that extend
beyond their duties protecting private property. In this way, the four
protagonists redeem themselves as men by shedding the occupation of
private security guard and becoming police officers. In National Security,
race relations between the LAPD and the African American community are
also repaired as African American and white security officers overcome
past differences while solving the murder of Rafferty’s partner. It is notable
that this is the only Hollywood film to feature a non-white security officer
in leading role, suggesting whiteness remains the preferred racial status
within mainstream security films.
In two films, male private security officers suffer from mental illnesses
that prevent them from realizing more respectable careers in public law
enforcement and lead to their dramatic downfall as heroes and saviors in
their mass private property jurisdictions. As noted above, Observe and
Report’s Ronnie Barnhardt suffers from bipolar disorder. While his
condition appears to be under control in the first part of the film, Ronnie
stops taking his medication and becomes completely unhinged by the end.
Recalling Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) the deranged protagonist of Taxi
Driver (1976), Ronnie resorts to extreme violence in a misguided effort to
protect a female mall employee whom he is infatuated with. Like the
denouement of Taxi Driver, audiences are left wondering if the final scene
of Observe and Report, where Ronnie gets the girl and is lauded as a hero,
is merely a manic delusion. In P2, female office worker Angela (Rachel
Nichols) is abducted and tormented by a deranged security guard in an
underground parking garage. Unlike Ronnie Barnhardt, it is unclear if
Thomas (Wes Bentley) has been diagnosed with a specific mental illness.
His demeanor recalls the unassuming psychosis of Norman Bates (Anthony
Perkins) from Psycho (1960), and his violence is initially directed toward
another man who he believes has harmed Angela, with whom he is
infatuated. Like Norman Bates, Thomas fails as a man because the only
way he is able to sweep a woman off her feet is through chloroform and
forced confinement. While Thomas’s acts of vigilante violence are
motivated by his desire to right a perceived wrong perpetrated against
Angela, like Ronnie Barnhardt in Observe and Report, Thomas cannot
employ violence like a successful man and his displays are clearly
deranged, misguided, and pathetic.
In most respects, the bulk of private security films reaffirm traditional
masculinities either by showing men who fail in traditionally masculine
ways (Security, Unbreakable), men too do not possess the traditional
attributes of masculinity, but still prevail in the end due to their pureness of
heart, honesty, and ingenuity (Paul Blart: Mall Cop), or by simply showing
how men can fail utterly when they give in to mental illness (P2, Observe
and Report). Only one international film provided a sustained depiction of
female gender and private security. In Red Road protagonist Jackie (Kate
Dickie) is a private security employee who abuses her power as a CCTV
operator to entrap and frame Clyde (Tony Curran)—a man who has been
released from prison after killing her family in a drug-related car accident.
For Wise (2016), Red Road provides a critical take on surveillance
technology, contrasting its use for both care and control. While Jackie
watches over law-abiding citizens with concern for their well-being, she
also trains the CCTV camera eye on her antagonist in order to lure and trap
him. While the males of private security are frequently depicted as failed
men, Red Road likewise depicts Jackie as a failed woman. Significantly, she
has failed as a mother by being unable to protect her child from tragedy.
Early in the film, Jackie has an emotionless and sterile sexual encounter
with a male coworker. This further suggests that Jackie fails to comport
herself as an ideal woman. Jackie’s plan to frame Clyde and send him back
to prison hinges on her ability to seduce him. However, after inserting
herself in his world, the tables are turned, and Jackie is seduced by Clyde.
This sexual encounter implies that Jackie loses the upper hand by giving in
to her own base desires. While certainly a more critical and complex film
about private security, Red Road’s depiction of gender and sexuality
suggests a similar failure on the part of the protagonist to conform to
societal gender expectations. In this respect, Red Road inverts generic
tropes about failed male protagonists only by substituting a failed female
protagonist in the same position.

Private Security as a Junior Partner to Public Police

While Shearing and Stenning (1983) argued that private police are often
more than junior partners and may be responsible for major areas of
criminal justice provision, all the films, to varying degrees, represented
private security in a subordinate position to public police. In some films, the
relationship took the form of a junior partnership, mirroring more
accurately the reality of nodal or networked forms of contemporary
policing. For example, Red Road depicted the routine interactions between
public police and private CCTV operators emphasizing the subordinate role
of private operators to merely observe and report. Somewhat ironically, this
was very different than the relationship depicted in Observe and Report,
where public police were emphatically dismissive of the private security
officers at the shopping mall and showed no interest in any type of working
partnership. In Armed and Dangerous and National Security, the
protagonists’ status as disgraced former public police officers prevented any
type of productive relationship, let alone a partnership, forcing the private
security officers to “go rogue” in order to collar the bad guys and restore
their reputations as honest cops. In these latter two films, no partnership
was possible because of the stigma of being dismissed from the public
police force for criminal wrongdoing. In a popular cultural reversal of the
classic police corruption film Serpico (1973)—wherein the titular character
(portrayed by Al Pacino) finds himself without backup from fellow officers
after he exposes corruption within the ranks—these police officers-turned-
private security guards find themselves shunned by their former colleagues
for their putative corrupt behavior. This movement deftly affirms the public
police as generally upright and concerned about rooting out bad apples
while also suggesting no productive partnership with private security is
possible given apparent lax hiring practices and inadequate training within
that industry.

Discussion and Points of Critical Departure

While the three main themes discussed above cut across all the films, there
were distinct critical points of departure in smaller subsets of the films. In
particular, the three international films contained sustained interest in
exploring broader systems of social, economic, and political oppression. In
Neighboring Sounds, the historic colonial oppression of rural labor is
contrasted against contemporary urban issues of crime and insecurity. In
Metro Manila, corruption among the military and police is assumed, and
vast inequalities in wealth and power force men and women into dangerous
and degrading forms of exploitation for bare survival. In Red Road, a
hybrid public and private security apparatus seems designed to contain the
urban poor within the boundaries of their impoverished housing estate,
while ensuring violence and crime doesn’t spill over into more salubrious
parts of the city. In contrast, mainstream Hollywood films tended to
individualize crime and the provision of security by locating problems
within individuals rather than society: greedy cops on the take, criminal
gangs, meth users, and at times, deranged security officers suffering from
untreated mental illnesses. Like with crime films more generally,
Hollywood has demonstrated a clear preference for individual explanations
over sociological theories of transgression (Rafter 2006).
While not a theme that cut across all the films, we noted a significant
and critical depiction of the technology of security in two of the films. First,
Chopping Mall provided an unexpected critical commentary about the drive
to efficiency and overreliance on technology in security. Private security
contractor SecureTronics Unlimited unveils a new robotic security officer
that easily detects, confronts, and apprehends shoplifters. Referred to as
“Protectors,” Dr. Stan Simon, head of development for SecureTronics,
explains that the robots will be used to patrol the mall after hours. While
mall staff express concern that the superhumanly powerful robots could
fatally injure a human, Dr. Simon reassures them that the robots are not
programmed to kill, but “merely detain intruders until the computer located
on the roof can patch into the mall phone system and send an alarm to the
police.” Additionally, the security company installed impregnable steel
security doors that are locked overnight to repel intruders. Predictably, the
plan goes awry, and a group of teenagers trapped in the facility overnight
have to fight for survival after a computer glitch sends the Protectors on a
murderous rampage. Public police are entirely absent within the confines of
the mall—the only point of contact between public police and private
security is via the rooftop computer that is rendered inoperable after a freak
lightning strike. Crime within the mall is narrowly conceived of as a
problem of loss prevention and the solution is a private, automated security
system programed to neutralize internal threats to private property and
remove them from the facility to the arms of police whose authority to act
ends at the steel reinforced security doors. Chopping Mall presents the
spaces of private security as internal to mass private property, driven by
cost efficiency, concerned with loss prevention, streamlined and automated
to (theoretically at least) reduce costly human error. While likely not
intended as social commentary, the film sounds a note of caution about
automating and privatizing public protection and security.
As noted above, Red Road provides a critical take on CCTV
surveillance technology, contrasting its use for both care and control (Wise
2016). Early scenes of the film establish Jackie as a benevolent
(omni)presence, keeping watch over residents of central Glasgow from a
darkened control room in an undisclosed location. She knows the patterns
of those she watches each night, and worries when she doesn’t see familiar
faces engaged in their routines. This reassures us that CCTV is mainly used
in positive ways for the betterment of society. Simultaneously, Jackie’s
actions suggest a level of intrusion into the private moments of our lives
that may unnerve viewers. That the state keeps watch over its citizens using
all-seeing, all-powerful surveillance technology is alarming enough. That
the work of watching is contracted out to the private sector provides a
further critical dimension. The film very careful asks us to weigh the
benefits of CCTV when used for care and protection—as Jackie seem to do
most of the time in the film—against its potential for abuse. The latter point
is highlighted when Jackie trains the CCTV camera eye on her antagonist
Clyde in order to lure him into a trap that she hopes will send him back to
prison. However, when she departs the control room and inserts herself into
Clive’s neighborhood and personal life she learns that reality is much more
complex than the mediated image on the CCTV monitor. Jackie realizes
that humanity is vastly more complex up close and in person than when
viewed from a distance. In the end, she abandons her plan for vengeance
and in so doing closes a bitter chapter of her life. The final moments of the
film show Jackie back in the control room, carefully watching over the city
once again, but now with much greater perspective and empathy for those
who previously only existed as flickering abstractions on a screen.

Conclusion
In this chapter I have sketched out a distinct film subgenre centrally
concerned with issues of private security provision. Drawing on the
conceptual approach of popular criminology, I discerned a number of
themes that constitute popular efforts to make sense of private security
typically by positioning it in opposition to public forms of policing. While
cop films thematically focus on tensions between conservative law-and-
order and liberal due process, private security films refract contemporary
shifts in criminal justice brought about by neoliberalism. Most mainstream
films about security reify dichotomous categories such as public and private
space and in so doing suggest hierarchical differences between public and
private policing. As well, mainstream films suggest that private security
work is associated with failed forms of masculinity and equate private
security officers with failed or corrupt police officers. Even when working
together, private security is depicted in a subordinate or junior role
compared to public forms of policing. While few in number, a handful of
international films have engaged critically with private security and
encouraged sociological ways of understanding its relationship with forms
of power, oppression, and technology. I am encouraged by the development
of a cycle of critical security films, just as other scholars like Rafter (2006)
have noted the potential for critical films to be taken up by scholars and
activists interested in promoting social change. The power of popular
criminology is largely in its ability to reach broader audiences than
academic criminology. I argue that even critical independent films without
the huge audiences of Hollywood blockbusters are still likely to reach many
more people than some of the most well-cited academic works in critical
security studies. Therefore, I urge scholars of private security to take films
seriously as popular discourses about public and private policing and as rich
sources of cultural data about the taken for granted ideas, myths, and
ideologies of private security.

Recommended Readings
A must read for anyone interested in crime films and society is Nicole
Rafter’s (2006) seminal book Shots in the Mirror. The second edition
provides wider scope for analysis and an expanded discussion that includes
some important international films. In addition, Rafter and Brown’s (2011)
book Criminology Goes to the Movies provides a clear and accessible
discussion and application of criminological theory and film. The book
extends and expands upon popular criminology as a theoretical construct
and conceptual tool for analyzing film. First introduced in Rafter (2007),
popular criminology has been applied thereafter in key works such as Kohm
and Greenhill (2011) and Kohm (2017). A few works take up aspects of
private security in film, including pioneering work by Walby and Lippert
(2017) as well is Wise’s (2016) important book on surveillance in film. The
latter implicates important issues related to private security, although its
focus is more broad. In general, a number of recent works in the journal
Crime Media Culture take up the theme of popular criminology and explore
the intersection of film, criminological discourse, and the real-world
practices of crime control, although private security has of yet not been a
main focus.

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Kohm, Steven (2017) Popular Criminology, in Rafter, Nicole and Eamonn Carrabine, eds. Oxford
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Footnotes
1 All the films were analyzed and coded by the chapter author and a graduate student Research
Assistant. A key aspect of the analysis was frequent conversation and “comparing notes” between the
two coders as we worked to elaborate thematic consistencies and divergences of the films. I am very
grateful for the keen eye and strong analytic abilities of my RA Dana Hickson who was an invaluable
part of this project.
Part IV
Researching Security
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_23

23. Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of

Security
Matthew Manning1 , Gabriel T. W. Wong2 and Hien-Thuc Pham2
(1) Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
(2) Tunbridge Wells, UK

Matthew Manning (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Gabriel T. W. Wong
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
The varying quality and immense volume of research relating to security
highlights a challenge for policymakers and practitioners who want to
improve decision-making by drawing on the empirical evidence. Systematic
reviews and meta-analyses have emerged as more objective techniques,
compared to subjective narrative reviews, for identifying, screening and
synthesising the findings of individual primary evaluations relevant to
particular forms of security measures. The shift from subjective to objective
analysis has resulted in an improved evidence-base summarising and
estimating the overall impact(s) and identifying potential moderator(s). With
a growing recognition of the benefits of these techniques, the field of security
and crime prevention have benefited from their adoption resulting in better
informed crime and justice policy. This chapter explains, in detail, the role of
systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and how the methods produce robust
evidence regarding our knowledge of security and its effectiveness. We also
illustrate the use of meta-analysis via a selection of security-related studies.
An Ethical Imperative
Examining the body of evidence, rather than looking at studies in isolation,
has been an ethical imperative in general medical and population health
research. The ethical imperative of capturing, analysing and understanding
the extant evidence was artfully expressed by Chalmers (2007) who
highlighted that the utility of any intervention needs to be tested repeatedly to
ensure that decisions are made based on all we have learnt, not just an
isolated study. Specifically, Chalmers argued this point by demonstrating the
dire consequences of failing to use all relevant evidence regarding the effects
of medical treatments. Chalmers’ argument, however, is not limited to
medical or population health research—it is a compelling argument in any
field of research, as poor evidence leads to poor decisions.

Narrative Reviews
Before the introduction of systematic and meta-analytic reviews, the
narrative review provided the vehicle for combining data from multiple
studies. Specifically, an expert was selected (from a given field) who would
review the studies that addressed a question or series of questions,
summarised the findings, and arrived at a summary conclusion. This
approach suffers from several serious limitations. First is the inherent
subjectivity and lack of associated transparency. For example, different
criteria may be used between reviewers regarding the selection of included
studies. Reviewers may weight studies according to different criteria—for
example one reviewer may give more weight to larger studies while another
reviewer may favour quality over size or assign a comparable weight to all
included studies. Reviewers may also differ regarding the amount of
literature reviewed before reaching a conclusion. For example, a substantial
amount of evidence may be required before one reviewer reaches a decision,
while another reviewer may have a lower threshold. The main disadvantage
of narrative reviews is that the reviewer typically does not articulate (or even
be aware of) the decision-making protocol employed to synthesise data.
Therefore, conclusions reached may be spurious.
The second limitation of the narrative review is the obvious inability of
the reviewer to fully process large and complex bodies of evidence. Recent
research regarding the neural substrates of cognitive capacity limitations
highlights that human adults only retain about four items “in mind”.
Moreover, this limitation is essential to human brain function (Buschman et
al. 2011). That is, the human adult brain is only capable of retaining a limited
amount of information and processing this information at any one time. For
this reason alone, the ability for an individual to accurately recall all studies,
weight individual studies, synthesise the information and arrive at an accurate
summary or finding with a large body of literature is unlikely. In reality, the
narrative review is lined with subjectivity and mostly derived on personal
opinion and experience. The problem is magnified when treatment effects
vary as a function of study-level covariates (e.g. population, dosage, outcome
variable and other factors) (Borenstein et al. 2009). Rather than rely on
experience or anecdotal/subjective opinion, a proper synthesis of the
literature requires a researcher to understand how an effect varies (i.e.
treatment effect) as a function of the variables mentioned above.

Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Given the above-mentioned limitations of the narrative review method,
researchers have adopted more sophisticated methods such as systematic
review and meta-analysis.

Systematic Review
The systematic review is a transparent method for identifying, evaluating and
summarising the findings of relevant individual studies. The role of the
systematic review is to make available evidence for policymakers and
academics alike more accessible and reliable. The method adheres to strict
scientific design based on explicit, pre-specified replicable methods. The
method, therefore, provides reliable estimates of the effectiveness of the
given study/intervention whereby conclusions drawn are defensible. In
addition, the method highlights where knowledge lacks and provides
guidance on future research (Brown et al. 2006; Centre for Reviews and
Dissemination 2009). Although there is still an element of subjectivity
because the researcher specifies criteria, the method is still transparent
because all decisions are clearly articulated. A systematic review typically
involves the following steps: (i) deciding on an answerable question, (ii)
developing an explicit search strategy, (iii) identifying relevant sources (e.g.
databases) to search for evidence, (iv) developing a set of inclusion/exclusion
criteria (e.g. years of inclusion, individuals to be included such as ethnicity)
and (v) abstracting data in a standardised manner (Lipsey and Wilson 2001).

Meta-analysis
A supplementary element of a systematic review is the meta-analysis. A
meta-analysis is a statistical approach that combines data from a systematic
review. What is often unclear is that a meta-analysis is based on an
underlying systematic review; however, not all systematic reviews lead to a
meta-analysis. This is because a meta-analytic review provides an additional
step in summarising the findings of relevant individual studies where
appropriate outcome data are available.
Traditionally, meta-analyses are conducted to estimate the relative
effectiveness of intervention programmes on a series of dependent variables.
Here researchers are able to correct for various statistical artefacts and to
aggregate results in order to obtain an estimate of the relationship between
variables, or address a series of related research hypotheses (Durlak and
Lipsey 1991; Lipsey and Wilson 2001). One could argue that meta-analysis is
a move towards pure science as it is designed to strengthen our understanding
of an issue by incorporating a larger sample of studies (i.e. sample studies
>1). In addition, meta-analysis, through its method, attempts to remove
opinions or predetermined notions. Although most researchers try to remain
as objective as possible when conducting experiments, bias may still be an
expected component of the individual study.
The formulas used in meta-analysis are applied to address questions
regarding effectiveness. These formulas are similar to those used to evaluate
the effectiveness of crime prevention programmes in primary studies. The
evaluation of primary studies typically report means and standard deviations,
conduct an analysis of variance or use multiple regression to determine if,
and how, outcome scores are related to various factors. For example, “can
high rates of juvenile delinquency in a neighbourhood account for additional
variance in fear of crime, beyond the variance already explained by past
victimisation, age and gender?” Similarly, a meta-analysis may report means
and standard deviations for treatment effect. In addition, a meta-analysis may
also adopt procedures comparable to analysis of variance or multiple
regression to examine the relationship between the effect and study-level
covariates (Borenstein et al. 2009).

The Benefits of Meta-analysis

The benefits of the meta-analytic approach are similar to those listed above
for systematic reviews. That is, the method can accurately summarise
existing knowledge relating to the relative effectiveness of programmes or
interventions on multiple dependent variables (Borenstein et al. 2009; Glass
et al. 1981). The meta-analytic technique allows researchers to manage large
amounts of potentially important information for later analysis. In addition,
results relating to the extant literature in multiple settings, geographic
locations, ethnic groups and other potential moderating influences can be
used to inform policy (Wolf 1986).
An additional benefit of the approach is that it plays an important role in
the design of new research. Systematic and meta-analytic reviews help to
determine whether a study is absolutely necessary. That is, the approaches
may identify if the information required might be obtained by synthesising
data from prior studies, and if this is possible, then a new study may not be
necessary. As highlighted by Chalmers (2007), a synthesis of available data
might provide the necessary answers to the question/s we pose. However, if
reliable evidence is not available, through either lack of studies or empirical
data, then a compelling argument can be made for a further study. An
important point to highlight is that meta-analyses also direct future research
by allowing policymakers to direct resources to areas of research that will
help improve their understanding of what works, what doesn’t and what is
still to be determined.

The Criticisms of Meta-analysis

Since its inception, the meta-analytic technique (Smith and Glass 1977) has
been heavily criticised. A number of threats to validity have been raised, but
the five most prominent criticisms include the following:
1.
“Apples and oranges” (Sharpe 1997)—critics (see Eysenck 1978;
Rachman and Wilson 1980) argue that meta-analysis combines statistical
results from studies that “[measure] different things, [manipulate]
different variables, and [test] different subject populations” (Sharpe
1997, p. 882). However, a careful system for inclusion and exclusion
criteria can help minimise this threat to validity.
2. The “file drawer”—this criticism, raised by Rosenthal (1979), contends
that problems may arise from a failure to obtain a representative sample
of the population of studies relating to the topic. That is, publication bias
is potentially increased due to the tendency of journals to publish studies
 p y y j p

reporting statistically significant findings, and a reduced tendency to

publish studies with non-significant results (Lipsey and Wilson 2001).
However, Wortman (1994) recommends that researchers calculate a
“fail-safe n” (see Rosenthal 1994) to estimate the number of “null
hypothesis accepting” studies that would be required to reduce the
overall effect size to a non-significant level.
3.
“Garbage in, garbage out” (see Eysenck 1978)—this argument contends
that Glass and colleagues purposely designed the methodology in such a
way as to promote inclusion of all prior studies without the use of
academic judgement because “their fear of selection bias was greater
than their fear of including studies of low quality … [and] combining
methodologically poor studies led to a distorted picture of psychotherapy
effectiveness” (Sharpe 1997, p. 882). Once again, a carefully designed
methodological structure, which incorporates criteria for inclusion and
exclusion, can help to reduce this problem.
4.
Validity of any distributional assumption—a common approach to
dealing with heterogeneity, that cannot easily be explained, is to use a
random effects model. Statistical heterogeneity occurs when there is an
excessive amount of variation with respect to treatment effect. We expect
that individual estimates of treatment effect will vary by chance;
however, a problem arises when there is more variation than would be
expected by chance alone. A random effects model (in meta-analysis)
involves the assumption that the effects in the different studies are not
identical, but they do follow a distribution. The random effects model
signifies the symmetric distribution regarding the average of the effects,
while the width explains the degree of heterogeneity (Lipsey and Wilson
2001). Typically, we are looking for a normal distribution. However,
some statisticians would argue that it is difficult to establish the validity
of any distributional assumption. This argument forms a common
criticism of meta-analyses that employ a random effects model. Recent
research (see Kontopantelis and Reeves 2012; Kontopantelis et al. 2013),
however, has produced simulations that these models are robust with
respect to heterogeneity and overall effect size, even under extreme
distributional assumptions.
5. Experimental and quasi-experimental methods versus realistic evaluation
—the Campbell Collaboration (C2), which publishes meta-analyses of
 t e Ca pbe Co abo at o (C ), w c pub s es eta a a yses o
crime and justice issues focuses on “what works” or “does this program
work?” paradigm. Realistic evaluation, an alternative to the random
control trial (RCT), asks, “what works for whom in what circumstances
and in what respects, and how?” (Pawson and Tilley 2001). The clear
difference between RCTs and realistic evaluation has implications for
meta-analyses and public policy. The most salient point with respect to
the empirical evidence that underpins meta-analysis and assists in
formulating public policy is that RCTs fail to consider fully “how
intervention components interact with each other and with local context”
(Bonell et al. 2012, p. 2299). The policy implications are clearly
articulated by Pawson and Tilley who state.

“Policy-makers may struggle with and find difficulty in using data

revealing, for instance, the comparative statistical significance of an
array of mediators and moderators in meta-analysis. They are more
likely to be able to interpret and put utilise an explanation of why a
programme mechanism works better in one context than another.
These two research strategies are, as a matter of fact, serving to
answer rather similar questions; the crucial point being that the one
that focuses on sense-making has the advantage. This is especially so
if the investigation has the task of checking out rival explanations (i.e.
adjudication), which then provides justification for taking one course
of action rather than another (i.e. politics). Here, then, is the positive
message on research utilisation. Explanatory evaluations bring power
to the decisions in decision-making” (p.20).

One could say that the relationship between realism and experimental and
quasi-experimental methods is somewhat vexed. A debate regarding this
issue has appeared in Social Science and Medicine: Bonell et al. (2012)
“Realist randomised controlled trials: A new approach to evaluating complex
public health interventions”; Marchal et al. (2013) “Realist RCTs and
complex interventions: An oxymoron”; Bonell et al. (2013) “Methods don’t
make assumptions, researchers do: A response to Marchal et al”. Pawson and
Tilley have been critical of the experimental and quasi-experimental methods
that are prioritised in meta-analytic work and have proposed alternative
realist methods. These are clearly articulated in their book Realistic
Evaluation (Pawson and Tilley 1997).
Meta-analyses in the Security Field
For this chapter we conducted a literature search to examine how meta-
analyses have been used in synthesising the empirical evidence in the field of
security and crime prevention. Specifically, we focus on individual studies
that investigate the security measures adopted to protect an individual
property or a community. Table 23.1 includes 22 meta-analyses in the
security literature, classified into three categories—information security,
security measures and other preventative measures. Information security
refers to a structured risk management process designed to protect
information or data from unauthorised access, use, misuse, disclosure,
destruction, modification or disruption. Our review identified two meta-
analyses undertaken with this focus.1 Security measures refer to interventions
undertaken, such as installation of CCTV, alley gating, electronic monitoring
and street lighting, to modify a situational context to make committing a
crime more difficult, riskier (to detection) and less rewarding. Our review
identified seven meta-analyses undertaken under this category. Finally, the
category “other preventative measures” relates to policing strategies and
legislation adopted to enhance the security of a community. Here, we
identified 13 studies. The meta-analyses undertaken across these three
categories were conducted in the US, UK and other countries such as
Australia, Sweden and Norway.
Table 23.1 List of meta-analysis in the security and crime reduction literature

Number Reference Interventions Outcomes Jurisdiction

of period2
studies
Information security
Cunningham 39 1980– The use of Reid Respondent’s Not
et al. (2018) 2017 Background Check Plus admissions of past specified
scales to avoid insider misconduct;
threat respondent’s scores
on construct-
relevant self-report
measures and
supervisor ratings
 Number Reference Interventions Outcomes Jurisdiction
of period2
studies
Trang and 35 2003– Deterrence theory variables Information security US, China,
Brendel 2018 (formal and informal policy compliance German,
(2019) sanctions) Korea,
Taiwan,
Finland,
Taiwan
Security measures
Farrington et 14 Up to CCTV Police-recorded UK
al. (2007) 2005 crimes
Piza et al. 76 1978– CCTV A measure of crime UK, US,
(2019) 2017 (disorder, drug Canada,
crime, property South
crime, violent crime, Korea,
vehicle crime) Sweden,
Spain,
Australia,
Norway,
Poland
Welsh and 41 1980– CCTV A measure of crime UK, US,
Farrington 2007 (the most relevant Norway,
(2009) crime outcomes Sweden
were violent and
property crimes)
Sidebottom 6 2002– Alley gating A quantitative UK
et al. 2011 measure of crime.
(2017a) These comprise
official measures
(e.g. police-recorded
crime data, calls for
service) or unofficial
measures (e.g. self-
reported levels of
offending and/or
victimisation)
 Number Reference Interventions Outcomes Jurisdiction
of period2
studies
Belur et al. 17 2000– Electronic monitoring A measure of law- UK, US,
(2020) 2015 breaking. Outcome Canada,
data comprise Sweden,
official measures Switzerland
such as reconviction
or arrest data, or
unofficial measures
such as self-reported
levels of offending
and/or victimisation
and breaches of
curfew conditions
Renzema 3 1986– Electronic monitoring Release condition US, UK
and Mayo- 2002 violations resulting
Wilson in re-incarceration,
(2005) arrest for a new
crime or conviction
of a new crime
Welsh and 13 Up to Street lighting A measure of crime UK, US
Farrington 2006 (e.g. property and/or
(2008) violent crimes)
Other preventative measures
Bennett et 12 1977– Neighbourhood watch Crimes against US, UK
al. (2006) 1994 residents, properties
and other street
crimes in residential
areas
Bowers et 16 Up to Jan/ Geographically focused Quantitative US, UK,
al. (2011) 2010 police initiatives measures of crime Sweden,
and/or disorder in Australia
treatment and
catchment areas
Braga 5 1989– Hotspot policing Measures of crime US
(2005) 1999 (e.g. data from
crime incident
reports, citizen
emergency calls for
service or arrest
data)
 Number Reference Interventions Outcomes Jurisdiction
of period2
studies
Braga et al. 19 1989– Hotspot policing Measures of crime US,
(2012) 2011 (e.g. violent crime, Australia,
property crime, Argentina
vehicle theft, drug
offence, disorder
offence)
Braga et al. 62 1989– Hotspot policing Measures of crime Most studies
(2019) 2017 (e.g. burglary, undertaken
robbery, violent in US, UK,
crime, property Sweden
crime, vehicle theft,
drug calls, calls for
service)
Braga and 11 2001– Focused deterrence Measures of crime US
Weisburd 2010 (e.g. crime incident
(2012) reports, citizen
emergency calls for
service and arrest
data)
Braga et al. 24 2001– Focused deterrence Measures of crime US (23
(2018) 2015 (e.g. crime incident studies),
reports, citizen Scotland
emergency calls for
service and arrest
data)
Braga et al. 30 1985– Disorder policing Measures of crime US, UK
(2015) 2013 (e.g. personal and/or
property crime, drug
calls)
Dölling et 700 1952– Deterrence and general Measures of crime Not
al. (2009) 2006 prevention measured by the (e.g. property, specified
likelihood and severity of violent crime)
punishment (e.g. financial
penalty, death penalty,
arrest)
Makarios 29 1988– Gun buybacks, gun laws, Violent crime Most studies
and Pratt 2005 law enforcement (e.g. undertaken
(2008) policing, probation, in the US
prosecutorial strategies,
community programmes) to
reduce firearm violence
 Number Reference Interventions Outcomes Jurisdiction
of period2
studies
Mazerolle et 14 1990– Street-level drug law Reported offence Most studies
al. (2006) 2000 enforcement (e.g. rate or calls for undertaken
community-wide policing, services in the US
problem-oriented/
partnership policing,
hotspots policing and
standard, unfocused law
enforcement efforts)
Taheri 7 1988– The use of Crisis Official or officer- US,
(2016) 2013 Intervention Team (CIT) reported arrests of a Australia
targeting mental illness person with mental
illness, police officer
use of force, or of
police officer injury
Telep et al. 19 1984– Formal social control Crime or disorder- Most studies
(2014) 2012 interventions (e.g. law related outcomes undertaken
enforcement strategy with displacement in US, UK,
targeted at a particular beat and/or diffusion Australia
or neighbourhood such as effects
crackdown/intensive or
directed patrol, Problem-
oriented policing
(POP)/community policing,
pulling levers/gang
injunction) in medium-
sized or large geographic
areas

To assist practitioners and decision-makers in assessing the probity,

coverage and utility of evidence, Johnson et al. (2015) propose rating
evidence against five dimensions, which they collectively define as EMMIE:
(E) Effect—which reveals the impact of the intervention/s on security- or
crime-related outcomes; (M) Mechanisms—which explains the causal
mechanisms through which the intervention can affect the pre-defined
outcomes; (M) Moderators—which refers to the contexts in which the
intervention is likely (or unlikely) to work; (I) Implementation—which
focuses on the challenges in the implementation of the intervention and the
essential factors required for replication; and (E) Economic cost—which
reflects the economic costs (and benefits) of the intervention. The EMMIE
rating scale ranges from 0 to 4 (0—no information; 1—limited quality; 2—
moderate quality; 3—strong quality; and 4—very strong quality).
Example Application of EMMIE
Here we describe how EMMIE is used to rate the meta-analysis conducted by
Welsh and Farrington (2008) on the impact of improved street lighting on
crime. This study was selected as it demonstrates a high-quality application
of the meta-analysis method. In addition, the study was selected as it
underwent the Campbell Collaboration Library’s thorough review process.

E—How Effective Is This Intervention?

Results of the Welsh and Farrington review demonstrate that improved street
lighting can contribute significantly to reducing crime. Specifically, crime
decreased by 21 per cent in areas where street lighting had been upgraded or
improved compared to similar areas that did not. The evidence provided in
Welsh and Farrington review exhibits high statistical conclusion validity.
Figure 23.1 is a Forest plot that reflects the individual effect sizes of each
intervention including the mean effect size.
Fig. 23.1 The relative strength of treatment effects across US and British studies. (Source: Welsh, B.,
& Farrington, D. (2008). Effects of improved street lighting on crime. Campbell Collaboration. p. 51)

The quality of the evidence (Effect dimension) is rated as 4—very strong

quality as (i) this review adopts a well-designed search strategy with clear
inclusion/exclusion criteria and uses a consistent effect size metric (odds
ratio). The 13 studies included in this meta-analysis incorporated the
following characteristics: (a) improved street lighting as the primary
intervention; (b) an outcome measure of crime is included; (c) the evaluation
design is of adequate or good methodological quality, with the minimum
design involving before-and-after measures of crime in experimental and
control areas; (d) the unit of interest is areas; (e) there is at least one
experimental area and one reasonably comparable control area; and (f)
evidence was available to demonstrate that selected intervention and
comparison areas had an actual crime problem, enabling an accurate
observation of intervention impact in order to produce an effect size; (ii)
confidence intervals, median effect sizes and Q statistics, to assess the
heterogeneity of the effect sizes for each outcome, are also calculated. The
analysis of variance highlighted that the effects across studies were not
randomly distributed around the average effect size (Q = 14.81, df = 7,
p = 0.039). The main dimension in which the effect sizes varied was centred
on whether data were captured for night and day or night only; (iii) there is
an assessment of the influence of study design, in which separate overall
effect sizes for experimental (six studies) and quasi-experimental design
(seven studies) are estimated; and (iv) the review discusses the displacement
of crime and diffusion of crime prevention benefits.

M—Mechanism—How Does the Intervention Work?

The mechanism describes what it is about the intervention that could explain
its effect (i.e. lead to an increase, decrease or no change in crime). In this
review, the mechanism analysis is of strong quality and rated as 3. The Welsh
and Farrington review provides a description of two possible mechanisms
through which street lighting might reduce crime. Crime reduction is
achieved by firstly increasing surveillance, thereby deterring potential
offenders; and second, by signifying community investment and pride. The
mechanism analysis could be improved (from 3 to 4) if future research can
test the main theories of the effects of improved street lighting. Welsh and
Farrington (2008) suggest that “community pride” theory may be more
applicable than “deterrence/surveillance” theory with respect to reducing
crime via the use of improved street lighting.

M—Moderator—Which Contexts Does the Street Lighting

Intervention Work Best?
The moderator assists the researcher in understanding the relationship
between independent (i.e. predictor variable) and dependent (i.e.
experimental variable) variables. Moderators can be qualitative (e.g. sex,
race, class) or quantitative (e.g. level of reward), categorical (e.g. gender) or
continuous (e.g. height). Moderators affect the direction and/or the strength
of the relationship between the independent and dependent variables
(Borenstein et al. 2009). In short, moderators “cause statistical interactions”
(Shadish and Sweeney 1991, p. 883).
In this review, the moderator analysis is rated as 2—moderate quality.
The moderator variables include intervention type/strategy, research design,
respondent type, crime type, year of publication and country of publication.
Of all the intervention strategies included in this analysis (i.e. community
policing, reassurance policing, conferencing, problem-oriented policing),
reassurance policing interventions produced higher effect sizes than other
intervention strategies. In addition, interventions targeting community
members produced larger effects on procedural justice than interventions
targeting offenders alone. Further, improved street lighting appears more
effective at reducing crime in the UK compared to the US. The quality of the
evidence in this component (moderator analysis) could be improved had the
authors used theory-based pre-specified variables instead of variables that
were at hand in the post hoc tests.

I—Implementation
Implementation refers to implementation conditions that support or obstruct
delivery of the intervention. This component provides guidance regarding
challenges and specification of what would be necessary for replication of the
same intervention elsewhere. This component received a score of 0 because
the authors do not provide information regarding the implementation of this
intervention.

E—Economic Costs
The economic assessment of the intervention refers to the provision of
economic information, such as cost of the intervention, cost effectiveness or
cost-benefit ratio of interventions delivered. In this review, the economic
component is rated as 0 as there was no formal economic component.

Summarising Welsh and Farrington (2008)

Using the EMMIE framework (Johnson et al. 2015) it can be inferred that the
crime reduction evidence of improved street lighting is robust. The policy
implication is that street lighting, when accounting for contextual variation,
can be an effective strategy in reducing crime and that this measure can be
implemented as a “feasible, inexpensive and effective method of reducing
crime” (Farrington and Welsh 2002, p. 41). Moreover, street lighting has
advantages over other situational measures, “which have been associated
with the creeping privatization of public space, the exclusion of sections of
the population and the move towards a fortress society” (Farrington and
Welsh 2002, p. 41). Thus, while providing increased public safety and
promoting the effective use of public spaces at night, street lighting poses no
adverse civil liberty implications while doing so. The authors suggest that the
benefits of street lighting have potential spillover effects to the entire
neighbourhood.
With the example of street lighting intervention, we have illustrated how
the EMMIE framework can be used to evaluate the quality of the evidence
presented in meta-analyses. In Table 23.2, we group the meta-analyses by
type of interventions following the approach of the College of Policing
(2017). Next, we employ the EMMIE framework to evaluate the evidence in
each group. The scores displayed in Table 23.2 reveal only the highest score
for an individual meta-analysis undertaken for a given group. For instance,
there were three meta-analyses undertaken on the effectiveness of CCTV.
The reported scores in Table 23.2 reveal the highest score among these three
meta-analyses. This approach allows the reader to recognise the quality of the
current best available evidence for each group. We show the highest score as
opposed to individual scores as subsequent meta-analyses consistently
improve upon past efforts. Theoretically, this should occur because the
review process arguably requires that effort be made to demonstrate how the
review contributes to our understanding of a phenomenon beyond what we
already know.
Table 23.2 Rating of meta-analyses using EMMIE framework
Intervention Impacts of the Effect Mechanism Moderator Implementation Economic
intervention cost
Information security
The use of Decreasing risks of 2 2 1 0 0
Reid employee
Background cybercrime and
Check Plus counterproductivity
scales to avoid
insider threat
Formal and A decrease in 3 2 4 0 0
informal deviant behaviour
sanctions in information
security
compliance
Security measures
CCTV A decrease in 3 3 4 2 0
crime
Alley gating A decrease in 4 3 3 3 2
crime
Electronic No statistically 4 2 4 3 2
monitoring significant effect
on crime, except
for sex offences
Street lighting A decrease in 4 3 2 0 0
crime
Other preventative measures
Neighbourhood A decrease in 3 1 2 1 0
watch crime
Hotspot A decrease in 4 1 2 2 0
policing crime
Focused A decrease in 4 2 2 2 0
deterrence crime
programmes
Disorder A modest decrease 3 2 2 1 0
policing in crime
The likelihood A decrease in 3 1 3 0 0
and severity of minor crimes, no
punishment effect on homicide
Intervention Impacts of the Effect Mechanism Moderator Implementation Economic
intervention cost
Gun buybacks, Overall, they have 1 1 2 2 0
gun laws, law reduced crime, but
enforcement to there is some
reduce firearm evidence that they
violence have increased
crime
Interventions No overall 3 2 4 2 0
by police significant effects
targeted street- on total offences,
level drug but a positive
problems impact on calls for
service
The use of No effect on 3 2 2 2 0
Crisis outcomes of arrest
Intervention or officer use of
Team (CIT) force
targeting
mental illness
individuals
Formal social A decrease in 4 2 2 2 0
control crime
interventions in
medium-sized
or large
geographic
areas
Areas that have no meta-analyses
Retail tagging
Security in detention facilities
The private security market
Financial system security
School security
National security

Table 23.2 reveals that a large majority of meta-analyses in security areas

do not investigate the economic costs of the interventions. This may be due,
in part, to data unavailability. Among a variety of interventions, only alley
gating and electronic monitoring cover all five dimensions of the EMMIE
framework. The quality of evidence in information security is still limited as
studies in this area do not consider implementation issues and economic
costs. With regard to the area of security measures, most of the interventions
have very strong quality evidence of crime reduction effects—that is, the
Effect dimension is rated as 4. Mechanism and Moderator dimensions are of
strong quality or at least moderate quality. Except for street lighting, other
interventions in this area (e.g. CCTV, alley gating, electronic monitoring)
systematically document implementation issues. For example, regarding
CCTV, the technical specification of cameras such as their positioning or
recording capacity at night should be considered during implementation. For
a successful CCTV system, the following factors are mostly likely to be
critical: (i) active monitoring of live footage by security personnel; (ii)
effective operation of the control room; and (iii) public support for its use,
which can vary by context, for example, cameras attract more support in car
parks. Therefore, Implementation (i.e. the “I” dimension of EMMIE) should
be based on a careful analysis of the local crime problem and how the
proposed intervention can be useful based on the available evidence.
The evidence in the crime reduction area is of strong quality overall,
except for interventions to reduce firearm violence. Interventions such as
hotspot policing, focused deterrence programmes, neighbourhood watch and
social control have been shown to decrease crime. However, disorder
policing only reveals a modest impact on crime (Braga et al. 2015). In this
area, future research should pay more attention to the mechanism,
implementation and economic costs of the intervention to better inform
policymakers. The existing meta-analyses in this area are only of moderate
quality or even limited quality with regard to the Mechanism or
Implementation dimensions. The economic costs dimension is almost a black
box.
There are gaps in the evidence of the security and crime reduction
literature. A number of areas have no meta-analyses. Examples include retail
tagging to prevent theft, financial system security (i.e. money laundering),
school security and national security. In the area of security tagging, for
example, only a small number of empirical studies have been undertaken and
there is a high degree of heterogeneity. Hence, Sidebottom et al. (2017b) only
performed a systematic review rather than a meta-analysis. As such future
research needs to be conducted in areas where there are obvious empirical
gaps. This evidence will then allow researchers such as Sidebottom to
undertake important meta-analyses.
Concluding Remarks
Crime and justice decisions should be informed by the best available research
evidence. Practitioners and decision-makers alike are encouraged to make
use of the scientific evidence and information about best practice, and to
ensure that decisions are demonstrably rooted to this evidence. This notion,
however, can be difficult given the large and diverse range of information
generated by individual studies. In addition, some of these studies may be
biased, methodologically flawed, time and context dependent, and be
misinterpreted and misrepresented. Furthermore, individual studies can reach
conflicting conclusions. This disparity may be due to biases or differences in
the way the studies were designed or conducted or simply due to the play of
chance. In such situations, it is not always clear which results are the most
reliable or which should be used as the basis for practice and policy
decisions. Therefore, policy needs to be based on a summary of the evidence
using transparent and reliable methods for aggregating the extant literature.
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses allow us to move beyond the
limitations of narrative reviews by applying a structured and transparent
technique that answers research questions using all available empirical
evidence. The technique is difficult and requires experienced analysts with a
quantitative background. However, the investment is worth it. As stated
earlier, it is an ethical imperative to capture, analyse and understand the
extant evidence. Moreover, that the utility of any intervention needs to be
tested repeatedly to ensure that decisions are made based on all we have
learnt, not just on an isolated study.

Recommended Readings
Introduction to meta-analysis by Borenstein et al. (2009) provides an
excellent resource for beginners and to experts regarding the conceptual and
technical foundations of the meta-analytic technique. It provides an in-depth
outline of the technique, including formulas, application and underlying
motivation, by four of the world’s leading experts on all aspects of meta-
analysis.
Practical meta-analysis by Lipsey and Wilson (2001) provides a user-
friendly overview of the meta-analytic technique. This book covers contents
such as formatting coding forms, estimating effect sizes and conducting
statistical analysis. The authors clearly outline each step of meta-analysis
from development of the research question through statistical analysis and
interpretation of results.
The Campbell Collaboration publication by Welsh and Farrington (2008)
titled “effects of improved street lighting on crime” provides the reader with
a well-critiqued example of the meta-analytic technique and its application to
understanding the impact of improved street lighting on crime. The Campbell
Collaboration (C2) assists in the development, review and dissemination of
meta-analytic reviews in the area of education, crime and justice, social
welfare and international development, providing policymakers with peer-
reviewed empirical evidence regarding issues in these areas.

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Footnotes
1 There are a few meta-analyses related to information security not included in Table 23.1. These
studies examine the antecedents to security policy compliance, the predictors of the use of privacy
protective measures or validate certain theories rather than evaluate the effectiveness of security
interventions.

2 If the reference period is not indicated in the paper, we use the reference list of that paper to pick up
the period covered by individual studies included in the meta-analysis.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_24

24. Realistic Evaluation and the 5Is: A

Systematic Approach for Evaluating
Security Interventions
Andy Newton1
(1) Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice (CCJ), School of
Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Andy Newton
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
This chapter advocates for a greater uptake of two underused approached in
the security field, realistic evaluation and the 5Is framework, to support
more robust and systematic approaches to evaluating security interventions.
It contends that a combination of these two complimentary approaches
affords a methodical approach to support the design of security
interventions, enables a systematic approach for the evaluation of security
interventions, offers a greater understanding by the mechanisms which a
security intervention has or has not worked in a particular setting or place,
facilitates replication and future adaption of security interventions in
different contexts, and provides a user-friendly structure for disseminating
and communicating the evaluation results of interventions to security
practitioners. This chapter examines the strengths and limitations of each
approach, the merits of combining the two, and uses a hypothetical scenario
to guide the reader through how to carry out a combined realistic evaluation
and 5Is evaluation of a security intervention.
Introduction
This chapter advocates for the security profession to adopt a more robust
approach to evaluating security interventions, and furthermore, that
attempts to do so should consider the utility of two under-used approaches.
The first of these is a wider utilisation of realistic evaluations, and the
second is greater use of the 5Is framework for crime prevention. Moreover,
this chapter proposes the adoption of an integrated approach that combines
realistic evaluation and the 5Is framework for crime prevention. Several
advantages of doing this are identified, including:
a methodical and consistent approach to designing and evaluating
security interventions;
a framework that supports security professionals to think systematically
through (i) the challenges and issues they need to tackle, and (ii) the
ways in which their proposed solution might go some way to addressing
this;
a greater consideration of the ways in which an intervention has/has not
achieved its intended objectives, to support replication and adaption in
the future to different contexts and settings;
an understanding of how an intervention has been carried out, the steps
and stages taken, and the people and organisations involved in delivering
this; and,
the adoption of user-friendly approaches grounded in their practical
applicability.

The Use of Realistic Evaluations and 5Is in the

Security Field
Realistic evaluations were first proposed by Pawson and Tilley (1994) over
25 years ago. Compared to other fields such as public health, there is a
surprising lack of uptake of these in the security profession. To date no
systematic reviews have been published on the use of realistic evaluations
in crime prevention or security. An initial quick search identified the use of
these for evaluating a range of security interventions including CCTV in car
parks (Gill and Turbin 1999; Burns-Howell and Pascoe 2004), drug
deterrence (Leone 2008), domestic violence (Taylor-Dunn 2016), credit
risks and fraud (Ranisavljević and Hadžić 2016), reporting of sexual
violence (Solymosi et al. 2018), and autonomous driving (Zelle et al. 2020).
Outside of the security realm, realistic evaluations have been used more
extensively, perhaps none more so than public health (Marchal et al. 2012;
Salter and Kothari 2014; Gilmore 2019; Quintans et al. 2020; Mirzoev et al.
2021). A detailed consideration of possible reasons for this is beyond the
scope of this chapter. However, public health evaluations receive
considerably higher levels of research investment than security (Wiebe
2021). Salter and Kothari (2014) highlight a set of challenges to conducting
realistic evaluations which may in part explain the limited uptake including
that they are time and resource-intensive; they lack detailed learning and
guidance as to how best design the Context-Mechanism-Outcome (CMO)
configurations (a discussion of these to those unfamiliar is offered later in
this chapter); it is challenging to identify appropriate outcomes; and
inherent difficulties exist in systematically defining relevant contextual
factors and/or mechanisms.
The 5Is framework for crime prevention and community safety (Ekblom
2011) is a process model based on a set of tasks necessary to deliver
effective security interventions, namely intelligence, intervention,
implementation, involvement, and impact. However, like realistic
evaluations, it has been sparingly used in the security field. Indeed, within
policing and crime prevention, a more commonly used approach is the
SARA model (Scanning, Analysis, Response and Assessment). The
question that arises therefore is why the limited uptake of both realistic
evaluations and the 5Is framework amongst security professionals? One
possible explanation might be that there is a lack of both evaluation
research and crime prevention process models in the security field, and
whilst that is perhaps partially true, the direction of travel seems to be
towards alternative evaluation designs and security frameworks.
In crime prevention and policing there has been a more recent drive
towards adopting the so-called gold standard randomised control trials
(RCTs) for evaluation (Dezember et al. 2020). This can also be directly
observed in the security profession, and it could be argued that this might
render realistic evaluations as old hat and out of kilt. That said, RCTs were
developed as an evaluation methodology prior to realistic evaluations so
they are not a particularly new approach either. RCTs are useful for
providing robust evidence as to whether an intervention achieved its
outcomes, or if it was cost effective. They do not offer further guidance as
to how it was delivered, what made it successful, and are inadequate when
evaluating interventions in multiple settings (Bullock and Tilley 2009).
RCTs offer limited clues as to the potential to replicate an intervention in a
different place and context, particularly if few RCT evaluations have been
undertaken, and these have been applied in limited settings. Security is a
rapidly moving field, and those tasked with responding to security
vulnerabilities cannot wait around for an RCT evidence base to build up.
Therefore, a substantial upscaling of RCT evaluations is necessary before
security practitioners can have confidence in the likely success of an
intervention. Moreover, this would be based on the interventions
demonstrated as being generally effective, resulting in a leap of faith that
they will work in their local setting.
Within the Policing Profession, especially in the UK, there has been a
recent resurgence of Problem Orientated Policing (POP) Approaches linked
to problem solving. Internationally, there has been recognition of POP as
illustrated by the award of the Stockholm Prize to its founder, Herman
Goldstein (Goldstein 2018). A recent systematic review of POP suggested it
is a highly effective strategy for reducing crime and disorder with relevance
for security professions. Indeed, in their analysis, Hinkle et al. (2020)
identified 39 studies from 2006 to 2018 that met the eligibility requirements
of their systematic review, of those 24 were appropriate for meta-analysis,
and they found crime reduction interventions using POP were associated
overall with a 30% reduction in crime.
The resurgence of POP is highlighted here as a reminder of institutional
and organisational memory loss, and, furthermore, that we should not
discount realistic evaluations or the 5Is, despite their lack of uptake by
security professionals. The 5Is framework has been criticised as being
complex and more time consuming than SARA, and realistic evaluations
have also faced similar criticism compared to other evaluation designs
(Salter and Kothari 2014). Alternatively, SARA can be challenged for
lacking sophistication (Ekblom 2006), and as discussed above, alternative
evaluation designs have several limitations, not least in identifying likely
transferability and replication to other settings. The recent HM Treasury
Magenta Handbook (HM Treasury 2020a) provides some excellent
overviews and guidance on a range of evaluation designs available, and it is
worthy at this point of highlighting the supplementary appendix (HM
Treasury 2020b) which is a detailed contemporary guide on using realistic
evaluations. Given its lack of uptake for security evaluations, perhaps this
may serve as a timely reminder to those in the security profession of their
relevance.
To support an evidence-based approach, a range of UK government
‘what works’ centres have arisen. Indeed, there are now nine ‘what works
centres’ and three affiliated networks including health and social care,
education, crime reduction, early intervention, local economic growth,
ageing, wellbeing, homelessness, social care, youth offending, youth
employment, and higher education. Whilst these serve as a useful reference
point for identifying best practice, they have several limitations. Indeed, one
of the key challenges when designing a new security intervention is
attempting to draw from the ‘what works’ evidence base, given previous
interventions will generally have been delivered in a different setting and
context. Some efforts to address this include the adoption of realistic
evaluations in the What Works for Children’s Social Care, and the EMMIE
framework adopted by the College of Police What Works for Crime
Reduction (Johnson et al. 2015).
Given the limited what works evidence base in the security field (Brown
et al. 2018; Tompson et al. 2020), this chapter begins to explore why the
additional effort of adopting a realistic evaluation and 5Is approach might
be worthwhile. Moreover, it is suggested that combining these two
approaches offers a systematic and highly flexible approach to evaluation.
After all, the 5Is is more than a set of steps to support intervention delivery
and evaluation. It is a knowledge framework designed specifically to help
practitioners share knowledge, best practice, and learning (Ekblom 2011). It
was also developed to inherently address the mechanisms and context
elements of realistic evaluations, as it incorporates the Conjunction of
Criminal Opportunity (CCO) framework (Ekblom 2018). Therefore, this
chapter calls for a reconsideration of the value of both these approaches and
offers a detailed discussion of how they can be complementary and, when
combined, can add considerable value.

Security Professionals and the Challenges of

Evaluation
Evaluation can take many forms, and definitions vary considerably across
different disciplines and areas of practice. Perhaps a useful starting point is
to consider evaluation as a systematic process to determine the value, merit,
effectiveness, or worth of a particular action. For this chapter, these actions
are considered as those intended to improve the security of a particular
setting or place and associated users. Security is considered in a broad sense
consistent with the ethos of this handbook as discussed in the Introductory
Chapter. In terms of actions designed to improve security, for consistency
this chapter will term these as security interventions. These may also be
considered security programmes, schemes, measures, or other activities and
actions designed as a response to an identified security threat or weakness.
Examples may include the use or adoption of a new technological solution,
manipulation or modification of the design of an environment, training of
staff, a revised set of standard operating procedures, increased protection of
IT systems, social engineering, education, awareness raising, or alarms and
security patrols. For consistency, in this chapter these are grouped under the
umbrella of security interventions, and the purpose of most evaluations is to
ascertain whether an intervention has achieved its objectives.
Evaluation is not straightforward, and a myriad of methodologies exist
as to how to go about conducting an evaluation. A basic starting point here
is to ask did it work, and in essence, this is the thrust of what any evaluator
is trying to identify. However, as will become apparent in this chapter,
evaluations require a much more nuanced approach. For example, even if
an evaluator identifies an intervention as successful, this may not help when
attempting to replicate this intervention in another area. More pertinent
questions include: who was involved? What did the intervention deliver?
What elements of the intervention worked well? What was the context in
which it was delivered? and to what extent was it successful?
The appropriateness of any evaluation strategy will depend not only on
the type of intervention but on what exactly the evaluator is trying to find
out about it. Conventionally, evaluation is divided into outcome (also
termed summative impact) and process evaluation. Process evaluation is
designed to explain how a security intervention has been delivered and
should cover the entire sequence of activities leading up to the planning,
initiation and maintenance of specific interventions and supporting tasks
such as training and mobilising other stakeholders. It is used to answer the
question what can be learned from how the intervention was delivered (HM
Treasury 2020a). Outcome evaluation determines the extent to which the
impact of an intervention in the real world can be directly attributed to that
intervention. It determines what difference an intervention has made (HM
Treasury 2020a). A range of potential alternative evaluation functions exist
including pilot, efficacy, effectiveness, developmental, and contribution
evaluations. For a useful overview of evaluation designs, the reader is
referred to the Magenta Book (HM Treasury 2020a). These are beyond the
scope of this chapter and not considered here. As a broad rule of thumb, the
appropriateness of evaluation design will be governed by the purpose of an
intervention and the associated questions that the evaluation is attempting to
identify. To consider some of the specific challenges of evaluating security
interventions, we return to consider process and outcome evaluation in
more detail.
Challenges for outcome evaluations of security interventions include
examining the impact of multiple interventions (e.g., layered security), lack
of statistical power when small-scale interventions are introduced, and
restrictions due to the sensitive nature of some interventions, for example in
counterterrorism. Process evaluations have their own limitations (Ekblom
2011; Ekblom and Pease 1995). Assessments of the diverse implementation
tasks that make up individual security interventions are patchy and
haphazard, and findings hard to retrieve and integrate. Indeed, the chance to
learn from failures is often missed. Evaluations of security interventions
rarely contain sufficient consideration of context, required to make an
informed judgement about their transferability. For evaluation to inform
practice, it must be of sufficiently robust methodological quality, context
sensitive for transfer to alternative settings, and organised into a rich,
retrievable body of knowledge (Bullock and Ekblom 2010). Moreover, a
security culture of urgent response rather than evaluation, inadequate
training and guidance on evaluation principles, techniques, agendas, and the
challenges of evaluating complex multi-layered interventions have all
contributed to a lack of robust evaluations of security interventions.
Security professionals cannot wait for a body of rigorous evaluations to be
built up before they can act. Evaluation is complex and errors of inference
easily made. Forcing practitioners to sit through protracted courses is not
feasible. When a limited evidence base exists, we should encourage security
professionals to be innovative, but at the same time this should be theory-
driven and robustly evaluated.
 To fill this significant knowledge gap, approaches to ‘what works’ will
trade off coverage against quality. Alternative approaches to help bridge
this gap include identification of causal mechanisms, for example realistic
evaluation (Pawson and Tilley 1997) and theory of change (Serrat 2017).
This chapter proposes the use of realistic evaluation combined with the 5Is
framework for crime prevention as an overarching set of principles that can
be used to empower practitioners to grow evaluation knowledge. It is
proposed that security professionals can use these techniques and principles
to support them in designing, commissioning, and conducting evaluations
of security interventions.

Realistic Evaluation
Realistic evaluation (Pawson and Tilley 1994, 1997) was constructed with
the intention of understanding the effectiveness of an intervention, using an
approach that ensures the findings of any evaluation are directly
transferable to practice. It therefore to some extent bridges the gap between
process and outcome evaluations, as it attempts to measure both (i) whether
the intervention’s intended outcomes have been achieved and (ii) at the
same time understand to what extent the intervention is attributable to any
measured change, and the processes by which that change was brought
about. Realistic evaluations are designed to ask what works, how, why, and
in what situation. Thus, they are particularly informative for evaluating
security interventions, considering the field’s weak evidence base compared
to other disciplines. As Pawson and Tilley (1994) state, it allows you to
‘“remember A”, “beware of B”, “take care of C”, “D can result in both E
and F”, “Gs and Hs are likely to interpret I quite differently”, “if you try J
make sure that K has also been considered”’. As specified by HM Treasury
(2020b) they are particularly suited to evaluating new interventions and
trials, for understanding how to apply the learning of evaluation to adapt to
new intervention contexts, and to offer a better understanding of
interventions that have previously been evaluated with mixed results. They
are less relevant in evaluating interventions where there is a good degree of
knowledge about how, why, and where they work, and when there is limited
requirement to understand how an intervention has worked. Given the lack
of robust evaluations of security interventions, it is suggested that in the
security realm currently, these latter two will rarely apply.
 Realistic evaluation focusses on three primary components. These are
the Context within which an intervention is implemented; the Mechanisms
by which the intervention might achieve change, the how; and, the intended
Outcome of the measure introduced, or what success might look like. These
are often referred to as the CMO configurations of realistic evaluation. To
put this in layman’s terms the evaluator is testing did an intervention work,
how did it work, what situation was it delivered in, and what were the
processes that it used to deliver this identified change.
Realistic evaluation is starkly and proudly theory-driven, and theories of
change fundamentally underpin its design. Whilst this may not initially
appeal to the security professional in a rapidly evolving field, a pause for
reflection might give time to consider the benefits of this. If we consider
theory as a set of beliefs or assumptions that underpin action (Weiss 1997),
then this offers a frame of reference through which a security practitioner
can understand what security issue needs addressing and why they think
their solution will go at least some way towards resolving this. After all, if
an evaluator is to unpick how an intervention has been implemented, a first
stage is to clearly ask why it was implemented in the first place.
There are some parallels with the use of logic models now widely
advocated in the evaluation literature (Smith et al. 2020). Logic models are
diagrammatic representations of the resources, activities, outputs, outcomes,
and impact of an intended intervention. They are like theory of change
models, but logic models and similarly systems change models are perhaps
better suited to evaluating large programme interventions and strategic
perspectives (Blamey and Mackenzie 2007). Realistic evaluations are
appropriate to evaluating security interventions as they require the designers
of an intervention to formalise the development of theory testing. They go
beyond logic models by asking those responsible for the security
intervention to unpack which mechanisms are triggered in different contexts
and how they might lead to differential outcomes. They are required to
methodically think through the conditions needed for an intervention to
trigger the intended outcome. This is pertinent when trying to establish the
outcomes of a set of likely multi-layered interventions present in most
security interventions. It requires the design of interventions to include
precise terms and definitions, and a lack of standard terminology has been
problematic in the security field (Ekblom and Sidebottom 2008).
 Pawson and Tilley (1994, 1997) consider mechanisms to be a
combination of the resource offered by an intervention, and the participants
reasoning as a response to this. Therefore, this is considered a generative
mechanism linked to both a human agency and the mechanics of an
intervention. This chapter will return to discuss this when examining the 5Is
crime prevention framework in more detail. The reasoning of CMO is that
the mechanisms (of change) will only activate under certain conditions. To
achieve this requires an understanding of both context and its fluidity of
change, to understand what works, for whom, in what circumstance, and
why. The benefit of this causative design is that it offers greater promise in
understanding the potential transferability of a security intervention than
other approaches, and therefore is grounded in its practical applicability and
the likelihood of successful replicability.
Realistic evaluations may usefully consider the inputs, outputs, and
outcomes of an intervention. Inputs can be considered as ‘what is used to do
the work’, the resources that have been applied to carry out the identified
intervention tasks including finance, materials, and time, for example
additional security patrols, better physical security. The outputs refer to
what is produced or delivered and relate specifically to the products and
services that have arisen out of the intervention actions, a direct result as it
were of the inputs. The outcomes relate to what the intervention intends to
change in the real world and are a more longer-term goal than the outputs.
Examples might include reduction in levels of violence, improved mental
wellbeing, or a reduction in cyber-attacks.
An outcome evaluation seeks to identify the extent to which a security
intervention achieved its intended long-term goals. A process evaluation
unpicks the relationship between intervention inputs and outputs to identify
how outcomes occurred and therefore both are necessary for a realistic
evaluation. These inputs, outputs, and outcomes can be considered against
the identified theory of change, the context within which an intervention is
implemented, and the casual mechanisms of change by which an
intervention achieved its outcome(s). This process is depicted in Fig. 24.1.
Fig. 24.1 A schematic of the realistic evaluation approach

A further advantage of realistic evaluation designs is that they allow a

recognition that interventions are likely to be developed from previously
trialled ideas, be it in a different context, on a smaller scale or from a
different discipline. It encourages the designers of the intervention to think
through this when specifying context-mechanisms-outcomes. Therefore, it
is highly flexible and adaptable for security professionals who can (i) use
mechanism of change principles to transfer ideas to new contexts and (ii) to
adapt replication as an innovative approach.

The 5Is Framework for Crime Prevention

The 5Is framework (Ekblom 2011) was developed as a practice-orientated
tool to transfer and share crime prevention and community safety
knowledge. Indeed, its primary function is to be a knowledge framework to
capture, assess, consolidate, and replicate good practice. However implicit
in the identification of good practice is a need for robust evaluations of
security interventions. The 5Is can be considered to have a broad range of
functionality, including a checklist for steps required in designing and
carrying out the security intervention, as a gap-analysis of our existing
understanding, to learn from failure and success, as a training tool for
practitioners to support structured thinking about crime prevention, and as a
way of encouraging communication and collaboration between security
professionals with a range of backgrounds and disciplines. Therefore, the
5Is is ‘an advanced framework for capturing, consolidating and sharing
knowledge of good practice in crime prevention. It aims to improve
performance, scope and delivery of that practice locally, nationally and
internationally, enabling smarter responses with reduced resources’
(Ekblom 2011).
Ekblom (2014) covers in detail what knowledge of crime prevention
(here translated to security interventions) should incorporate. When
specifying what we need to know he identifies seven key characteristics of
relevant knowledge, including a local understanding of identified security
problems, an understanding of what works, an understanding of who should
be involved in implementing security interventions, an understanding of
appropriate timings to intervene, an understanding of how to target and
distribute resources, an understanding of context and local ethical and
cultural meanings of security, and an understanding of how to translate this
knowledge into practice. The 5Is is therefore a set of tasks devised to
deliver effective security interventions broken down as intelligence,
intervention, implementation, involvement, and impact. Each is briefly
considered below.
Intelligence refers to the need to understand the local nature of the
security challenge identified. What are the causes of this, what is the local
context, what problem exactly is the intervention attempting to address? In
this sense Ekblom aligns with the principles of Ratcliffe’s (2008) definition
of intelligence drawn from policing, which suggests a need to distinguish
between data (observations and measurements of indicators), information
(data translated into understanding local relevance), knowledge (an
understanding of local mechanisms), and intelligence, that used knowledge
to guide action. Any theoretically driven response to an identified security
issue requires a detailed understanding as to the nature of the identified
security issue.
 Intervention relates to the design and planning of the identified action as
a response to the intelligence gained in the previous step. This may include
an overall intervention strategy and a set of distinct individual interventions
subsumed within this. These are often referred to as layered interventions.
Fundamentally, intervention is about how to block, weaken or deflect the
causes of criminal events, or alternatively put, how to frustrate the
intentions and actions of offenders. There are likely to be multiple
considerations here including: pre-planning, steps required to take the
intelligence to an intervention; the organisation structure and local context
of delivery; and the design process of the intervention itself. An important
stage here is the theory behind the proposed interventions, why should it
work, and what are the outcomes it expected to achieve.
Implementation relates to the process of putting identified interventions
into practical action and incorporates the input of resources, and the
processes of delivering an output leading to an intervention including
planning, management, organisation, monitoring, and quality assurance of
the actions. Implementation goes hand in hand with involvement in the 5Is
process, and this considers the persons involved with delivering a security
intervention.
Involvement considers the mobilisation of organisations and individuals
to deliver an intervention, including partnership working. Indeed, Ekblom
considers involvement and mobilisation as a key component the 5Is, and,
after all, no security intervention is likely to succeed without the will and
skill of those implementing it. Ekblom highlights the use of the CLAIMED
steps for mobilisation (Ekblom 2011) which comprise: Clarifying roles and
tasks, Locating appropriate preventive agents or persons, Alerting relevant
persons to the identified security challenge or issue which may include
offenders, Informing them of potential consequences of harm of their
actions, Motivating them to change their or others’ behaviour, Empowering
them to make change which may include resource support, and Directing
them to standards and rules that they should adhere to. Understanding
implementation and involvement can be considered as central components
of any process evaluation as outlined previously in this chapter.
The final task outlined in 5Is is Impact, which may include intermediate
impacts and more long-term outcomes of an intervention. To what extent
has a security intervention achieved its outcomes, and how attributable are
any changes identified to that intervention? In the 5Is approach impact is
considered to include process evaluation and outcome evaluation, and thus,
Ekblom suggests that understanding the ‘how’ of implementation and
involvement (process) are a necessary part of identifying the extent to
which an intervention had a casual impact in responding to the security
challenge identified. Indeed, it could be argued that realistic evaluation and
the 5Is are complementary frameworks for evaluating security
interventions, and it is this harmony that this chapter now begins to unravel.

Combining Realistic Evaluation and the 5Is?

In the 5Is framework Ekblom (2011) outlines a set of steps for each of the
5Is, and it is useful here to draw from the specific elements of these and
how they complement and support a realistic evaluation approach. When
breaking down the tasks involved in the Intelligence component of the 5Is,
these include an understanding of the geographical and social context of the
security problem and an understanding of the type of security challenge and
previous patterns of susceptibility, the tactics employed to bypass or
overcome security, the timing and spatial pattern of previous incidents if
applicable, and the local physical and social environs within which these
have occurred. Further consideration includes the data, information, and
knowledge used to understand the local security challenges, and an
assessment of the possible significant harmful consequences that could
occur because of exploitation of a security vulnerability. Translated into
realistic evaluation, these are all issues that support a contextual
understanding of the security issue and are required to develop a theory-
based approach to identify possible appropriate solutions for the specific
security situation identified. Here there is clearly duality with realistic
evaluation in terms of drawing from theory and understanding context
within realistic evaluation.
A further consideration of the steps used in the design of the
Intervention phase of the 5Is, which is effectively the design of the
appropriate response to the security issue identified in the previous
intelligence stage. What intervention or set of interventions are likely to be
most appropriate to address this? This draws on a theory-based approach
and in some ways is like using logic models which in simple terms can be
considered each of the steps required to achieve change drawn in a flow
diagram (Serrat 2017). However, realistic evaluations and the 5Is
approaches require a greater level of detail that spells out for each step of
the CMO process. This should include a specification of the intended
inputs, outputs, and outcome metrics of an intervention, and how the
generative mechanisms of change will achieve these outcomes given local
and fluid context. A clear overlap between 5Is and realistic evaluation here
is the necessity to use consistent and clear terminology (Ekblom and
Sidebottom 2008), and several examples can be identified where the
security field has not articulated or used a clear glossary of terminology in
its approach. Two of the ‘big three’ possible errors in evaluation design are
theory failure and implementation failure. Clearly intelligence and
intervention are crucial to getting the theory right. However, if an
appropriate theory is used to inform an intervention, but the tasks are not
clearly articulated and explicitly specified for the security professionals and
partners who will likely have a diverse background of disciplines, then the
potential for implementation failure grows exponentially. This applies to the
likelihood an intervention is not carried out as prescribed or implemented
within the appropriate context it was designed for. For reference the third
failure to avoid is measurement failure, whereby the research design is not
sensitive to detect changes, or the scale of the intervention does not enable
change to be detected within its wider context.
When considering Implementation necessary steps include the targeting
of appropriate security action; tailoring of the intervention to specific local
context; possible cycles of action; and management, planning, and
organisation of an intervention. In addition, Involvement requires a
consideration of tasks carried out by organisations, individuals and
partnerships, the mobilisations of each of these, any constraints and
challenges for mobilisation, local climate of acceptance for security
measures, accountability, capacity building, and communication. A key role
within the 5Is is process evaluation, which is discussed by Ekblom as part
of Impact but is highlighted here as it is effectively an understanding of
Implementation and Involvement, the involvement of people and
organisations supporting the intervention. Steps for these include the
following: to identify the extent to which each task of the intervention was
achieved; to examine if the task was delivered to an appropriate quality; to
identify levels of involvement in each task and the specific role of each
individual, organisation, and or partnerships; and to understand any
problems or obstacles faced and how these were overcome. When
considering how these integrate into a realistic evaluation, it is pertinent to
recall that this generative causality model seeks to identify specific
conditions or readiness whereby the mechanisms of change can be
successful. Indeed, the realistic evaluation framework suggests mechanisms
are generally more attributable to human agency (involvement) than the
mechanics of a security intervention (implementation—e.g., the kind of
material used for a security door) but that both need due consideration. Here
there is clear mutual synergy between the two frameworks given the
prominence of context and readiness for change.
The final strand of the 5Is is Impact, sometimes referred to as outcome
evaluation. Steps for this include identifying the extent to which the
intervention achieved its aims and objectives, generally measured by the
outcome metrics; any changes in intermediate and ultimate outcomes; how
attributable these are to the intervention; the sustainability of the
intervention; and an understanding of context delivered and main
‘ingredients’ necessary for the success of the intervention. These latter two
require careful elicitation from the process evaluation hence Ekblom’s
inclusion of process evaluation within Impact. Again, there are parallels
with realistic evaluation as these Impact steps could all be written as steps
to understand the CMO process. Moreover, Pawson and Tilley (1994, 1997)
suggest that realistic evaluation requires a pragmatic approach to
identifying appropriate data collection methods, and a pluralist approach to
the selection of methods incorporating both quantitative and quantitative
approaches, and that these should be appropriate to the hypotheses tested
for evaluation.

A Hypothetical Worked Example

The following is based on a fictitious scenario, and the author is not aware
of this bearing resemblance to any currently identified case study, and it is
purely co-incidental if this is the case. The scenario is around the
distribution and supply of Covid-19 vaccinations, and an identified loss of
vials at a regional distribution centre. The challenge is therefore how to
secure these vials without disrupting the supply chain process.
Using Fig. 24.2, the first stage of designing and evaluating a security
intervention—using the realistic evaluation and 5Is approach—is
Intelligence. What data, information and knowledge are available to
understand the local problem. Where are the losses occurring, is there a
pattern to this, when and where is this happening, what is the (likely) modus
operandi of the offender, what is the scale of the problem, and what is the
local context where it is happening. It is identified from analysis of data that
loss occurs on regular basis consistent with shift patterns, but due to the
number of staff involved in the logistics of the Covid-19 vaccination vials
distribution, there are over 100 persons whose shift timings can be linked to
this pattern. Moreover, due to staff wearing facemasks and the lack of
CCTV cameras, it is extremely difficult to use these to detect loss. The
cameras were installed for previous products which were larger; hence,
there are fewer than needed, several blind spots exist, and cameras are
positioned inappropriately. Therefore, whilst insider threat is a distinct
possibility, it is not the only loss as incidents have been recorded both at the
distribution warehouses and on attacks to individual trucks distributing
these to local vaccination centres. However, the loss on freight vehicles is at
a smaller scale, less frequent, and more sporadic, and no clear patterns here
can be identified. This is all key information to understand the local context
of the loss of vials.
Fig. 24.2 The duality between realistic evaluation and the 5Is

Drawing from theoretical principles, the next step in Fig. 24.2 suggests
that there are two distinct issues that need security interventions. The first is
loss or theft of vials at the distribution centre itself, and the second is loss
on local freight during transport. It is not known if these are linked; there is
a strong possibility of insider threat given there are access controls in place
at the distribution centre, and that interceptions targeting virus vials on
moving vehicles is likely to require some pre-planning by offenders in
terms of an awareness of the route and timing of delivery to local
vaccination clinics. This suggests that information on the logistical
operations may not be secure. It is identified that a situational approach
(Clarke 1995) may be an effective approach to securing the vial stores in
the warehouse distribution centre, the information on freight routes and
timing of deliveries, and for adding improved security to the freight
vehicles themselves. The loss of vials is considered an opportunistic threat,
exploiting vulnerabilities that have arisen from the need to distribute vials
rapidly during a pandemic. Therefore, interventions drawn from
opportunistic explanations of theft are considered most appropriate.
Step three is to design the interventions. It is evident that there are three
security vulnerabilities to address: loss of vials at regional distribution
warehouses, possible insider sharing of route planning, and vulnerability of
the freight used whilst in transit to deliver vials to local vaccination clinics.
In discussion with local operators and drawing from the evidence on
situational crime prevention, the following interventions were identified as
appropriate. Intervention One is wireless-controlled access at warehouses
linked to operator provide mobile phones with biometric security for each
individual user. Intervention Two is for ‘security by obscurity’—direct
sharing of routes through encrypted wireless transfer to share each route
only with the drivers of that vehicle to non-personal satellite navigation
devices which are sent ten minutes before the delivery starts. Route
planning occurs on secure devices and each route request is logged.
External communication is removed from these route planning PCs except
for transfer of final route information. Intervention Three is to add tracking
devices and covert panic alarms linked directly to local police operators to
freight vehicles, and to ensure drivers only park in secure parking which is
linked to their navigation device, and locked trailer doors requiring
controlled access via GPRS and inaccessible during routes. They can only
be activated at end point.
The CMO configurations for each of these are described only briefly
here as this is a scenario-based example. Firstly, controlled wireless access
has been added to the regional warehouses. The mechanism of change is
that entry and exit is timed, there is biometric linkage of access to
individual mobile devices, and NFC technology allows movement to be
tracked within the warehouse. Moreover, the warehouse is broken down
into smaller subsections with the same wireless controlled access so users
will need to always carry their device. Direct communication and training
are provided to all staff requiring access, and any theft or loss will be
narrowed down to a small number of persons due to these multiple tracking
systems. Previously card/fob entry was used but not linked to individual
persons, and these could easily be lost and swapped, so the intervention
should not slow down operational logistics. For Intervention Two the
context is the security of the route planning information, which is
electronic. Additional layers of security have been added to restrict
potential leaking of this information, with a secure point-to-point transfer
between route planner and driver the only possible communication from
these devices. This mechanism will stop unauthorised sharing of this
information. The final security added is to freight itself on the journey
(context) and the mechanisms of change are to increase efforts required to
intercept vehicles through GPS tracking of journeys, alarms linked to local
police systems, and GPRS locking of freight that can only be opened at
end-delivery points. The outcomes are a reduced level of vial loss.
The next stage of this process is to evaluate implementation and
involvement, and this would be done to understand if the mechanisms of
change were triggered within the context of each of the three proposed
solutions. It can be considered as part of a process evaluation of the
interventions. Where 5Is is useful here is that it separates implementation
from involvement as detailed previously. It is argued that this is akin to the
realistic evaluation process of examining the mechanisms of the
intervention and the role of human agency in this. For each intervention, a
detailed breakdown is needed in terms of what was delivered and when.
How were staff mobilised to engage with this? What obstacles were faced?
How were they resolved? This detailed picture is necessary if outcomes are
to be linked to the activation of a set of mechanisms within the context
within which they were applied, and for this to be replicable.
The final stage is to assess if the outcomes were realised. That is, has
there been an overall reduction in the number of vial losses? This could be
further examined within each of the three contexts, including loss at
warehouse, unauthorised sharing of route information, and loss of vials
from vehicles. It is noted here that this is a multi-layered strategy; thus,
there is a need to try and identify which of the interventions were
successful, and the extent to which this can be attributed to the intervention.
One of the challenges is identifying whether it was protection of route
information or extra security of vehicles which was the effective
mechanism for reducing loss from vehicles in transit. One method to
separate these two is to analyse whether attacks on vehicles were still
happening post implementation, but these were less successful—suggesting
unauthorised sharing of information was still occurring. A range of
statistical tests may be considered, and the evaluation designer needs to
consider the least biased approach when attempting to account for the
counterfactual. What would have happened if the interventions were not
introduced? In some instances, quasi-experimental design may be possible,
and this should be considered at the intervention design stage. If so, a range
of tests could be considered including propensity score-matching,
interrupted time series analysis, regression discontinuity design, and
difference in difference regression. If appropriate controls can not be
identified, an alternative approache is to use pre and post intervention data,
triangulated with the findings of the process evaluation. If there is evidence
for the occurrence of a particular process/mechanism that is necessary for
the successful outworking of logic model, that strengthens and sharpens the
evaluation findings. Likewise, impact in the absence of a particular
conjectured mechanism can rule out the latter’s substantive contribution and
guide the choice of/search for alternative mechanisms. All of which is
useful knowledge for intelligent replication of the action in other contexts
and/or for related problems

Conclusion
This chapter has advocated for the security profession to adopt a more
systematic approach to evaluation to support the currently weak what works
evidence base. Many evaluations likely remain unpublished and
inaccessible; therefore, several opportunities for learning and replication are
missed. This chapter also suggests the use of a combined approach, utilising
realist evaluations with the 5Is as a complementary and systematic
approach to do this. In doing so, this chapter offers a potential framework
whereby security practitioners can think methodically about interventions
they design and why they might work linked to theories of change, try to
understand the context and setting of the situation they are trying to address,
can consider the steps taken in the intervention and those involved in
delivering it, and consider an up-front rather than retrospective evaluation
design that attempts to identify not only whether an intervention was
successful but also the mechanisms by which this change was brought
about. The 5Is also support dissemination of this knowledge and
considerations of the replicability of this intervention to other contexts and
situations.

Recommended Readings
The most comprehensive account of realistic evaluations is Pawson and
Tilley (1997): Pawson, R., & Tilley, N. (1997). Realistic Evaluation.
London: Sage.
For a detailed discussion of the 5Is framework, see Ekblom (2011):
Ekblom, P. (2011) Crime Prevention, Security and Community Safety Using
the 5Is Framework. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
For overviews of evaluations, see the HM Treasure Magenta Handbook
(2020): HM Treasury (2020a) The Magenta Book: HM Treasury guidance
on what to consider when designing an evaluation; and for additional
discussion of realist evaluation see the supplementary guide: HM Treasury
(2020b). Magenta Book 2020. Supplementary Guide: Realist Evaluation.

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https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_25

25. Script Analysis for Security

Professionals: Past, Present and Future
Harald Haelterman1
(1) Department of Criminology, Criminal Law and Social Law, Faculty of
Law and Criminology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

Harald Haelterman
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
This chapter discusses script analysis and positions the approach as a useful
tool to help security practitioners design and upgrade preventive and
protective controls. In addition to providing some documented examples of
how the approach has been applied in practice, it highlights some recent
advances in script analysis and some suggested areas for improvement.

Introduction
Recent years have seen a growing interest in the use of script analysis for
crime prevention purposes. This chapter positions the approach as a useful
tool to help security practitioners develop and upgrade preventive and
protective controls in reaction to real-life or improvised security incidents.
It presents the use of scripts as a pragmatic means to analyse the process
that offenders go through in the commission of a crime, to pinpoint
opportunities for preventive intervention and to draw attention to a fuller
range of risk mitigating measures.
The first part of this chapter provides a general introduction to the script
concept and its key attributes, and to the way it was adopted from cognitive
science in support of situational crime prevention. It sets out how scripts
can operate at different levels of abstraction, how they can be developed as
single-perspective or interpersonal scripts, and how script analysis can be
applied in various modes to study completed, failed, aborted and imaginary
crimes. It further shows how scripts can be interpreted to develop and
upgrade preventive and protective security controls, and how they enable
security practitioners to uncover valuable information that may be missed
during a more superficial assessment of a crime event. Part two provides
some documented examples of how the approach has been applied in
practice. It shows how scripts have been created for a broad range of crime
types and illustrates their relevance to contemporary security professionals.
Parts three and four highlight some recent advances in script analysis and
some suggested areas for improvement, respectively. The latter include
proposals to develop a more structured and consistent scripting
methodology, to improve the quality of modus operandi data in the
information sources relied upon to generate scripts, or to broaden the
theoretical base of script analysis to better support current script research
and practice. The key takeaways, finally, are summarized in a general
conclusion.

Crimes as Scripts
The script concept was first introduced to the field of environmental
criminology when Derek Cornish proposed to use it in support of situational
crime prevention (Cornish 1994; Borrion 2013; Leclerc 2014a). For
situational interventions to realize their full potential, they need to be crime-
specific and thoughtful of the procedural aspects of crime commission
(Cornish 1994). Crime events form part of a chain of events, and a detailed
understanding of what occurs both prior to and following the actual crime
event may be of practical benefit to those tasked with designing situational
measures (Cornish 1994).
As to guide researchers and practitioners in tackling the problem of
gathering and organizing information about crime commission, Cornish
(1994) turned to theories and concepts developed in cognitive science
where the production and understanding of sequences of events or actions
was also being addressed. One such concept was the notion of the script,
which featured in the debate on human memory organization. In early
writings in cognitive science, scripts—as part of a family of hypothesized
knowledge structures or ‘schemata’ (Cornish 1994)—function as an
economy measure in the storage of episodes that are alike and remembered
in terms of standardized generalized episodes (Schank and Abelson 1977).
Frequently recurring social situations that involve strongly stereotyped
conduct, such as a visit to a restaurant, doctor or dentist, are captured in our
memory as a standard event sequence (or ‘script’) that can easily be
recognized and recovered based on just some events that form part of its
causal chain (Schank and Abelson 1977; Schank 1989). Considered from
the point of view of a customer, the ‘restaurant script’ outlines the sequence
of actions that a customer must take when visiting a restaurant for a meal
(e.g. ‘enter’, ‘wait to be seated’, ‘get the menu’, ‘order’, ‘eat’, ‘get the
check’, ‘pay’ and ‘exit’) (Schank and Abelson 1977; Cornish 1994). In
more general terms, a script describes the relation between ‘casts’ (i.e.
actors or roles such as customers, waitresses and cooks), ‘props’ and
‘locations’ in a sequence of ‘actions’ to characterize routines occurring in
specific ‘scenes’ (Borrion 2013).

Crime Scripts
‘A script-theoretic approach’, according to Cornish (1994, p. 160), ‘offers a
way of generating, organizing and systematizing knowledge about the
procedural aspects and procedural requirements of crime commission’.
Applied to crime, the approach may help to uncover the complete sequence
of actions adopted before, during and after a crime event, extending the
analysis to all stages of the crime-commission process and drawing
attention to a fuller range of possible intervention points (Cornish 1994;
Chiu et al. 2011; Leclerc and Wortley 2014). Table 25.1 provides the
hypothetical example of a theft from a parked, soft-sided trailer turned into
a (universal) crime script. It provides detail on the offender actions prior to,
during and following the actual theft, and highlights some measures that
can potentially be introduced to disrupt the crime-commission process.
Table 25.1 Example script ‘Cargo theft from a parked trailer’ (modified from Haelterman 2016)

Script Script Actions Situational Measures

Scenes
Preparation Steal a van or light truck to transport Car alarms, ignition locks, steering locks,
the loot immobilizers
Script Script Actions Situational Measures
Scenes
Preparation Gather the necessary tools for Control markets, informal social control
breaking into a trailer and to offload
the loot into the getaway vehicle
Entry Enter unsecured parking lot Access controls, parking attendants, entry/exit
screening
Pre- Drive around in search for soft- Enhance visibility and natural surveillance, on-
condition sided trailers site patrolling, camera surveillance, raise
awareness and informal social control
Instrumental Select a soft-sided trailer to hit upon Replace soft-sided trailers with hard-sided
pre- trailers
condition
Instrumental Close-in on selected trailer Enhance visibility and natural surveillance, on-
initiation site patrolling, camera surveillance, raise
awareness and informal social control
Instrumental Cut hole in the tarpaulin to check Intrusion detection, anti-slashing strips, use
actualization the load secure parking facilities when transporting
high-value or theft-prone goods
Instrumental Break seal/lock of the trailer back Intrusion alarms, security seals, security locks,
actualization door park trailers back-to-back or facing a wall or
fence
Doing Offload cargo from the trailer Enhance visibility and natural surveillance, on-
site patrolling, camera surveillance, raise
awareness and informal social control
Doing Load cargo into the getaway vehicle Idem
Exit Leave parking lot Exit controls, entry/exit screening
Aftermath Sell stolen goods on the black Disrupt markets for stolen goods, identify
market products

This very basic script displays a specific type of cargo theft from a
trailer at a ‘track’-level and provides the appropriate level of specificity to
identify specific intervention points and potential countermeasures. Related
to this ‘curtain-slashing’ track is a ‘theft from a moving vehicle’ track, as
outlined in Haelterman (2016). Both may be considered part of a family of
‘cargo theft from a trailer’ scripts, which can in turn be subsumed under the
broader category of ‘cargo theft’ (see also Cornish 1994).
Indeed, the script concept can operate at different levels of abstraction,
ranging from ‘metascripts’ (e.g. theft of property) and ‘protoscripts’ (e.g.
robbery) to very specific ‘scripts’ (e.g. robbery from the person) or ‘tracks’
(e.g. subway mugging), and more complicated crimes can be regarded as
‘composite scripts that can be disaggregated into a series of linked and
“nested” scripts’ (Cornish 1994, p. 173). Scripts can be developed from the
perspective of the offender—as is the case in our hypothetical example—or
from the point of view of other actors involved during crime events, such as
victims or guardians against crime (Leclerc 2014a; Leclerc and Reynald
2017). They can be developed as single-perspective scripts that capture the
step-by-step decisions and actions of an offender, victim or crime
controller; or as interpersonal scripts providing detail on the interaction
between various parties involved during crime commission (Leclerc 2014a,
2014b). Script analysis can be applied in a proactive, reactive or
hypothetical mode to study completed, failed, aborted or imaginary crimes
(Cornish 1994; Haelterman 2016). As will become clear from the examples
provided in part two, it can be applied to a wide variety of crime types,
ranging from simple to more complex forms of crime.

The Routinized yet Flexible Nature of Crime Scripts

While scripts can be characterized as routinized plans, they should not be
considered ‘necessarily rigid, stereotyped sequences of actions’ (Abelson
1981; in Cornish 1994, p. 171). Changes in the environment will cause
event schemata—like scripts—to elaborate and change, and offence scripts
typically operate in a hostile environment (Cornish 1994). The conflictual
nature of crime, according to Ekblom and Gill (2016, p. 333), ‘renders it
likely that during many performances, plans must be adapted and revised,
and new scripts invented or recruited through improvisation, on each
occasion’. Offenders may be confronted with sudden obstacles, forcing
them to abandon the planned action altogether, to move to an alternative
script or to improvise and decide on an innovative course of action. They
may also be confronted with opportunities, encouraging them to deviate
from the activated script. Crime scripts are inherently flexible and tailored
towards overcoming obstacles and embracing opportunities (see also
Cornish 1994; Chiu et al. 2011). Scripts of experienced offenders, according
to Cornish (1994, p. 172), ‘are likely to be structured in ways which allow
for the choice of rapid alternative responses in reaction to the range of
unwanted but foreseeable contingencies specific to the crime-commission
track in question’. Those of beginning or occasional offenders, in contrast,
will probably be less articulated (Cornish 1994). As Tremblay et al. (2001,
p. 562) put it, ‘the reasoning criminal learns by doing, and script
elaborations are precisely what such learning is about’.

Scripting Preventive and Protective Security Controls

One of the key benefits of script analysis is its potential to guide preventive
intervention. Thinking of crime commission in terms of scripts offers a way
of examining the crime-commission process in full detail, from start to
finish. The script template ‘gives new opportunities […] for understanding
the step-by-step process that offenders have to go through in the
commission of any crimes’, for getting closer to the crime scene and for
identifying additional intervention points for situational prevention (Leclerc
and Wortley 2014, p. 6). It helps to identify blind spots and provides
guidance on where to ‘map’ preventive measures onto the crime-
commission process to develop more robust and effective controls (Cornish
1994; Samonas 2013; Leclerc and Wortley 2014). Presenting crime
commission in a script format enables security practitioners to think of
potential controls or control improvements for each script action, leading to
a broader inventory of candidate solutions to avoid (repeat) victimization
and allowing them to make an informed decision on what measures best to
implement within a given context (see also Haelterman 2011 for further
guidance on selecting the most promising situational measures). This may
be useful to traditional security departments tackling property crime,
workplace violence or organized crime; and to information security
professionals tackling all sorts of high-tech crimes (see also Warren et al.
2017). By providing a framework to examine alternative pathways that
offenders might follow when confronted with obstacles during crime
commission, it further provides designers of preventive measures with a
means to anticipate displacement and other reverse effects (Gill 2016;
Haelterman 2016).

Documented Practice
Based on a systematic review of over 100 scripts published between 1994
and 2018, Dehghanniri and Borrion (2019) provide a comprehensive picture
of scripting practices covering eight broad crime categories: cybercrime
(e.g. attacks on online banking), corruption and fraud offences (e.g. expense
reimbursement fraud), robbery and theft offences (e.g. armed robbery, car
theft and pickpocketing), sexual offences (e.g. child sex trafficking), violent
crime (e.g. hostage taking and foreign fighting), drugs offences (e.g. open-
air drug selling), environmental crime (e.g. illegal waste dumping and
wildlife trafficking) and a rest category containing crime types not
previously covered. More recent examples include the use of script analysis
—or a reference thereto—to study:
drug trafficking (Luong 2019; Staring et al. 2019);
the hunting of jaguars and the production of jaguar paste (Lemieux and
Bruschi 2019);
antiquities trafficking (Weirich 2019);
sexual offences committed on public transport (Apena Rogers 2019);
poppy cultivation and opium production (Chainey and Guererro 2019);
sexual assault (Chopin et al. 2019);
the advertisement and delivery of counterfeit documents on the Internet
(Holt and Lee 2020);
ideologically motivated vehicle ramming attacks (Williams et al. 2020);
Nigerian piracy (Peters 2020);
the illegal harvesting of live corals (Sosnowski et al. 2020);
unattended package theft (Stickle et al. 2020);
school shootings (Keatley et al. 2020);
website hacking attacks (Leppänen et al. 2020);
illicit waste trafficking (Andreatta and Favarin 2020);
corporate benchmark-rigging in the financial services industry
(Jordanoska and Lord 2020);
the illegal trade of medicines (Baratto 2020);
illegal fishing (Weekers 2020); and
a wide variety of fraud schemes (see, e.g., Hutchings and Pastrana 2019;
Hardy et al. 2020; Junger et al. 2020).
The list goes on and confirms that script analysis continues to grow in
popularity. Based on some random examples of documented practices, the
following sections further illustrate the relevance of the approach to
contemporary security professionals. The examples show how crime scripts
have been built upon to design and prioritize preventive interventions, to
assess the effectiveness of existing controls or to guide the design of
internal security processes.
Cybercrime
In the literature review conducted by Dehghanniri and Borrion (2019),
cybercrime tops the list of most prevalent crime-type categories. Back in
2005, Willison reported on the use of script analysis to study (employee)
computer crime. A fraud committed by a dishonest local council employee
who created and authorized fictitious invoices was turned into a crime script
and led to the identification of various preventive controls ranging from
pre-employment screening to segregation of duties and improved access
controls (Willison 2005; Willison and Siponen 2009). Applying the script
methodology, according to Willison (2005), helps to draw attention to all
procedural aspects of (employee) computer crime, to the attributes required
to commit the offence, and to ways of denying access to such attributes. It
further helps to ensure making optimum use of available safeguards and
‘allows consideration of the interrelationship between the security behavior
of staff, safeguards, and the criminal behavior of dishonest employees’
(Willison and Siponen 2009, p. 136). Basamanowicz and Bouchard (2011)
applied the script approach to identify structural weaknesses in the process
of acquiring and distributing copyrighted content on the Internet and to
direct law enforcement agencies’ attention to those process steps that have
the greatest potential for disrupting the online piracy scene. Based on a
script of the so-called warez release process, it was recommended for
industry to modify existing digital rights management technologies and for
law enforcement to focus investigative efforts on apprehending those
individuals capable of stripping content of its copyright protections on
behalf of the most prolific release groups (Basamanowicz and Bouchard
2011). Lavorgna (2013) turned to script analysis to identify and classify the
criminal opportunities provided by the Internet for carrying out a variety of
transit crimes, and Leukfeldt (2014) applied the script framework to
describe the steps undertaken by a criminal group to approach potential
victims, lure them to a phishing website, obtain their account details and
transaction codes, and transfer money from their accounts. This latter
exercise led to the identification of various opportunities for situational
interventions such as setting up awareness campaigns to alert potential
victims or upgrading security controls applicable to call centre employees
in major banks (Leukfeldt 2014). The script format has further been applied
to guide the design of methodologies for performing penetration tests on IT
systems (Dimkov et al. 2010) and to identify security loopholes in the
information security setup of an upper-tier budget hotel in London
(Samonas 2013).

Corruption and Fraud Offences

In previous work I produced multiple offender—and interpersonal scripts
relating to expense reimbursement fraud, fraudulent cash withdrawals,
fraudulent money transfers and ‘CEO-fraud’ (see also Haelterman 2016).
Based on these scripts, a variety of situational controls or control
improvements were identified and assessed, ranging from the introduction
of security hardware and awareness training to procedural improvements
and the implementation of second-level controls (Haelterman 2016). Other
authors have applied the script framework to study corruption in public
procurement, the distribution of counterfeit products, occupational
counterfeiting schemes and the trade in fraudulently obtained airline tickets,
to name a few.
Zanella (2014) applied the script framework to delve into event
decisions of corrupt agents involved in public procurement of works
contracts. The author uncovered the key stages involved in the type of
corruption in scope to then focus on the procedural aspects and procedural
requirements of the crime from the perspective of the offender (Zanella
2014). This analysis, according to Zanella (2014), provides scope for
situational interventions in the interest of law enforcement, public
administrations and private enterprises. Lord et al. (2017) presented a script
analysis of a counterfeit alcohol distribution network across two European
jurisdictions, revealing five key script scenes following production,
concealment and initial storage of the counterfeit product. While this
exercise was primarily aimed at informing the enforcement response of
responsible regulators, it can equally be benefitted from in a commercial
setting to guide the intervention and disruption strategies of corporate
security departments (Lord et al. 2017). Building on the work of Lavorgna
(2015), Kennedy et al. (2018) developed a crime script for pharmaceutical
counterfeiting schemes perpetrated by licensed health care professionals
under the guise of legitimate health care practices. Based on an analysis of
30 U.S. counterfeiting schemes captured from an open-source product
counterfeiting database, they were able to identify various opportunities for
intervention such as the implementation of coordinated recordkeeping
systems that link manufacturer, wholesaler and health care provider records
in a way that allows for automated detection of particular anomalies
(Kennedy et al. 2018). Hutchings (2018), as a final example, turned to
script analysis to provide an overview of the trade in fraudulently obtained
airline tickets, leading to a better understanding of the phenomenon and to
the identification of various opportunities for intervention. This study
further revealed evidence of displacement, illustrating the value of script
analysis for examining alternative pathways that offenders may follow
when confronted with obstacles during crime commission (Hutchings
2018).

Robbery and Theft Offences

Examples of robbery and theft offences for which scripts have been created
include metal theft from a railway network (Ashby 2016), cargo theft from
a moving vehicle (Haelterman 2016), armed robbery and serial robbery
crimes (Borrion et al. 2017; Li and Qi 2019), and unattended package theft
(Stickle et al. 2020).
In his article on Nigerian piracy, Peters (2020) applied the script
framework to examine four types of maritime piracy: robberies, ship/cargo
seizures, kidnappings for ransom and attempted boardings/unspecified
attacks. This exercise led to distinct business models for each piracy-type,
illustrating the need to be crime-specific and to tailor preventive
interventions to the unique characteristics of each sub-type (Peters 2020).
Also worthy of attention is the work conducted by Lasky et al. (2015) who
applied a script-like approach to examine how shoplifters convey
impressions of normalcy while inside a store. Based on interviews
conducted with 39 active offenders immediately after they had simulated
shoplifting while wearing an eye-tracking device to record their actions and
behaviours, the shoplifting journey was captured in three distinct stages
(Lasky et al. 2015). With the video footage serving as memory prompts,
valuable insight was obtained about the offenders’ decision making while
navigating the store in search for items to steal, and about their use of
different types of body gloss during their journey (Lasky et al. 2015). Same
as the study conducted by Samonas (2013), this latter study illustrates how
the use of script analysis extends beyond studying completed, failed or
aborted crimes.

Violent Crime
The script-theoretic framework has further been used to examine a variety
of violent crimes, some of them of relevance to contemporary security
professionals. Meyer (2012), for example, made use of crime scripts to
provide advice on how to prioritize protective security measures against
explosive attacks on railways. More recently, Osborne and Capellan (2017)
turned to script analysis to examine event-level characteristics of active
shooter events and to develop strategies to reduce their occurrence and/or
lethality. The latter include crime stage-specific and script-specific
strategies and techniques such as training and awareness building (e.g. on
how to recognize and report behavioural or verbal ‘red flags’), gun control,
controlling access to facilities and formal surveillance (Osborne and
Capellan 2017).
This non-exhaustive overview of scripting practices shows how
performed and planned scripts have been created for a variety of issues
facing commercial organizations. It also sheds light on the data sources
used for generating crime scripts. Some analysts make use of offender
accounts of crime commission (see, e.g., Lasky et al. 2015). Others turn to
secondary sources of data—or combinations thereof—such as audit reports
(e.g. Willison 2005), court data (e.g. Basamanowicz and Bouchard 2011;
Zanella 2014), police files and data sets (e.g. Leukfeldt 2014; Ashby 2016),
self-reported victimization data (e.g. Peters 2020; Junger et al. 2020), open-
source databases (e.g. Kennedy et al. 2018), interviews with subject matter
experts and field practitioners (e.g. Lavorgna 2013; Haelterman 2016;
Hutchings 2018), and video footage (e.g. Borrion et al. 2017; Stickle et al.
2020). Of the 60 scripts that were selected by Dehghanniri and Borrion as
containing non-ambiguous information about the data sources used to
generate the scripts, 29 scripts were created using a mix of primary and
secondary data, and 23 scripts were created using just secondary data
(Dehghanniri and Borrion 2019).

Recent Advances in Script Analysis

The practical utility of script analysis extends beyond providing security
practitioners with a means to break down the crime-commission process to
introduce new or improved security controls. The technique offers
possibilities for anticipating crime displacement and diffusion of benefits,
for detecting trends and targeting often recurring modi operandi, for
identifying serial crimes and offenders, and for developing security
products, systems and training programmes (see also Haelterman 2016).
The manifestation of these benefits comes gradually and piecemeal but
confirms the status of script analysis as an indispensable tool for years to
come. Evidence of this huge potential is the work that has already been
done to extend its reach beyond its initial applications. Apart from adapting,
streamlining or simplifying the structure of crime scripts to improve their
practical utility or to tailor them to the study of specific crime phenomena
(see, e.g., Hancock and Laycock 2010; Tompson and Chainey 2011), some
have extended the boundaries of script analysis beyond the use of offender
scripts (see, e.g., Leclerc 2014a on generating scripts from a victim
perspective, Leclerc 2014a, 2014b and Leclerc and Reynald 2017 on the use
of scripts to display the intervention process of crime controllers, and
Leclerc 2014a on relational schemas and the development of interpersonal
scripts). Others—as will show from the next section—have tried to boost
the value of script analysis through combining it with other methods of
analysis.

Combining Methods
Various researchers have combined script analysis with social network
analysis to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the structure and
functioning of criminal networks. According to Morselli and Roy (2008, pp.
71–72), merging both methods of analysis allows researchers ‘to
reconfigure criminal ventures […] in a framework that represents both the
criminal decision-making process (crime script) and the structure
embedding it (social network)’. Morselli and Roy (2008) applied the
combined method to investigate the role of brokers in vehicle ringing
operations. In their analysis of a counterfeit alcohol distribution network,
Lord et al. (2017) did so to better understand the distribution of illicit
alcohol from one jurisdiction to another, to identify the processes and
behaviours involved, and to describe the roles that specific actors play at
different stages of crime commission. For the purpose of their study,
according to Lord et al. (2017, p. 268), ‘a social network analysis approach
complements the script analysis by providing the analytical tools to
understand how […] actors are embedded in the structure of distributing
counterfeit alcohol, some occupying central positions, while others being
more peripheral’. Others have combined script analysis and social network
analysis to study the trade in converted firearms (De Vries 2012), to
highlight structural and functional changes in a drug trafficking network
across time (Bright and Delaney 2013), or to inform counter terrorism
disruption strategies (Masys 2016).

Future Development Needs

The growing popularity and extended use of crime scripts also comes with
frequent calls for improvement. Some authors have expressed the need for a
more structured and consistent scripting methodology. Others advocate the
need to improve the quality of modus operandi data feeding into the script
template or to broaden the theoretical base of script analysis to better
support future research and practice.

The Need for a More Structured Scripting Methodology

The lack of an agreed method and criteria to compare different scripts
representing the same crime event, poor guidance on script verification and
validation, and concerns about a potential mismatch between designer
needs and current scripting practices led Borrion (2013) to define 12 quality
criteria that could be used to evaluate crime scripts and to improve their
utility for the design and development of effective control measures. More
recently, Borrion et al. (2017) invited 21 students to create a script based on
the same video footage of a shop robbery. This exploratory study revealed
that scripts developed from the same data by several individuals who
received the same training can greatly vary, leading the researcher to
conclude that ‘different scripters create different scripts’ (Borrion et al.
2017, p. 119). Variations were found in the scope of the scripts; the number
of steps, activities and components identified; and the level of detail
provided (Borrion et al. 2017). Based on these observations, the authors
recommend creating ‘a more systematic and goal-based crime scripting
technique that could outperform the current intuitive approach and reduce
the observed variance in quality’ (Borrion et al. 2017, p. 121).

‘Garbage in, Garbage out’

Having accurate data to work from is essential for creating meaningful
scripts. In order to generate a script, according to Tompson and Chainey
(2011, p. 186), ‘one needs to consider or gather information on how the
offender went about the crime commission, and the rational (or otherwise)
choices that were made by the offender’. This includes detail on the
chronology of events, on all actors and effort involved, on their goals and
sub-goals, on the skills and expertise required to carry out each step in the
process, on the tools and circumstances facilitating crime commission, and
so on (see also Tompson and Chainey 2011; Haelterman 2016). In practice,
however, ‘crime scripts suffer from fragmented information and an
impermanency of many activities’ (Gilmour 2014, p. 39). Some script
stages or actions may be overlooked due to missing data in the source
materials available to analysts, or some may be better articulated (and
understood) than others (Cornish 1994; Tompson and Chainey 2011).
Defining the type of qualitative data that needs to be recorded for creating
quality scripts is therefore considered an important point of improvement
(Tompson and Chainey 2011) and a prerequisite for adopting some of the
more automated forms of data gathering and analysis that are currently
being developed (see, e.g., Li and Qi 2019 on a novel way of detecting
serial crimes based on crime-commission details).

Theoretical Considerations
In addition to the more technical and methodological concerns that were
raised in the previous sections, some authors have challenged the theoretical
base of script analysis as it was first introduced to the criminological
domain. Tompson and Chainey (2011), for example, point to the fact that
some may consider the interdependency between script analysis and the
rational choice perspective to be inhibitive, and argue that other decision-
making frameworks can be relied upon where there is a robust justification
for doing so. ‘As long as a decision-making framework facilitates the
social, legal and situational variables influencing action to be identified’,
according to Tompson and Chainey (2011, p. 186), ‘it is unimportant which
framework is used to create crime scripts’.
Other authors present a more extensive case for re-thinking the
theoretical foundations of script-based modus operandi research. The
conceptual foundation imported from cognitive science, according to
Ekblom and Gill (2016, pp. 319–321), was ‘unclear and too narrow a
platform to support the current scope of script research’, which led them to
search for conceptual clarity ‘to better connect the scripts concept to
mainstream situational crime prevention and criminology more generally’,
and ‘to broaden the approach by exploring additional cross-disciplinary
links’. Ekblom and Gill (2016, p. 323) define scripts as ‘abstracted
descriptions of structured sequences of behaviour extended over time and
perhaps space, which could be considered functionally self-contained units
or subunits of longer sequences’. Borrowing from ethology and behavioural
ecology, they further distinguish between empirical and explanatory scripts.
The first are referred to as ‘simple descriptions of recurrent sequences of
behaviour in situ’ (Ekblom and Gill 2016, p. 324). At a minimum, they can
be described as ‘bare abstracted sequences of actions or associated events’,
but while studying variation in behaviour across agents and/or situations
‘may suffice for guiding criminal investigation’, it is believed to be of
limited preventive (and academic) use (Ekblom and Gill 2016, p. 324). The
functional explanation provided by procedural scripts, in contrast, is
considered of great importance to (situational) prevention, as are combining
functional and causal perspectives in scripts (according to circumstance)
and understanding script clashes and collaborations (Ekblom and Gill
2016). Differentiating between behaviour and events, leveraging from other
disciplines to distinguish the levels of explanation needed to handle
sequences of purposive behaviour, linking functional and causal
perspectives in scripts, distinguishing competence from performance,
highlighting the difference between empirical and procedural scripts (and
their usefulness for crime prevention purposes), relating script analysis to
other theories and approaches that focus on criminal events, extending the
scope of scripts in general and emphasizing the importance of script clashes
and collaborative scripts, according to Ekblom and Gill (2016, pp. 335–
336), may provide ‘a better definition of a script and its multiple features’.
Eventually, it may also yield significant practical advantage (Ekblom and
Gill 2016).

Conclusion
Covering the full history, theoretical foundations, past and current
applications, strengths, weaknesses and future possibilities of script analysis
in a single chapter is an impossible task. This contribution therefore focuses
on the value of the approach to contemporary security professionals. It
provides a very brief introduction to the script concept and its key
attributes, and goes on to show how crime scripts can be built upon to
design and prioritize preventive interventions, to assess the effectiveness of
preventive and protective controls, and to guide the design of internal
processes. It further shows how script analysis can be combined with other
methods of analysis to extend its scope and increase its usefulness.
Thinking of crime commission in terms of scripts offers a way of
examining the crime-commission process in greater detail, from start to
finish, which opens possibilities for identifying a fuller range of risk
mitigating measures and to pinpoint these to the most promising
intervention points. It further provides designers of preventive and
protective security measures with a means to anticipate displacement and
other reverse effects, and to benefit from potential diffusion of benefits.
Getting the approach to reach its full potential is work in progress. The
appropriate level of formalization and standardization that is required for
creating scientifically robust scripts that remain fit for practice is still to be
determined, and will need to balance the pros and cons of providing
freedom versus imposing a more structured scripting methodology (see also
Dehghanniri and Borrion 2019). Also of concern are the availability,
completeness and accuracy of data required for creating meaningful and
quality scripts. Where offenders’ accounts of crime commission are
obtained as a primary source of information, active probing and the
adoption of interviewing techniques that are fit for purpose may be required
(Cornish 1994). Where secondary sources are used, it is important to
acknowledge potential deficiencies. Data retrieved from incident reports,
for example, may be subject to inaccuracies ‘ranging from simple recording
and data entry errors to the purposeful withholding of pertinent incident
details by reporting parties’ (Peters 2020, p. 5). Meeting these and other
development needs referred to in this chapter—be it of a methodological,
administrative or more conceptual nature—will turn script analysis into a
standard ingredient of the security manager’s toolbox, and rightly so.

Recommended Readings
Cornish’s seminal article on the procedural analysis of offending and its
relevance for situational prevention (Cornish 1994) is considered a key
reference and required reading for anyone who wants to learn about the use
of scripts to study crime-commission processes. Also worthy of attention is
the work of Leclerc (2014a) who argues that the approach should also be
applied to victims and guardians against crime and to guide the analysis of
the interchange between actors involved in the crime event. Dehghanniri
and Borrion (2019) provide a comprehensive overview of crime scripting
practices based on a systematic review of over 100 scripts published
between 1994 and 2018. In an earlier contribution, Borrion (2013, p. 9)
presents a list of quality criteria that could be used to evaluate crime scripts,
and a checklist ‘to support the specification, verification and validation of
functional requirements for control measures’. The work of Tompson and
Chainey (2011) illustrates how crime scripts can be used to understand
specific crime phenomena (in case illegal waste activity). It further provides
some good insights into relevant data requirements and into the types of
issues faced when trying to gather useful data. Ekblom and Gill (2016),
finally, present an interesting rewrite of the script concept to better support
future research and practice.

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M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_26

26. Using Mobile Applications and

Physiological Sensing to Measure
Perception of Security in Built
Environments
Reka Solymosi1 , Ines Guedes2 and Laura Vozmediano3
(1) School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
(2) School of Criminology, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
(3) Department of Social Psychology, University of the Basque Country,
Leioa, Spain

Reka Solymosi
Email: [email protected]

Introduction
Research and discourse around security covers a diverse range of topics
focusing on protecting “people and their assets in particular from mal-
intended actions” (Gill 2014: 981), such as crime prevention, management
of security, and even discussion about ethics and critiques of security (Gill
2014). In this chapter, we wish to draw attention to perceived security—the
extent to which people interpret a particular situation as secure or insecure.
Designing urban environments that people perceive to be safe or unsafe
has important implications for individuals, and at the systemic level,
impacts public health, environmental sustainability, and social and
economic inequality. This is because how people perceive their
neighbourhoods dictates how they will interact with them, and these
behaviours and decisions impact upon all spheres of life (Marzbali et al.
2016).
 On the individual scale, fear of crime (FOC; perceived insecurity)
affects self-assessed quality of life (Jackson et al., 2006), contributes to
anxiety (Hale 1996), and impacts upon physical and psychological health
when the individual avoids physical activity in public spaces (Foster et al.
2010; Loukaitou-Sideris 2006) or decreases social interaction (Foster et al.
2010; Marzbali et al. 2016; Lorenc et al. 2013). Foster et al. (2014) estimate
that total time people spend walking decreases by 22 minutes per week for
each one unit increase in their reported levels of fear of crime. Reducing the
extent to which people leave their home or walk not only robs them of the
health benefits of exercise but further acts as a barrier, preventing people
from fully engaging in their communities and reducing their access to
opportunities (Fisher and Nasar 1992; Nasar and Jones 1997; Newman
1972).
At the community level, perceived insecurity affects sense of
community and punitive attitudes (Hale 1996), affects real estate markets
(Wilhelmsson and Ceccato 2015), and even leads to areas developing a
negative reputation, creating social stigmatisation (Lorenc et al. 2013).
Avoiding certain areas of the public space as a self-protective strategy,
when shared by a number of citizens, could result in underused streets or
areas. This undermines natural surveillance, participation, and social
cohesion, therefore affects both objective and perceived security according
to the Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED)
principles (Armitage and Ekblom 2020; Cozens et al. 2005). The average
effect size of the impact of fear of crime on subjective wellbeing is higher
in areas of less economic and social development (Alfaro-Beracoechea et
al. 2018), and the limitation on activities and possible social isolation are
more serious for women, older people, and people with disabilities (Lorenc
et al. 2013; San-Juan et al. 2012). Since perceived insecurity is not
distributed equally across populations or areas, tackling perceived
insecurity addresses the UN sustainable development goal of reduced
inequalities and gender equality (United Nations, 2015).
On a systemic scale, where perceived insecurity of areas prevents
people from sustainable transit choices such as walking or cycling, they will
rely on high carbon emission modes of travel instead, like private cars and
taxis (Hong and Chen 2014). This raises both public health and
environmental concerns; perceived insecurity affects mobility decisions
leading to less walking and more use of private transportation, which lead
to public health outcomes in reduced exercise (Foster et al. 2014) and
environmental outcomes in private transport mode choices ultimately
producing higher levels of emissions (Rietveld and Brons 2001; McDonald
et al. 2010; Mitra et al. 2010). In line with the UN sustainable development
goal on sustainable cities and communities, (United Nations, 2015)
governments and city planners must seek to provide access to safe,
affordable, accessible, and sustainable transport systems for all. Perceived
safety clearly has a role to play in achieving this.
Planning, designing, and maintaining urban (and rural) spaces that are
perceived as safe by those who live, work, or visit them is evidently an
impactful and vital part of security research and practice. In order to inform
planning interventions for the creation of safe spaces, it is important to
understand what environmental features are associated with feeling unsafe.
Since the 1960s, many disciplines such as sociology, criminology, planning,
and psychology have researched perceived (in)security and characteristics
of place. Researchers working in parallel in these spheres have been
exploring such characteristics of the built environment; however,
conceptualising and operationalising fear of crime in a way that reflects
people’s context-specific experiences has proven an important barrier. More
recently, researchers have begun to ‘put fear of crime on the map’, framing
it from a place-based perspective. In particular, technological advances in
research methods allow operationalising people’s perceptions of place in a
way which facilitates this re-conceptualisation of place-based fear of crime,
alongside collecting auxiliary data about the environmental features
associated with these experiences at unprecedented scales (Solymosi et al.,
2020).
In this chapter, we elaborate on why traditional approaches to measuring
perceived insecurity have reached the limit of what they can tell us about
designing safer spaces and provide a roadmap for how to move forward by
taking advantage of innovative research design. Specifically, we identify
three key issues with the way in which perceived insecurity has traditionally
been operationalised which have hampered our understanding of perceived
insecurity in specific spatiotemporal contexts. These are (1) difficulty to
measure and locate place-based perceptions: Issues ‘place-ing’ experiences
of (in)security, (2) social desirability and other biases with questionnaires
that mean we do not tap into the experience of worry/fear: Issues capturing
experience, and (3) difficulty in then linking experiences of fear/worry with
the specific elements of the situation/place which evoked such a response:
Issues linking to environmental context.
For each one of these issues, we address how methodological advances
in research design, specifically (1) mobile applications implementing
experience sampling method (ESM), (2) physiological sensing measures
(e.g. Galvanic Skin Response or Heart Rate Monitoring), and (3) digital
methods for cataloguing relevant and important environmental features (e.g.
eye-tracking), can be used to tackle them. These resources are available to
researchers to ultimately develop a better understanding of environmental
features associated with perceived (in)security. We present a list of
important considerations for research design, methodology, and data
analysis. Our hope is to motivate more researchers to incorporate such
techniques and develop a comprehensive understanding of place-based
perception of security in built environments to inform design and
maintenance of secure places.

Perceived Security of Place

As detailed above, due to its impact at individual, community, and systemic
levels, perceived insecurity is considered an important subject from both
social and science perspectives. For this reason, perceived insecurity has
also been considered an important outcome variable for interventions aimed
at improving safety and quality of life. For example, looking at the effects
of hotspot policing in their study, Braga, Papchristos, and Hureau included
the effect of this intervention not only on crime but also on fear of crime
(2012). Evaluating CCTV in residential areas, Gill et al. (2007) also
considered the impact CCTV had on fear of crime, as well as crime itself.
And in their study of micro-place policing, Hinkle and Weisburd (2008)
consider the outcomes of how this approach affects citizens’ fear of crime.
This interest is not limited to evaluation of policing and security
interventions. Many studies of neighbourhood design consider fear of crime
as an outcome (e.g. Foster et al. 2010; Foster et al. 2013), and planning
initiatives such as CPTED focus on fear of crime prevention alongside
crime prevention (e.g. Marzbali, Abdullah, Razak, & Tilaki, 2012; Cozens
and Sun 2019).
Despite this importance and popularity in research (or maybe because of
this), there is much debate around the conceptualisation and
operationalisation of fear of crime (Ditton et al. 1998). While the above
interventions all wish to measure an impact on people’s perceptions of
safety and security, they fail to harmonise any definition or approaches to
measurement. Even the terminology changes throughout research literature
exploring the concept. It is labelled ‘the fear of crime’, ‘worry about crime’,
‘perceived security’, or ‘perceived insecurity’, and has a long history of
debate and discussion over what these different labels really mean. In their
critical examination in 1987, Ferraro and LaGrange comment that “rather
than serving as a useful indicator of the quality of community life, fear of
crime has been measured in so many ways that it has marginal research
value as a concept for rigorous scientific research and may misdirect policy
initiatives” (LaGrange and Ferraro 1987: 373). It is these problems of
conceptualisation and operationalisation which have hindered the
development of appropriate fear of crime indicators (Ferraro and LaGrange
1987).
Although the above claim is from the 1980s it is far from resolved. A
decade later, in the paper “Questioning the Measurement of the ‘Fear of
Crime’”, Farrall et al. (1997) ultimately conclude that “a simplistic,
numerical, answer to a general closed question cannot hope to represent the
breadth of experience and feelings about crime experienced by most
people” (p.661). The authors question the efficacy of (what is still) the most
common approach to measure fear of crime: cross-sectional survey question
indicators. This is no small critique to make, since most of the scientific
knowledge about the causes and consequences of perceived insecurity and
about the fear itself have been built on results from exactly such survey
studies. Despite the repeated raising of this issue, studies continue to collect
information about feelings of worry using these measures. Moving into the
2000s, empirical criticisms of such measures continue to reveal that they
elicit future-orientated anxieties (Warr 2000), showing an image of risk
independent of whether people find themselves in threatening situations
(Jackson 2006). It therefore follows that such strategies of
operationalisation are unable to capture the patterning and ecology of
events (or ‘experiences’) of fear. Instead, at best, these general anxiety
measures collect discourse-level worries about crime as a social problem
that overestimates how widespread the perceived insecurity is among the
population (Gray et al. 2008), and most importantly, does not relate to the
environmental context which can be influenced by planning policy and
practice.
So what is needed instead? To inform place-based interventions,
perceived insecurity of places must be measured in a way to reflect people’s
context-specific experiences. While exploratory studies focusing on specific
environmental features or small-scale areas or communities had made
attempts to operationalise fear of crime in this way, it is only in about the
past five years that this approach has really taken ground, replicating
internationally an approach to capture fear experiences in place and time on
larger scales. This has given rise to a conceptualisation of perceived
security of places as a context-dependent experience, within the broader
context of the fear of crime definitions and measurements that exist more
broadly. This conceptualisation not only considers the general anxieties and
the disposition to worry which people bring with themselves, but also
captures the importance of the immediate environment. Figure 26.1
illustrates the conceptualisation of worry in this sense, with the green circle
representing the situation-specific experience, which is influenced by the
perceived in/security of a specific environment.

Fig. 26.1 Conceptualisation of fear of crime and the role of perceived in/security

In the following sections we describe the move to operationalise

perceived (in)security in a way that ‘places’ this experience within an
environmental context. We emphasise specifically how this grew with the
methodological innovations of more recent research.

Issue 1: ‘Place’-ing Experiences of (In)Security

To move away from generalised anxieties and towards specific experiences
of worry, Gray et al. (2008, 2011) developed questionnaire items for
measuring frequency and intensity of fear of crime, tapping into perceived
risk. Further, Jackson and Gouseti (2015) highlight the importance of
dynamic factors, which change with situations. While these measures move
towards capturing experiences, they still fail to ‘put fear of crime on the
map’ to link it directly with specific situational environmental contextual
factors. Instead, survey-based measures locate fear of crime in place by
asking people how they feel in their neighbourhoods. Locating worry to
respondents’ home address results in maps of where worried people live,
rather than of perceived insecurity in urban areas by all users to the space.
To understand perceived insecurity in a specific environmental context,
we must focus on how people experience a specific time and place, in a
specific context. This approach to studying fear of crime regards its
manifestations to be dynamic and micro-level events, experienced by
people as they go about their routine activities (Solymosi et al. 2015). It is
this context-specific experience that can be addressed by the design of safe
places, which is the aim of any planning or policy interventions. If we want
to know whether a place-based intervention like hotspot policing or CCTV
worked to reduce fear of crime, or if a particular approach to
neighbourhood design influenced the perceived (in)security of an area, we
need to measure fear of crime in a way that reflects people’s experience in
that specific context.
To achieve such an understanding, researchers have run exploratory,
mostly qualitative studies to ‘put fear of crime on the map’. For example,
Fisher and Nasar (1992) employed techniques of narrative walks, in-place
observation and interviews, to map people’s experiences in different
settings, such as on various sites of a college campus. Doran and Burgess
(2011) employed cognitive maps to visualise areas that people avoid due to
worry in Wollongong and Sydney in Australia. Approaching the study of
fear of crime from this angle allows for the identification of fear hotspots. It
then follows that by identifying locations of worry, researchers can extract
related environmental and social variables. It is then possible to propose
and evaluate situational preventative measures that manipulate these
variables and ultimately enhance perception of safety in these areas. These
efforts are important steps, but are difficult to scale—such study designs
often lack the large volumes of data required to create generalisable results,
that is the strengths of large-scale surveys.
More recently, researchers have turned to advances in technology to
address these issues of scalability (Solymosi et al. 2015). App-based
measures allow for situation-specific measures of fear of crime. Such
measures capture people’s perceptions and experiences in real-time,
collecting important information about the environmental context
(Solymosi et al. 2020).
“Today in western societies more people are employed collecting,
handling and distributing information than in any other occupation.
Millions of computers inhabit the earth, and many millions of miles of
optical fibre, wire and airwaves link people, their computers and the vast
array of information handling devices together. Our society is truly an
information society, our time an information age” (Mason 1986: 5).
This was written in 1986. Since then the quantity and availability of
data, and the proliferation of Internet-enabled devices have only increased.
In 2019, 91% of all adults within the UK had recently used the Internet, and
84% have accessed the Internet ‘on the go’ using a mobile phone or other
device (Office for National Statistics 2020). This connectivity can be
harnessed, for example, to track spatial patterns of behaviour with
unprecedented ease. The richness and detail of these data allow for in-depth
exploration of routine activities, and to move beyond the “when” and
“where”, to ask the “who” and “what” questions when mapping these
routine activities in place and time (Solymosi and Bowers 2018).
Specifically, the application of ‘participatory mapping’ and ‘experience
sampling’ methods to mobile phone applications enable people to map their
perceptions of insecurity as they go about their everyday routine activities.
Participatory mapping refers to crowd-sourced exercises where instead
of a linear, publishing ‘push’ model where data and information are
collected and brought together centrally, multiple users collaboratively
create and share data with a spatial component. This approach has
influenced GIScience by raising new questions and offering novel
quantitative and qualitative data sources to answer long-standing research
questions (Haklay et al. 2008). For example, Innes et al. (2009) used
participatory mapping to develop a ‘community intelligence’ feed,
providing insight into the principal drivers of insecurity for specific
neighbourhoods and communities.
Experience Sampling Method (ESM) (sometimes called Ecological
Momentary Assessment) is a popular method in psychology research. It
provides means for gaining insight into not only what people are doing but
also their interpretations of their emotional state in that situation
(Christensen et al. 2003; Hektner et al. 2007; Scollon et al. 2009). ESM
surveys can rely on prompts at certain predetermined intervals, but can also
capture event-related prompts; participants may be instructed to fill out the
questionnaire when a particular event takes place. People might be
instructed to complete an ESM survey every 10 minutes, or instead every
time they experience feeling worried about crime, or each time when they
use public transport (Solymosi et al. 2015).
Solymosi et al. (2015) combined participatory mapping and ESM
frameworks into a mobile application “FOCA” demonstrating the feasibility
and utility of the use of a mobile survey app to collect data on individuals’
fear in real-time, developing a way to operationalise this as context-specific
and situational. This study showed empirically how individuals’ worry of
crime victimisation was not static among individuals, places, and times.
After this, the method was replicated globally (e.g. Australia [Chataway et
al. 2017, 2019], Pakistan [Irvin-Erickson et al. 2020], Spain [Buil-Gil
2016], and Sweden [Kronkvist and Engström 2020]). It provides an
approach to operationalise perceptions of insecurity in a specific time and
place.
A recent systematic review of such approaches identifies key strengths
and limitations of this method (Solymosi et al. 2020). The main strengths
are the ability to capture the spatial-temporal nature of attitudes and
emotions towards crime, to record data on individual variables and specific
types of fear/disorder, and, perhaps more importantly for the design of
secure environments, to record data on architectural features. Practical
strengths were also mentioned, such as a reduced cost of data collection on
large scales, and the method generally being oriented to evidence-based
policy making/urban planning.
Limitations, on the other hand, highlight the space for growth in
improving and developing this still emerging area. The most commonly
identified limitations were issues around sampling, specifically about biases
in samples which resulted from the non-random nature of sample selection,
participation inequality, and attrition over time (Solymosi et al. 2020).
Researchers in this area will do well to work on how these sampling issues
might be mitigated, in order to improve generalisability from these data
sets. Some work exploring statistical methods exists (e.g. see Buil-Gil et al.
2020). Besides generalisability, researchers must also consider individual
privacy and anonymity in these data, and engage with data ethics (Floridi
and Taddeo 2016).
Besides under- and over-representation of certain people arising from
sample bias, due to the place-based nature of this approach, we also see the
limitation in under-representation of certain areas and times. It is possible
that in their routine activities, people avoid locations which they may
perceive as insecure (Innes 2015). To address this limitation, researchers
should consider ways to sample locations, as well as participants in their
study design. One application which does this is Walkcap (Vozmediano et
al. 2017). This application records multiple journeys of every participant
every day and then asks participants about their perceived safety in one
randomly selected journey. Applying random sampling of journeys
stratified by time and place allows recording information about night-time
routes as well as journeys crossing specific areas of interest.
Additionally, two issues of fear of crime measurement highlighted
earlier remain unresolved by applying the same questionnaire item into a
different technology. The first such issue brings us back to the criticism of
the questions still tapping into “a simplistic, numerical, answer” to a
complex question (Farrall et al. 1997: 661). We explore this in the next
section, Issue 2: Capturing Experience. And second, many early adopters of
this approach mentioned a difficulty in tying the experienced worry to
specific environmental cues. How can we link the perception of insecurity
experienced in a specific place to the environmental features of that place
which may be provoking it? We tackle this question in Issue 3: Linking to
Environmental Context.

Issue 2: Capturing Experience

The second issue comes about due to fear of crime being a sensitive and
loaded concept. Respondents may be reluctant to self-report fear of crime
experiences. Farrall et al. (1997) name this issue “concealment by the
respondent”. They flag “a general unwillingness on the part of the
respondent to admit to being a victim or to being fearful of crime” (p.667).
This issue is illustrated by the oft-cited finding in fear of crime research that
women report much higher fear of crime than men do (see, e.g., Jennings et
al. 2007; Fox et al. 2009; May et al. 2010). However, conducting research
into the extent to which social desirability bias—the tendency for interview
subjects to respond to questions in a way that they perceive will make them
‘look good’ in front of the interviewer—Sutton and Farrall (2005) found
that this difference might be explained more by men’s unwillingness to
report fear than any difference in actual experiences. Conducting a large-
scale questionnaire survey in Strathclyde, Scotland, besides questions about
fear of crime, they also introduced a ‘lie scale’, which measures the
tendency to provide desirable rather than candid responses. They found a
correlation between respondents distorting their responses for self-
presentation reasons and reporting low fear of crime, but only in men. This
finding suggests that the genders are affected differently by social pressure
to downplay fears about crime, raising concerns about earlier findings of
apparent gender differences in fear of crime, and about the use of fear of
crime measures more generally (Sutton and Farrall 2005).
So what can be done to address this? Since we are interested in people’s
reactions to an environment, our starting point is the assumption that fear of
crime has an emotional component reflected in physiological changes in the
body. It is therefore possible to measure the physiological manifestations of
fear responses to environmental cues. While app-based tools collect self-
reported fear experiences in real time, sensing methods may triangulate
such self-reports with physiological responses to stimuli that evoke
perceived insecurity. Despite this capacity of physiological measures (Warr
2000), their implementation in the study of perceived insecurity is rarely
observed.
The few studies where sensing measures have been employed suggest
that physiological arousal reactions can be taken as indicators of fear
experiences (e.g. see Geiser and Walla 2011). This may serve to get around
social desirability bias. Li et al. (2015) investigate the effects of “night” and
“darkness” on perceived safety through the simultaneous use of
physiological (skin conductance and heart rate) and psychological (self-
report) measures. Using a visual and an acoustic oddball paradigm, they
found that fear-provoking stimuli increased greater emotional responses
(measured through heart rate and skin conductance) compared to neutral
stimuli, suggesting that experienced fear might be attached to sympathetic
nervous activation and augmented autonomic reactivity. Furthermore, they
showed that the effect of fear stimuli was modulated by the time of the day,
observing more intense responses to fear-stimuli during night-time than
daytime conditions. Similarly, Castro-Toledo et al. (2017) found the lack of
good luminosity in an open public space in an urban setting associated with
physiological arousal, specifically increased heart rate.
Kim and Kang (2018) conducted an experiment using
electroencephalography, electrocardiograph, and Galvanic Skin Response
(GSR), in order to compare participants’ physiological reactions while
viewing either streetscape images or a blank screen. They found that those
who reported low fear of crime on a questionnaire modelled on traditional,
cross-sectional approaches experienced less physiological activation than
those who reported high fear. That is, individuals who reported higher
levels of fear of crime on traditional measures presented higher levels of
GSR when viewing the environmental stimuli, indicating a correlation
between worry and physiological arousal. More recently, Noon et al. (2019)
compared men and women on self-report and physiological measures of
fear while viewing crime-related images. On traditional, questionnaire-
based fear of crime measures, women score higher fear compared to men.
However, when analysing the results for the sensing data (GSR, and a
measure of blink rates), they observed no differences between men and
women. These results align with Sutton and Farrall’s (2005) work,
suggesting sensing as a route to overcome the problem of ‘concealment by
the respondent’. This difference between self-report and physiological
measures is replicated in the study of cyberattacks by Castro-Toledo et al.
(2019). They asked questions and measured heart rate in an experiment
exposing one group of people to a simulated cyberattack. Those who
experienced the simulated cyberattack presented higher heart rate than those
in the control group (absence of cyberattack). However, their questionnaire
results suggested no differences in self-reported fear between experimental
and control groups. Such results further support a discrepancy between
verbal stated and physiological emotional responses to stimuli.
The studies described above offer a promising approach to triangulate
self-report measures of perceived insecurity with physiological reactions to
one’s direct environment, in a way that may help overcome issues of
questionnaire approaches. While the studies cited offer proofs of concept,
there remains a lot to address. First, these studies take place within a
laboratory context, raising questions of ecological validity. While
participating in an experiment, subjects are aware that stimuli (videos or
pictures) pose no real-life threat (although it is worth noting that the
fear/arousal was still successfully elicited in each!). To address this issue,
researchers may explore fear of crime reactions in realistic situations (such
as Castro-Toledo et al. 2017), but must balance this against relinquished
control of internal validity. Second, these studies rely on small samples.
Kim and Kang (2018) used a sample of 13 participants, and Castro et al.
(2017) used 18. Future work must scale this to achieve more generalisable
results.
In addition to scaling up, there are conceptual issues with sensing,
identified by Warr (2000). Specifically, sensing measures do not directly
reveal the source of fear. Even when this is addressed, for example by
exposing a participant to a specific stimulus in a controlled environment, it
is difficult to distinguish fear from other emotional states when analysing
physiological changes. While there is empirical support for both GSR
(Najafpour et al. 2017) and heart rate (Slater et al., 2006) as reliable
measures of fear, physiological arousal may indicate a variety of fear
experiences, and tying these specifically to perceived insecurity in urban
environments is a challenge ripe for future work in this area to tackle.
In sum, recent studies on perceived insecurity demonstrate the
feasibility of using sensing measures as indicators of fear in real time,
serving to triangulate (and question) traditional questionnaire approaches.
This area is still developing and has many challenges to overcome before it
is rolled out at scale but offers promise to the field. Paired with a real-time
place-based approach to measurement like the mobile applications, it may
enrich our understanding of perceived insecurity in specific situational
contexts. All that remains is an approach to link these experiences with the
specific stimuli which evoke them.

Issue 3: Linking to Environmental Context

The final piece of the puzzle is linking exterior site characteristics and
perceived insecurity. This is key to inform the design of safer places (Fisher
and Nasar 1992). Previous efforts to catalogue urban features related to
perceived safety highlight physical disorder (vandalism, graffiti), lack of
lighting, dense vegetation, poor maintenance, and enclosure (low visibility
and hiding places) (Foster et al. 2010; Foster et al. 2013; Hedayati Marzbali
et al. 2016; Hong and Chen 2014; Lorenc et al. 2013). While an impressive
list, these were collected using traditional survey methods, fraught with the
issues described above, or with interviews or focus groups (Lorenc et al.
2013), affected by issues of recall. This makes it difficult to link these
design cues (and other elements such as activities and demographic
profiles) to the experience of where and when the experience of fear
happens. While the app-based measures allow real-time recording of
experiences, there remains the task of linking these to the specific
environmental cues which provoked them. So what can be done?
Experimental methods (detailed in the sensing section above) offer one
solution. Researchers may create artificial environments or score
environments based on some criteria (e.g. like Fisher and Nasar 1992) and
then expose participants to these. We have already mentioned issues with
external validity and generalisability with this approach. Additionally,
another issue is in tying experiences to the scored stimuli. Even though we
manipulate the stimuli, it remains an assumption that our participants focus
on this when experiencing fear. And while control in a laboratory
environment addresses this issue, once we move to real-world
environments, we lose certainty about what catches our participants’ focus.
One solution comes from the use of eye-tracking techniques. Eye-
tracking is the process of examining the spatial locations to which
individuals are looking to understand specific aspects of human behaviour.
Figure 26.2 illustrates how an eye-tracker works by recording what the
participant sees and identifying their specific focus within that. Besides
some debates concerning the reliability of this procedure (Fotios et al.
2015), under normal circumstances it reflects the selective attention people
deploy to stimuli. Therefore, eye-tracking provides insights into the
understanding of what characteristics of (un)safe scenarios attract people’s
attention most.
Fig. 26.2 Eye tracker capture of one experiment participant showing their field of visitation and a
red circle highlighting on the specific point on which they focus within the stimuli presented

The potential of eye-tracking techniques in security domain has been

demonstrated by research looking at offender behaviour (e.g. Jacques,
Lasky, and Fisher, 2015; Lasky, Jacques, and Fisher, 2015; Lasky et al.
2017). Recently, its application to study perceived insecurity has been
explored. Using eye-tracking Guedes et al. (2015) found that people focus
more frequently on contextual signs such as graffiti, window bars, tunnels,
and uncared vegetation when presented with images of areas rated as
unsafe, while in safe areas they pay more attention to the end of the street
and not to specific environmental elements. This finding indicates that
perceived unsafety triggers the need to better scan the environment for
hazardous signs. More recently, Crosby and Hermens (2019) found a link
between perceived safety and maintenance using eye movements. Their
results also show that people look for cues of the presence of others when
judging safety. Alongside similar emerging studies (e.g., Davoudian and
Raynham 2012; Kim et al. 2014), these results illustrate how studying eye
movements may pinpoint specific contextual elements that trigger
perceptions of unsafety.
While promising, this approach, similar to that of experiments, must be
developed to apply at larger scales. Another approach may be considered
here. A place-based study of perceived insecurity yields spatially explicit
data on safe and unsafe places. It is possible to use these spatial data to
extract environmental features of these safe and unsafe places on large
scales. Previous research studying the relationship between crime and the
built environment has used supervised machine learning approaches to
obtain contextual information from many hundreds of locations (Naik et al.
2014). For instance, Dakin et al. (2020) extracted key environment
attributes related to burglary in large volumes of images and correlated
those against actual burglary rates. Similar work could use street-level
images for understanding perceived insecurity as related to a large and
diverse set of environment features.
Overall, a combined exploration of involved, individual-level studies
using eye-tracking, and large-scale automatic association of place-based
experiences with features of the locations where they are experienced
facilitated by computational methods may offer a way forward to identify
not only when, where, and who feels worried, but the specific
environmental features which evoke these feelings. Understanding what
environmental features evoke perceived insecurity can inform design
measures to promote perceived security instead, and tackle systemic issues
of health, sustainability, and equality.

The Future of Mobile Applications and

Physiological Sensing to Measure Perception of
(In)Security in Built Environments
Perception of safety and security remains an important topic, as highlighted
in this chapter. It has important consequences on individual, community,
and systemic wellbeing. Researchers and practitioners involved in
designing and creating secure environments must also consider the
perception of these environments, and how that affects behaviour and
activities. To be able to do so, a reliable and valid operationalisation of
place-based experiences are required. If we want to know whether a
particular element of environmental design or a specific place-based
intervention affects perceived (in)security, we need to measure this in a way
that reflects people’s experience in that specific context. This chapter has
highlighted how recent methodological advances can be applied to achieve
this.
 We propose that future work on the place-based experiences of worry
and perceived safety make efforts to (1) ‘place’ experiences of (in)security,
by employing techniques presented here, such as experience sampling
methods deployed in mobile applications. Further work must also focus on
developing the validity, reliability, and generalisability of these methods, by
working to address existing limitations. Second, such work should take care
to (2) capture experiences of (in)security by carefully considering issues
with operationalisation and perhaps exploring triangulation with
physiological sensing measures. Finally, research must take advantage of
opportunities to (3) link these experiences to the environmental context in
which they happen. Eye-trackers, or large-scale computational techniques
for environmental audits, may provide useful tools for progress in this
direction. Figure 26.3 shows an updated schema of our conceptualisation of
perceived in/security, now annotated with some suggestions for ways to
operationalise the related constructs.

Fig. 26.3 Annotated schema for conceptualisation of fear of crime (FOC) and the role of perceived
in/security with suggestions for operationalisation

Overall, there is much promise in this area to better understand

perceived (in)security in built environments, and with the overview
provided in this chapter, we hope to have motivated security researchers
and practitioners to incorporate such techniques and build robust and
detailed understanding of perceived (in)security.

Recommended Readings
Solymosi et al. (2020) provide a comprehensive review of mobile phone
applications and crowdsourcing approaches to operationalise perception of
(in)security as a context-dependent experience, with an emphasis on
synthesising the strengths and weaknesses of these measures. A wider
discussion on the role of innovative data collection methods in advancing
criminological understanding is provided in Solymosi and Bowers (2018).
For readings on the use of sensing measures, Christopoulos, Uy, and Yap
(2019) and Castro-Toledo et al. (2017) provide good examples of relevant
applications. Regarding eye-tracking and its applications to study
perception of place, Guedes et al. (2015) and Crosby and Hermens (2019)
both provide illustrative case studies to guide the interested researcher.
Finally, for methodological readings, to consider the role of machine
learning as a methodological approach for carrying out environmental
audits on large scales, the example of Dakin et al. (2020) provides a
creative example to inspire creative applications to the perception of place
context. Regarding the substantive areas covered, for a recent overview of
fear of crime in public spaces, covering conceptual, theoretical, and
methodological issues, see Ceccato and Nalla (2020), and for considering
the relationship between features of the environmental context and
perceived insecurity, Lorenc et al. (2013) provide a systematic review of the
existing evidence (albeit many of these based on traditional, survey-based
approaches).

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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_27

27. Researching the Relationship Between

Tourism, Crime and Security: The
Tourism Industry and the Disenfranchised
Citizens
Rob I. Mawby1 and Zarina I. Vakhitova2
(1) Department of Rural Criminology, Harper Adams University,
Newport, UK
(2) Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

Rob I. Mawby (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Zarina I. Vakhitova
Email: [email protected]

Introduction
The relationship between tourism, safety and security has been addressed
by both tourism researchers and criminologists (Botterill and Jones 2010;
Pizam and Mansfeld 1996). At least four themes have been identified that
are of relevance to the tourism industry. Firstly, there is a strong relationship
between tourist resorts and crime, with resorts acting as crime hotspots,
with higher than average crime rates and particularly high rates at the peak
of the tourism season (de Albuquerque and McElroy 1999; Alleyne and
Boxill 2003; Pelfrey 1998; Prideaux 1996). Correspondingly, tourist centres
may be targeted by terrorists (Mawby 2010). Secondly, tourists generally
experience more crime than local people and more crime than when not on
holiday (Boakye 2010; Chesney-Lind and Lind 1986; Brunt, Mawby and
Hambly 1999; Michalko 2004; Stangeland 1998). Thirdly, it is evident that
tourists often contribute to the crime problem, particularly through their
involvement in public disorder associated with alcohol and drugs (Andrews
2011; Cohen 2002; Homel et al. 1997; Mawby 2012). Fourthly, and partly
as a result of this, local residents often react with hostility towards
(particularly mass) tourism, with those not benefiting from the tourist
industry viewing it as impacting upon their quality of life (Davis et al.
1988; King et al. 1993; Ross 1992; Teye et al. 2002), with public protest in
tourist centres as far removed as Barcelona (Burgen 2019; Kassam 2014)
and Newquay (Mawby 2012).
These dynamics clearly impact upon tourist demand and, subsequently,
on the tourism industry. Firstly, tourists may be deterred from visiting
resorts that are seen as dangerous, due to either crime or terrorism (de
Albuquerque and McElroy 1999; Alleyne and Boxill 2003; Holcomb and
Pizam 2006). Most notable, perhaps, is Brayshaw’s (1995) account of the
impact of a high-profile series of robberies and homicides in Florida on
tourist numbers. Subsequently, the reputation of Jamaica as unsafe has been
recognised to limit on tourist growth, and the precarious nature of tourism
in such high crime environments was highlighted in 2018 when a state of
emergency was issued in Jamaica (Travel Mole 2018a). With regard to
terrorism, tourists may be deterred from visiting countries and regions
where incidents have occurred (Korstanje and Clayton 2012; Lanouar and
Goaied 2019; Pizam and Fleischer 2002; Pizam and Mansfeld 2006; Pizam
and Smith 2000; Sönmez and Graefe 1998a, 1998b; Walters et al. 2019).
Secondly, tourists who experience crime on holiday, and indeed those
who experience secondary victimisation at the hands of unsympathetic
police, holiday reps, insurance companies, and so on, may be deterred from
returning, and while the evidence on this is tenuous (Mawby et al. 2020), it
is an important consideration where the tourism sector is heavily reliant on
repeat visits. Thirdly, while some resorts have deliberately marketed youth
tourism and a ‘sex and booze’ vacation experience, a backlash from both
local residents and other types of tourist has led many resorts to attempt to
upgrade their image to cater for tourists with a more lucrative cost/benefit
ratio (Mawby 2012).
This implies that identifying safety and security issues is important to
the tourism industry. However, until recently there was a widespread feeling
that ‘no news is good news’. Thus, Brunt, Mawby and Hambly’s (1999)
research on tourist victimisation was hampered by the refusal on any major
tour companies in the UK to participate in the research. However, there is a
growing realisation that identifying problems, confronting them, and
producing preventive and harm minimisation strategies is the only credible
response. A good illustration is a recent initiative by the European Forum
for Urban Security (EFUS) on local partnership working in security and
tourism (European Forum for Urban Security 2015; Mawby 2017; Mekinc
et al. 2017). Surprisingly, though, Ozascilar and Mawby (2022) exploratory
study is the first to address the needs of tourist victims and the support
received.
However, identifying the extent of the problem, explaining existing
patterns, and identifying examples of good practice are beset with
difficulties. This chapter thus focuses on the limitations of available data,
what can be done to improve the situation, and what alternative sources of
information might offer. It is divided into two main sections. The following
section considers the availability of official statistics and how they might be
improved. The next section looks at surveys, alternative methodologies, and
how they can inform our thinking.

Official Statistics: The Available and the Feasible

When criminologists consider official statistics, they invariably limit their
discussion to statistics collected and published by statutory agencies like the
police and courts system. However, data may also be available from NGOs
and the private sector, including victim support agencies, insurance
companies, airlines, cruise ships and hotels. We therefore firstly focus on
official crime statistics and then move on to consider other options.

Official Crime Statistics

Crime statistics are widely available. Some details are published, but much
more detail is available and may be accessed by researchers on request.
Published crime statistics vary between countries but generally reveal the
amount, trends and rates of crime; variations by geographical location; and
variations by offence type. They also include ‘victimless’ crime and
corporate/business crime, but in many cases, it is difficult to distinguish one
from the other. Nevertheless, official crime statistics have long been
criticised by criminologists (Coleman and Moynihan 1996), particularly
since they are dependent upon crimes being reported to the police (usually
by victims) and recorded as crimes by the police. The so-called dark figure
of unreported crime is acknowledged as considerable, especially for less
serious crimes, crimes where the offender is known to the victim, and
crimes that do not result in an insurance claim.
In the case of tourism-related crimes, the inadequacies of official
statistics are especially pronounced. Notably, police data rarely identify the
residential statuses of victims, albeit there are exceptions. Similarly,
whether or not victims are permanent residents, tourists, seasonal workers
or second homeowners is not recorded by the police and not easily
accessible from local government records.
Perhaps the most useful comparisons of tourist and resident
victimisation comes from early studies by Chesney-Lind and Lind (1986) in
Hawaii and de Albuquerque and McElroy (1999) on Barbados. Each study
was able to use police data that distinguished the residential statuses of
victims and concluded that overall tourists were more at risk, especially
from property crimes. On the other hand, research on St Lucia, looking at
recorded crime between 1996 and 2004, suggested that residents were more
likely to be victimised than tourists. However, in line with other studies,
acquisitive crimes, such as stealing and house/hotel breaking, were the main
types of crime perpetrated against tourists (Johnny and Jordan 2007).
Furthermore, the residential status of offenders is not readily available
(Mawby 2015), and while it may be possible to glean data from secondary
sources (Wiles and Costello 2000), this will generally be restricted to
offenders’ primary addresses, with no information about why offenders
travelled to the area where the offence was committed. There is, for
example, a key distinction between tourists who travel to an area and
commit offences while there (commonly public order offences), offenders
who experience financial difficulties on holiday leading to them committing
opportunistic crimes (e.g. drug mules or break-ins to insecure holiday
accommodation) and offenders who are attracted to tourist resorts by the
possibility of rich pickings. The EFUS study found that in both Brussels
and Barcelona the police asserted that pickpocketing was almost
exclusively committed by Eastern Europeans who commuted there to
specifically target tourists, but there were no available police statistics to
support this claim (Mawby 2015).
 Data on the amount of crime in an area is more readily accessible and
allows for a comparison of tourist and non-tourist areas, and in the former
case between different types of resorts (Prideaux 1996), and between the
peak and off-peak tourist seasons. Thus, it does appear that many—but not
all (see de Albuquerque and McElroy 1999; Pelfrey 1998; Pizam 1982)—
tourist areas do experience higher than average crime rates and that rates
increase in peak season (Montolio and Planells-Struse 2016; Tang 2011).
Thus, in the UK, Mawby (2008, 2012) concluded that tourism was a
significant generator of crime and disorder in some of the major tourist
centres in the county of Cornwall, especially in Newquay, a town attracting
youth tourism. However, the amount of crime in an area is also dependent
upon the numbers of people there, including visitors, as potential offenders
or victims. Yet, in few tourist resorts are these figures included as
denominators. This means that where visitors comprise a significant
proportion of the available population, crime rates based on resident
population figures are overstated, taking no account of the fact that in peak
season the population at risk swells. Thus, the fact that the amount of crime
may increase during the tourist season is no guarantee that the crime rate
has risen, that is that the risk of being victimised has increased.
These deficiencies are important for both theoretical and practical
reasons. From a theoretical stance, they make the analysis of crime rates,
victimisation risk and offender understanding difficult. From a practical
position, they make it difficult to assess the impact of crime rates on
tourists’ decision making. For example, while it may be possible to chart
the impact of crime in general on tourists’ decisions to avoid certain resorts
or countries, the impact of crimes against tourists on tourist numbers is
unknown: except where tourists have direct experience (Mawby et al. 2020)
or where the targeting of tourists reaches the international media, as in the
case of Florida (Brayshaw 1995).
These knowledge gaps are less pronounced in the case of terrorist
attacks. Data are usually available on the numbers killed and injured and
whether or not they are tourists. This has enabled researchers to consider
how variables like the type and extent of the attack, choice of target and
extent of publicity affect tourists’ perceptions of safety and, ultimately,
demand. There is, as a result, ample evidence that tourists are deterred from
visiting areas that have been subject to terrorist attacks, especially where
tourists are targeted, and indeed tourism may also be displaced from
neighbouring areas (Hall and O’Sullivan 1996; Lanouar and Goaied 2019;
Pizam and Fleischer 2002; Pizam and Smith 2000).
So how might official police data be improved to help us understand the
relationship between tourism and crime? As already noted, while police
data provide little detail of either victims’ or offenders’ residential statuses,
there are many ways this might be improved to inform policy. With regard
to victims, it is important to record not only whether the victim is a tourist
and their country of origin but also more generally victims’ residential
status. This can be described according to whether victims are local
residents, second homeowners or temporary residents, for example seasonal
workers, holidaymakers or there on business.
As with victims, offenders’ status in the area can be subdivided
according to whether the offender is a permanent or temporary resident, for
example a seasonal worker or a visitor to the area. Visitors can then be
distinguished according to whether they are offending tourists or travelling
criminals. Seasonal workers and offending tourists can be distinguished
from travelling criminals in that, in general, they commit offences
incidentally while living in/visiting the areas. In contrast, travelling
criminals travel to the area with the explicit purpose of committing crimes.
Temporary or seasonal workers will usually be recorded as residents in
police statistics. Perhaps because of this, they have largely been excluded
from consideration: little or nothing has been written about seasonal
workers as offenders, whether these be employed at tourist attractions or
working on construction/building sites, albeit in larger tourist resorts in
Australia, Prideaux (1996) has suggested that marginal workers, attracted
by the hedonistic lifestyle promised by mass tourism, may commit crimes
to fund their lifestyle. Furthermore, local residents in some resorts perceive
seasonal workers as contributing to violent crime and anti-social behaviour
(Mawby 2012), but there are no official statistics to test this.
While these improvements are important to inform both theory and
policy, there are other secondary sources available, to some extent in the
public domain, that researchers have been slow to exploit.

Alternative Secondary Data Sources

While crime statistics are the most common type of official statistics used
by researchers, others are worth considering. Of course, these generally
suffer from the same limitations, namely being dependent on victims
reporting the incident and officials recording it, but may contain more
details about the crime, victims and offenders.
One resource relates to victim support services. While these have been
developed in many western societies, they are largely generic. One notable
exception is the Irish Tourist Assistance Service (ITAS). It is based on the
UK victim support model of providing, at no cost, emotional support and
practical help. It does not provide financial support, but offers practical help
with emergency accommodation, the replacement of stolen documents and
by contacting—on victims’ behalf—insurance companies, banks, embassies
and airlines (Mawby 2015). In 2019, 579 incidents of crime and other
traumatic events were referred to the service. A slight majority of victims
were female (58%) and the most common age groups were 17–25 (24%)
and 26–35 (20%). The majority of offences concerned theft (58%). Victims
were drawn from a wide range of nationalities (Irish Tourist Assistance
Service 2020). Significantly for the tourism industry, victims cited in annual
reports stated that the care they received from ITAS more than compensated
for the distress caused by the crime, leaving them with positive feelings
about returning to Eire. Little more detail is available from public records,
but clearly, more would be available were researchers to gain permission to
access the service.
Insurance companies may also be a useful source of data. In fact, much
of the information provided here refers to fraudulent claims, which focuses
attention on a different subgroup of tourist offenders (Hook 2018), but it
may also be possible to access data on claims submitted by crime victims.
Of course, these are partial: many tourists are not insured, claims may only
refer to financial crime, and tourists with cover may not submit a claim if
their losses were small and there is an excess clause in their policy. It does,
however, appear that claims regarding thefts are dwarfed compared with
medical claims and flight cancellations, both in terms of the number of
claims and the amount per claim. For example, one company reported that
only 13% of claims related to lost or stolen items (AVIVA 2018).
Other records kept by key agencies in tourism also provide some
interesting information. For example, airlines, cruise companies and hotel
chains may record crimes. Of these, perhaps the most publicised statistics
come from the airline industry reporting on air-rage incidents on aircraft.
Much of the material here is media reporting of either individual incidents
or annual statistics (Travel Mole 2020a, 2020b), but some academic studies,
albeit not by criminologists, have provided an independent analysis of air-
rage incidents (Berkley and Ala 2001; Schaaf 2001) (for a review see
Goldsmid et al. 2016), as well as a Holiday? Which survey of its readers
(Calder 2018). Less information is readily available on crime on cruise
liners, although the US Department of Transportation (2020) releases
figures on Cruise Line Incident Reports (Matousex 2019; Travel Mole
2019a), albeit these are clearly an underestimation, and media reports reveal
tourists as both offenders (Travel Mole 2019b, 2020c, 2020d) and victims
(Zara 2018). The International Cruise Victims Association also publishes
case studies on its website (see www.internationalcruisevictims.org/).
Finally, Marteache (2018) used an alternative source, data on passengers’
claims to the Transportation Security Administration in the USA, to identify
the extent and distribution of luggage theft by airport employees.
Despite several high-profile cases of crimes occurring in hotels (Travel
Mole 2018b, 2018c; Warren 2019), a limited amount of research has been
conducted on hotel crime (Ho et al. 2017). This suggests that crimes,
especially property crimes, in hotels are relatively common and that the
hotel sector has been reluctant to engage in crime prevention measures
(Mawby and Jones 2007). Yet, as Hua and Yang (2017) demonstrate, high
levels of violent and property crime in the areas surrounding hotels
significantly affect profitability. These studies, however, use police
statistics. One alternative that has recently become available is data
provided by booking agencies. TripAdvisor recently announced that its site
will display a ‘Traveller safety’ flag next to the reviews of properties
(typically tourist accommodation) where there have been safety concerns,
specifically, sexual violence and assault (Schaal 2019; TripAdvisor 2019a,
2019b). In 2018, TripAdvisor had identified 1100 reviews that included
allegations of sexual assault (Elliott 2019). Work in progress by the current
authors analyses the data from the TripAdvisor website on hotels in the
Caribbean to identify the features of the accommodation (principally
location, proximity to entertainment districts and whether or not it is an all-
inclusive resort) that are predictive of violence.

Alternative Research Approaches

Surveys, whether face-to-face or mail questionnaires, provide alternatives
to official statistics. They may focus on offenders, residents of tourist
resorts, or tourists (or potential tourists). In the latter case, they are
potentially more comprehensive than official statistics because they can
address tourists’ perceptions of safety and risk as well as their direct
experiences.

Offender Surveys
Interviews with offenders are attractive to criminologists because they
allow researchers to ask about offenders’ choice of particular targets as well
as their motivation for offending in the first instance. They have addressed
those convicted, and usually imprisoned, for crimes such as robbery (Gill
2000; Wright and Decker 1997) and burglary (Bennett and Wright 1984;
Butler 1994). However, they are less feasible vis-a-vis offenders targeting
tourists because these are less easily identified. The most notable exception
is Harper’s (2006a) interviews with four robbers operating in New Orleans
who specialised in robbing tourists. Harper used these interviews to
supplement areal analysis of crime patterns (Harper 2006b) to show how a
group of offenders targeted tourists in the ‘edgy’ entertainment centre of the
city. Ethnographic research in tourist resorts provides an alternative to
formal interviews but has been largely ignored as a research tool (for an
exception see Andrews 2011).1

Surveys of Local Residents

Tourism can bring benefits to an area, but often at a cost. Residents may
feel that the advent of mass tourism radically reduces their quality of life.
This is particularly so where residents are not employed in the tourism
industry and thereby derive no benefits from it (Davis et al. 1988; King et
al. 1993; Ross 1992; Teye et al. 2002).
In effect, these studies by tourism researchers are the equivalent of local
victim surveys carried out by criminologists. In England, Mawby (2008)
oversaw the Cornwall Victim Surveys as part of crime audits in Cornwall, a
rural, tourism-dependent county in the south-west. A postal survey
conducted in two waves in 2001 and 2004 covered residents’ perceptions
and direct experiences of crime. Residents generally felt that anti-social
behaviour and public disorder, violence and property crime increased as a
result of tourism. Although they thought that local people were responsible
for most crime in the area, a significant minority blamed casual workers for
much of the property crime and violence and tourists for ‘drunken
behaviour or other disorderly conduct’. The findings paralleled official
statistics in demonstrating that crime was concentrated in two parts of the
county where tourism was particularly important, Newquay and Penzance,
in the latter case exacerbated by high levels of social deprivation. In
Newquay, a focal point for youth tourists, where tourism was clearly a
crime generator (Brantingham and Brantingham 1995; Tilley et al. 1999),
tourism was commonly blamed for higher crime and disorder problems.
Locals frequenting Newquay were also most likely to blame tourism for
property crime, violence, drug and alcohol problems, as well as less serious
examples of anti-social behaviour, such as vandalism and littering. It is thus
unsurprising that pressure from local residents subsequently forced the local
council to establish a multi-agency task force to mitigate the negative
impact of tourism (Mawby 2012).

Surveys of Tourists
Surveys of tourists tend to fall into one or other of two categories. Firstly,
research—almost exclusively by tourism academics—using self-completion
surveys to assess the extent to which the public perceives certain countries
or resorts as unsafe, due to either crime or terrorism. Secondly, research that
focuses on tourists’ perceptions and experiences of safety during or after a
vacation.
In the former case, risk has become a common research theme within
tourism discourses (Chew and Jahari 2014; Yang and Nair 2014). However,
risk is defined far more broadly than by criminologists. Thus, researchers
commonly distinguish between: risks to one’s safety, such as natural
disasters (e.g. tsunami) and environmental risks (e.g. Chernobyl), and
health problems (e.g. SARS, swine or bird flu and the recent coronavirus
pandemic); and security risks, relating to crime (Holcomb and Pizam 2006),
terrorism (Sönmez and Graefe 1998a), revolution and political instability
(Carter 1998; Hall and O’Sullivan 1996). In fact, tourism studies are
dominated by the former, with only a minority of studies addressing
security concerns and most of these addressing terrorism threats. Generally,
risk is viewed as a cost inhibitor or constraint to be balanced against the
perceived benefits, or facilitators, of travel. This melds with another focus
among tourism researchers, on destination image.
With regard to terrorism, studies have generally asked tourists about
countries or regions they consider safe or unsafe and the impact their
perceptions on the likelihood of them visiting or revisiting the area. For
example, Sönmez and Graefe (1998a) pointed out that whilst in 1985,
28 million Americans went abroad and 162 were either killed or injured as a
result of terrorism, a 0.00058% probability of being targeted, 1.8 million
Americans changed their foreign travel plans for 1986. This led them to
consider tourists as acting irrationally by overestimating risk.
However, echoing criminological research on risk and fear of crime,
researchers note that some tourists tend to be more risk-averse than others.
More experienced travellers (Mazursky 1989) and those who have
previously visited an area are generally less risk-averse than first-time
visitors (Fuchs and Reichel 2011; Karamustafa et al. 2013; Kozak et al.
2007; Lepp and Gibson 2003). Equally, perceptions vary between different
subgroups of tourists. For example, cultural differences (Reisinger and
Mavondo 2006; Weber and Hsee 1998), age (Floyd and Pennington-Gray
2004) and gender (at least regarding the risk of violence) (Carr 2001; Floyd
and Pennington-Gray 2004; Kozak et al. 2007; Lepp and Gibson 2003; Qi
et al. 2009) have all been found to influence perceived risk. In explaining
these differences in perception, Sönmez and Graefe (1998b), using a model,
not unlike Hough’s (1995) explanation of fear of crime, suggested that
external influences, such as media portrayals of risk; internal factors, such
as travel experience and internalised perceptions of risk; and demographic
variables combined to influence perceptions of a destination as unsafe or
risky, which in turn influenced the decision on whether or not to travel
there.
Finally, researchers may ask tourists about their perceptions of security
and/or experiences of crime during a specific holiday. This commonly
involves interviewing tourists visiting a specific country (Allen 1999;
Barker et al. 2002; Stangeland 1998), but it may focus on tourists from one
country taking a vacation anywhere (Brunt, Mawby and Hambly 1999). In
some cases, tourists are approached while on holiday (Barker et al. 2002),
in others on departure (Allen 1999) and in others some time later (Brunt,
Mawby and Hambly 1999), while Mawby et al. (2020) interviewed samples
as they arrived and left Turkey.
With regard to fear of crime and perceptions of security, the findings
unveil low levels of concern amongst tourists (Mawby et al. 2020),
suggesting that, unlike among resident populations, tourists underestimate
their risk, what Mawby (2000) called the risk-fear paradox. In contrast,
most, but not all (see Allen 1999; Barker et al. 2002) surveys have found
tourists to have high levels of victimisation.
In the only survey to interview tourists and those of other residential
statuses, Stangeland (1998) compared tourists to Spain interviewed at the
end of their holiday with local residents of Malaga and foreign residents of
properties on the Costa del Sol. He found that tourists’ rates of victimisation
during a fortnight (average) holiday were not much lower (and sometimes
higher) than those of other groups over a year. Similarly, Brunt, Mawby,
and Hambly (1999) found that 10% of British holidaymakers had
experienced at least one crime during their vacation. More recently, Mawby
et al. (2020) noted that about 7% of visitors to Istanbul had been victimised.
And at the extreme, Boakye (2010) reported that almost a third of his
sample of foreign tourists visiting Ghana had been victimised during their
stay, with theft the most common offence.
The latter excepted, these percentages do not appear particularly
striking. However, since the average vacation is relatively short, say two
weeks, the victimisation window of opportunity is also limited. Taking this
into account, it seems that tourists are three to four times more likely to be
at risk of victimisation (Mawby 2017).
This has further implications, moreover. The small numbers of tourists
experiencing victimisation make it very difficult to theorise about why
some tourists appear more at risk than others. Thus, while Barker et al.
(2002) and Boakye (2010) attempted some basic analysis of their samples,
the small number of victims limits this. This is scarcely surprising.
Assuming a rate of victimisation four times that at home, we might expect a
sample of 1000 tourists to register about eight violent crimes, eight
burglaries and one robbery, with around 80 being victims of at least one
crime. This makes the comparison between victims and nonvictims difficult
and detailed analysis by offence type impossible.
One of our current research projects attempts to avoid this problem by
using non-random sampling via a crowdsourcing platform to ensure a
sufficiently large number of victims. While these platforms are not
representative of the general population, they are considerably more
representative and reliable than alternatives such as using students (Palan
and Schitter 2018; Peer et al. 2017). They have been widely used by social
scientists and, in particular, criminologists (see, e.g., Pickett et al. 2018;
Vakhitova et al. 2018) and tourism researchers (Hou and Zhang 2020).
 In our own research on tourism and crime, we used MTurk. Our initial
project sampled Australian tourists visiting either the British Isles or Bali,
and we repeated the survey by interviewing US and British tourists who
recently visited Turkey. There are at least two potential difficulties,
however. Firstly, as crowdsourcing platforms have expanded so more
‘workers’ use them as a major income source, leading to lower levels of
validity and the need to combat this with validity checks within the
questionnaire. This problem is not inconsiderable. Thus, we excluded half
our US respondents and a third of our UK respondents in our Turkish
survey! Secondly, accessing a large enough sample of visitors to one
particular country may be difficult, leading to either poor response or
‘workers’ fabricating visits to earn a reward. To address this, our third phase
of surveys were open to all US and UK workers and firstly asked a series of
general questions about perceptions of safety and security across a range of
countries, before focusing down on five countries commonly visited by US
and UK tourists. As a result, we can increase our pool of potential victims
fivefold. This also allowed us to put a new spin on the question of re-
victimisation: that is are there some tourists who experience re-
victimisation when they visit different countries? This study has recently
been extended with a follow-up survey of victims’ experiences and the
support they received from both formal and informal sources (Ozascilar and
Mawby 2022). It must be stressed that because our samples are non-random
and unrepresentative of the population at large, they will not tell us
anything reliable about the extent of crime against tourists. However, what
we can do is to compare tourists who are victimised on vacation with those
who are not or compare the experiences of those who suffer crime. That is
unlike earlier work we can come closer to answering questions about why
certain tourists are more prone to crime than others and why some are
victimised on more than one occasion. We initially theorised that variations
in risk could be broadly explained by two sets of variables: following
tourism researchers, tourist-style and vacation-style; and following
criminological theories relating to, inter alia, lifestyle theory and routine
activity theory. We hypothesise that tourists’ self-image and choice of
holiday type, as well as their vacation routines, may explain a considerable
amount of the variation between those who are victimised and those who
are not. While this research is ongoing, it illustrates the potential for
investigating alternative approaches to addressing tourists’ safety and
security.

Summary
While the relationship between tourism and crime is not commonly
addressed by criminologists, it is clearly an important issue. Tourists are
often identified as causing crime and public disorder in resort areas, tourists
appear overrepresented as victims and some tourist areas are crime
hotspots. This impacts on the quality of life of local residents and the
vacation experience of tourists. But it also affects the tourism industry,
where security and safety concerns impact on resorts’—or countries’—
popularity.
However, the information available to academics and policy-makers is
limited. This chapter thus combines a critique of what we know about the
relationship between tourism and crime with a discussion about alternative
data sources and how they might be improved. We begin with a review of
official statistics kept by the police. While these are commonly used by
academics, so much more could be done to make them of more direct
relevance to criminologists, tourism academics and practitioners. Moreover,
while other official records suffer many of the same limitations, they could
be utilised more imaginatively by researchers.
Interview data offers a potentially rich source of data to complement
official statistics. Here we discuss interviews with offenders, local residents
of tourist areas and tourists. None of these options is without difficulties. In
particular, accessing tourist victims in sufficient numbers to theorise about
why some tourists may be at increased risk is problematic, and we end this
chapter by tentatively suggesting the advantages of crowdsourcing
platforms as a strategy for better-informing academics and policy-makers to
improve crime reduction and harm reduction strategies.

Recommended Reading
Research on tourism and crime has been carried out by both tourism
academics and criminologists. This is reflected in two edited books,
Tourism, crime and international security issues, Chichester, Wiley, edited
by Pizam and Mansfeld (1996) and more recently Tourism, security and
safety: from theory to practice. Burlington, MA, Butterworth-Heinemann,
edited by Mansfeld and Pizam (2006). Two more recent readers with a more
criminological focus are Tourism and Crime: key themes, Oxford,
Goodfellow Publishers, edited by Botterill and Jones (2010), and The
Problem of Pleasure: leisure, tourism and crime, London, Routledge, edited
by Jones, Barclay and Mawby (2012), which addresses tourism within a
broader debate on the relationship between leisure and crime. The
difficulties of using crime statistics to assess tourists’ risk are discussed in
Mawby’s (2017) ‘Crime and Tourism: what the available statistics do or do
not tell us’, International Journal of Tourism Policy, 7.2, 81–91. The extent
of crime in tourist areas and involving tourists is consequently difficult to
assess, and we are largely dependent upon small-scale surveys, such as
Stangeland’s (1998) ‘Other targets or other locations? An analysts of
opportunity structures’, British Journal of Criminology, 38.1, 6 1–77;
Brunt, Mawby and Hambly’s (1999) ‘Victimisation on holiday: a British
survey’, International Review of Victimology, 6, 201–211 and Boakye’s
(2010) ‘Studying tourists’ suitability as crime targets’, Annals of Tourism
Research, 37, 727–743. For a review of the literature on risk, see Mawby,
Barclay and Jones’ (2010) ‘Tourism and victimisation’, pp. 319–344 in
International Handbook of Victimology, Boca Raton, Florida, CRC Press,
edited by Shoham, Knepper and Kett. Equally, security concerns in tourist
resorts are not generally addressed in the literature except in the context of
terrorism, and Brayshaw’s (1995) ‘Negative publicity about tourism
destinations: a Florida case study’, Travel and Tourism Analyst 5, 62–71, is
still regularly cited in this respect. More recent discussions of the impact of
security concerns, both crime and terrorist related, are found, for example,
in Alleyne and Boxill’s (2003) ‘The impact of crime on tourist arrivals in
Jamaica’, International Journal of Tourism Research, 5.5, 381–391, and
Lanouar and Goaied’s (2019) ‘Tourism, terrorism and political violence in
Tunisia: evidence from Markov-switching models’, Tourism Management,
70, 404–418. Mawby, Ozascilar and Ziyalar’s (2020) recent study includes
data on victimisation and compares tourists’ perceptions of safety as they
arrive and leave Istanbul: ‘Perceptions of safety confronted by experience:
how visitors to Istanbul modified their perceptions of risk and fear in the
light of personal experience’, International Review of Victimology, 26.3,
261–275. Nor has much been specifically written about crime reduction
measures. Exceptions include Botterill et al.’s (2013) ‘Violence,
backpackers, security and critical realism’, Annals of Tourism Research, 42,
311–333, and Pizam, Tarlow and Bloom’s (1997) ‘Making tourists feel safe:
whose responsibility is it?’, Journal of Travel Research, Summer, 23–28.
Finally, risk management in the light of a terrorist attack is addressed by
Agarwal, Page and Mawby (forthcoming) ‘Tourist security, terrorism risk
management and tourist safety’, Annals of Tourism Research.

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Footnotes
1 Although the editor of this volume was, as a young postdoctoral researcher, unsuccessful in an
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) application to spend his summer in Spain
investigating this phenomenon.
Part V
Security Products and Services
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_28

28. The Security Officer: Overextended

and Underappreciated
Mahesh K. Nalla1 and Alison Wakefield2
(1) Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
(2) Cybersecurity and Criminology Centre, University of West London,
London, UK

Mahesh K. Nalla (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Alison Wakefield
Email: [email protected]

Introduction
Frontline private security is a thriving industry, with over 20 million private
security personnel estimated to be employed across the globe in both the
private and public sectors (Provost 2017). Although security officers’
primary task is to protect people and assets, their work profile is by no
means limited to this. While many of their functions are very similar to
those of police patrol officers, as Jones and Newburn (1998) demonstrated
through a case study of the multiple policing actors operating in a district of
London, their role often extends to a wider regulation of social life in the
sites they are employed to secure.
The employment of security officers has grown steadily in recent
decades to the point that they are ubiquitous throughout the world. The
substantial growth of private security in the post-Second World War period
was underpinned by a variety of social, political and economic factors.
Increased prosperity with more private property and consumer goods to
protect coincided with rising crime in many countries, especially from the
1970s to the 1990s. Improvements in security technology (especially alarm,
access control and closed circuit television systems) led to better and
cheaper security products that were ever more widely used as companies,
public institutions and private individuals became more security conscious.
The expansion of privately controlled, publicly accessible spaces ranging
from hypermarkets to airports delivered economies of scale to corporate
end users of frontline security, so that dedicated security teams could be
employed cost effectively to police such sites. Pressures on government
budgets have required the increased outsourcing of non-core tasks to the
private sector, and indeed, there has been a general growth in the sub-
contracting of security functions within both the public and private sectors.
The aim of this chapter is to provide an up-to-date review of the
literature on the key characteristics of frontline private security. It looks in
turn at its global scale and structure in terms of estimated officer numbers
and their distribution around the world, the range of functions and duties
associated with frontline security, working conditions, and perceptions of
the sector. This latter section is broken down into sub-sections based on the
perspectives of security officers themselves, in terms of their motivations
and job satisfaction, the public and the police. There has been extensive
new research since we contributed a similar chapter to the 2014 edition of
this handbook and, as well as reflecting much of this, we have placed more
focus on security officers’ job satisfaction and wellbeing to reflect
interesting new avenues in research over the last few years. This has
replaced material on security officers’ personal characteristics, working
conditions and training, where there appears to be less new research, with
the exception of the informative chapter on security officer training in this
volume by Garrett, Kitteringham and Livingstone. In the conclusion, we
argue that while frontline security has become an increasingly critical
element of national and organizational security systems in an era of
heightened international terrorism and cyber security threats across the
globe, the enduring challenge of poor pay, conditions and job satisfaction in
frontline security limits the effectiveness of those systems and requires
urgent attention.

The Size of the Frontline Security Industry

Global demand for frontline private security is such that Grand View
Research (2017) estimated annual global spending on these services would
reach around US$167 billion by 2025, while Freedonia (2017) predicted a
larger figure of $240 billion by 2020. The number of security officers
employed globally has been estimated at well over 20 million (Provost
2017) or somewhere between 19.5 and 25.5 million people (Florquin 2011),
far exceeding the number of police officers. The quality of available data
inevitably varies by region and from one source to another, depending on
factors such as the availability of data and differences in counting practices.
The latter might relate to how a security officer is defined, and whether or
not the figures recognize in-house as well as contract security personnel,
unlicensed as well as licensed officers, and/or total numbers of personnel
versus full-time equivalents, for example (Button 2019; Nalla and Newman
1991).
North America is one of the largest consumers of frontline security and
one of the global regions in which data on the sector is more accessible.
According to the Guardian (2017), which provides a synthesis of statistical
data on frontline security and police officer numbers in 81 countries, the US
is fourth to India, China and Brazil in the number of security officers it
employs. Recent US government estimates suggest that the country
employs approximately 1.2 million security officers and projected a 3%
increase in the employment of security officers and gambling surveillance
officers between 2019 and 2029 (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2021b),
although the COVID-19 pandemic triggered temporary losses in demand
for protection services and security officer employment due to business
disruption in many sectors (Oringer 2020). Other countries in the Americas
with a large number of security officers are Argentina, Brazil, Canada,
Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico, with Brazil estimated to be employing
approximately 1.7 million (Guardian 2017).
In Europe, the Confederation of European Security Services (CoESS)
(2017) estimated that, in 2015, approximately 45,000 private security
companies were employing about 1.9 million security officers in the 34
European countries covered in their survey. The countries estimated to have
the highest number of security officers (with numbers in the six figures)
were Turkey, Poland, Germany, the UK, France and Bulgaria, while those
reported to have markedly lower numbers (below 5000) were Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Malta, Luxembourg, (North) Macedonia and Cyprus. In the
African continent, South Africa has the largest private security industry in
the continent by a significant margin, estimated to number 8692 private
security companies and 488,666 registered active private security officers in
2015/2016, exceeding the combined strength of the police and army (Berg
and Howell 2017). Other countries with large numbers of private security
employees include Nigeria (100,000) and Kenya (49,000) (Florquin 2011);
Senegal (25,000–35,000) and Namibia (20,000) (Berg and Howell 2017);
and Uganda (17,000) (Kirunda 2008). Statistics on the employment trends
of security officers in the Middle East are sparse, though industry estimates
suggest that the frontline security industry in Kuwait, Israel, Jordan, Oman,
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will grow (Ken Research
2018). Saudi Arabia has been estimated to employ about 200,000 security
officers (Arab News 2016), and Dubai to employ about 25,000–30,000 (Issa
2012). Syria began licensing security companies in August 2013 and has
been estimated to hire between 300 and 800 personnel (Baresh 2020).
India and China are, by a long way, the leading markets for the
employment of private security officers in Asia. According to India’s
Central Association of Private Security Industry, over 15,000 frontline
security companies were reported to be in existence in the country in 2009,
employing over 5.5 million officers (Bennett 2009). Florquin (2011)
estimated that the country was employing around seven million security
officers, and the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
(2018) estimated that, by 2018, the total had reached 8.9 million, far
outnumbering the combined strength of the Army, Navy, Air Force and
public law enforcement, predicting a continuing growth in employment to
12 million by 2022. Guardian (2017) data suggest that China employs five
million security officers; Nalla et al. (2017) estimated Singapore to have
29,000 in 2009; and, according to Paek (2021), South Korea has
approximately 158,020, based on 2019 data from the Korean Police
Agency. Australasia is also a significant user of security personnel,
estimated by Florquin (2011) to employ approximately 115,000 at the time
of his survey.
Data from around the world show a vast discrepancy in the ratio of
private security personnel to police officers, with no clear pattern as to why
this is the case. In some countries, security officers far outnumber the
police; for instance, in Guatemala, there are about six security officers for
every police officer, and in India, the ratio is around five to one. At the
other end of the spectrum, Nigeria, Macedonia, and Bosnia and
Herzegovina are reported to have many more police than security officers,
at ratios of 0.3, 0.29 and 0.2, respectively (Nalla and Gurinskaya 2020a).
These trends could be explained by factors such as supply and demand for
frontline security in new emerging global markets, governance deficits in
others, as well as the availability of reasonably accurate data relating to
factors such as the extent of state regulation. The limited data available
suggest that, unsurprisingly, some of the less-saturated frontline security
markets of the developing world will experience the fastest growth. Supply
factors may include the quality of state provision and the quality of
regulation of frontline security. Demand is likely to be driven by both
positive and negative factors such as market growth in commercial
infrastructure, political unrest and terrorism (Ken Research 2018).

Security Officers’ Functions and Duties

Security officers perform a wide range of tasks for their employers. As far
back as the 1970s, a survey by Shearing et al. (1980) of over 10,000
Canadian security officers showed that they were already deployed in
diverse locations and performing a varied range of functions, some of
which are similar to the tasks police officers perform every day (Nalla and
Newman 1990; Jones and Newburn, 1998; Rigakos 2002). The locations
included office buildings, warehouses, factories, stores, shopping centres,
educational establishments and residential complexes, and the tasks they
performed included premises patrol, the screening and/or escorting of
visitors, and traffic control. They were also found to perform other roles as
first responders to criminal or non-criminal situations caused by humans or
nature. Many of these tasks were not security-related but could be
conveniently undertaken by security personnel to keep their facilities
running effectively and reducing liability, including rubbish disposal, snow-
shovelling, flag-raising, general maintenance and administering first aid.
In ethnographic research in the UK, Wakefield (2003) identified six
broad functions of security officers, which she termed housekeeping,
customer care, preventing crime and antisocial behaviour, enforcing rules
and administering sanctions, responding to emergencies and offences in
progress, and gathering and sharing information. The housekeeping
function was associated with keeping properties clean, safe and orderly
through such tasks as taking care of displays, checking garbage cans,
turning off lights, testing fire alarms and monitoring background music
(Brough and Brown 1989; Gill, 2003; Wakefield 2003). Customer care, a
role that arguably belies the stereotype of a security officer, might include
tasks like helping parents find their lost children (Gill 2004), assisting
visitors with directions and information (Jones and Newburn, 1998), and
record-keeping of lost and found items (Wakefield 2003). Others who have
studied store detectives (Brough and Brown 1989), retail security officers
(Gill 2004) and further specialist roles including shopping centre and
residential security (Jones and Newburn, 1998) have found a similar
diversity in the nature and scope of security officer tasks, as have country-
level analyses covering Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands (Cortese et al.
2003) and the US (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2021b).
More recently, a research synthesis comparing academic, industry and
government analyses, forming part of Kitteringham’s (2017) doctoral thesis,
identified security officer duties as covering the following broad areas:
access control, conducting investigations, report writing, enforcing rules
(includes company and legal rules), conducting inspections, surveillance
either in person or electronically, responding to calls for service and
miscellaneous tasks including transporting valuables, acting as a
receptionist, managing lost and found articles, educating employees and
testifying in court. He concluded that the multitude of duties reinforces the
importance of effective training of frontline security personnel which, in
practice, varies markedly in quality across jurisdictions.

Working Conditions in Frontline Security

Research over the past five decades paints a disappointing picture of the
working conditions of security officers across the globe, although standards
vary markedly by country as well as within countries. In the earliest studies,
conducted in the US and UK, low wages and long hours of work were
identified as being among the chief deterrents to high-calibre work (Kakalik
and Wildhorn 1971; Wiles and McClintock 1972; Shearing et al. 1980;
South 1988). The CoESS (2011) study illustrated the considerable variation
across Europe in salaries and working conditions. Estimated monthly
average gross salaries at the time of the research ranged from €255 in
Serbia to €3629 in Switzerland, and maximum working hours per day and
per week specified in national legislation varied from 13 and 78 in the UK,
to 7.5 and 37.5 in Norway. The study showed that in a number of European
countries, collective labour agreements have had a considerable impact.
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2020) demonstrate marked
variations in wage levels across the country, where the reported mean
hourly wage was US$16.52 per hour and the mean annual salary was
$34,360, but hourly and annual wages ranged, respectively, from
approximately $10.54 and $21,930, to $24.81 and $51,600.
In India, the frontline security industry is one of the largest employers
but also constitutes one of the largest pools of unskilled workers, often
facing poor pay and working conditions and devoid of much upward
mobility (Upadhyaya and Giri 2011). Studies have indicated that a large
percentage of security officers are drawn from small towns and rural areas,
often work 365 days in a year with no holidays, leave or medical benefits,
and earn a meagre income of about US$1200 annual income (Gooptu 2013;
Upadhyaya and Giri 2011). Similarly, low wages are reported in countries
in Africa (Abrahamsen and Williams 2005a, 2005b, 2005c) and Latin
America (Singh and Light 2019).

Perceptions of Frontline Security

There is considerable debate surrounding the mandates for security officers
worldwide, given that they interact with the public frequently and carry
substantial authority as Stenning (2000) details. Canadian research has
suggested that although private security personnel play a significant role in
the maintenance of social order, some security officers do not view such
activities in any official or legal sense (Rigakos 2002) and may very well
exercise these responsibilities without being adequately trained to do so
(Manzo 2010). Training requirements vary markedly around the world, and
especially in Europe in which some of the most rigorous regimes appear to
be located (see CoESS and UNI-Europa 2004; CoESS 2011; Nalla and
Wakefield 2014; Kitteringham 2017; Garrett, Kitteringham and
Livingstone, this volume). Since Garrett, Kitteringham and Livingstone
(this volume) look in detail at security officer training, we do not wish to
duplicate their analysis, so in this section we focus on perceptions of
frontline security, looking in turn at security officers’ own sources of
motivation and job satisfaction, including wellbeing factors, citizen
perceptions and relations with the police.

Security Officer Motivation and Job Satisfaction

The UK government’s Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure
(CPNI) (2016) publishes guidance for end users of frontline security on the
importance of employee motivation in the effective security of
infrastructure assets and how to build this within an organization. This
reflects the scale of the contemporary challenge of international terrorism
and cyber attacks in the new millennium and the critical protective role
within organizations that security personnel now play. In Wakefield
(2003)’s UK research, security officers reported being driven by various
motivations, including money, redundancy, familiarity with the work and its
similarities to policing. Many officers in Rigakos’ (2002) study of security
officers in Canada equally aspired to policing careers and viewed their
current occupation as a stepping-stone, while research in India found that
security officers working in the unregulated markets saw their jobs as a
foothold to get into the organized sector which conferred greater status and
benefits (Gooptu 2013).
Based on studies conducted in Sweden and the UK, Löfstrand et al.
(2016): 297–298) concluded that the occupational cultures of security work
served to build self-esteem and a sense of purpose, despite the suggestion
that security was ‘a low-prestige and stigmatized industry’. Similarly,
research on Singaporean security officers illuminates how certain frontline
security companies’ organizational cultures could promote employee
satisfaction with their jobs. Nalla et al. (2017) found that the officers’ job
satisfaction was directly shaped by autonomy, supervisor support,
innovation opportunities and support from other non-security employees at
work. Another study of Singaporean security officers found that job goals,
tasks and reward structures had a direct bearing on officers’ job satisfaction
(Nalla et al. 2015), suggesting that they thrived in companies with
progressive and supportive organizational cultures.
Employee turnover rates in frontline security, considered to be one of
the highest among all occupations, however suggest that there remains
much work to be done to build officer motivation and job satisfaction. In
Europe, as with salaries and working conditions as noted above, there has
been found to be an incredible variation in annual turnover rates, reported
by CoESS in 2011 to range from 93% in Poland to 0.89% in the
Netherlands, while the European average was estimated at 33%. In a survey
of UK security officers by Gill and Howell (2012), which examined
possible reasons why people leave security, the top three responses by a
considerable margin were ‘poor pay’, ‘don’t feel appreciated’ and ‘limited
opportunities for development’. A number of studies from around the world
provide qualitative detail on areas of dissatisfaction. Gooptu (2013)
observed that security officers in her ethnographic study in India often felt
unappreciated, marginalized, disenfranchised and even looked upon as
suspects who might steal customers’ belongings. She found that sometimes
dissatisfaction and stress came from punitive workplace discipline, and
oppressive monitoring of officers while on duty that could make their
working day very stressful. She also reported that the officers often felt they
were treated as second-class citizens.
While the occupation is touted as ‘public service’ and a vital first
responder role, security officers are not always treated accordingly.
Findings from more recent ethnographic research in India suggested that
officers in some types of security work (e.g. static guarding at ATMs) were
poorly treated by both customers and employers who perceived the role as
being lowly relative to positions at large companies (Noronha et al. 2020).
The monotonous nature of some security work, Gooptu (2013) argues, can
also leave them to question their own self-worth and identity. She observed
that security officers were often required to stand at their stations for long
hours, disengaged from the public safety tasks that were more meaningful
to them, and frequently did not get to interact with others. Given such work
experiences, along with the dangerous and risky situations they can face at
work, research suggests that officers can feel isolated, frustrated and
anxious, developing a ‘collective psyche’ and feelings of ‘resigned
martyrdom to perpetual dread’ (Rigakos 2002: 120).
In an ethnographic study undertaken in the midwestern US, one of the
prominent sources of frustration and dissatisfaction among female security
officers in the study related to hygiene factors. Nalla and Cobbina (2017)
found that a lack of basic amenities at the workplace, such as toilets, a
fundamental labour right, was a source of stress and dissatisfaction at work.
This is a significant factor for security employers to consider since, as in
public law enforcement, despite growing demand for more female officers
to address the needs of female customers and employees, they remain
underrepresented in frontline security. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics
(2021a), for example, reports that about 25% of those employed in frontline
security in the country are women.
The stress of getting injured at work and subject to violence is yet
another critical situation experienced by security officers every day. Nalla
and Cobbina (2017) found that the unarmed officers interviewed in their US
study reported inadequate preparation to handle physical risks or protect
themselves from dangers at work. A survey of 1010 security officers
conducted in Finland (Leino 2013) demonstrated that the respondents
experienced verbal insults (39%), verbal threats (19%), unarmed physical
attacks (15%) and threats with a deadly weapon (15%) at least once a
month. In a survey of retail security officers in the UK, 52.7% responded to
having experienced violence during their retail sector careers (Koeppen and
Hopkins 2020). Night-shifts for security officers can also cause
considerable stress, as a study of the physiological impact on officers of
night-shift work has demonstrated (Cannizzaro et al. 2020).
Job stress and burnout among security officers were observed in other
countries as well. Leino et al. (2011), in their sample of security officers
from Finland, concluded that a very high percentage of the respondents’
psychological distress was associated with threats of violence and perceived
threats of violence. Research conducted with security officers in Belgium
by Vanheule et al. (2008) also recognized that a perceived lack of safety at
work could be a trigger for stress, and established that critical incidents and
lack of social support systems could be major contributing factors for stress
and consequent burnout. Their study found that 41.1% of the security
officers surveyed had experienced a critical incident, and 10.9% had a
clinical score suggesting post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Research from other countries supports the strong relationship between
occupational stress and the health of security officers. Based on their
Serbian study, Jovanović et al. (2021: 359) suggested that various
occupational stressors including ‘high demands, strictness,
conflict/uncertainty, threat avoidance and underload’ had a significant
impact on officers’ health, often resulting in work disability. Similar links
between such job stress and officers’ physical and/or mental were made in
studies conducted in Malaysia (Ahmad and Mazlan 2012), India (Yadav and
Kiran 2015), Sri Lanka (Yasaransi 2019) and the UK (Talas et al. 2021).
Based on a survey of retail security officers in the UK on occupational
support for those victimized by violence, Koeppen and Hopkins (2020)
concluded that related job stress would only be managed effectively with
robust support systems at work and that an absence of these could generate
negative emotions, lack of loyalty towards employers and a lack of work
motivation.

Citizen Perceptions of Security Officers

Interestingly, research suggests that similar views are also held by the
public about the safety of security officers’ work in the US, Portugal and
the Netherlands (Nalla and Heraux 2003; Moreira et al. 2015; van Steden
and Nalla 2010), as well as emerging democracies. Studies on public
attitudes to security officers in India, Bosnia and Macedonia indicate
prevailing beliefs among the public that security work is dangerous and
stressful, and poses a high risk of getting injured at work (Nalla et al. 2013;
Janković et al. 2019). As displayed in Fig. 28.1, a comparison of research
findings across various countries suggests that citizens in developing
countries perceived more strongly than those in developed countries that
security work was more dangerous.

Fig. 28.1 Percentage agree with attributes of security guard work

 It is often assumed that society perceives private security as
professionally inferior to public law enforcement. Popular culture
depictions of security officers are exemplified by common references to the
profession using pejorative terms such as ‘rent-a-cop’ or ‘wannabe-cop’
(Nalla and Heraux 2003). The popular stereotype of a security officer in the
US depicts them as minimum-wage employees in an unregulated industry,
without training and solely responsible for protecting their employer’s
property (United States and National Advisory Committee on Criminal
Justice Standards 1976; Walsh 1989). However, an early survey on public
perceptions of private security conducted in Canada suggested that citizen
perceptions were based on the personal characteristics of individual security
officers they had encountered rather than preconceptions about the sector
(Shearing et al. 1985), and later citizen surveys conducted in the
Netherlands (van Steden and Nalla 2010) and India (Nalla et al. 2013)
similarly demonstrated mixed feelings based on the quality of encounters
experienced by the participants. Several studies looking specifically at
students’ perceptions of private security carried out by Nalla and colleagues
in the US (Nalla and Heraux 2003), India (Nalla et al. 2013), Singapore
(Nalla and Lim 2003), South Korea (Nalla and Hwang 2004) and Russia
(Nalla et al. 2017b) suggested that security officers were viewed positively,
while students surveyed in Slovenia had mixed feelings (Nalla et al. 2006).
A limited number of recent studies have examined the extent to which
citizens trust security officers. A cross-national comparative study of citizen
perceptions of security officers indicated that respondents in full
democracies had less trust in private security (also revealing a
corresponding stronger trust in law enforcement agencies) than those in
countries with lower democracy ratings (Nalla et al. 2017c), as shown in
Fig. 28.2 which compares citizens’ views of security officers in nine
countries. These findings are echoed in a recent study that found that
Russian millennials’ judgements of the effectiveness and procedural
fairness of private security appeared to be the strongest predictors of
citizens’ satisfaction with security officers (Nalla and Gurinskaya 2020a).
This study also indicated that respondents’ satisfaction with security
officers was shaped by their views of officers’ professionalism,
effectiveness and procedural fairness. By contrast, in research carried out in
New Zealand, less than a fifth of the respondents believed private security
to be professional (Bradley 2016), calling for legislating mandatory training
to enhance the professionalism of the industry (Bradley 2020).

Fig. 28.2 Percentage agree about views on security guards. (Source: Nalla et al. 2017c)

In contrast to research on citizens’ views of security officers, there has

been some research on officers’ perceptions of citizens and public support.
A study in Singapore (Lim and Nalla 2014) reported that close to half of the
officers thought that the public trusted them (46.2%) and cooperated with
them (46.2%), but less than two-fifths believed the public was willing to
help security officers solve problems (39%). A higher percentage of officers
perceived support and trust among other employees (55%) as well as a
willingness to come to their aid to solve problems (46.6%).

Security Officers’ Relationships with the Police

Early research conducted in the US on the relationship between law
enforcement and private security cast the latter as a ‘junior partner’
supplementing the work of the police (Kakalik and Wildhorn 1971) and
suggested that interactions between the two were plagued with mistrust and
a lack of collaboration (Cunningham and Taylor 1985). Studies from around
the world since that time show changing perceptions of frontline security by
the police, but to varying degrees. US research in the late 1990s noted some
improvement in the working relationship, but with security officers holding
a more positive view of the police than was reciprocated (Nalla and
Hummer 1999a, 1999b; Hummer and Nalla 2003). In later comparative
research conducted in the US, South Korea and Slovenia (as examples of
developed, emerging and transitional economies) (Nalla et al. 2009), the
authors reported more mutually supportive relationships among police and
security personnel in the US compared with South Korea and especially
Slovenia.
A further study conducted with Slovenian security officers examined
the specific factors shaping their trust in the police, indicating that the
officers had greater trust in public law enforcement when they believed
officers were fair and respectful to citizens and procedurally fair in their
interactions with victims and suspects (Nalla and Meško 2015). Recent
research carried out with in-house and contract security officers in South
Korea similarly revealed that those perceiving the police to be procedurally
fair were likely to have greater legitimacy with, and more likely to
cooperate with, the police (Paek et al. 2020). However, it also found that
contract security officers were less inclined than in-house security
personnel to believe that their professional duties aligned with those of the
police. Most recently, research by Janković et al. (2021) deemed mutual
relations between the two sectors in Serbia to be favourable, but with the
security personnel viewing their police counterparts more favourably than
was reciprocated.
One of the key questions concerning police-private security co-
operation is the factors that facilitate them. A study conducted with
Slovenian security officers examined the specific factors shaping their trust
in the police, indicating that the officers had greater trust in public law
enforcement when they believed officers were fair and respectful to citizens
and procedurally fair in their interactions with victims and suspects (Nalla
and Meško 2015). Research carried out with in-house and contract security
officers in South Korea similarly revealed that those perceiving the police
to be procedurally fair were likely to have greater legitimacy with, and
more likely to cooperate with, the police (Paek et al. 2020). However, it also
found that contract security officers were less inclined than in-house
security personnel to believe that their professional duties aligned with
those of the police.
Increasing co-operation between the police and security personnel may
be attributed to similar factors as those mentioned above in relation to the
growth of frontline security. In a policy paper for the US government,
Connors et al. (2000: 2–3) identified the potential benefits of public-private
co-operation as including ‘networking and the personal touch’,
collaboration on specific projects, increased crime prevention and public
safety, cross-fertilization on strategies and techniques, information sharing,
and the leveraging of resources. In a UK study by Gill et al. (2010), factors
such as budgetary limitations in police forces leading to closer partnership
working, and greater outsourcing of police functions to the private sector,
were identified by senior police and security practitioners as trends likely to
bring the police and the commercial security sector closer together.
Qualitative case studies in the UK (Jones and Newburn 1998; Wakefield
2003) and Canada (Rigakos 2002) show evidence of active collaboration
between the two sectors, while supporting the argument of (Shapland 1999)
that the nature of the interagency co-operation may be distinctive to every
partnership in every location.
More recent ethnographic research conducted by Diphoorn (2020) in
Kenya shows evidence of the sharing of resources: she described the
exchange of ‘arms for mobility’, when armed police officers would join
private security personnel in their patrol cars, affording the former
additional resources and the latter heightened protection. Similar findings
were drawn from research from Congo, detailing how the National
Congolese Police formally established a relationship with the private sector
in 2003 to enhance crime prevention efforts through hybrid patrols, joint
guarding and joint response to alarms (de Goede 2008). In both cases, the
state was able to benefit from logistical support that frontline security
companies were better financed to provide.
Other contemporary drivers of co-operative working across the world
include trends in urban planning and development, such as the creation of
managed zones like Business Improvement Districts, in which heightened
security is one of a number of environmental improvements employed
through public-private partnership to attract more business into areas
(Wakefield 2021), and the heightened global threat of international
terrorism. As Rosemont (2015: 286–7) observes in relation to the UK, ‘the
significant variety and new types of public-private cooperation that
emerged after 9/11 (and especially after 7/7 [terrorist attacks in July 2005 in
London]) represent nothing short of a major revolution in the way that the
Government interacts with non-state actors to implement its security
objectives’, some of which are detailed by Wakefield (2021).

Conclusion
This chapter has examined the size and distribution of the frontline security
industry, not only in the developed democracies on which there has tended
to be more data but also in emerging and transitional economies. It
demonstrates the ubiquity of private security globally, as well as marked
variations between countries in the size of the industry, the ratio of security
officers to citizens, and the ratio of security officers to police officers.
Further research would be fruitful that sheds more light on the differences
in their global distribution.
Today’s security officers carry out broad ranging and often sophisticated
functions, as they are regularly placed in routine contact with the public and
often serve as first responders in the event of criminal or non-criminal
emergencies. They also offer additional ‘eyes and ears’ on the street,
building on what the state can do alone. Importantly, as reflected in
practical guidance for organizations in maintaining a motivated guard force
published by the UK’s CPNI ( 2016), they play a key role in nations’
protective security systems. In light of this, the fact that low pay,
challenging working conditions, low job satisfaction, high staff turnover
and high levels of stress are commonplace across the nations, with the
exception of a number of European countries, presents organizations and
nations with significant vulnerabilities. On a more positive note, as
recognition of their importance to public safety increases, there is evidence
across the globe of the public and the police warming to security personnel,
with the latter finding common ground to cooperate in many aspects of law
enforcement. Notably, however, their tasks extend well beyond policing
activities, many of these having little to do with crime, and much to do with
security officers’ continuous presence and flexibility to adapt to changing
needs and circumstances on behalf of those who employ them.
Key Readings
For an overview and discussion of emerging trends in the literature on
private policing and private security, a special issue of the Journal of
Contemporary Criminal Justice on ‘Security governance and private
policing: emerging issues and trends’, edited by Mahesh Nalla and Anna
Gurinskaya, is recommended reading (2020b, 36: 1). The second edition of
Mark Button’s comprehensive textbook (2019, Private Policing. 2nd ed.
London: Routledge) develops many of the themes covered in this chapter
and sets them in the context of the wider range of private actors that carry
out policing functions. Alison Wakefield’s latest book Security and Crime:
Converging Perspectives on a Complex World (2021, London: Sage) widens
the lens still further to consider many of the actors engaged in security on a
global scale, looking at different dimensions of provision (e.g. the
international, national and local) chapter by chapter and discussing frontline
security in the context of security provision at the local level. A special
section of the journal Conflict and Society on ‘Ethnographies of private
security’, edited by Erella Grassiani and Tessa Diphoorn (2017, 3: 1)
reviews the ethnographic literature to date and presents a number of newer
perspectives from around the world and in different areas of private
security. Also recommended are the research studies published annually by
Martin Gill and colleagues at Perpetuity Research in the UK as part of the
Security Research Initiative, on behalf of a consortium of UK sponsors and
supporters, in which frontline private security is a recurring theme (see
https://perpetuityresearch.com/security-research-initiative/).

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M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_29

29. Training and Education Within the

Security Sector: Challenges and
Opportunities for Development
Declan Garrett1 , Glen Kitteringham2 and Ken Livingstone3
(1) The Security Institute of Ireland, Tunbridge Wells, UK
(2) The Justice Instiute of British Columbia, Tunbridge Wells, UK
(3) University of Plymouth, Tunbridge Wells, UK

Declan Garrett (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Glen Kitteringham
Email: [email protected]

Ken Livingstone
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
This chapter explores the much-neglected topic of security training
focussing in particular on security officers including the extent to which the
training received is fir for purpose. They make a case for increased training
and the creation of career pathways to raise standards and professionalise
the service.

Introduction
There is longstanding evidence that private security numbers exceed those
for public policing and that this is not limited to a single country (Button
2007; Cunningham et al. 1990; Blackstone and Hakim 2013). In addition,
private security has grown to become one of the largest services sector
employers globally (Button 2019). Security officers number in the millions
(Nalla and Wakefield 2014), yet their training levels, qualification and
career advancement opportunities are limited (Wakefield 2006; Thumala et
al. 2011; Button 2019). As private security expands in both scale and remit,
questions about officers’ competence and capability are increasingly
important.
This chapter aims to examine issues surrounding the training of security
officers and highlight how the officers’ role has outstripped existing
training provisions. It begins by looking at how the importance of security
officers has changed in recent years as they have taken on new tasks, while
at the same time remaining shackled to a negative public image. This
chapter considers the extent to which security officer training is fit for
purpose and examines the benefits and limitations of regulation. Finally, it
makes a case for increased training for security officers and the creation of
career pathways to raise standards, to incentivise and professionalise the
service, and to dispel a dated image that does the security sector no service.

The Changing Role

The security officer’s role has advanced rapidly and significantly, evolving
from simple gatekeeping and patrolling duties to something far more
complex, requiring extensive knowledge and a wide range of skills (Dalton
2003; Provost 2017). An increased terrorist threat, for example, coupled
with the terrorist’s adoption of ‘Any Means Attack’ and ‘Marauding
Attack’ tactics has increased the risk to the commercial sector, which is
seen as legitimate and even preferred targets (Cragin and Padilla 2017;
Townshend 2018; McIlhatton et al. 2018). At the same time, the security
sector has seen the use of technology become ubiquitous in electronic
protection, monitoring and communication systems (Smith 2014), all of
which require ongoing training and practice to use effectively. Similarly,
Gill et al. (2020) note that communication skills have become increasingly
important, as has the ability to quickly assess situations and make good
decisions (Bietsch 2018).
Part of the reason for the growth and rising complexity of the security
officer’s role is attributable to the increasing involvement of private security
in plural policing (Shearing and Stenning 1981; Shearing and Wood 2003;
Rogers 2021). As mentioned, in many countries the number of security
officers exceeds those of police officers, and the provision of policing has
become a ‘mixed economy’ (Crawford 2005). Private security is a major
benefactor of this shift (Löfstrand et al. 2016), and the use of security
officers is integral to it. The decentralisation of policing functions has led to
many more agencies, particularly private security, being involved in
activities once regarded as the sole occupation of the police (Button 2019).
There has also been a blurring of ‘public good’ and ‘market rationalities’ by
both the police and private security, which has led to the police and private
security merging relations and perspectives to become more similar in
purpose and overlapping in function (White and Gill 2013).
In the UK, for example, there are very few policing areas that cannot
and are not undertaken in some form by private security (Bayley and
Shearing 1996), which is the case in many countries. As policing continues
to decentralise, the public as much as the commercial sector needs a
professional private security workforce.
Another reason for the expansion in numbers and the growing
importance of security is the expansion of what (Shearing and Stenning
1981) refer to as ‘mass private property’, which has brought private security
into increasing contact with the public. Shopping centres, out of town
cinema and entertainment complexes, food halls, events and festivals, as
well as public transport and other commercial ventures offer public access
to private property on a large scale. Those properties, however, remain
privately owned and are predominantly actively patrolled and protected by
private security officers. It is almost certain, for instance, that when an
incident occurs in one of these spaces, the first respondent will be a security
officer, not a police officer, and it will be the security officer who manages
the situation and engages with the public. Therefore, it is vital that the
officer has received the training they need and has the confidence and
ability to put it into effect (Montgomery and Griffiths 2015; Bietsch 2018).
Given the range of incidents security officers must respond to, the
systems and equipment they must use, the policies and procedures they
must follow, and the communication skills required, it is disappointing that
their training has remained mostly limited and stagnant (Montgomery and
Griffiths 2015; Garrett 2016; Kitteringham 2017; Bietsch 2018). Instead, it
remains more indicative of security’s past than its future, and it ties the
officer to dated images and negative perceptions (Löfstrand et al. 2016).
Image and Perception
Private security officers have long been associated with poor performance
and unreliability, and they are often portrayed as incompetent, incapable
and corruptible (Kakalik and Wildhorn 1971; Livingstone and Hart 2003;
Button 2008; Thumala et al. 2011; Button 2019). In the Rebirth of Private
Security (1992), Johnston referred to the poor professional practices and
standards and low levels of training within private security as a reason for
the negative perception of the sector.
The negative perception of security officers is inexorably tied to that of
‘guarding’, a low-cost, low-skill, low-margin service for the supplier and
often a grudge purchase for the client. Guarding is the security sector’s
lowest denomination provision, with contracts routinely awarded on price
rather than quality (Wakefield 2006; Manzo 2006; Thumala et al. 2011;
Button 2019).
In their ethnographic study of British and Swedish security guards,
Löfstrand et al. (Löfstrand et al. 2016) examine guarding as ‘dirty work’.
They highlight that security guards feel stigmatised by the depiction of their
work as a ‘tainted’ occupation, suffer low self-esteem and are perceived by
others as being expendable and of low value. While such a negative
perception of them helps shape their attitudes, fears and beliefs, it also
shapes those outsiders who may deem the role of security as unattractive.
The sector’s stereotypical image as hired guns or incompetent
watchmen (Livingstone and Hart 2003) persists through a mixture of public
perception, media representation and the sectors own failure to address its
shortcomings (Manzo 2009, Loftstrand et al., Löfstrand et al. 2016).
Despite being a frontline resource and the private security sector’s outward
face, security officers remain low status and poorly paid, often working
long hours in a role they see as strictly temporary until something better
comes along (Button 2019). Garrett (2016) has suggested that many
security guards may not be motivated by, suitable for or capable of career
progression. A hunger for training and education, therefore, is not evident.
This has led to a reverse quality circle with suppliers, customers and
security officers, locked into a cycle of inadequate provision and reward.

Time Spent on Training

The debate on training for security officers often focuses on the number of
hours required rather than the training content (Bietsch 2018). However,
hours spent in training do not guarantee quality, content or degree of
learning and attainment. In part, this reflects the difficulty of specifying a
single curriculum for a role that has so many variants. A security officer
working in a retail environment, for example, will have a very different job
description from a security officer working at a factory site. While they will
have shared elements in common, their day-to-day practices will differ
considerably. A second reason for the focus on hours is the element of cost.
As mentioned above, the provision of security officers is cost-driven, and
the number of hours spent in training adds to the cost of the service. The
aim of security officer training has been to provide a minimum acceptable
standard at a minimum cost. A third factor is that a focus on training hours
provides an easy means of evaluation and comparison. It is easier to
measure hours spent in training than to evaluate that training’s content and
effectiveness as mandatory training for security officers varies around the
world (Montgomery and Griffiths 2015).
Table 29.1 shows the requirement for security officer training by EU
member states.
Table 29.1 EU member states required security officer training

Country Mandatory training

Belgium Yes
Spain Yes
Slovenia Yes
Greece Yes
Sweden Yes
Portugal Yes
Ireland Yes
Finland Yes
Romania Yes
Luxembourg Yes
Germany Yes
Malta Yes
France Yes
Country Mandatory training
Netherlands Yes
Estonia Yes
Poland Yes
Denmark Yes
Latvia Yes
Bulgaria Yes
United Kingdom Yes
Slovakia Yes
Italy No
Cyprus No
Lithuania Yes
Austria Yes
Czech Republic No

Table 29.2 EU member states exceeding 120-hr security officer training

Country Training hours

Romania 360
Hungary 320
Sweden 288
Poland 245
Spain 180
Latvia 160
Belgium 127

While there is mandatory training in almost all EU countries, Button

and Stiernstedt (2018) assert there are significant differences in hours. They
advocate the need for 120 training hours for an unarmed guard, a figure
developed by using the CoESS European Training Manual (1999). Only
seven countries (see Table 29.2) currently exceed that standard.
Table 29.3 Training room and e-learning plusses and minuses

+ -
 + -
Training • Direct engagement with trainer and • Cost of trainers
room other learners • Cost of training room(s)
• Good for physical demonstrations • Fixed time and place
• Flexibility of content
E- • Highly cost effective over time • Reduced interaction
Learning • Standardised content and delivery • Initial costs can be high
• Learn at any time and place • Requires learners to be confident with
• Easily repeated the technology
• Learners need access to computers and
Internet

Reviewing the Irish training hours specification for security guards, it

mandates one hundred hours training. However, this breaks down as thirty
mandatory classroom hours and ‘seventy notional hours’. The seventy
hours is not mandatory.
In the United States, twenty-five U.S. states have training requirements
(Nalla and Crichlow 2017), while in Canada, six of the most populous
provinces reflecting 90 per cent of the licensed guard industry have
mandatory training for their licensed guards (Kitteringham 2017). There are
144 training hours mandated in Australia, 40 hours in South Africa and
36 hours in the United Arab Emirates. In addition, Button and George
(2006) and Kezeli (2016) indicate that some countries do not require any
mandatory training; instead, they are required to pay a license fee to
operate.
For governments, specifying the number of hours training that security
officers must receive is useful for flagging that something has been done.
Still, it falls short of a framework for competence. Bietsch’s (2018) study
on standardising training for security guards in the United States argues that
there needs to be a common approach to training across the country.

Training and Qualification

The disparity in training hours above is indicative of the ongoing
uncertainty surrounding training requirements; even within the same
country or territory, there can be wide differences. In 1990 the Hallcrest
Report II (Cunningham et al. 1990) looking at security in the United States
flagged up the need for formal and consistent training, yet as seen above,
training provision in the United States remains inconsistent, as it does in the
EU. And, while it is true that improvements have been made in terms of
training requirements, progress is slow, fractured and under prioritised. As
Manzo points out, despite the rising numbers of security officers and their
increasing involvement in ‘policing’, there is a stark difference between our
expectations of police officer training and that required of security officers:

If someone were told that “half,” or “most,” or “most, at some point

in the future” of police officers would experience a standardized
training curriculum, he or she would probably be scandalized.
(Manzo 2009, p. 384)

The limited research evaluating specific training programmes

(Kitteringham 2017; Teague et al. 2014; Scollan 2011; Kirschenbaum and
Rapaport 2017) all suggest that there are opportunities available to improve
training outcomes. However, to do so requires a shift of emphasis from a
minimum hours and minimum standard approach to a focus on capability,
that is the ability of individuals to meet the demands of the work they are
actually engaged in. It also requires a shift in how training itself is
perceived.
Like the time spent and standards set, the qualifications arising from
security officer training provide a great step forward. However, they are
limited as while the training is linked to a vocational qualification, it is
often set at a low level.
In Europe, for example, vocational qualifications sit on qualification
frameworks which provide classification at various levels. Usually focusing
on knowledge, skills and competence, they act as a global currency with
both national and international value and are designed to be a ladder which
individuals can progress up during their career. A qualification framework
helps learners, graduates, private security providers and employers attain,
understand and compare qualifications. The European Qualification
Framework (EQF) has eight levels. Levels 7 and 8 refer to an advanced
level of a field of work or study, for example a Master’s Degree (level 7) or
Doctoral Degree (level 8).
Those with entry-level vocational qualifications will be at level 3, and
this is where the security officer sits. This is an excellent starting point and
might be sufficient if security officers could then progress to higher levels
of attainment. But, in most countries, with the exception of some
progressive nations such as Spain, New Zealand and Australia, this is the
only mandatory qualification for security officers. And, as the sector itself
seldom provides any additional training, the ladder doesn’t exist for most
security officers. Still, without regulation, the security sector would have no
agreed training standard; therefore, limited as it is, regulation has at least
brought about a minimum requirement.

Regulation
The regulation of private security has always been contentious (George and
Button 2000). Currently, where regulated training programmes exist, they
vary significantly in content, but they do assure that a minimum standard
has been met. Regulated training does not seek to raise the bar significantly
but provides a safety net preventing standards from falling below a certain
level.
Regulation with its requirement to acquire minimum standards of
training has provided an impetus. Certainly, this has had its successes, the
‘hand of government’ approach has been positive in that in some countries
and territories where the security sector itself could not or would not raise
standards, governments have successfully applied a regulated model.
However, there are limitations too; the problem with regulated security
officer training is that rather than the standard being the stepping off point
for additional improvement, it is often the sole requirement, with some
countries requiring no upskilling or refresher training.
In countries where follow-on training does exist (e.g. New Zealand and
South Africa), it provides a valuable route for progression to supervisory
and junior management roles. This, though, is the exception not the rule.
Typically, regulation is only applied to entry-level generic guarding roles. It
has failed to raise the entry standard to a level that either challenges a
candidate’s ability or improves it. And, ironically, it generally does not
apply to those who supervise or manage frontline security personnel. This
has an effect on quality; in 2015, a report written by the Australian national
training regulator, the Australian Skills Quality Authority, argued that
inconsistent licensing arrangements and inadequate training posed risks to
the public due to security guards not carrying out their duties safely.
 Many within the security sector championed regulation in the UK,
Canada, the United States and elsewhere, as they wanted to improve
standards, and some professional bodies have applied their own
professional standards (Button 2019). However, beyond setting a minimum
entry level, the introduction of regulated training has changed little.

Barriers to Progression
Entry into the security sector as a security officer is undemanding and
straightforward due to the lack of entry criteria for most roles often
attracting those with low skills. With the bar set low, the role also often
attracts those who struggle to find work in other industries and ‘the vast
majority end up in security by chance’ (Gill et al. 2020, p. 4).
The security sector is disparate (Griffiths et al. 2010) and fragmented,
consisting of a mix of small, medium and large security providers (van
Steden and de Waard 2013). Large security providers are in the minority,
with the majority being small and medium-sized. Within these small and
medium-sized companies, opportunities to advance may be limited due to
their size and profile (Garrett 2016). They typically do not create a culture
of developing their staff due to their limited capacity. Unless the client
specifies a specific training requirement and is willing to pay for it, there is
no incentive or advantage to provide additional training. In larger
companies, security officers have more chance to progress; however, most
have little support from their employer and must be highly self-motivated
(Gill et al. 2020).
Adendorff (2009) reminds us that any recognised discipline training and
education provide occupational boundaries, thus creating entry criteria.
And, for security officers aspiring to lateral or vertical movement, training
and education would greatly assist them. It would make transparent the
requirements for promotion and allow progress beyond the existing glass
ceiling (Button 2011). In many countries, however, such training and
education models are yet to be developed (Bietsch 2018).
Security officers who are able to progress are likely to be promoted
based on good existing operational performance. However, they are seldom
promoted based on proven competence for the intended role; instead, they
are petered into supervisory, and occasionally management, roles based on
their ability to do their previous job. They are generally not provided with
the training and education they need for their next role (Garrett 2016).
Being a good security officer does not mean that person will make a good
supervisor. If they are not provided with the requisite training as part of a
development plan, they will likely go into their new role ill-equipped to
succeed.
A further block to professional development and progression with
frontline staff often in a dead-end role (Button 2011) is that the managers
responsible for security officers often ‘parachute in’ from other professions
or managerial roles. Those managers are often ex-police or military. An
early study of security managers was conducted in the UK by Hearnden and
Security Industry Training Organisation (Hearnden 1993), who reported
that ex-police or military personnel made up 70 per cent of security
manager roles. Historically, these managers did not themselves engage in
training and this deprioritised training creating barriers to progression in the
sector (Wakefield and Button 2014).
Going forward, Wakefield and Button (2014) observe that ex-service
personnel continue to make up a large proportion of security managers. In a
scoping study of over 400 American private security executives, ASIS
(2013) profiled security directors as 93 per cent male, 50 years of age, with
25 years’ sector experience, with 63 per cent having a military or police
background.
However, external recruitment to management positions erodes the need
for a career pathway from security officer to security manager. This has
created a catch-22 scenario; the role of security officer does not attract high
calibre candidates as there is little or no opportunity to progress. And,
because there are few calibre candidates, managers are brought in from
elsewhere rather than promoted upwards.
Finally, historically, there was little or no provision for security officers
to progress, as there was no real career path (Montgomery and Griffiths
2015; Garrett 2016; Bietsch 2018). This has changed in the last several
years as the issue of career pathways is gaining attention (Gill et al. 2020,
pp. 15, 67). Baruch (2004) likens career paths to mountains. The employee
represented as the climber needs clear direction and guidance on how to
climb the mountain and achieve its summit. The summit in the case of
private security is the post of Chief Security Officer (CSO) as identified by
ASIS’s Security Industry Career Pathways Guide ( 2015). Employees
should be able to see the summit, aspire to reach it and work towards it.
ASIS (2015) informs us that there needs to be a defined position and
responsibilities for each role, required education and credentials, and
specialised knowledge and competencies.
Clearly defined roles and responsibilities are crucial in career paths, and
training and education are vital components of those pathways (Wakefield
and Button 2014). Moreover, while career planning documents exist
(Apollo Education Group 2015; Barnard and Lubbe 2013; Palacios 2019;
University of Phoenix 2014), there is little evidence that they are well
known to security personnel.

Sector and Voluntary Training

Regulation is not the answer to increasing standards, nor is it intended to be.
Regulation is intended to set a minimum entry standard beyond which it is
the responsibility of the sector, the employer and the individual to provide
the means of further development (O’Conner et al. 2004; Wakefield and
Button 2014). In the UK and elsewhere, the security sector has made
significant advances in promoting training and qualification at managerial
levels. There are many courses and qualifications available from training
providers, professional bodies such as the Security Institute (SyI) and ASIS,
and universities and colleges.
This has all been achieved without regulation. Yet, meanwhile security
officers have been allowed to languish. This is partly due to indifference
and a belief that regulation is sufficient, and no more needs be done. This
reflects poorly on the entire security sector. The shepherd has been
upskilled and rewarded while the flock has been left in the mire.
Given their range of duties, the same process has raised the standard of
security management; that is ongoing training and qualification needs to be
applied to security guarding. And, the responsibility for this must rest with
the sector itself as well as with the individual.
Sector training supported by education providers, and leading to
certification, offers the best opportunity for widening the security officer’s
knowledge base and credibility. It will help increase the effectiveness of
officers by bolstering their skills and performance across their various roles.
By devising customised training programmes that build upon the regulated
requirement, trainees will not only learn new skills and techniques but raise
the image and performance of the wider security profession. After all, there
is limited advantage to improving the upper levels of security management
if its baseline service is neglected.
Regulated training provides a standard baseline to build upon and from
there officers can then add specific role skills and knowledge linked to the
type of employment they undertake. In this way, officers can build up a
portfolio of skills through a process of continuous learning.
In addition to improving the quality of candidates entering the sector,
another benefit of training linked to career advancement is to raise the
morale and job satisfaction of existing employees. The provision of training
establishes a supportive work environment (Jaworski et al. 2018). The
workforce feels valued, leading to improved morale, increased job
satisfaction and customer satisfaction, and reduced staff turnover.
Employer led and voluntary training can also help in addressing
employees’ weaknesses. It reduces the potential for error by strengthening
workplace knowledge and skills. At the same time, training and
certification offer a route to improving employee job satisfaction, morale,
productivity and consistency (Topno 2012).
In addition to formal training there is also potential for informal ‘on-the-
job training’. ‘Kolb’s (1984) learning styles and experiential learning theory
indicate that people learn-by-doing, and for the security officer, there is
much to be gained through informal learning. The 70:20:10 principle
created by McCall, Lombardo and Eichinger (2010) argues that individuals
obtain 70 per cent of their knowledge from job-related experiences, 20 per
cent from interactions with others and 10 per cent from formal educational
events. They hold that hands-on experience is the most beneficial for
employees because it enables them to discover and refine their job-related
skills, make decisions, address challenges and interact with influential
people such as bosses and mentors within work settings (Williamson et al.
2003).
The on-the-job learning of security officers is not an area that has been
researched, and therefore, it is difficult to understand what level of
development security officers gain from this approach. The quality of the
line manager/trainer will also be an important factor as coaching and
mentoring are skills in and of themselves.
Despite the benefits of training, education and certification, there is a
major issue that needs to be addressed. That is the additional cost employers
will incur. The cost factor, as mentioned earlier, is a contentious one. The
received wisdom is that the low margin to be made on security officer
contracts prohibits additional training, as clients may challenge paying
more for officers to receive it. Instead, clients will go with cheaper officers
trained to the minimum regulated standard.
In the past, there has been a lot of truth to this argument. However, the
security officer’s role has changed considerably over the last decade in
response to new responsibilities, threats and technologies (Fennelly and
Perry 2017; Lubbe and Barnard 2013; Palacios 2019). An untrained security
officer, or one trained to the minimum regulated standard, is out of step
with the role’s actuality and has been so for some time. Arguably,
employers who don’t provide additional training for their officers,
depending upon the role, may provide a service that falls short of its
purpose and potential. Likewise, clients who will not invest in an effective
service hobble their own security and safety, potentially placing staff,
suppliers and customers at risk.
The choice is portrayed as being between a security officer trained to
the required standard or a security officer who has been trained to the
required standard and then had desirable but ‘unnecessary’ additional
training on top. The suggestion being that by adding extra training, the
service has somehow been ‘over-engineered’. This is to misinterpret the
reality of the situation. A security officer trained to the minimum ‘statutory’
standard may not necessarily be trained sufficiently to meet the
requirements of the position they are hired for, that is, to a standard at
which they can provide a professional service across a range of disparate
and evolving tasks. Regulation provides a minimum benchmark for entry as
a security officer; it does not necessarily meet the officer’s ongoing needs to
succeed as one.
That additional training is required is only half the argument. The other
half involves looking at the provision of that training, that is who delivers it
and how it is delivered.

Trainers and Delivery

Trainers are responsible for developing workforce skills and knowledge.
They help staff optimise their potential by achieving predetermined goals
(Jaworski et al. 2018). As such, they play an instrumental role in building
employee satisfaction and productivity.
 A trainer’s competence should be a suitable blend of experience, skills
and qualifications. However, research examining training and education of
trainers in the security sector is sparse. What we do know is that trainers are
generally unregulated and there is no specific trainer requirement made of
them (Montgomery and Griffiths 2015). The security sector contains many
trainers whose prime qualification is their previous role, and this entirely
unsupported by any formal training qualification. Regulation sometimes
stipulates a necessary qualification for those training security officers, but
the bar is set low once again. The issue of unqualified trainers is a problem
for the whole security sector as it impacts at all levels of the profession
(Montgomery and Griffiths 2015; Kitteringham 2017).
If applied to trainers, the requirements proposed below would increase
professionalism across all levels, not only for those training security
officers (Oakes 2014; Noe 1999):
hold a bachelor’s degree in the subject matter or similar;
have an adult training and education qualification;
be certified and accredited by an accreditation awarding body;
be a member of a professional security association;
be engaged in continuing professional development (CPD) and ongoing
training and education themselves.
Putting these requirements in place will do nothing to alleviate the
training costs in the first instance; instead, it will likely increase the initial
training costs. It should, however, raise standards and may avert some
costly failings. Increasing standards for trainers of security officers should
help meet current and future demands (Goldstein 2013; Kitteringham
2017). For these reasons, it seems an investment worth making.
Organisations and associations should also conduct training needs
analyses with a view to building on existent and regulated training by
identifying any gaps between current and required provision (Carliner
2010).
At the same time, the means of training delivery needs to be looked at.
While classroom training has advantages, so do other forms of learning,
such as online training and e-learning (Nilson and Goodson 2018). Online
training takes advantage of the Internet as a platform for learning as well as
other technology and digitised media. It does not, however, preclude a
classroom element. E-learning also uses technology and diverse media but
is usually delivered entirely online over the Internet utilising a Virtual
Learning Environment (VLE) such as Moodle and supported by a Learning
Management System (LMS) handling course administration.
Online and e-learning have a lot to offer and can work well with
classroom-based training in a blended approach (Barbazette 2014). Some of
the plusses and minuses of both approaches are shown in Table 29.3.
The global Covid pandemic has resulted in many education and training
providers from universities and other educational institutions making the
shift from classroom to online learning which has led to a re-evaluation of
the effectiveness of both (Schleicher 2020). New approaches to training, as
much as new content, represent an opportunity for the security sector to
revamp its own training and education provision.

Conclusion
Security officers provide an increasing range of services in both the
commercial and public spheres. The growing demands made on them by an
evolving role and new technologies have, however, outstripped their current
training provision. At a time when the security sector as a whole has taken
enormous strides forwards in terms of the expertise, qualification and the
image of its managers, it is disappointing to see security officers left behind
after the initial benefits achieved by regulation. That the widespread
negative image of ‘guards’ still holds sway amongst the media and the
public is an issue that cannot continue to go unchallenged by a sector
committed to professionalism.
Regulation has, in part, provided an answer and has moved the guarding
sector forward, but it is not the whole answer. As it has done for its
management levels, the security sector must look to itself to create a
difference. The sector has an opportunity to further professionalise by
providing the training and career pathways needed by security officers, their
clients and indeed by the sector as a whole.
In conjunction with qualified trainers and education providers, and by
embracing new teaching approaches and new learning technologies, the
upskilling of security officers represents an opportunity for excellence that
should not be missed.
Recommended Readings An early introduction to the rise of private
policing and its implications can be found in Shearing and Stenning’s 1981
paper. Button has written extensively regarding the development of the
private security sector as he provided critical insights into the character,
culture, working conditions and training of security officers (Button 2008),
as well as the role and regulation of security officers. His 2019 book
provides a comprehensive examination of private security’s involvement in
public policing, including an overview and assessment of the role and remit
of security officers. In addition, the comparative training of security officers
in the European is covered by Button and Stiernstedt in their (Button and
Stiernstedt 2018) paper. For an examination of the often-negative
perception of security officers and their roles, see Thumala, Goold and
Loader’s (Thumala et al. 2011) paper and Löfstrand, Loftus and Loader’s
Löfstrand et al. 2016 paper. A final paper of note is the research undertaken
by Gill, Howell, Kitteringham, Goldstraw-White and Ramm in The
Competence of Frontline Security Officers and what they say about their
work (2021). This research looks at security officer duties and task
complexity.

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M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_30

30. Private and Corporate Investigations:

Internal Security Governance Within
Organisations
C. A. Meerts1
(1) Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

C. A. Meerts
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
This chapter focuses on the private efforts of organisations to maintain (or
restore) internal order within their organisational context. In a field of
security where the state is typically absent, corporate investigators provide
start-to-finish services to employers who are faced with internal norm
violations. Different sources and methods of investigation are discussed (the
corporate investigations), as well as the solutions that may be chosen after
the investigations have been finalised (the corporate settlements). While
they lack the powers of investigation granted to public police forces,
corporate investigators have extensive access to information. Many
corporate investigations are settled without the involvement of any public
law enforcement agency and stay completely within the private legal
sphere. In this sense, corporate investigations create a system of private
investigations and justice, which for a large part operates independently
from criminal justice systems. This chapter, finally, engages with the
question of the implication that the existence of this field of corporate
security has for democratic societies by focusing on the autonomy of
corporate investigators, public-private relations and the interests that are
involved.
Introduction
It is now a well-known fact that the provision of security is (no longer)
exclusively dependent on governments (see, e.g., Jones and Newburn
2006). The complex security needs of modern society exceed what
(national) governments can realistically provide. Private sector involvement
in crime control is widespread (White 2014a; Gurinskaya and Nalla 2018).
It is therefore not surprising that the private sector has also attracted the
attention of social scientists. While still a relatively small part of
criminological research efforts (as compared to the extensive field of
research focused on the more classical public security provision by
governments), there is now a solid body of work focusing on private
security and on the question of public-private relationships (see, e.g.,
Johnston 1992; Loader 1997; Wood and Shearing 2007). Most of this
literature, however, is focused on the most visible forms of private security,
being physical safety issues and the safeguarding of property in (semi)
public spaces (see, e.g., Nalla and Wakefield 2014). Mostly, these private
security functions are preventative: private security personnel may prevent
crime from occurring through the guarding of staff, by patrolling specific
spaces or by providing technical security services. Consequently, the main
focus within private security research is on those private security functions
which are mainly concerned with the prevention of future loss (e.g.
Johnston and Shearing 2003; Shearing and Stenning 1985).
Even though many private security efforts are focused on the prevention
of crime (and more generally, financial loss), we can also find private
security services which are more concerned with reactive, or ‘after the fact’,
policing. Specifically, private investigators provide investigative services to
their clients after a suspicion of wrongdoing has arisen. Private
investigators may provide services to individuals or organisations. This
chapter concerns itself with the latter. To clarify this distinction, the term
‘corporate investigator’ is used to refer to investigators who are employed
by commercial or (semi) public organisations. There is some debate with
regard to the question of who may be regarded to be a ‘corporate
investigator’ (or more broadly, corporate security). For example, Nalla and
Morash (2002) reserve this term for in-house security departments within
corporate entities. This chapter, however, defines corporate investigators
more broadly, to also include private investigation firms, forensic
accountants and forensic (departments of) law firms. A defining
characteristic is that corporate investigators cater to (both commercial and
[semi] public) organisations (instead of individuals) (see also Meerts
2019a). Specifically, the focus of this chapter lies with the investigation of
internal norm violations rather than the investigation of crimes and other
unwanted behaviour that is external to the organisation. As will be
demonstrated, the private (labour) law relationships that are involved in
internal investigations provides corporate investigators with much room to
investigate without the involvement of the criminal justice system.
This chapter, then, focuses on the private efforts of organisations to
maintain (or restore) internal order within their organisational context. In a
field of security where the state is typically absent, corporate investigators
provide start-to-finish services to employers who are faced with internal
norm violations (Gill and Hart 1999). While they lack the powers of
investigation granted to public police forces, corporate investigators have
extensive access to information. Many corporate investigations are settled
without the involvement of any public law enforcement agency and stay
completely within the private legal sphere. In this sense, corporate
investigations create a system of private investigations and justice, which
for a large part operates independently from criminal justice systems. This
chapter explores, first, the investigative possibilities of corporate
investigators and, second, the alternatives to criminal prosecutions they
provide to their clients. In the discussion, this chapter engages with the
question of the implication that the existence of this field of corporate
security has for democratic societies.

Corporate Investigations
Corporate investigators are private actors. By implication, they have no
powers of investigation. Consequently, they lack access to (all) the
investigative possibilities available to law enforcement actors. However, the
flip-side of this is that corporate investigators are able to operate with a
greater flexibility than law enforcement actors (Williams 2005). As a result,
corporate investigators are able to act both swiftly and efficiently. The
connection between the client (the employer) and the person under
investigation (the employee) furthermore provides corporate investigators
with extensive access to information (Meerts 2019a). All this culminates in
a situation in which corporate investigators have wide-ranging possibilities
to investigate, without being restricted by the stringent rules that apply to
law enforcement agencies (Meerts 2019b). The widespread view that
corporate investigators are not regulated, however, deserves some nuancing.
Even though the extent and manner of regulation differs per national
jurisdiction, private investigators are generally subject to rules and
regulations. Some national jurisdictions rely fully on self-regulation by the
sector (such as the UK—see https://www.theabi.org.uk/), while others have
state-mandated forms of regulation (such as the Netherlands, see Meerts
2019a). To make matters more complicated, membership of representative
organisations is generally non-compulsory and so the status of quality
markers issued by representative organisations is often unclear.
A complicating factor is, furthermore, provided by the diversity of the
corporate investigations market. Who is regarded to be an investigator
(either in the eyes of the law or in general) differs. In broad terms, we can
identify private investigation firms, in-house investigation departments
within (large) organisations, forensic accountants and (forensic departments
of) legal firms (Meerts 2019a). These different actors all have their own
rules and regulations. An overarching legal framework for corporate
investigations is generally absent (apart from general laws such as those
regulating privacy and criminal law). In the Netherlands, for example,
private investigation firms need a permit, while this requirement does not
hold for other types of investigators. In addition, private investigation firms
are liable to legal regulations, while forensic accountants and legal
investigators have (non-binding) professional guidelines (in addition to
their own system of disciplinary law). In-house investigators, finally, have
internal regulations guiding their actions (Meerts 2019a).
We can, however state that at the minimum corporate investigators are
subject to general laws regulating employer-employee relations (labour
law), regulating which behaviour is criminal (criminal law) and regulating
how the right to privacy is protected (privacy regulation). In addition,
general principles of law are used to regulate investigations, such as
proportionality, subsidiarity and confidentiality (Meerts 2019a). In this
context, proportionality means that the use of investigative methods should
be proportional to the intended result and to the interests that are served
with the investigation. Subsidiarity refers to the fact that the methods used
should be the least intrusive for the (privacy of) the persons involved. Even
though (most) corporate investigators lack legal privilege,1 they do focus on
confidentiality of their investigations: the results are reported to the client
only (who can then decide whether or not to publicise the investigation).
Other leading principles include the adversarial principle, containing the
right to be heard of the person who is investigated, and the principle of fair
play (which inter alia includes that the people who are involved in the
investigation should be treated fairly, with respect and with due
consideration of all interests involved).
An additional characteristic that sets corporate investigations apart from
criminal investigations is their focus. Other than criminal investigations,
corporate investigations may or may not be focused on criminal behaviour.
The scope of the types of behaviours that can potentially be investigated is
thus much larger for corporate investigators. Whether or not the
investigated behaviour is criminal is not a central question for most clients
of corporate investigators (Williams 2005). The investigation is, first and
foremost, focused on solving the problem at hand. As such the investigation
is less interested in the who than the what. By implication, the corporate
investigation may have a wider scope than a criminal investigation would
have, for example because it includes the question of which organisational
systems and safeguards failed in this instance.
One implication of the above is that corporate investigators utilise what
Williams (2005) calls ‘legal flexibility’: investigations may make use of
legal definitions and instruments across the legal spectrum, defining
(potential) crime as a labour conflict or breach of contract rather than a
criminal act (Williams 2005). Thus, corporate investigators are not confined
to the criminal code as a guideline for their investigations and, most
notably, for the solutions provided after the investigation is finalised (see
below).
As mentioned before, the focus of this chapter is on investigations into
internal wrongdoing. However, corporate investigators do not exclusively
focus on internal matters. The behaviour under investigation may just as
well be external to an organisation. The choice to focus on internal
wrongdoing is based on the fact that both the access to information and the
possibilities to react after the fact are more extensive for internal
investigations. This exposes an interesting dynamic: the employee under
investigation may be asked by his or her employer to voluntarily assist
investigators; however, the extent to which this is voluntary in reality is
unclear. An employer has extensive influence over his employees by threat
of unemployment or other measures (Meerts 2019a). In addition, the
infrastructure provided by the employer (the internal network, email
systems, hardware such as computers and (smart)phones) may be used in
investigations since the employee is not the rightful owner here. The access
to information about employees is not unlimited, however, and a certain
measure of privacy remains (e.g. private emails which are sent with the use
of company resources). Corporate investigators, thus, depend for an
important part on the access to certain information of their client and on the
cooperation of all parties involved (Williams 2014).
The investigative possibilities of corporate investigators are thus limited
by their lack of coercive powers, but at the same time we see that corporate
investigators have extensive options to investigate at their disposal. In this
paragraph, we explore the tools corporate investigators may use to complete
an investigation. Generally, an investigation commences with a formal
assignment (although, in the case of investigations executed by an in-house
department, this may take an alternative shape). In this assignment, the
problem is stated and usually the expected activities are listed. Which
investigative activities are to be executed depend on the circumstances of
the case; however, the following sources of information and/or investigative
methods are commonly used. Below we describe internal documentation,
internal systems, open sources, personal communication (the interview) and
other sources and/or methods (Meerts 2019a).
A first source of information for corporate investigations is what we
may summarise as internal documentation. For an important part, this
consists of financial administration and source documents such as contracts.
In addition to internal documentation, internal systems may provide
investigators with ample information. Importantly, these consist of
communication networks and systems of hardware and software. Email and
telephone systems, as well as cloud storage, (smart)phones, laptops, PCs,
external memory devices and physical security systems (such as key card
entry data, security cameras and GPS or track-and-trace systems) contain
rich information which may be used within corporate investigations.
In addition to strictly internal sources of information, investigators may
also look to sources outside of the organisation. One of these, which seems
to have gained more and more momentum over the years, is what is known
as open sources. While the use of open sources for information gathering
within an investigative context is often referred to as ‘OSINT’, this is not
entirely correct. OSINT is the abbreviation for Open Sources Intelligence,
which refers to the gathering of intelligence. In the context of
investigations, however, we should use the term ‘Open Source
Investigations’, which refers to ‘online investigations that involve combing
through publicly accessible resources for information related to potential
crimes’ (Koenig et al. 2018: 682). Open sources are often used as a point of
reference at the start of the investigation. In this way, social media, Internet
search engines and databases such as the Chamber of Commerce can be
used to get general information about a person and his or her social
network. In addition, these sources may provide easy access background
information and possibly create a timeline for the occurrences under
investigation. The use of open sources is part of a larger debate on the
legitimacy of both police actions and the investigative possibilities of
corporate investigators. While open sources are (more or less) freely
available, the use of them in a (police) investigation may constitute a
violation of the right to privacy. As such, open sources may not be used
without limitation (Koops 2013). While the use of open sources is
increasingly regulated in the context of police investigations, for corporate
investigators the way open sources are used is often based on principles of
law rather than on strict regulations which are codified in law.
While internal and external sources of information may prove to be very
useful, many corporate investigations rely heavily on information gathered
through personal communications (Meerts 2019a). This may include
informative conversations with the client and witnesses. In addition,
corporate investigations often obtain much information from the person
who is investigated. Since this information is provided outside of the legal
context of a criminal investigation, these personal communications are not
interrogations. Rather, they are interviews. One implication is that the
person who is interviewed cannot rely on the same legal protection that
exists in the context of criminal investigations. The cooperation of the
involved person (not being a suspect in the sense of criminal law) is
therefore voluntary. However, as a result of the power imbalance (both in
experience with the process and in position) that exists between the
involved person and the investigator (being the representative of the
employer), we should critically assess the voluntariness of the cooperation
in practice (Meerts 2016). While an employee cannot be forced to
cooperate, the employer may exert pressure through threats of
unemployment or other punishment in case the employee fails to cooperate
with the investigation. Even in the face of regulations and principles of law,
then, there is ample opportunity to move people to cooperate.
In addition to the above, other sources of information may be used to
further the investigation. In theory, there is no limit to these; however, in
practice these other sources and methods of investigation often contain
observations and site visits, the use of mystery guests and asset-tracing and
other (forensic) accounting methods such as the calculation of damages. All
the information combined leads to the report of the investigation. While in
many cases, the above sources of information are sufficient to provide a
clear image of the investigated events, it is also possible that the
investigations are ruled inconclusive. Whether or not a reconstruction of the
events can be fully provided, the results of the investigations are presented
in a report, which is often the basis for further action. The possibilities for
this further action are discussed in the following section.

Corporate Settlements
With the report in hand, the client that has ordered the corporate
investigation may decide upon further action. These responses that may
follow from corporate investigations are referred to as corporate
settlements. Corporate settlements are the result of corporate decision
making and often take place without the involvement of the criminal justice
system. However, not all forms of corporate settlement avoid the criminal
justice system. As we will see below, sometimes the help of law
enforcement is actively sought out (Meerts 2019a).
These corporate settlements fall, in broad terms, within the categories of
action based on internal regulations, on labour law, on private/civil law and
on criminal law (Meerts 2018). In addition, it may be decided that no
further action is necessary—for example when the investigations yielded no
definite results or when the problem has already been solved in another way
(e.g. when the person involved no longer works for the client) (Meerts
2019a). The involvement of corporate investigators with the decision on the
type of settlement differs. Corporate investigator involvement in this part of
the process is generally limited, however. The report following from the
investigations may contain (legal) advice, depending on the background of
the investigator. The actual decision nevertheless falls upon the client (and,
potentially, its legal counsel).
There are many factors that may influence the decision about the
reaction following from the results of the investigation. One major
consideration is whether or not to involve the criminal justice system. Of
course, this is only a possibility if the behaviour can be defined as criminal.
However, the fact that the behaviour can be defined as criminal does not
necessarily mean that it is framed in such a way. Corporate investigations
often frame the behaviour in a different manner (as a civil matter), leaving
room for forum shopping among public and private jurisdictions when
choosing a corporate settlement (Meerts 2019a).
Meerts, Huisman and Kleemans (in press), when discussing the
considerations that may steer the latter decision, show that commercial,
practical and normative reasons may lead an organisation away from
reporting the case to the police. A commercial reason may be fear of
reputational damage. An example of a practical reason would be that, in
practical terms, a report to the police does not solve the immediate problem
an organisation is faced with. Normative considerations against reporting
include the protection of the involved employee against a disproportional
punishment (e.g. when the labour contract has been terminated as well). In
addition to the before-mentioned considerations, this and other research
shows that another important factor is the level of confidence organisations
have in the criminal justice system (see, e.g., Gill 2013; Meerts 2019a).
On the other hand, strategic, pragmatic and normative considerations
may also lead to the involvement of the criminal justice system. In addition,
some organisations may have the standard policy to report (which does not
necessarily mean that every instance will indeed be reported—see, e.g.,
Meerts 2019a). A strategic or pragmatic consideration leading to an official
report to the authorities may be that the organisation is obliged to do so by
law or that some details about the case are already public; in such a case,
reporting is more beneficial to the reputation than not reporting. An
example of a normative consideration for reporting is that an organisation
deems this ‘the right thing to do’ (Meerts, Huisman and Kleemans in press).
When the decision has been made to involve the criminal justice system, an
organisation cedes control over the information and level of publicity of the
process (Williams 2005). For this (and other) reason(s), a report to the
authorities is often made after corporate investigations have been finalised
(Meerts 2019a). In this way, a certain amount of control is retained and the
scope of the problem is (more or less) clear to the organisation. This may
mean that damage control is easier and the reputation can be managed
better. The decision to involve the criminal justice system may therefore
have more far-reaching effects than when another solution is chosen;
however, it is possible for organisations to manage it to some extent.
Research shows that the information provided by the corporate
investigations is often an important point of departure for the criminal
justice investigations. Even though there is still a possibility that the
criminal investigation will take a different turn, the information provided by
the organisation through the report of the corporate investigations may
therefore influence the scope and direction of the criminal investigation
(Meerts 2019a).
When it has been decided not to involve the criminal justice system,
other options are available. It should be noted that the decision to report to
the authorities is rarely the only solution taken. Because of the uneasy fit
between the objectives and processes of the criminal justice system and the
interests of (commercial) organisations, some other form of corporate
settlement is often used as well (Meerts and Dorn 2017). As mentioned
above, one option is to make use of internal regulations within the
organisation itself (Meerts 2018). The options provided here often range
from minor (such as a warning) to severe (such as termination of the labour
contract). In the latter case, labour law is used as a tool to respond to the
matter at hand. Here as well, the possibilities differ in their degree of
severity. For example, a contract may simple not be renewed (on the one
side of the spectrum) or the termination of the contract may be shaped
through a summary dismissal combined with a compensation payment to
the organisation (Meerts 2018).
In addition to criminal law, internal sanctions and labour law, the
options provided by civil law may also be used as a response to norm
violations (Meerts 2018). Civil justice proceedings are generally less
publicised than criminal justice proceedings. In addition, the standard of
evidence is lower in civil cases, making it easier to arrive at a swift
solution. An example of the use of the civil justice system is a civil suit
based on breach of contract, which may result in repayment of damages.
Another, less public, option is the use of a settlement agreement (Meerts
2018). In a settlement agreement, parties come to an understanding with
regard to the terms of separation and the amount payable.
Even though the involvement of corporate investigators in this phase is
limited, corporate settlement are the result of corporate investigations. In
this way, corporate investigations create a system of private corporate
investigations and justice, which for a large part operates independently
from criminal justice systems. Because of the limited in- and oversight that
exist with regard to these private systems, it is important to take a closer
look at the implications they might have. This is the subject of the
discussion below.

Discussion: The Implications of Corporate

Systems of Investigations and Justice
In the above, an overview is given of the services provided by corporate
investigators and the activities they are involved with. This leads us to the
question what the implication of the market of corporate investigations is
for democratic societies in which the state is (still) viewed as the main
provider for security. To explore this, we need to address some central
themes which emerge from this chapter: the autonomy of corporate
investigators; connected to this, public-private relations; and the interests
that are involved. With the increasing emphasis on the responsibility of
private actors, it is important to think about the positioning of corporate
investigations and the professionals who execute them. For example, the
Netherlands is (partly) moving towards a system of self-investigation in
complex cases of financial crime, which then can be used in the criminal
prosecution of the organisation (or individual) in question (see, e.g., Van
Leusden 2020). The importance of corporate investigations may grow in
such a context, since (far-reaching) decisions within the criminal justice
system would be based on corporate rather than on criminal investigations.
Additionally, as a result of the considerable invisibility of corporate
investigations in general, the sector is rather difficult to oversee. As will be
discussed below, this might have some serious consequences, especially for
the individuals involved.
With regard to the autonomy of corporate investigators, it should be
noted that the options to investigate and resolve internal norm violations
within the private legal sphere often suffice. As a result, corporate
investigators and their clients are frequently able to act independently from
the criminal justice system, with a high degree of autonomy. Corporate
investigators are capable of marketing some strategic advantages (the use of
secrecy, discretion and control; legal flexibility [forum shopping] and the
way economic crime is framed) (Williams 2005). Even in instances in
which control is ceded to the criminal justice system, a certain measure of
control may be exerted through the manner in which a case is presented to
the authorities and the timing thereof. Corporate investigators and their
clients therefore enjoy a considerable sphere of discretion in the
investigation of internal norm violations and the responses that follow.
Considering that there is a large sphere of discretion for private entities
to investigate their internal norm violations and to search for an appropriate
response, it is not surprising that many instances of internal norm violations
in the private sphere. This has previously been qualified as ‘private justice’
(see, e.g., Henry 1983). In general terms, the prevalence of internal crime
remains unclear: since the criminal justice system is not involved in the
investigation and settlement of internal crime, the insight into what happens
in the private sphere is very limited. The knowledge of private forms of
justice relies for an important part on the extent to which information is
volunteered by private actors, either resulting from a report to the
authorities or as part of a cooperation effort with the authorities. Much,
then, remains invisible to the public eye. As a result, there are only limited
checks and balances in place to oversee that corporate investigators adhere
to the rules.
In this light, the cooperation between public and private, or the lack
thereof, is an important subject. While there certainly are examples of
mutually beneficial cooperation, literature suggest that these are the
exceptions, rather than the rule (see, e.g., Meerts 2019a; Meerts, Huisman
and Kleemans in press). More often than not, public-private contact is
focused on the transfer of information from private to public. This is
important, because within a cooperation (to a certain extent), insight is
gathered into the activities of the partner. When it is only a matter of
private-to-public information transfer, this insight remains limited and the
question of how the information is gathered might stay unanswered.
With regard to the interests which are involved, finally, previous
research has shown that corporate investigators may take public interests
into account. The procedural rights of the involved employee may, for
example, be taken into account during an investigation (see, e.g., Meerts
2019a). This is not directly in the private interest of the client and may
indeed make the investigation more difficult. The use of the adversarial
principle, to take an example, slows down the investigation since the
involved person needs time to respond (and may take as much time as
possible). This incorporation of other interests than those of the client is in
line with the non-contractual moral agency that Loader and White (2017)
introduce for the security sector in general. The authors argue that in
addition to a focus on the private interests of their clients, private security
professionals are also guided by moral concerns that go beyond the
contractual obligations they have towards their clients. When we look at
corporate investigations through this lens, we can discern some actions that
are executed because they are ‘right’, as opposed to because they are in the
best interest of the client. Indeed, some of these are made contractually
mandatory by corporate investigators through the incorporation of certain
principles of law in their code of conduct. Non-contractual moral agency
may also influence the decision to report. While corporate investigators are
often not directly involved in the settlement option chosen, they may exert a
certain amount of influence over the decision whether or not to report to the
authorities. This may, in part, stem from the fact that many corporate
investigators have a public-sector background (see also White 2014b; Van
Dijk and De Waard 2001). However, the fact remains that corporate
investigators are private actors who investigate on behalf of their clients. As
such, public interests are not the main concern of corporate investigations.
The introduction of non-contractual moral agency only goes so far: its
implementation relies heavily on the moral compass of individual corporate
investigators and their employers and compliance is often difficult to
enforce.
Why, then, is all of this relevant? If we look at the system of private
justice, provided by corporate investigators, we may voice certain concerns.
While there are notable advantages of the fact that corporate investigators
provide clients with start-to-finish services when faced with internal norm
violations, the combination of the focus on private interests and the fact that
corporate investigators largely operate separately form the criminal justice
system may also prove problematic in some ways.
To start with the positive, corporate investigations are a way to
efficiently and professionally respond to internal crime and other
undesirable behaviour, without burdening the already over-extended
criminal justice system. Capable organisations are fending for themselves
and the criminal justice system is not burdened with cases that take a lot of
limited capacity. Consequently, this limited capacity can be used for matters
which touch the common good more directly.
While the above advantages certainly are relevant, there also are some
risks involved in the existence of systems of corporate justice. First, a
recurring theme in research about the relationship between public and
private security efforts is that private security may lead to class injustice:
the commodification of security may lead to a situation in which those with
money can afford to buy security, leaving the rest of society behind in an
unsafe environment (Loader and White 2017). This is certainly a point of
interest—the more profitable the company, the better the corporate
investigations that can be purchased. This may then lead to the situation in
which others, not being able to afford corporate investigation services,
either are unable to respond to internal norm violations in an appropriate
manner or remain dependant on the criminal justice system (in which these
types of crime are a low priority).
In addition to the legal inequality between organisations, there is
potentially a measure of legal inequality for individuals who are suspected
of a norm violation within organisations which do and do not use corporate
investigators. The power imbalance that already exists between an
employee and an employer is exacerbated by the use of corporate
investigators paid for by the typically more affluent and powerful employer.
On the other hand, an investigation may be beneficial to an (innocent)
individual. Moreover, corporate investigations can be less intrusive than a
full-blown criminal justice procedure (Meerts 2019a). The fact remains,
however, that procedural protection within the context of corporate
investigations is limited, which renders those under investigation
vulnerable. A major point of concern, then, is the fact that legal protections
are less defined and much more difficult to enforce within a sphere of
corporate, private justice, compared to the criminal justice system. Where
the private system is so invisible that the rights of the accused can easily be
undermined, there is a real risk of abuse.
Williams (2006) notes that there are some fundamental issues which
make the regulation of the corporate investigation sector a challenge. The
sector produces its own barriers for its governance as a result of some key
characteristics: the relative autonomy and low visibility of corporate
investigations and settlements, the potential for forum shopping and
strategic use of different legal venues and the fragmented nature of the
sector and of the interests involved make it difficult to exert effective
control over the sector.
The possibility of the (mis)use of power, combined with the focus on
private interests and limited visibility, results in wariness among many law
enforcement professionals. While there is no concrete evidence of large-
scale abuse of their position by corporate investigators, the possibility
remains. The scepticism with which some law enforcement professionals
approach corporate investigations is understandable (Meerts, Huisman and
Kleemans in press). Practically, however, the criminal justice system is
partly reliant on corporate investigators to produce information that would
quite possibly not be obtained without them. In addition, corporate
investigations play an important role in the way organisations respond to
(financial) crime and other norm violations. When executed professionally,
the private niche in which corporate investigators operate can be a valuable
addition to the responses to crime. All this can create friction based on
necessity versus distrust within public-private relations. The question of
public-private cooperation is therefore a complicated one with no easy fix.
It starts, however, with gaining insight into the rather opaque world of
corporate investigation.

Recommended Readings
This chapter touches upon some interesting themes which are explored
further in other work, which has been referenced throughout this chapter.
While both the investigative activities and the possible corporate settlement
options have briefly been discussed, this chapter does not go into detail.
The interested reader is referred to the work of Gill (inter alia 2013), Gill
and Hart (inter alia 1999), Meerts (inter alia 2016, 2018 and 2019a) and
Williams (inter alia 2005, 2006 and 2014). With regard to the public-private
relationships that (may or may not) occur in the context of investigation of
internal crime specifically, readers are referred to Meerts (2019b). Dutch
speakers are furthermore directed to a comprehensive report by Meerts,
Huisman and Kleemans (in press), which is based on empirical research
into public-private relations in the field of internal financial crime in the
Netherlands.
A subject that is merely implicit in this chapter, is that of the question of
the role of private security in general. This has been subject to much debate
and the interested reader is referred to classic works such as Shearing and
Stenning (inter alia 1983; 1985), Johnston (1992), Loader (1997), Garland
(2001), Jones and Newburn (2006), Wood and Shearing (2007), Loader and
White (2017) and Gurinskaya and Nalla (2018).

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Footnotes
1 The involvement of investigators with a legal background provides an interesting exception here.
Even though to date, it is not entirely clear yet whether legal privilege may be used in the context of
investigations (which are supposed to be impartial), the possibility is one of the selling points for
investigators with a legal background (see Meerts 2019a).
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_31

31. CCTV as a Socio-technology

Markus Lahtinen1 and Benjamin Weaver1
(1) Lund University, School of Economics and Management (LUSEM),
Lund, Sweden

Markus Lahtinen
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
The authors discuss CCTV, which is now established as a mature and
ubiquitous technology. They review existing research on CCTV as
backdrop to introduce an alternative re-narration that stresses its use as an
advanced information technology—a socio-technology. Central to this
perspective is the recognition that system effectiveness hinges on a match
of individual, organizational and technological features which they use to
explain the mixed results on CCTV effectiveness.

Introduction
It may come across as obvious to state that effective CCTV use is the result
of a successful interplay between social and technical resources. For
example, a trained and skilled CCTV operator can—in an emergency
situation—manage multiple information and communication systems,
maneuver a camera and direct emergency services to a situation requiring
immediate professional assistance. In other instances, there is no CCTV
operator present. Instead, a surveillance camera happens to record a suspect
passing by a wall-mounted camera. Later, the local police force—as a part
of their investigative routine—checks for recorded image material of public
CCTV in connection to a mugging that took place nearby. The image
material puts a suspect in the area and later forms a part in a chain of
evidence that leads to a future conviction. In this case, the piece of
technology—the recording camera—interacts with human and
organizational police resources, although in a somewhat time-delayed
fashion. Still, it’s another example of a successful socio-technical use of
CCTV. Both of these fictive use cases are quite typical and straightforward
uses of CCTV, and for CCTV professionals, there is nothing problematic
about these opening vignettes.
Over the years, researchers from different fields have approached
CCTV from different perspectives. Within the field of surveillance studies,
it is possible to find research problematizing CCTV from a critical
perspective, putting forward detailed and rich descriptions of how CCTV
systems—and their operators—can be used as a tool in a wider control and
surveillance apparatus. For instance, the act of profiling individuals
deviating from a set norm in a given environment (e.g. Lyons 2006; Zuboff
2019; Heebels and van Aalst 2020; Glasbeek et al. 2020). In this case,
critical should be understood more specifically than the wider and common
understanding of critical. Critical theory—as it is used in the context of
surveillance studies—often draws its inspiration from theories rooted in the
study of discourse and hidden norms in order to problematize injustices and
power imbalances.
In the field of criminology, commendably driven by an experimental
and causality-driven research ideal, researchers design experiments to test
the crime preventive effects of CCTV systems. As a typical setup, one area
is chosen to be the area of intervention, meaning it is equipped with CCTV.
A similar area is also chosen for comparison, meaning it will not be subject
to CCTV surveillance. Over time, it is possible to compare the outcome of
the CCTV surveilled area with the area not subject to CCTV. Through the
use of advanced statistical calculations, it is possible to conclude that—with
95% certainty—we cannot rule out that CCTV is effective in preventing a
certain category of crime, for example, reducing retail theft (Hayes and
Downs 2011). In other studies, the correlation comes out unsupported—
meaning, there is no support for the effectiveness of CCTV in preventing
crime (La Vigne and Lowry 2011; Gerell 2016). Both of these broader
stylized examples of research efforts represent perfectly legitimate scientific
perspectives and methodological approaches to studying CCTV. Taken
together, they deepen and widen our common knowledge on CCTV use and
its effectiveness.
 The reason for highlighting these two perspectives in particular rests
upon our first-hand experience of being engaged in a wider public debate
examining the merits of using CCTV for crime prevention purposes. A
salient feature of this wider public debate is the propensity to gravitate
toward more polemically apt perspectives—perspectives more compatible
with answering the overarching question: does CCTV work in a broader yes
or no sense? It has long been recognized that there are compounding factors
that complicate the response to this question spearheaded by the realist-
evaluative approach (Brown 2002; Gill and Turbin 1999; Pawson and Tilley
1997), which as described by Tilley (1993) and Pawson and Tilley (1992)
concerns itself with assessing the context-specific explanatory
circumstances assessing why a measure works. Central to this approach has
been the importance given to identifying the situational mechanisms, that
underpins effective CCTV use (cf. College of Policing 2021).
The realist-evaluative approach can be seen as a critique of the
experimental ideal (Pawson and Tilley 1992, also Brown 2002). As
Alexandrie (2017) has discussed, understanding the effects of CCTV is
dependent on meaningfully comprehending the pre-existing conditions
prompting its introduction in the first place. This is rarely done well.
Instead, CCTV is more often introduced in a socially dynamic and
ambiguous context that complicates the linear and simple cause and effect
logic. In short, CCTV effectiveness depends on dealing with contextual
variation (cf. the realist-evaluative approach). There are many factors that
affect context. To take one example, Welsh et al. (2020) have concluded
that CCTV schemes operated by private security personnel generate larger
crime prevention effects than those operated by police or those using a mix
of police and security personnel. In practice, numerous other studies
explicitly, and successfully, recognize the contingent social dimensions for
successful CCTV deployment (e.g. Taylor and Gill 2014; La Vigne and
Lowry 2011; Piza et al. 2015; Beck 2016).
Yet in discussion about the above-mentioned perspectives and
examples, the socio-technical perspective is not explicitly mentioned. While
naturally more aligned with a realist-evaluative approach—but not
explicitly—its intellectual roots do not originate from the discourse
associated with the experimental or the traditional interpretative scientific
ideals. In this way, we are attempting to point to a gap—or an opportunity
to supplement and develop the realist-evaluative view on CCTV as laid out
by Tilley (1993).

The Socio-technical Argument in Short

The underlying logic of the socio-technical argument we put forward can be
laid out as follows: narrating CCTV effectiveness as a question concerning
“does it work?” implicitly ascribes the usefulness of the technology to be
inherent in the technology in itself; this question misrepresents the value-
creation as to the origins of its effectiveness. Instead, our central argument
is that CCTV systems bear a resemblance to the implementation of
advanced and large-scale computing technologies in larger organizations. A
key characteristic is that they commonly display a time-delay to being
considered effective, one that may take months or years. Achieving value is
derived from a context-dependent and complex socio-technical interplay
that requires the management of expectations (patience) and an experiential
attitude.
We are convinced that understanding CCTV as a socio-technology is
more closely aligned with the intuitive utility of CCTV systems—being the
result of a proper fit between the technical and social systems. Furthermore,
allowing for a socio-technical perspective on CCTV also offers a way
forward to better understand and interpret the emerging scientific evidence
on CCTV effectiveness.

In short, we argue that CCTV effectiveness is the successful

application of (i) well-designed complementary human and social
inputs, (ii) over an extended period of time and (iii) managing
expectations about its effectiveness.

It should be noted that the socio-technical perspective has been explored

and used in security contexts previously. One such example is the work by
Sadok et al. (2020), introducing the socio-technical perspective in the
context of cybercrime. But in this chapter, we are introducing the socio-
technical perspective to a CCTV context.
The rest of chapter will be organized as follows: we will start by
offering a short account on the broader background of the socio-technical
tradition. We will connect this broader socio-technical background as a
means to problematize the development—and challenges—associated with
the rise of modern computing information and communication technologies.
We will make the argument that CCTV systems can be understood as an
instance of an advanced information and communication technology, one
that needs to be approached with a different set of analytical tools.
Examples of how CCTV systems could be understood as a socio-
technology will be provided, and finally, we will put forward a few
recommendations on how to move forward using a socio-technical frame of
reference in approaching CCTV.

CCTV as a Socio-technology: Interplay as a Value

Nexus
Before accepting the re-narration of CCTV technology as an advanced
information technology—a socio-technical system—it is useful to provide a
historical background to this perspective. The underlying material for
writing history is often an ambiguous set of events, artifacts and ideas; that
in hindsight is narrated into somewhat of a coherent history. Similarly, there
are some fragmented, yet core ideas and historical events that deserve
attention with regard to the socio-technical tradition. For one, the
importance given to systems theory and a system’s frame of reference.
Systems theory, originating from biology studies (Von Bertalanffy 1968)
and later adopted for system analysis in computing contexts (Checkland
1993). Second, the intellectual output put forward by work psychologist in
the UK post-World War II, and in particular the attention given to
phenomenological approaches to understanding work practices from the
point of view of the involved actors. Third, the somewhat disjointed early
intellectual connections—and later formalized concepts—attempting to
problematize the often-poor fit between organizations and individuals,
using advanced modern information and communications technologies, to
achieve productivity goals. Fourth, the analytical importance given to
understanding use—over time—to achieve successful fit between
computing resources and human resources. Fifth, the development of tools
and methods to transfer successful work practices from one use context to
another.
As a pedagogical means to translate these central ideas into the context
of CCTV use and effectiveness, it could be worth making a quick mapping
to a fictive CCTV use scenario. Treating a CCTV system from a system’s
thinking point of view would acknowledge the existence of a wide set of
actors and resources, working in a coordinated fashion to achieve a certain
common goal. All of the actors and resources are active agents, meaning the
involved actors continuously interpret, construct and re-shape their
understanding of the situation. Each CCTV operator in a team of CCTV
operators represent a separate actor, with a unique set of attributes and
expectations, as a part of the wider CCTV system. What is important to
note is that a “CCTV operator” is not conflated into a unison and
unproblematized entity. This is an approach that bears resemblance to some
of the central ideas put forward by the Tavistock Institute in the UK post-
World War II. The Tavistock Institute were mainly interested in the
underlying psychology supporting the work practices that jointly optimized
humans, processes, organization and technology in UK coal mines during
the 1950s and the 1960s. An important bridging between the outputs of the
Tavistock Institute and computing use should be attributed to computing
scholar Enid Mumford (2000).
Around the same time, in 1960s Scandinavia, computing scholar Börje
Langefors (1966) articulated the info-logical equation. This was a formative
nod to the socio-technical frame of reference, which in short states that
information is a function of human interpretation applied to data. Once
again, this echoes the situation with the CCTV operators mentioned above.
Each of these operators enters the situation with certain intent, background
and a set of expectations. Any friction that might arise as a consequence of
fitting these human and technology inputs into a functioning system—for
example, CCTV operators, police practices and CCTV camera systems—
could be framed as a productivity issue. A well-known dilemma in the
context of implementing advanced information and communication
technologies is the productivity paradox. In short, this dilemma states that
the utility of a socio-technical system is not given from the onset. Instead,
and as research has shown, the utility of an advanced information
technology lies in capacity-building around use, organizational processes
and routines as complementarities to extract value from this broader type of
technology. This in turn takes time, as well as a learning mindset.
This represents the broader conceptual logic in connecting CCTV
systems with a socio-technical tradition. Before developing the idea of
treating CCTV as socio-technology further, it could be worth elaborating
some details from the logic laid out above. The productivity paradox
represents an economical framing by Noble Laureate Robert Solow (1987)
on the use of modern computing-based technologies. Hence, the
productivity paradox is also referred to as the Solow paradox and was
pointedly captured in a 1987 book review by Robert Solow:

You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity
statistics.

It wasn’t until around the turn of the millennium that researchers

Brynjolfsson and Hitt (2003) pointed to the need for aligning organizational
resources with characteristics of the technology. They drew their attention
to how the computing resources were used as being critical for gaining
value from such system types. It is the interplay that is the central analytical
concern. The work put forward by Steven Alter (2013) focusing on work
practices as an analytical anchor concerning the ambition to generate a fit
between the social and technical is worth mentioning.
We believe CCTV technologies bear more resemblance with large-scale
computing systems rather than being a closed type of technology with a
fixed inherent utility. Given this “it depends” socio-technical quality of
CCTV systems, they lend themselves to be inadequately understood using
an experimental approach for evaluation. In line with the Solow Paradox,
this complex value-creating process has been a salient feature for the use of
business information systems in corporate settings (Bjørn-Andersen et al.
1986; Mitev 1996; Vandenbosch and Ginzberg 1996–1997). Instead, it is
the interplay that is of interest. Value from business supporting technologies
is the deliberate managerial and organizational act to commit resources and
time to optimize the computing-based system support into the
organizational fabric. Upon the introduction of a new system, an
organization initiate a learning curve. This may require the acceptance of an
increased initial lower level of productivity, and projected gains may arise
years later—as a result of increased learning and work practice calibration.
We believe this map well with CCTV technologies—requiring human
operators, work practices and organizational process to support the use of
CCTV technologies.
A Socio-technical Perspective on the Use of CCTV
in Stockholm Public Transport
The Security Operations Center (SOC), serving Stockholm Public
Transport, was established in 2010 and deals with several thousands of
work items a year. Essentially, the SOC is a resource on “stand-by”—fully
dependent on the vigilance of its own staff, contracted guards as well as the
vigilance of the general public. The bulk of the SOC’s work orders start
with a reported irregularity from these different actors.
According to Aksoy (2020), in the first year of operations—in 2010—
the SOC received some 1500 calls from the general public; by 2019, this
had increased to 38,000 calls. There is little or no time devoted to the
continuous monitoring of cameras, since the sheer volume of cameras—
more than 5000—makes such a task impossible. Normally, two to three
operators work at the SOC at any given time, unless peak time demands
increased staffing. However, the 5000-plus live cameras in the CCTV
system play a critical role for the operator to make a situational assessment.
In the majority of cases, incoming calls—from staff or the general public—
prompt the assigned operator to verify details by accessing individual
CCTV cameras.
This is an important point. Working practice is not centered on what
could be referred to as “real-time” viewing, that is, there is no continuous
monitoring of cameras. According to Aksoy (2020), in the vast majority of
cases, no operator is watching the cameras as travelers pass—which means
the operation can be described as being demand driven in an economic
parlor. This demand side is represented by the Stockholm Public Transport
staff, the contracted guards and the general public.
Over the years, Stockholm Public Transport has been running awareness
campaigns, in the form of both making hotline numbers available via
billboard advertisements and printing the hotline number in the form of
stickers by the doors of each subway wagon. The broader point to be made
is that the public is a part of the overall system, and not an external actor to
it. A vigilant and informed public plays a crucial role in creating an
effective CCTV system and is consequently a key actor in the overall socio-
technical system. This resonates well with the concept of “eyes on the
street” (Jacobs 1961), a cornerstone that underpins the Crime Prevention
Through Environmental Design-approach to urban design.
This awareness of the general public—being a part of the socio-
technical system—takes years of active efforts to establish and maintain.
This is also suggested by the increased number of placed calls to the SOC
over the years of its operation. Furthermore, and once again to the social-
technical argument, trained, skilled and motivated guards obviously are
important inputs for effective CCTV use. Response time to incidents
represents one such example, which in turn hinges on experience and
geographical know-how of the involved staff. If protocol is followed, all
incidents are logged and recorded in a separate incident management
system. This facilitates improved planning and learning, as well as better
use of the various systems at hand—including CCTV.
By employing a socio-technical perspective to CCTV, it should be clear
that value-generating deployment of CCTV is not immediate. Instead,
overall CCTV effectiveness is a delayed effect of sustained, deliberate and
gradually evolving human work practices concerning the use of the
technology at hand. In the case of Stockholm Public Transport, the process
of raising awareness about the SOC has been evolving over a decade. A
steady increase in the amount of vigilant subway travelers—having the
SOC hotline programmed into their mobile phones—represents an often-
overlooked resource to achieve greater value from transport-situated CCTV
deployments. In addition, having trained, skilled and motivated guards and
CCTV operators stresses the value of investing in the socio-side to leverage
the value inherent in the supporting technology. Experimentation with info-
graphical cues also holds the potential to remind subway users of the
available safety resources, for example, physical and info-graphical
markings that show the capture areas of cameras, stickers and billboards
with printed numbers to hotlines, smartphone apps, and so on. All of these
represent passive (non-interactive) and active (interactive) touchpoints in a
wider informational environment that complements existing CCTV
systems.

Social and Technical Disconnects: The Case of

Hotspot Surveillance in Stockholm
In this section, we will instead describe a socio-technical disconnect
concerning the use of CCTV for hotspot policing in Stockholm, Sweden.
We have deliberately kept the description at a fairly high level of detail. The
purpose ultimately being to reiterate the socio-technical point. Not paying
enough detailed effort to enable a fit between organizational, human and
technical resources impedes the overall effectiveness.
As a part of an effort to test and evaluate the capacity of CCTV for
policing purposes in Stockholm, the local police authority submitted, in
2004, an application to use CCTV at two public squares known for its
intense nightlife—Stureplan and Medborgarplatsen. At this time, public use
of CCTV—by any public entity—was subject to a process of approval from
the County Administrative Board (Länsstyrelsen). After years of lower
administrative court decisions and subsequent appeals, final approval was
given in 2012. The final decision approved the use of seven cameras at
Stureplan and nine cameras at Medborgarplatsen. Moreover, privacy
concerns meant that the cameras at Stureplan were only allowed to be
operational between 23.00 and 06.00 daily and at Medborgarplatsen
between 21.00 and 05.00 daily. Clear signage was also required. Finally, it
was also stipulated that the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention
(Brottsförebyggande rådet, BRÅ) was to evaluate the crime preventive
effects of the installations over a series of years, from 2012 to 2015. In
2015, the final report was published and concluded that the installations had
no discernable effect on limiting crime in the included public squares
(Marklund and Holmberg 2015). However, an intermediate report was
published by Kindgren and Marklund (2014), looking closer into the
detailed use of these CCTV installations. And it is a telling example of a
poor fit between technology and operator resources—quite different from
the experiences reported earlier from Stockholm Public Transport.
To start with, no operator was present Monday through Thursday—even
though the approval included use all days of the week. Furthermore, of the
possible 105 hours of maximum allowed surveillance a week, only 24 hours
were utilized. This rendered an effective utilization rate of 23% over a
week; a fairly low utilization rate, given the explicit live-monitoring intent
described in the license submission.
Prompted by the previously mentioned required evaluation, the police
used—from July 2012 to March 2013—an event log to document details
from each manned time slot. A time slot in this case, as an example,
represents a police officer acting as CCTV operator between 23.00 and
06.00. Over the stated evaluation period, this amounted to 79 manned time
slots. Upon completion, the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention
received 55 full log protocols, 23 were missing and 1 was incomplete. Of
the properly documented 55 sessions, a total of 21 different police officers
were involved during the evaluation period. Fourteen of these individual
officers—a majority—staffed the system for only one or two time slots.
Five officers completed between 3 and 10 time slots, and 2 officers logged
10 time slots each.
There were also detailed descriptions of technical glitches—sudden and
random shifts from colored image to black and white, poorly installed fixed
cameras with regard to proper camera angles, lack of software multi-tasking
—forcing operator to log out of the CCTV system in order to run a license
plate check in another system, image rotation out of sync with the actual
number of cameras installed, and most importantly, inadequate or non-
existent training of CCTV operators.
Reviewing the descriptive evidence, it becomes clear that the necessary
socio-technical conditions were not met. Technical glitches were numerous;
obvious poor organizational commitment in offering proper operator
training and high degree of operator turnover—14 officers used the system
once or twice. As a comparison, experiences reported from Stockholm
Public Transport suggest it takes 9–12 months to fully train a CCTV
operator.

Moving Forward with a Socio-technical

Perspective
From the two examples mentioned earlier, we have pointed to a couple of
alternative narratives problematizing effective deployment of CCTV. We
now will point to some possible roads forward in treating CCTV systems as
socio-technical systems.
A notable and workable approach is embodied in the use of patterns,
originating from the field of urban design. Based on the work of Alexander
et al. (1977), the central idea of a pattern is to generate a densely described
solution to typical problem facing planners and architects of urban
environments. A pattern is often articulated in such a way that it seeks to
strike a balance between technical and social desires, for example,
designing a town square in such a way that it affords social interaction.
Designers of administrative computing, facing similar challenges as
urban designers, came to adopt the pattern discourse as a conceptual
mindset during the 1980s. Although originating from urban design, it could
be argued that patterns share characteristics with the more straightforward
concept of “best practice”. An underlying assumption to the concept of best
practice is the presumed and inherent opportunity of transferring
experiences from one use context to another. This has proven to be difficult,
but borrowing from the idea of computing patterns to CCTV use, one
possible way forward would be to encourage documenting success practices
relating to CCTV use.
In line with such an ambition, the increased availability of online videos
offers a possible means of documenting commonly encountered problems,
solutions and successful work practices relating to CCTV deployments.
This could be as straightforward as a set of instructional videos. A
somewhat thought-provoking example of knowledge transfer is offered by
Björgvinsson and Hillgren (2005), elaborating on a method called
indigenous design. Using this method, professional staff themselves create a
documentation of their own work practice with the intent of having it
communicated and circulated to colleagues. This could possibly serve as an
inspiration for any ambition directed at transferring experiences relating to
CCTV operations. As to what detailed entity that would take the lead on
such an initiative, we leave outside the scope of this chapter, but an industry
association could be a proper principal. To some extent, this is already in
place. The online resources provided by the College of Policing in the UK
(2021) offers a comprehensive urban safety toolkit (cf. patterns)—where
CCTV is one tool in a wider urban safety toolbox. This is readily available
for the interested CCTV practitioner and wider public. Furthermore, the
online resources offered by the College of Policing fit neatly with the earlier
mentioned realist-evaluative approach—being a part of a wider and literal
“what works” network.
Acknowledging the previously mentioned learning curve, associated
with the introduction of advanced information technologies, setting up
training schemes and learning management systems could prove a valuable
way forward for developing effective CCTV use. Often quality assurance
standards are built on the concept of quality circles, for example, the
PDCA-cycles (Plan, Do, Check, Act). PDCA is often linked to the work by
the American industrial statistician Walter Shewhart and further developed
and popularized by Ed Deming. True to the spirit of Deming’s ideas, quality
circles should not be setup in such a way it promotes harsh performance
management. Instead, the establishment of quality circles should
acknowledge that training and learning takes time. Quality circles should,
furthermore, be setup in such a way that they encourage continuous
improvements and co-worker empowerment. PDCA and quality circles
presume an underlying mindset that embraces what has been quite elegantly
framed as the willingness to embrace intelligent failures (Scott and Vessey
2000). Organizations that succeed in extracting value from advanced
enterprise-wide IT-systems often display a positive mindset to failures and
embrace the associated learning opportunities. This resonates well with the
scenario described in the previous section on Stockholm Public Transport.
Key points:
Technology comes in different forms. A distinct class of technologies are
advanced information technologies. These technologies generate value
by means of a complex interplay between human, organizational and
technological inputs—over time.
The organizational implementation of advanced information technologies
shares characteristics with the challenges facing architects and urban
designers. Patterns (or best practices) represents a method for
transferring socio-technical lessons learnt within the field of architecture
and urban design. The use of various forms of patterns has gained
popularity in the area of software development and software
implementation.
Assuming the design and deployment of CCTV systems bears
resemblance with the design and deployment of advanced organization-
wide information technologies, patterns could serve as an overarching
approach to transfer successful socio-technical CCTV work practices.
Furthermore, a salient feature of successful deployment of organization-
wide information technologies includes a focus on learning, training, the
establishment of technology-compatible work practices, trial and error-
acceptance and continuous improvements (cf. PDCA—Plan-Do-Check-
Act cycles), and so on. Anecdotal evidence suggests a similar learning
approach resonates well with the successful deployment of CCTV
systems.
Conclusions
While it may come across as somewhat self-evident that successful CCTV
deployment is a socio-technical process, we believe this proposed re-
narration challenges the notion that CCTV comes with a certain fixed and
“built-in” utility. Instead, CCTV systems bear more resemblance to
advanced and organization-wide information technology systems. The case
of Stockholm Public Transport pointed to the importance of having properly
trained CCTV operators, as well as having properly trained and skilled
guards. Furthermore, widening the system boundary to include the general
public allows us to recognize the value of a vigilant general public to trigger
the benefits of an available public CCTV system. Somewhat rephrased, a
socio-technical approach allows us to see a public CCTV system as being
merely an intermediary lower-level system, subordinate to a higher-level
public safety system. Consequently, it could correctly be argued that the
value-generation of public CCTV deployments partially lies in the hands of
the general public themselves.
As the case of hotspot policing in Stockholm showed, we also pointed
out a number of associated technical issues impeding effective use of
CCTV. Just as in the case of introducing advanced information
technologies, proper training and quality assurance systems are necessary,
for example, in the form of quality circles and PDCA-cycles.
Although there is an extensive set of different CCTV uses, crime
prevention in particular is worth mentioning. Seen from a socio-technical
perspective, successful crime prevention using CCTV is a delayed
consequence of the socio-technical interplay; a system needs to learn—by
experience and feedback loops.
Technological developments are also worth mentioning—since much of
the increasing utility of CCTV is driven by technological advances. High-
resolution image quality has for a longtime been an industry standard—and
it is still improving. Treating CCTV narrowly as a fixed input, for example,
as wall-mounted fixed-angle CCTV cameras, is simplistic.
Treating CCTV as a socio-technical system opens up new avenues for
researching CCTV. It represents a novel perspective that complements both
critical and rigorous approaches to understanding CCTV use and
effectiveness. For CCTV practitioners, a first step to heed the socio-
technical aspirations laid out in this chapter would be to point to a CCTV
system and literally refer to it as “a piece of socio-technology”—paving the
way for a re-narration of CCTV effectiveness. As a result of such a
sustained change in the discourse concerning CCTV effectiveness, a socio-
technical approach could—as a second step—trigger efforts and ambitions
to share best practices among CCTV peers.

Recommended Readings
Over the years, our experience tells us that protocols from governmental,
public agencies and court rulings have provided valuable clues and insights
to provide a contextual understanding to national CCTV use. For regulative
concerns, national Data Protection Authority is a useful point of departure,
as well the European Data Protection Board. For nation-wide surveys, the
studies by Lahtinen (2017, 2018, 2019) enable for multi-year comparisons
of public opinion to public CCTV in Sweden.
The meta-analysis by Piza et al. (2019) provides an excellent summary
on the past 40 years’ worth of experimental research on CCTV
effectiveness. The earlier mentioned online resources offered by the College
of Policing (2021) in the UK fit well with the realist and socio-
technological message of this chapter. The article by Taylor and Gill (2014)
is a relevant read, since many raised problematizations on CCTV
effectiveness still warrants further investigation and research. For CCTV
practitioners, security and CCTV online news source IPVM.com, run by
John Honovich, provides an unrivaled resource for news, reviews, industry
insights and CCTV testing. Security trade shows represent a worthwhile
opportunity to experience the security and CCTV industry in “flesh and
blood”, often complemented with speakers addressing CCTV insights.
Finally, a generation of CCTV engineers, who started their careers in the
1960s, are reaching the upper age bracket. Tapping into those individual’s
stories and experiences is an invaluable source of insights into the early
years of remote TV-monitoring.

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32. Intrusion Detection Systems in

Physical Security
David J. Brooks1
(1) Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, WA, Australia

David J. Brooks
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
The chapter considers Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) when applied in
the protection of assets as a Defence in Depth strategy. Defence in Depth
deters, detects, delays and responds. IDS is an automated technology that
deters, detects and communicates the presence or attempted presence of a
person or object intruding within a designated zone.
Elementary to successful detection are IDS sensing detectors, in which
detect is achieved by the geometry of detection through the anticipated
intrusion vector. Sensing detectors have a field of view exposed to a
designated zone, where the sensor is stimulated when exposed to a
compatible person or object through emitted or reflected energy, a pressure
wave or molecular decay. There are a taxonomy of sensing detectors,
categorized by either the dimension of detection or more commonly,
application. Dimension of sensing detectors range from zero to four
dimensions, whereas application range from internal or external and
mounted, free-standing or buried.
Efficacy factors of IDS include their degree of deterrence, the
probability of intrusion detection and whether IDS alters deviant behaviour.
Finally, application issues include the nuisance alarm rate, electronic
security sector and its regulatory regimes, and future trends in IDS are
considered.
Introduction
Intrusion detection systems were once the domain of governments and
high-value commercial premises (Gilbertson 2005: 499); however, over
time these systems have become a protective norm. Consequently, today
they are far more common in our built environment as a primary method for
the protection of people, information and assets. As Durant et al. state,
intrusion detection systems ‘form the backbone of a facility’s physical
protection program’ (2020: 433). Nevertheless such an approach is
problematic, as using an intrusion detection system as the primary treatment
strategy limits the physical security system ability to diagnose threats and
infer the most appropriate risk treatment strategy. This is an issue born from
the seminal security literature, which takes an applied treatment approach to
intrusion detection systems.
An intrusion detection system may be considered an automated
technology, implemented to detect and communicate the presence of a
person or object in a designated spot, area or zone (Brooks and Coole
2019). Such a system supports the security theory of defence in depth, to
deter, detect, delay and respond. The intrusion detection system provides a
degree of deterrence conditional on the threat, but has the primary function
of detecting a person or object. Nevertheless, to achieve efficacy in
detection requires the physical security system to assess and activate a
response to interrupt the intrusion.
Increased application of intrusion detection systems as a security
technology have been driven by a significant reduction in their cost,
improved technology due to microelectronics, an increase in personal
prosperity and a greater reliance on technology, which is in contrast with
downward trends in crimes, especially property crime (Prenzler and Sarre
2012: 39). A view supported by Park (2002: 57), in which market demand
continues to drive installation of these systems. Furthermore, both the
private security industry, through self-interest, and police, support intrusion
detection systems. Nevertheless, the private security industry is prone to
systemic failures (Brooks 2011: 102) stemming from a lack of training,
quality of installations, ineffective self or government regulation and
limiting legislation (Prenzler and Sarre 2012).
Therefore, this chapter considers intrusion detection system factors such
as definition to support a more precise language (Kahneman 2011: 4),
theories that support intrusion detection systems as a security strategy, the
need to apply the principle of geometry of detection and application issues
such as the impact of installation quality and nuisance alarms. The
geometry of detection, thought vectors of intrusion, leads to a taxonomy of
sensing detectors based on spatial dimensionality. However, the sensing
detector is only one part of the system that has other discrete elements
integrated to form the intrusion detection system, which in itself is only one
element of the physical security system. Consequently, without appropriate
detection, general an intrusion detection system, a security system cannot
be effective.

What Is an Intrusion Detection System?

Intrusion detection systems are considered by different terms, depending on
their application and geographical location. For example, in the United
States ASIS International refer to these systems as an ‘intrusion detection
system’ (Walsh and Healy 2012: 91), whereas in Australia they are called
‘intruder alarm system’ (Standards Australia 2007). Other common terms
include alarm system (BSI 2017), burglar alarm or, simply, an alarm.
Intrusion detection system is also a commonly used term within information
technology or cybersecurity, as equipment or software that monitors a
computer network for malicious or policy violations (Abaimov and
Martellini 2017: 31).
Nevertheless, Standards Australia considers intrusion detection systems
as a system that is ‘designed to detect and signal the presence, entry or
attempted entry of an intrusion into an alarmed area’ (Australia 2007: 7).
Consequently, for the intent of this chapter an intrusion detection system is
defined as an:

Automated technology designed and implemented to detect and

communicate the presence of a person or object in a designated
zone. (Brooks and Coole 2019: 161)

Security literature generally considers intruder detection systems from a

dichotomy, either a domestic or commercial system. Nevertheless, as a
‘system’ there is limited difference in principles, design, technology,
application and maintenance. What should define the intrusion detection
system are diagnosed threats and risks, achieved in part through security
risk management. Diagnosis infers the expected physical security protection
system and the level of detection to support the system’s efficacy as a
contextual treatment strategy. Consequently, the difference in these systems
is not in their technology; rather, the applied environment and its contextual
threats and risks.

Theories to Support Intrusion Detection Systems

There are several theories, models and principles, drawn from various
disciplines such as criminology, engineering or security science, which
provide a foundational understanding of intrusion detection systems. These
theories extend from expected utility, rational choice (Clarke and Cornish
1985) and routine activity theory (Cohen and Felson 1979) to situational
crime prevention (Clarke 1997) and crime prevention through
environmental design (CPTED) (Lab 2016). To discuss these many
theories, model or principles is beyond the scope of this chapter; only the
explicit principles related to intrusion detection systems are presented (Fig.
32.1), namely security in depth, defence in depth and protection in depth.

Fig. 32.1 Relationship between security, defence and protection in depth

 The relationship between security in depth, defence in depth and
protection in depth (Garcia 2008) is important in understanding the
language and providing clarity (Coole et al. 2012; Kahneman 2011) of a
physical security system and its intrusion detection element.

Security in Depth
Security in depth is an approach where holistic treatments to security
protection and resilience are provided based on the contextual threats and
risks, cognizant that layers of protection are insufficient in some
circumstances. The principle combines prevention, preparation, response
and recovery. For an organization, security in depth is the ‘sum of all
security layers, physical and logical, which stand between an adversary and
a protected target’ (Coole et al. 2012: 32), extended to integrate governance,
policies and procedures, continuity and management of the security
function.
In contrast, defence in depth is the concept that to accomplish their goal
intruders are required to avoid or defeat a sequential number of protective
devices (Garcia 2008; Smith and Brooks 2013) or layers. Protection in
depth applies the same goal as defence in depth, but to a single layer. It is
important to note that a security layer can be a physical, demarcation or
electronic barrier, a procedure or a physical person such as a guard, staff
member or general public. A layer in an intrusion detection system
generally provides detection, although for covert intrusions it may also
provide a degree of delay.

Defence in Depth
The primary function of an intrusion detection system, as an element of a
physical security system, is to support defence in depth. Defence in depth is
a strategy of enclosing an asset with a succession of layers, which has been
applied for many centuries. It provides for the protection of assets through
the elements of deter, detect, delay and response. In the physical security
system, an intrusion detection system deters, detects and to some degree,
delays, a person or object of interest. Deterrence is achieved when the
physical security system appears sufficient that potential intruders perceive
that an attack is too difficult or risky for the expected payoff, meeting
rational choice theory.
 Detection of overt or covert intrusion must be accomplished to prevent a
successful penetration. Detection is a critical function of the defence in
depth strategy, as it is only a matter of time before an intruder penetrates all
layers to reach the asset. Effective physical security is related to time at
detection; therefore, timely detection is required to facilitate apprehension
(Garcia 2008).
Delay is the progress of intrusion through layers. Delay may be
achieved in a covert intrusion, where the intruder is slowed through
attempts to bypass or technically defeat the intrusion detection system or
detection sensors. Finally, timely response must interrupt and counter the
intrusion. Any response must be less than the layer(s) delay time after
detection, or else intrusion will be completed before responders’ attendance
(Smith and Brooks 2013: 107–108).

Principle of Intrusion Detection

The principle of detection relies on sensing technology to discover and
respond to the presence of a person or object within its environmental field
of view. That is, if the purpose of intrusion detection system is to detect the
presence or activity of something, then the sensing technology must be
devised to respond to that anticipated stimuli. Automated systems generally
comprise of detection (sense), processing (decide) and output (action)
elements (Brooks and Coole 2019: 2). Therefore, a schematic approach to
the function of detection (Fig. 32.2) demonstrates how the intrusion
detection system senses the presence or activities of a person or object and
responses to anomalous activity.
Fig. 32.2 Intrusion detection system events. (Adjusted from Brooks and Coole 2019)

Intrusion detection comprises of sequential events:

Stimuli (1) must be produced by the presence or activities of a person or
object as it moves into the sensing detector’s field of view. The stimuli
could be emitted energy such as infrared radiation, a reflected wave such
as microwave radiation, a pressure wave such as sound or molecular
decay of a material.
A sensor (2) reacts to the compatible stimuli. The sensor has a finite field
of view in which it can sense, from zero to four dimensions (see
geometry of detection). Sensing detectors range from a passive infrared
detector seeking emitted infrared radiation, break-glass detector tuned to
the frequency of breaking glass to an active microwave detector that
receives a reflected Doppler microwave.
An algorithm, within the microelectronic decision circuit, decides (3)
from a priori defined threshold whether to act (4) to produce a binary
output (Narayana et al. 2015) or alarm. The alarm indicates that an
anomalous-stimuli has been detected.
A person or thing assesses (5) the alarm to judge the validity of the alarm
and whether to initiate a response to interrupt (6) the person or object.
The assessor may be a person such as a security guard or a logical
software program that follows a predefined protocol.
These events demonstrate that the process of intrusion detection is not
instantaneous. The ability to detect relies not only the sensing detector, but
also the sum of the components, devices and processes that form the
intrusion detection system and physical security system.

Geometry of Intrusion Detection

Detection is the discovery, through sensing stimuli, of a person or object.
To achieve detection requires an understanding of the characteristics of the
anticipated target (threat), the viable vector of intrusion, the sensing
detector’s field of view, it’s underlying physics and the sensor’s
environment. The sum of these factors must be designed and applied to
achieve efficacy in the geometry of detection.
To understand the intrusion threat requires diagnosis and inference,
followed by treatment. Diagnosis identifies and articulates the security
problem, using processes such as security risk management and facility
characterization. Inference is the process of decision-making, to reach the
optimal security mitigation strategy among many. Finally, treatment is the
design and application of security, such as an intrusion detection system
within a physical security system. Although security risk management
processes are well documented through such guides as the International
Standards Organisation ISO 31000 Risk Management, ANSI/ASIS/RIMS
RA.1–2015 Risk Assessment Standard and Australian Handbook HB167
Security Risk Management, there still lacks professional practice (Coole et
al. 2018) in the diagnoses of the problem. In contrast, most approaches to
intrusion detection application focus solely on treatment. For example, a
security engineer may design a system by placing sensing detectors onto a
two-dimensional floor plan, without an elevation plan or importantly, a
security risk management assessment or security strategy.
The intrusion threat has many characteristics such as direction
(horizontally to vertically), speed (fast to slow), size (large to small),
proximity to the sensing detector (close to far) and chemical make-up when
entering the sensor’s field of view. Therefore, a sensing detector must be
designed and applied to maximize its strength based on its underlying
physics principles, whilst minimizing inherent vulnerabilities. For example,
a passive infrared detector most effectively sense targets moving across its
field of view at an ideal distance and speed within an ideal temperature
threshold. Consequently, a passive infrared detector is inherently vulnerable
when sensing a target moving directly towards itself.
 Nevertheless, sensing detectors can be defeated through a variety of
methods, such as bypass, spoofing or technical defeat. Bypass may include
going over, under or around the detector’s field of view. Spoofing is
defeating the detector by moving through its field of view without
stimulating the sensor above its activation threshold. Technical defeat is the
ability to modify the input or output function of the sensor or intrusion
detection system. The ability to successfully defeat a detector requires both
capability and knowledge of the detector, the intrusion detection system and
applied environment, and the physical security system.
Intrusion detection systems achieve discovery, in part, through the
geometry of protection (Underwood 1984). The geometry of protection
occurs when the sensor detects intrusion through someone or something
contacting a point, moving across a line or through a space. The aim of
employing sensors across the geometry is to achieve what Garcia (2008)
and Wyss (2009) term ‘balanced protection’, whereas every viable intrusion
scenario pathway achieves an appropriate level of detection. Therefore, it is
important to understand each viable pathway or vector that an intruder may
take into the protected area.
The vector of intrusion is the physical pathway into a protected zone or
area, such as a room, that an intruder could viably take. Such a zone is
three-dimensional and has to consider the floor, ceiling or roof, walls and
any portals. Portals may include vehicle and personal gates or doors, service
and maintenance hatches, and other utility penetrations.
To counter the vector of intrusion requires sensing detectors across the
spatial dimensions. Dimensions range from zero to four (Fig. 32.3).

Fig. 32.3 Sensing detectors spatial dimensions

 Zero-dimension is a single point on or in space. One-dimension is a
single line or beam across space. Two-dimensions are multiple lines that are
stacked in either the horizontal or vertical plane. Three-dimensions is a
volumetric space, with the fourth dimension extending volumetric space
over a period of time. As each dimension is applied, from zero to fourth, it
may be considered that the theoretical probability of detection increases and
the sensing detector becomes more difficult to defeat. For example, it is
more difficult to move a physical mass such as a person through volumetric
space, as opposed to moving the same mass through, over or around a
single point in space. Nevertheless, such a principle cannot be taken as an
absolute rule, due to the applied limitations of the sensing detectors
underlying physics and their applied environment.
Sensing detectors all have a finite field of view in which it can sense the
anticipated stimulus, in which it ‘protects’ a designated zone or area. The
field of view is defined by the sensor’s dimensionality and, more
importantly, its underlying physics. For example, a zero-dimension door
reed switch will have a field of view ranging in millimetres. A one-
dimensional active microwave beam will have a narrow, but long field of
view of up to 100 metres. Whereas, a three-dimensional volumetric
pyroelectric passive infrared sensor will have a field of view extending
across 10 metres (Narayana et al. 2015: 142).
The selection and application of the sensing detector plays an important
role in designing an effective intrusion detection system. Many sensing
detectors are applied from a treatment approach. For example, Garcia
(2008) presents sensors within two broad categories of exterior and interior.
Such an approach reduces the ability of the security designer to take a
principles approach in the design and application sensors. Furthermore,
there is no single consensual approach to intrusion detection system sensor
taxonomy.

Taxonomy of Sensing Detectors

There are different taxonomies in the categorization of sensing detectors.
For example, Smith and Brooks suggest that ‘detection technologies can be
categorised as single or many-dimensional’ (2013: 141) or according to
Underwood, by their geometry of protection (1984: 137). In contrast,
Garcia’s (2008) classification employs an application taxonomy with
passive or active, covert or visible, line-of-sight or terrain-following,
volumetric or line detection, and application. Another approach is put
forward by Durant et al. (2020: 436) with a division of perimeter, area and
spot protection. Finally, detectors can also be categorized by their sensors
underlying physics of operation or where they may be located on the
electromagnetic spectrum, such as radio, microwave, infrared or x-ray.
Nevertheless, taxonomy can best be presented in accordance to the
geometry of detection (Table 32.1).
Table 32.1 Geometric taxonomy of sensing detectors

Dimension Detector Example of sensing detectors

0 Point Operates at a zero-dimension. A point on a window, door, safe, wall or
fence. Examples are door reed switch or micro-switch.
1 Line Operates as a single line or beam. A line across a door, corridor, wall or
fence. Examples are active infrared photoelectric beams across a space or
fibre optic cables along walls or fences.
2 Wall or Operates multiple lines or beams in either the vertical or horizontal plane.
blanket Multiple lines across a door, corridor, wall or fence. Examples are
vibration detector on walls or active stacked infrared photoelectric beams.
3 Volumetric Operates within a region of dimensional space. Volumetric space in a
room, corridor or open space. Examples are microwave, ultrasonic and
passive infrared detectors.
4 Volumetric Operates within a region of dimensional space over a period of time.
over time Volumetric space in a room, corridor or open space over time. Examples
are CCTV system with a record and replay function.

Adjusted from Smith and Brooks (2013: 141–142)

Elements of an Intrusion Detection System

A typical intrusion detection system comprises of discrete devices and
equipment integrated into a system. The control panel comprises of a
central microprocessor, with memory, input and output interfaces, and an
uninterruptable power supply. Detectors will comprise of various types of
sensors, depending on the anticipated threats and risks, and their applied
environment. A user interface, such as a keypad, radio frequency
identification (RFID) token or computer allows users to interact with the
system. The annunciator may include internal and external audible and
visual warning devices, and an off-site monitored communication function.
Levels of Applied Detection
The efficacy of the intrusion detection system to provide a reliable and valid
detection is the sum of the control panel, sensing detectors and its
associated devices, and the physical security system within the context of
the realized threat. Therefore, a thorough diagnosis of the threat level, and
the construction and operational use should be carried out to maximize the
efficiency of the panel type, location, quantity and combination of sensing
detectors. Inappropriate detector design or integration into the physical
security system will result in a significant reduction in the ability of the
intrusion detection system to achieve its design outcomes, that is meet or
exceed the anticipated threats.
From an application context, as threats and risks increase, so should the
capability of the intrusion detection system. Consequently, at a low threat
level a system may only require relatively few point-sensing detectors and
local alarm annunciation. As the threat increases, the degree of protection
should be commensurate to the detection capability of the intrusion
detection system. For example, increased detection capability may include
two sensing detectors that have overlapping field of views and apply a
binary OR logic function to increase the geometry of detection. In addition,
the use of sensing detectors on enclosures and housings to detect
unauthorized tampering to withstand internal covert or overt manipulation
to disable the system. Finally, that internal and remote communication lines
are supervised to mitigate line tampering, such as bypass, disconnection or
spoofing.
Categorization through grading intrusion detection systems has been
used by a number of international and national standards. For example,
Australian Standard AS2201 use classes of systems defined by the assessed
threat. As the threat increases, so does the required capability of the
intrusion detection system and its associated devices. Such an approach
(Table 32.2) is also used by European and British Standards EN 50131–1
(BSI 2017), using grades of systems.
Table 32.2 Grading of intrusion detection systems

Grade Assessed System descriptor

threat
1 Low Intruder is expected to have little knowledge of intruder detection system and be
restricted to limited range of available tools
Grade Assessed System descriptor
threat
2 Low to Intruder is expected to have limited knowledge of intruder detection system and
medium have the use of a general range of tools and portable instruments that is multi-
meter
3 Medium Intruder is expected to be conversant with intruder detection systems and have a
to high comprehensive range of tools and portable electronic equipment
4 High Used when security takes precedence over all other factors. Intruder is expected
to have the ability or resource to plan an intrusion in detail and have a full range
of equipment, including means to substitute intruder detection system
components

BSI (2017: 1)

Furthermore, an intrusion detection system is installed at a point in time,

whereas threat is dynamic and may increase beyond the system’s capability.
Such change will result in security decay (Coole and Brooks 2009), where
the threat exceeds the mitigation ability of the system to provide an
appropriate level of protection.

The Efficacy of Intrusion Detection Systems

The objective in the design, application and maintenance of an intrusion
detection system is to reduce or eliminate (unrealistically) threats such as
unauthorized entry, assault, loss of property or victimization (Buck et al.
1993: 497). Others use these systems ‘in reaction to an escalating fear of
crime, coupled with the low cost and availability of sophisticated
electronics’ (Gilbertson 2005: 499). Prenzler and Sarre (2012: 39) support
such a view, suggesting that the take-up of security technology is due to
increasing prosperity, personal mobility and greater reliance on security
technology in what is conversely, a period with a downward trend in crime.
It is often considered that through physical security, intrusion detection
systems lead to a clear deterrent (Armitage 2017: 285) and reduction in
crime, especially property crime (Van Dijk 2012). However, to make such
an assertion is inappropriate, as there is restricted research into intrusion
detection systems and to compound this limitation, many competing
environmental variables. For example, Tseloni et al. (2017: 646) found that
intrusion detection systems ‘confer less protection than no security’.
Nevertheless, as Lee and Wilson (2012: 3) suggest, there is a dearth of
evidence on the effectiveness of intrusion detections systems and very few
studies have been carried out under robust experimental conditions.
Consequently, it is important to understand the efficacy of intrusion
detection systems factors, such as:
1.
What are the capability of intrusion detection systems to detect
attempted or actual unauthorized activity?
2.
Do intrusion detection systems deter, being what factors reduce the
likelihood of attempted or actual unauthorized activity?
3.
Who uses intrusion detection systems to manage their threats and risks?

Detection Capability: Do Intrusion Detection Systems Detect?

The ability of an intrusion detection system to detect an intrusion is based
on many factors, not least the level of applied intrusion detection (see Table
32.2), the quality of design and installation, the anticipated threat and
applied environment, and its integration into the physical security system.
Nevertheless, the capability of an intrusion detection system can be
measured using the probability of interruption, being the ‘cumulative
probability of detection from the start of an adversary path to the point
determined by the time available for response’ (Garcia 2008: 336).
In other words, the intruder undertakes a sequence of tasks, such as
moving through a path of detecting sensors and physical delay barriers that
if detected, allows the response to assess and interrupt the intruder in less
time than the physical delay. Such a sequence can be calculated using
Garcia’s (2008) Estimate of Adversary Sequence Interruption (EASI)
model, which provide metrics in the probabilities of detection and
interruption (See Recommended Reading Garcia 2008).
The time between the first sensor detecting and an appropriate
interruptive response defines the capability of the intrusion detection system
and physical security system. Nevertheless, there are factors that impact on
the ability to assess probabilities of interpretation. Most intrusion detection
systems do not have an assessment of this measure, as it is not well known
in the security industry, let alone by consumers. An intrusion detection
system is often installed not as an element of a physical security system, but
as a standalone system. Such an approach limits a defence in depth
approach in which detection initiates a response and delay slows the
intrusion to achieve an interruption.
Response rates are rarely calculated in the application of intrusion
detection systems. As Butler states, the ‘response time by Police may be up
to 20 minutes, as in domestic burglary … and this allows time for the
burglar to commit the offence and escape’ (Butler 1994: 39). For example, a
burglar will be inside a property for no more than 5 to 15 minutes (Gately et
al. 2014: 5). In addition, assessing probabilities of interpretation adds cost
to the design and application process, and such an assessment is based on
the expected threat.

Do Intrusion Detection Systems Deter?

Deterrence is the ability to discourage an unauthorized entry into an area by
making successful entry appear difficult or impossible (Garcia 2008: 330).
In other words, that attempted entry is more likely to result in detection and
apprehension, leading to a greater risk for the intruder. As Armitage states,
physical security ‘increase the difficulty of breaking in, they increase the
time it takes to enter a property and … increase the likelihood of detection’
(2017: 290).
Nevertheless, offenders revealed that 33% check for the presence of an
intrusion detection system during planning, which directs their choice of
targets (Lab 2016). Such findings are supported by Gately et al., who found
that 49% of burglars were deterred by these systems (Gately et al. 2014: 5);
however, other crime prevention strategies such as external lights and door
locks (Tseloni et al. 2017: 646), a dog (Gately et al. 2014) and natural
surveillance (Cromwell et al. 1991) are more effective deterrents. Due to
their opportunistic nature, low threat (less experienced and resourced)
intruders tend to be deterred by an intrusion detection system. As Carmel-
Gilfilen (2013) suggests, security measures such as strengthening formal
surveillance, extending guardianship, using place managers and controlling
access provide a better deterrence than intrusion detection systems.
In contrast, Weisel (2002) and Sampson (2007) (cited by Lee and
Wilson 2012), and Coupe and Kaur (2005: 55) assert that intrusion
detection systems are among the most effective security deterrents.
However, when comparing security strategies such as formal surveillance
with neighbours (Armitage 2017; Lab 2016), occupancy (Roth 2018: 719),
physical security with locks and lighting (Tseloni et al. 2017), and dogs
(Gately et al. 2014), intrusion detection systems are consistently less
effective in providing a degree of deterrence.
Spatial mapping of crime hotspots against known intrusion detection
systems suggest that these systems provide a benefit. For example, Lee and
Wilson (2012: 1) concluded that intrusion detection systems are generally
installed in concentrated clusters and that has a beneficial impact on
reducing crime. Nevertheless, is this the intrusion detection system
deterrence effect or the saturation of security strategies, which has a known
crime reducanism impact (Brooks et al. 2015: 5) or other environmental
factors? As Tseloni et al. (2017: 646) found, combination of security
strategies confers greater protection than individual security devices. Such
findings suggest that security strategies applied to saturation in an
environment will have a crime reduction impact.
The physical built environment has the potential to deter unauthorized
activity. Nevertheless, the ability to measure deterrence is difficult.
Deterrence can only be considered effective if the contextual threat is low,
with threat defined by the adversary’s intent (desire and expectance) and
capability (resources and knowledge) (Smith and Brooks 2013: 64). Once
the sum of intent and capability increase, deterrence provides only minimal,
if any, protection and reliance is placed on the physical security system.
Notwithstanding these factors, intrusion detection systems do provide a
level of situational crime prevention through target hardening by providing
the element of detection. In addition, evidence does suggest that these
systems do provide some, if limited, degree of deterrence (Armitage 2017;
Coupe and Kaur 2005; Lee and Wilson 2012).

Who Uses Intrusion Detections Systems?

An important aspect in the decision to use an intrusion detection system is
the ability of the user to pay. In general communities rely on public security,
namely the police; however, if they feel unsafe and have the financial
means, people will procure additional security in the form of private
security. As Roth (2018: 720) suggests, lower-income homes have a higher
burglary victimization rates than wealthier residents. As a technology,
intrusion detection systems are a primary part of the private security sector.
Lee and Wilson go further by stating that the ‘residential burglar alarms
accounts for a substantial portion of all alarms sold and reflects in part
increased adaptive approaches by homeowners to supplement the protective
services provided by local law enforcement agencies’ (Lee and Wilson
2012: 2).
Financial means, in certain communities, result in a clustering of
intrusion detection systems at the neighbourhood level (Lee and Wilson
2012: 16). Such concentrated spatial clusters support the view that growth
and, therefore, use of these systems are driven to a degree by market
demand, users’ prosperity and greater reliance on security technology
(Prenzler and Sarre 2012: 38–39).
Nevertheless, the British Security Industry Association investigated
domestic application trends in intrusion detection systems. The BSIA report
suggested that people do not place a high value on owning such a system
and that was related to a lack of objective awareness of actual risks (Park
2002: 57). For example, in the domestic environment, people will improve
their dwelling’s security during ‘general improvements’ (48.33%), when
they are burgled (9.33%) or when a neighbour is burgled (3.25%) (British
Crime Survey 2011). Other motivating factors for improving security is an
increase in local (5.86%) and general crime (5.14%) or burglaries (6.00%),
advice from the police (2.88%) and leaving the dwelling empty (3.33%)
(British Crime Survey 2011).
The Australian Standard AS2201 on intrusion detection systems, among
others, takes a risk-based approach to its applied level of security. Prior to
the installation of a system, a risk assessment has to be carried out by the
private security seller in conjunction with the client (Standards Australia
2007: 5). The classification of the intrusion detection system is defined by
the assessed consequence and likelihood of an ‘attack’, ranging from Class
1, being low security and requiring a basic intrusion system, to Class 5,
being high security with encrypted communications. Nevertheless, taking
such a risk-based approach is prone to many risk-related factors such as
perception, judgement, risk gaming (by either party) or poor decision-
making (Smith and Brooks 2013: 70–75). As Breakwell succinctly notes,
people fail miserably when it comes to rational decision-making in risk
(2007: 79), let alone when integrating with technology.

Application Issues with Intrusion Detection

Systems
Intrusion detection systems form an integral part of a physical security
system; however, the quality of these systems is prone to systematic failure
at many levels (Brooks 2011: 101). Failures occur from limited national
standards, licensing regimes that have restricted power or resources to
oversee the private security industry, and an industry that has minimal
formal training, resulting in issues such as poor design, application and
maintenance.

Quality of Design and Installations

Legislation, national standards and industry licensing attempt to improve
the quality of intrusion detection systems, their design, installation and
maintenance. As Prenzler and Sarre suggests, ‘change has largely been
driven by recurring conduct scandals ... and competency standard in an
attempt to diminish widespread concerns about the industry’ (2012: 38).
Consequently, in Australia, this has resulted in a ‘high degree of regulation
of the security industry’ (Sarre and Prenzler 2011: 5). Nevertheless, there is
still significant systematic failure of the private security sector (Brooks
2011) and its regulators (government and police) to provide appropriate
oversight.
For example, Brooks (2011) evaluated the compliance of the Australian
private security industry to Australian Standard AS2201.1. AS2201 is the
primary standard defining the ‘minimum requirements for the construction,
installation, operation and maintenance of intruder alarm equipment and
installed systems … for private premises, commercial premises and special
installations’ (SAI Global 2020). The study found that a significant number
of intrusion detection systems were non-compliant to AS2201 (Brooks
2011).
The AS2201 requires intrusion detection system control equipment be
located within a protected zone, outside the entry/exit point and operate in
dual end-of-line supervision (Standards Australia 2007). Nevertheless, a
significant proportion of the systems measured did not comply with the
standard, with 18% of panels outside a protected zone, 15% located in the
entry/exit point, 46% not capable of dual end-of-line supervision and 59%
configured in single end-of-line supervision (Brooks 2011: 101). These
aspects contravene the AS2201 and demonstrated systemic failure with
intrusion detection systems and parts of the private security sector.
The Impact of Nuisance Alarms
Intrusion detection system nuisance and false alarms have had a significant
impact in previous decades with users, responders and the private security
industry. As Durant et al. states, ‘a vast majority of alarms are nuisance or
false alarms’ (Durant et al. 2020: 438). Consequently, the Australian
Institute of Criminology felt that it is imperative that false alarms are
investigated thoroughly, as it is likely that the police will not respond to
genuine alarms (2004: 50).
Furthermore, ‘false alarms are responsible for absorbing a
disproportionate level of resources of the police, the alarm industry, clients
and operators, and it is in the interests of those concerned that all parties
seek to reduce their false alarms to a minimum’ (National Security
Inspectorate 2007: 2). A view supported by Gilbertson who stated that
‘public law enforcement response to private security alarms can be a
significant resource allocation issue’ (Gilbertson 2005: 499). The issue with
nuisance alarm has come to a situation where many police jurisdictions will
not respond to intrusion detection system alarms.
There is a distinction between nuisance and false alarms. Nuisance
alarms are defined as one attributed to a known cause unrelated to an
intrusion attempt, such wind, rain, an animal or insect, or systems
malfunction (Garcia 2008: 335). In contrast, false alarms are defined as one
attributed to internal equipment failure with no discernible cause, such as
inappropriate design, detecting sensor selection or maintenance. A false
alarm may be considered a subset of nuisance alarms (Garcia 2008: 332).
Nuisance alarms are measured as the nuisance alarm rate (NAR), being the
number of generated alarms over a period of time. The ideal NAR is zero,
although all sensing detectors interact with their environment and cannot
always discriminate between intrusions and other environmental factors
(Walsh and Healy 2012: 93).
The first study to review intrusion detection system alarm activations
found that greater than 95% were false alarms (Cunningham and Taylor
1985: 208). More recently, Minnaar found that in South Africa up to 90% of
alarms were false (2004: 27). Of concern are homeowners and building
operators who have a limited interest in the false alarm issue (Park 2002:
57).
Nevertheless, work by government and the private security sector has
led to some reduction in nuisance alarms. For example, despite the increase
in the use of intrusion detection systems, the nuisance alarm rate has begun
to reduce from a rate of 1.75 to 0.96 alarms per intrusion detection system
(Gilbertson 2005: 501). The reason for such a reduction is not clear, as
Gilbertson’s study population were exposed to punitive nuisance alarm
penalties by local government. However, such a level of reduction is where
relevant associations, such as the National Burglar and Fire Alarm
Association, strives to achieve, being one alarm per year for each system
(ASIS International 2015: 276).
Nonetheless, such punitive measures could have some reductionist
effect through improved owner awareness; however, other factors have to
be considered. Such factors may include improved intrusion detection
technology, more intelligent sensing detectors, greater use of dedicated
security monitoring control rooms, improving quality in design and
maintenance by the private security industry and the move away from a
police response. Although nuisance alarms are reducing, the cost of such
alarms are borne by the user.

Conclusion
Intrusion detection systems are a common security technology within the
built environment, applied as a situational crime prevention strategy in
physical security. The application of these systems supports the security
principle of defence in depth, to deter, detect and, in some cases, delay,
resulting in an increased risk of unauthorized intrusion. Within detect, an
intrusion detection system discovers the presence or activity, through
sensing, of an attempted or actual intrusion and generates an alarm for the
physical security system to assess, respond and interrupt the intrusion.
To achieve efficacy in detection requires an appropriate geometry of
detection. Geometry of detection is the sum of the threat characteristics or
specifically, anticipated target, the sensing detector’s finite environmental
field of view and underlying physics principles, and the vector of intrusion.
The vector of intrusion is the viable path into the three-dimensional
protected security zone, although sensing detectors detect between zero to
four dimensions. Nevertheless, an intrusion detection system is not only the
sensing detector rather an integration of discrete elements and devices to
form the system.
 Intrusion detection systems is an automated technology used to mitigate
threats and risks; however, their ability to achieve such an outcome is the
sum of interrelated factors. These factors include the capability of intrusion
detection systems to detect unauthorized activity, the degree of deterrence
in reducing attempted or actual unauthorized activity, and their ability to
integrate into the physical security system. Consequently, the ability of an
intrusion detection system to detect, with a suitable probability of
interruption, has to be considered and ideally, measured (see Recommended
Reading, Garcia 2008) within the physical security system. Therefore,
intrusion detection systems must not be applied in isolation as a standalone
system.
In an intrusion detection system, deterrence is the ability to discourage
an unauthorized entry by making a successful entry appear difficult or
impossible (Garcia 2008), resulting in detection and apprehension.
Offenders check for the presence of an intrusion detection system during
planning (Lab 2016) and half are deterred (Gately et al. 2014: 5); however,
other crime prevention strategies such as neighbours (Armitage 2017),
occupancy (Roth 2018: 719), and lights and door locks (Tseloni et al. 2017:
646) are more effective. Notwithstanding these factors, intrusion detection
systems do provide a level of situational crime prevention through target
hardening by providing the element of detection.
The use of intrusion detection systems is by those who can afford to
fund private security (Roth 2018: 720). In other words, the ability of the
user to pay. As a technology, these systems are a supplement to police
protection (Lee and Wilson 2012: 2). The ability to pay results in a
neighbourhood clustering of intrusion detection systems (Lee and Wilson
2012: 16), where environmental saturation of security strategies has a crime
reduction impact.
Intrusion detection systems are designed, installed and maintained by
the private security industry, and there has been concerns with this sector of
the security industry due to systemic failure (Brooks 2011) and recurring
scandals (Prenzler and Sarre 2012). Many nation states, as a means to
address these issues, use legislation, national standards and industry
licensing in an attempt to improve the quality of intrusion detection
systems. An aspect that has had a significant impact in previous decades are
intrusion detection system nuisance alarms, resulting in punitive action and
in many cases, police no longer responding to alarms. Although nuisance
alarms are reducing, the cost of such alarms are borne by the user.

Recommended Reading
Lab (2016) in Crime Prevention: Approaches, Practices and Evaluation
(9th ed.) provides an examination of the origins of crime and its prevention
strategies. Topics are divided into primary prevention measures designed to
prevent conditions that foster deviance; secondary prevention measures
directed towards persons or conditions with a potential for deviance; and
tertiary prevention measures to deal with persons who have already
committed crimes.
Garcia (2008) in The Design and Evaluation of Physical Protection
Systems provides a systems approach to physical security design and
application, considering the many fundamentals required when designing an
intrusion detection systems as a subset to a physical security system. Most
importantly, Garcia provides a means to be able to evaluate through
measurement, security system performance.
Brooks and Coole (2019) Intrusion Detection Systems chapter provides
a synthesis of these systems in the Encyclopedia of Security and Emergency
Management. The chapter defines intrusion detection systems as an
automated technology designed and implemented to detect and
communicate the presence of a person or object in a designated zone. An
intrusion detection system provides the detection element in a physical
security system, which holistically deters, detects, delays and responds.

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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_33

33. Crime and the Consumer Internet of

Things
Shane D. Johnson1 , John M. Blythe1 , Eon Kim2 and
Nissy Sombatruang3, 4
(1) Dawes Centre for Future Crime and Immersive Labs, UCL, London,
UK
(2) School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, London, UK
(3) National Institute of Information and Communications Technology
(NICT), Tokyo, Japan
(4) Computer Science, University College London, London, UK

Shane D. Johnson (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

John M. Blythe
Email: [email protected]

Eon Kim
Email: [email protected]

Nissy Sombatruang
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
The authors systematically review the types of crime that the Internet of
Things (IoT)—which brings Internet connectivity to everyday electronic
devices, such as security cameras, TVs and speakers—has and might
facilitate because of security lapses. They also discuss efforts to improve
security including approaches to encourage manufacturers to address
vulnerabilities in the products they manufacture.

Introduction
Estimates from the crime survey of England and Wales suggest that at least
half of all crime involves computer misuse (Office for National Statistics
2020). Offenders have been quick to take advantage of the speed,
convenience and anonymity of the Internet and have used it to commit a
diverse range of criminal activities. Many of the crimes committed,
including fraud and theft are not new (e.g. Wall 2007), but the Internet has
enabled them to take place at a greater scale. Newer crimes have also arisen
and include creating and spreading malicious software (malware), hacking
to obtain sensitive information and the denial of service to cause disruption,
financial and/or reputational damage (McGuire and Downling 2013). These
crimes can have devastating effects on individuals, businesses and
government services. In 2017, a global ransomware attack (WannaCry)
demonstrated the real-world tangibility and reach of cybercrime. Hackers
exploited a flaw in the Windows Operating System to infect machines with
ransomware, a form of malware that encrypts the victim’s data until they
pay to access it (e.g. Mohurle and Patil 2017). This attack impacted many
organisations, including the United Kingdom’s National Health Service,
causing widespread service disruption including (denied) access to patient
records which had the potential to lead to a loss of life.
As more devices become Internet connected, the nature of crime will
continue to evolve, and we may start to see more physical impacts of
cybercrime. The WannaCry example exploited a flaw in outdated versions
of Microsoft. The need to continually patch operating systems as
vulnerabilities are identified is less than ideal (see Schneier 2018).
However, there now exist a host of Internet connected devices with little or
no security built into them at all. Referred to as the “Internet of Things”
(IoT)—everyday objects with the ability to connect to and exchange data
over the Internet. The consumer market of IoT includes smart watches,
smart kettles, and smart cameras that can come together to form smart
homes, and eventually, smart cities. The IoT is a major technological shift
as it brings greater cyber-physical convergence and with this, opportunities
to improve our lives in many ways.
 However, it also brings threats to physical safety and human well-being.
That is, as with any major technological shift, there is the potential for a
“crime harvest” (Pease 1997) due to the fact that innovation, and an
associated rush to the market to monetise it, often leads to the production of
new products (or services) that are designed without adequate consideration
of their crime and security risks (Pease 1997). While manufacturers might
not pay sufficient attention to these issues, offenders do and exploit the
vulnerabilities in the products for personal gain. Historically, such crime
risks have been addressed through better product design and/or government
intervention, but often only retrospectively (e.g. Laycock 2004). In the
context of the IoT, we have already started to see the beginning of an IoT
crime harvest. For example, offenders have built IoT botnets—large
numbers of insecure IoT devices (including cameras and home routers)
enslaved by malware—that are used to disrupt online services (e.g. Twitter)
by sending massive amounts of requests to, and subsequently
overwhelming, their servers (BBC News 2017). The insecurity of IoT
devices have been frequently demonstrated in penetration tests too. For
example, smart toys have been shown to be hackable (Which? 2017) with
the My Friend Cayla doll banned in Germany and labelled as an “illegal
espionage device” (The Guardian 2017).
Ofcom (2020) estimates that 63% of homes in the UK now own an
Internet connected TV, while 22% own a smart speaker. Further, the Global
Systems for Mobile communications association estimates that by 2025,
there will be 25 billion IoT devices on the planet. As well as increasing in
number, so too is the range of devices available. For example, there now
exist Internet connected door and window locks, and even bins, salt
dispensers and hair dryers. The latter examples are amusing, but the point
of central importance is that the attack surface is expanding, as is the
potential range of actions that can be triggered. Consequently,
understanding and identifying the crime risks associated with the IoT is
important. At present, no data exist in official crime records about crimes
facilitated by the IoT, and no data (of which we are aware) are captured in
sample surveys that would shed light on the issue. In this chapter, we
discuss the findings of two systematic reviews conducted with the aim of
identifying what crimes have been facilitated by the IoT and what types of
offending are plausible. As well as contributing to the knowledge base, the
work is intended to inform efforts to preventing the types of crime
identified before they are committed or become widespread.
Before presenting findings, two things are important. First, we focus on
crimes (that could be) facilitated by consumer IoT devices found in the
home. We do not consider industrial control systems (e.g. Tuptuk and
Hailes 2018) or Smart Cities (see Laufs et al. 2020). However, it would not
take much imagination to consider how things apply in these contexts.
Second, where rapidly advancing technologies are concerned, research
about them is likely to be out of date soon after (or before) publication. This
will certainly be the case here as the searches conducted took place
sometime (between 2017 and 2019) before the publication of this book.
That said, absent a major technological disruption to the IoT, the issues
identified are likely to remain a concern after the publication of this book,
and even if the specifics change, the general issues are likely to remain (at
least for some time).
Our first review was a systematic review (SR) of the academic literature
(for full details, see Blythe and Johnson 2021). Below, we summarise the
main findings along with a brief description of the approach taken.
However, because the academic literature moves relatively slowly, we
complimented our SR with an analysis of online open-source material that
discussed crimes that had been facilitated by IoT devices. To do this, we
used Natural Language Processing (NLP; see Chowdhury 2003) to facilitate
the search process. Doing so addresses two issues associated with searching
such material. The first concerns the vast amount of open-source material
available. Using NLP enabled us to search this material in a more
systematic way than would otherwise have been possible. Second is the fact
that there is a lack of consistency in the language used to discuss different
forms of cybercrime across disciplines. For example, cybersecurity
researchers have very specific definitions for what constitutes an attack
versus a threat, whereas these may be used interchangeably in other
disciplines (e.g. crime science). The authors of reports may also describe
crimes involving the IoT in different ways for different audiences (e.g.
academic versus general public), making conventional Boolean searches
ineffective. NLP affords the opportunity to identify IoT crimes in a
systematic manner that helps to alleviate these issues.
The remainder of the chapter is organised as follows. Next, we briefly
discuss the search strategies used for the two reviews, providing more detail
of the open-source search, as the academic review is reported in detail
elsewhere (Blythe and Johnson 2021). We then summarise the findings of
the two reviews. In the discussion, we consider the implications of the
reviews for the crime reduction enterprise, and briefly review some of our
other work that has examined consumer perspectives and the need for
regulation in this sector.

Method
Academic Systematic Review
We searched the Web of Science, ProQuest, ACM Digital Library, IEEE
Xplore Digital Library, and Scopus academic databases in November 2017
for papers published between 2007 and 2017. The following search terms
were used:
“IoT” OR “Internet of Things” OR “Internet-connected” OR “smart
NEAR/3 device*” OR “smart home” OR “connected device*” OR “smart
wearable” OR SU.EXACT(“Internet of Things”) OR
SU.EXACT(“Internet of Things”) OR SU.EXACT(“Ubiquitous
Computing”)
AND
“hack*” OR “risk*” OR “threat*” OR “vulner*” OR “crim*” OR
“attack*” OR “exploit” OR “security” OR “privacy” OR “bug” OR
SU.EXACT(“Crime”) OR SU.EXACT(“Internet Crime”) OR
SU.EXACT(“Computer Crime”)
– We will also search for the following subject headings (where allowed
by the database): SU.EXACT(“Crime”) OR SU.EXACT(“Internet
Crime”) OR SU.EXACT(“Computer Crime”)
AND
“consumer” OR “domestic” OR “wearable” OR “home” OR “house”
The titles and abstracts of all articles were screened and the full text
read for articles that met our inclusion criteria. To be included, articles had
to be written in English, published in a peer-reviewed outlet (PhD theses
were also included), concern consumer IoT devices and explicitly discuss a
crime or security issue (see Blythe and Johnson 2021).
Open-Source Media Review
To search the open-source material, we used IBM Watson Discovery. At the
time of the review, this ingested news media published in the prior 60 days.
We sampled news media that was collected during two periods: 20 January
2018 to 21 March 2018, and 14 May to 13 August 2019.
Using Watson’s natural language search function enabled us to find
articles that a Boolean search would not. For example, searching for the
word “crime” using a Boolean search would locate only those articles that
contained the exact word “crime”. This could lead to the exclusion of a
large number of relevant articles that discussed (say) “assault” or “fraud”.
In contrast, taking advantage of a natural language approach, searching with
the same keyword identifies articles that discussed related words or
concepts.
Initial searches identified problems with the approach due to the way
that articles are indexed and located using the search engine. For example,
the term “Internet of Things” not only identified articles that discussed the
IoT but also those that concerned the Internet more generally. As such, this
search strategy was not sufficiently sensitive and returned many irrelevant
articles. To address this, we used filters to select from the identified corpus
only those articles that mentioned words related to the IoT and crime. We
also noted that open-source articles did not always explicitly mention the
“IoT”, but used other terms. In the next section, we detail how the
keywords and filter terms were developed to address these issues.

Search Terms for Consumer IoT Devices

First, we used Watson to identify key words that commonly occurred in
articles concerned with the IoT. To do this, using Watson’s natural language
search engine and the search term “IoT”, we conducted a search of all
media articles available to Watson. This returned a total of 58,312 articles
for our 2018 search. The most frequently occurring words used in these
articles were identified and the top 100 ranked by frequency. Many terms
related to countries (e.g. China was mentioned 4955 times), corporate
positions (e.g. CEO was mentioned 8693 times), or other things that would
not be particularly discriminatory, and hence these were omitted from our
list. The keywords retained generally concerned companies and services, as
follows:
 AI, Twitter, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, Samsung, LinkedIn,
Intel, Apple, Cisco, Qualcomm, YouTube, Ericsson, AT & T, Nokia,
SAP, IDC.
In addition to analysing the news articles available to Watson, we
searched for keywords used in the description of consumer IoT devices
online in particular. To do this, we searched three websites concerned with
IoT devices for commonly used keywords, extracting the text from them.
The three websites searched were:
https://www.datamation.com/mobile-wireless/75-top-iot-devices-1.html
http://iotlineup.com/category/home_automation
http://uk.pcmag.com/digital-home/85/feature/the-best-smart-home-
devices-of-2018
The material (684 text items) obtained from these websites was then
analysed to identify the most frequently used words and their frequency.
References to specific devices (e.g. Echo) and companies (e.g. Amazon)
were excluded as we were interested in identifying more generic terms. The
final list of filter words was as follows:
Home, Automation, Appliances, Smart, Consumer, Indoor, Remote,
Household, Residential, Sensors, Connected, wireless, Bluetooth,
portable, Wi-Fi.
These two sets of keywords were then used to filter the articles, which
were then assessed according to our inclusion criteria.

Inclusion Criteria
To be included in the review, articles had to discuss a crime facilitated by
the IoT. For each document, Watson produced a meta score, which provides
an index of its likely relevance. Using these scores, we sorted the
documents in order of likely relevance and manually reviewed them to
identify those that met our inclusion criteria. For both searches, we
terminated the review when the number of articles per N articles that met
the inclusion criteria substantially declined. This led to the inclusion of
1090 articles (of 8319 initially identified) for the 2018 search, and 504 (of
53,395 initially identified) for the 2019 search.
Results
For the academic review, 3506 articles were initially identified, but after
full text review, only 114 met our inclusion criteria. Considering the open
media material, for the 2018 search, 11% (N = 122) of the articles discussed
incidents of crime or unusual device behaviour. The remainder discussed
crimes that could be facilitated by IoT devices. For the 2019 search, around
33% (N = 165) of the articles discussed offences that had occurred. As
stated above, in what follows, for the open media articles, we focus on
those articles that reported actual offences.
For both reviews, a thematic analysis was conducted to identify the
types of crime identified. In addition to examining the offences committed
or discussed as possible, we also considered exactly how IoT devices might
facilitate such offending. Next, we briefly discuss the types of attack
commonly discussed in the academic literature, what this might allow
offenders to do, and what types of offending this could facilitate.

Types of Attack
Ten types of attack were discussed, although these were not mutually
exclusive, and some might have to be used in combination. We discuss each
in turn. Malware attacks are used to compromise vulnerabilities associated
with a device so that it can be exploited to do things other than its intended
purpose (e.g. Kang et al. 2017), such as sending spam emails. Denial of
Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks (e.g. Lyu
et al. 2017) were commonly discussed. In both cases, the aim is to make an
online service (e.g. a website or server) unavailable by overwhelming it
with massive volumes of requests. The difference between the two is that in
the case of the former, requests come from a single source, whereas for the
latter they are sent simultaneously from multiple devices. One approach to
launching DDoS attacks is for attackers to compromise large numbers of
insecure devices with malware to form a botnet they control and from
which they can send repeated requests.
Eavesdropping involves the unauthorised interception of (private) data
(e.g. Vigo et al. 2012) so that this can be misused. Man-in-the-middle
attacks (e.g. Vemi and Panchev 2015) occur when an attacker intercepts
communications between two or more devices and relays these or injects
alternative content between them. The innocent parties are unaware that
they are not communicating directly and hence the attack can be used for
the purposes of eavesdropping, or to send false information between parties.
Data integrity attacks (e.g. Kumar et al. 2014) are used to alter data stored
on, or sent to a device with the aim (e.g.) of controlling it in some way. In
the case of spoofing attacks, an attacker tricks the device into thinking they
are a genuine user so that they can steal information or control the device
(e.g. Bugeja et al. 2017). User impersonation attacks are variant of this (e.g.
Hoang and Pishva 2015) that may, for example, include social engineering
techniques to obtain information necessary to gain access to a device. Side
channel attacks (e.g. Srinivasan et al. 2008) exploit (often seemingly
innocuous) data that can be obtained despite the existence of security
measures (e.g. power usage), which can be used for a variety of purposes,
including profiling a victim’s activity. Physical attacks (Snader et al. 2016),
where an attacker gains physical access to a device, allowing them to
tamper with it, were also discussed.

Intermediate Outcomes
Next, we examined what the types of attacks discussed, alone or in
combination, would allow an attacker to do. We refer to these as
intermediate outcomes because these actions may not be criminal in and of
themselves (although some are). Table 33.1 summarises these, the volume
of academic studies published and the types of research methodology
employed.1 We discuss the latter because many of the studies reviewed only
discussed the possibility of an attack or intermediate outcome, while others
demonstrated them as possible in a laboratory or real-world setting. The
immediate cause for concern regarding a particular intermediate outcome is
more compelling if it has actually been demonstrated. On the other hand,
those risks that are identified as plausible by experts are perhaps those that
we should be worrying about now to prevent them from occurring in the
(near) future. Table 33.1 also summarises the findings from the open media
review as to whether particular intermediate outcomes have actually been
reported in the real world (more details can be found in the subsequent
section).
Table 33.1 Summary of the intermediate outcomes IoT devices make possible and their discussion
in the literature
 Description Academic Open media
literature
Exposing personal user Information stored or shared by 7 lab-based studies 5 articles
data devices can be intercepted by demonstrated the discussed the
attackers. This can include plausibility of “eavesdropping”
sensitive data (e.g. passwords) attacks, while 5 of user
or information pertaining to expert and 1 user- conversations by
user behaviour and habits (e.g. group study staff through
fitness data). speculated about smart speakers;
such risks. Conversations
captured by
toymaker spiral
toys products
were leaked.
Profiling Through (say) a side channel 14 lab-based studies 2 articles
attack, an offender infers a demonstrated the discussed how
user’s patterns of activity (e.g. plausibility of these data leaked from a
running, travel) at a particular attacks, while 6 fitness app
point in time or to enable them study authors identified a
to profile their behaviour. speculated about military base.
them.
Physical access control An attacker misuses devices 4 lab-based studies 1 article discussed
that control physical access in demonstrated the this type of attack
the home. plausibility of this but in the context
type of attack. of a hotel.
Manipulation of device An attacker remotely controls 6 lab-based studies –
(general) and manipulates a device. For demonstrated the
example, using actuators on plausibility of this
household robots to cause type of attack.
damage to household property.
Control audio/visual Use of audio/visual outputs of 5 lab-based studies 32 articles
outputs IoT devices to control what the demonstrated the discussed the
user hears/sees. plausibility of this manipulation of
type of attack, while cameras and
one author speakers.
speculated about
them.
Supress safety-critical Malicious control or 1 lab-based study –
monitoring capabilities suppression of safety-critical demonstrated the
monitoring devices (e.g. fire plausibility of this
alarms). type of attack, while
two authors
speculated about
them.
 Description Academic Open media
literature
Service unavailability An attacker disrupts the 9 authors speculated 7 articles
and/or restriction functioning of connected about this type of discussed attacks
devices in the home including attack but there on smart
those that provide critical (e.g. were no lab or other infrastructure
physical access, heating) and demonstrations of such as
less critical (e.g. Internet them. thermostats.
access) services.
Monitoring/surveillance Exploitation of consumer IoT 4 lab-based studies 4 articles
devices may allow attackers to demonstrated the discussed privacy
listen and monitor user plausibility of this issues; in
activities. type of attack, one particular, that
expert and one user- users’ private
group study conversations
speculated about were listened to
them as did 4 study by staff or shared
authors. with other
customers.
Gateway to further Exploited devices (or 1 lab-based study 184 articles
attacks information extracted from demonstrated the discussed
them) may be used to launch plausibility of this incidents where
additional attacks. For example, type of attack, while malware was used
using a device as part of a 1 expert group and to create IoT
botnet to launch DDoS attacks, 6 study authors did. botnets.
or using personal information
for targeted password guessing.

Adapted and updated from Blythe and Johnson (2021)

With two exceptions, all of the intermediate outcomes discussed in the

academic literature had been reported as occurring in one form or another in
the real world in 2018 or 2019. The number of articles discussing these
types of outcomes was generally low, but it is important to note that the rate
of articles identified is not an indicator of the frequency of occurrence of
attacks in the real world. For example, incidents may not be detected (and
hence not reported), they may not be covered in the press and our search
only covers a sample of articles. Thus, what the reader should take from this
is that most of these types of intermediate outcome are not only plausible,
but they have been observed “in the wild”. Put differently, while we cannot
estimate rates of risk from searches such as those conducted here, we can
show that they are real threats that need to be addressed.
Types of Crime
Table 33.2 shows the types of crime identified in the academic review,
along with two additional categories identified in the open-source review
that were not discussed in the academic literature (shaded in grey). In some
cases, the examples discussed may not currently be defined as crimes in law
but would likely be perceived as harmful or breaches of privacy by many
people. This provides an idea of the range of offences that have or could be
facilitated by the consumer IoT. In the review of the academic literature,
none of the crimes discussed were demonstrated to have occurred in the real
world. However, four types (highlighted with an asterisk) were shown to be
plausible through demonstrations on physical networks in laboratory
settings. These networks were configured to mimic home configurations
and hence speak to the plausibility of these attacks. In all other cases, the
offences were identified as plausible either by an expert group (two
studies), the author of the article (25 studies) or a user group (one study).
Not all offences were discussed as frequently as others. The most
commonly discussed threats were energy theft (19 studies), burglary (16
studies), harm to inhabitants (8 studies) and financial losses (8 studies). The
other offence types were discussed in 2–4 academic studies.
Table 33.2 Crimes and harms facilitated by compromised IoT devices

Cybercrimes/harms Description Open media

Energy theft* Attacker misuses smart meters or other consumer devices to Crypto-
steal electricity, increase utility costs to victims, manipulate mining
energy costs in distribution networks, impact smart grid Smart utility
networks or cause blackouts. hacks

Burglary* Information from devices can reveal household occupancy –

based on user activities (see profiling). Further exploitation
of connected devices (e.g. smart locks) can facilitate
physical entry.
Sex crimes Use of consumer IoT to facilitate sex-related crimes such as Camera hacks
stealing sex-related videos, sexual assault, obscenity,
exhibitionism and voyeurism.
Political Exploiting consumer IoT devices for political gains (e.g. –
political subjugation and control, and propaganda).
Identity theft Stealing sensitive personal information from devices to –
commit identity fraud.
Cybercrimes/harms Description Open media

Harm to inhabitants* Causing physical or mental harm to individuals including Denial of

vulnerable groups (e.g. children and older adults) that may heating
be susceptible to nefarious influence. For example, targeting system
devices with heating capabilities to cause a fire in the home. service,
Xenotime
Misinformation Use of IoT devices to give false or inaccurate information –
(e.g. false fire alarms).
Financial losses Financial losses arising from exploitation of IoT devices. Crypto-
(general)* mining

Profiling, targeted or Use of information from IoT for targeted advertising and –
unsolicited marketing.
advertising
Blackmail Use of information gained from IoT devices to blackmail –
individuals.
Vandalism Damage to physical property or household objects arising Brickbot,
from exploited devices with actuators. Silex
Illicit affective Use of information gained from IoT devices to cause Smart toys
response embarrassment, annoyance or damage reputations.
Discrimination Misuse of information from IoT devices (e.g. beliefs, health –
information) to discriminate against individuals.
Stalking Use of information gained from IoT devices (e.g. location) Gaslighting
to stalk victims.
Denial of use Disruption of services or access systems using IoT devices. Door systems
Accessing wider The use of IoT devices to gain access to the networks to Hacks of IoT
networks which they are connected. devices
including
smart fridges
and fish tanks

Adapted and updated from Blythe and Johnson (2021)

Note: Offences marked with an “*” were shown as plausible in a laboratory
setting in the academic literature

Considering the occurrence of these types of offences in the real world,

in Table 33.2 we provide an indication of whether our open media search
uncovered examples of these types of offences. To simplify the table, we
provide more detail about the types of offending observed in the real world
in the subsections that follow. These subsections are organised around
broader themes, as opposed to the specific categories shown in Table 33.2.
Crimes Committed Using IoT Botnets and Malware
This theme represents articles which discussed the use or creation of IoT
botnets to attack victims or control their devices. As discussed, a botnet is a
network of malware-infected devices controlled by an attacker.
Cybercriminals use these to perform malicious acts including sending spam
emails. In the past, armies of botnets were traditionally constructed from
compromised personal computers or laptops. However, the first known
botnet that enslaved IoT devices—using the Mirai malware—was
discovered in 2016. These attacks were the most commonly discussed in
(both academic and) open media articles. In fact, the majority of the articles
identified in the 2018 search concerned Mirai. IoT devices were vulnerable
to this attack due to the fact that many use default credentials. Since the
Mirai source code was published, new strains of the malware have emerged.
Other IoT botnets discussed included lesser-known descendants: Satori,
HideNSeek, OMG, Hajime, Masuta and Brickbot which was a bot that
destroyed unsecured IoT devices; and an unnamed IoT botnet that was
being used to mine cryptocurrencies (e.g. Bitcoin). The latter, referred to as
crypto-mining, can be highly profitable (see Hong et al. 2018) and involve
the unauthorised use of computer resources—and, in the process, the theft
of energy—to perform the computationally intense tasks that are necessary
to implement the cryptography that underpins cryptocurrencies. In 2019,
open media articles about botnets included those about: Reaper and
Bashlite: bots that enslave IoT devices and harness their processing power
for DDoS attacks; The Moon—a bot which gains control over vulnerable
routers and IoT devices; Kepler—a bot which infects signage TVs and
presentation systems and Silex—a bot that (like Brickbot) destroyed
unsecured IoT devices. While it did not target consumer devices, Xenotime,
is of interest. This botnet targeted industrial machinery and IoT devices,
causing them to run unsafely, inflicting physical damage to equipment.

Accessing Wider Networks and Denial of Use

The hacking of IoT devices to gain unauthorised logical or physical access
to them was not identified in the 2018 search, but was the second most
common theme in our 2019 review (25% of articles discussed this). For
unauthorised logical access, the majority of articles concerned
STRONTIUM, a Russian state-sponsored hacking group. Across more than
50 different countries, they attacked IoT-based VoIP phones, video
decoders, printers and over 500,000 consumer-grade routers, using them to
gain access to corporate networks. A smart refrigerator, IoT-enabled
container ships, a vending machine and light sensors network, and a smart
fish-tank were also reported to have been hacked and used to gain access to
corporate networks. Only one article related to unauthorised physical
access. This news article reported that hackers had attacked the electronic
key system of a four-star hotel in Austria in 2017, locking guests out of
their rooms, and preventing the hotel from creating new keys until a ransom
was paid. While these attacks were used to gain access to corporate
networks and commercial premises, we included discussion of them here as
the devices they attacked were largely consumer devices.

Unauthorised Surveillance
The hacking of IoT devices to enable surveillance2 was the next common
theme discussed. Baby monitors, private webcams, CCTV cameras and
smart TVs were amongst those reported to have been hacked. Watson
identified articles about the first well-publicised hack of a baby monitor,
which took place (at the time of writing) five years ago in Texas. In this
case, a couple discovered that the baby monitor in their daughter’s bedroom
let a stranger spy and talk to their baby. In 2017, a similar story was
reported about a hacker who had gained access to a baby monitor and was
speaking to a toddler, until discovered by the parents. In 2019, there were
also articles about Spiral Toy’s “smart toys” which leaked two million
recorded messages of parents and their children via an unsecured online
database.
For private webcams, in 2018, Watson identified an article about a
Russian-based website that was streaming thousands of private feeds from
family homes, hospitals and stores to draw attention to vulnerabilities in
IOT devices. An article reported in Techgenix.com covered a privacy leak
from a Samsung Smart TV where consumers learned that their TV listened
to private conversations and these data were sent to a third party.
In 2019, several articles also reported that security camera systems were
the most hacked IoT devices. For example, Gearbrain.com reported that
they represented 47% of compromised IoT products. Other websites (e.g.
Finalfrontiers.net) reported that more than 5 million attacks had been
launched against IP cameras. Although the intention of these hacks was not
always clear, the prevalence of this type of crime specifically highlights the
privacy and security risks associated with IoT devices.

Manipulation of Smart Utilities and Infrastructure

While not identified in the 2018 review, hacks of smart utilities and
infrastructure were identified in 2019. Four articles reported attacks against
smart thermostat and heating systems. In one, it was reported that a hacker
used a Wi-Fi-enabled home thermostat to increase the household
temperature by 12 degrees. Another reported that Nest (smart) thermostats
were hacked and locked users out of their accounts. The reported incidents,
though small in number, are concerning. Energy companies advertise that
switching to these devices could help consumers to save energy bills.
However, if the devices could be hacked, as reported in the articles,
consumers could end up paying more for their energy bills. The remaining
articles reported attacks against smart infrastructure (e.g. gas pipelines,
power grid facilities). For the power grid, the article was brief on details but
reported an attack that forced a sophisticated oil and gas facility in the
Middle East to shut down.
Such attacks are of substantial concern, as are hacking incidents that
involve gas pumps and pipelines—which are being increasingly rolled out
as part of smart city plans. Citizens living in such environments could be
physically harmed if the attacks took place at scale and caused a denial of
service of the power supply. A recent blackout in Venezuela in 2019 [18]—
believed to have been caused by saboteurs—which left millions without
telecommunications or running water, provides an example of the impact
such a scenario might have.

Smart Device Privacy and Security

Not identified in our 2018 review, but discovered in our 2019 search were
articles about smart home assistant devices such as Amazon Alexa and
Google Home. Four articles discussed privacy issues, reporting that users’
conversations were listened to by staff or shared with others. Another article
reported that smart home assistants were popular cyber-attack targets,
comprising 15% of IoT products that have been attacked.

Unexpected IoT Device Behaviour

A less common theme concerned IoT devices acting in unexpected ways,
potentially due to hacking. Two articles (one in 2018 and one in 2019)
reported that a smart toilet randomly flushed itself. Another reported that
Amazon Alexa made a creepy laugh sound through Echo devices. These
examples may be mere pranks but could have adverse psychological effects
on the vulnerable or small children. While not reported in the articles
discovered in our searches, they could be used for the purposes of
gaslighting victims of domestic abuse. Examples of this were reported in
The New York Times in 2018.

Discussion
The results of our reviews provide insight into how the vulnerabilities
associated with IoT devices can be exploited and the types of offences this
might afford. Here, we discuss some of these issues and the challenges
associated with securing the consumer IoT.
Our review highlighted clear issues with IoT botnets. However, for the
most part, unless members of the public are the intended victims, the impact
of botnets is primarily felt by third parties not (necessarily) the consumers
whose devices are exploited. To some extent, this presents a challenge for
crime prevention. That is, as this crime risk does not directly affect
consumers, they may not be aware of the problem, or that their own devices
may be involved. Even if they are, because it does not affect them directly,
they may not be concerned about it, or unmotivated to take steps to address
it. This would, of course, be short sighted as botnets pose a strategic crime
risk since they can disrupt many services, including those used by
consumers as well as critical infrastructure. On this point, we have started
to see an increase in the use of IoT botnets in crimes offered as a service
(Kolias et al. 2017). That is, botnets can be easily rented cheaply and are
widely available on the darknet—making the risk of being attacked by them
a general one.
A related theme concerned the hacking of IoT devices to gain
unauthorised access to networks (as opposed to individual devices).
Adversaries and cyber criminals know that many IoT devices have security
weaknesses and have exploited them to gain access to otherwise secure
networks. Fish tanks, printers and vending machines are all examples of
“smart” devices found in the review. The issue here is that the “weakest”
link in the home (or corporate) network may provide a gateway for attacks,
unless security is put in place to address this. Such security does exist, but it
comes at a cost, presenting a potential barrier to prevention.
Our recent work, however, suggests that cost might not be as large a
hurdle as it could be. Across two studies we investigated what consumers
would be willing to pay to secure IoT devices. In the first (Blythe et al.
2020), we employed a contingent valuation method that involves presenting
consumers with a hypothetical purchasing decision and asking how much
they would pay for improved security. On average, we found that they
would be willing to pay between 14 and 62% more for a secure device, the
precise percentage depending on the particular product type (e.g. smart tv
versus security camera). One criticism of such studies is that because the
study aim is explicit, participants respond to “demand characteristics” and
report values that do not reflect actual preferences. For this reason, in a
follow-up study (Johnson et al. 2020), we estimated what consumers would
be willing to pay using a Discrete Choice Experiment. Participants were
again presented with hypothetical purchasing decisions but asked which of
three devices (or none) they would purchase. For each device, they were
provided with details about its functionality and price, with these details
being varied across participants and trials. To estimate the influence of
security on decision making, and participants’ willingness to pay for it, for
some devices we also provided a security label. Econometric methods were
then used to estimate the influence of each factor (functionality, price and
security), and how much participants would be willing to pay for them. Due
to the randomisation used in such experiments, it would be difficult for
participants to identify demand characteristics or to respond to them. Our
findings showed that consumers preferred devices with better functionality
but also better security. Moreover, our willingness to pay estimates were
surprisingly similar to those in our previous study (27–63% more). Of
course, these types of study examine participants’ “stated” preferences as
opposed to those “revealed” through actual purchases, and so may not
reflect real-world decision making. Nevertheless, the findings suggest that
participants are, at least in principle, willing to pay for better security.
However, even if consumers would be willing to pay for security, there
currently exists an information asymmetry in the marketplace that would
make it difficult for them to do so. That is, devices vary considerably in the
security provided and unless consumers can tell which are secure and which
are not, it will be very difficult for them to purchase those that are. To
examine this issue in detail, we (Blythe et al. 2019) conducted a review of
the materials (online user manuals and associated materials) that consumers
can access about a sample of 270 devices prior to purchase. Our first
finding was that, prior to purchase, materials could not be found for 100
devices. Absent such material, consumers would have no way of
determining what, if any, security such devices were provided with. For the
remaining 170 devices, we systematically coded the security information
provided (regardless of where it was provided). What was reported, and
how it was reported, varied substantially across devices, making it difficult
for consumers to compare them. Thirdly, we found that while some things
were reported fairly consistently (e.g. details of how user accounts were
managed, how to initiate a factory reset and whether software updates were
provided), most were not. Strikingly, none provided details about how long
security updates would be provided, only 2% discussed two-factor
authentication, and only 5% explained how data were encrypted.
If a consumer wants to buy a healthy food product, in many countries
they can make informed choices by examining a front of packet label, or
reading the ingredients. A similar situation exists for many electronic
goods. In the case of IoT devices, this is not true—in most countries at
least. Further compounding the issue, research (Harris Interactive 2019)
suggests that most consumers assume that security is built into IoT devices.
This is a market failure, and one all too familiar. As discussed, it is
commonly the case that when new products and services are introduced,
little care and attention is given to their crime and security implications,
which can lead to a crime harvest. At this point, it is important to note that
the security of devices varies significantly and some manufacturers have
taken security seriously. However, many have not and this needs
addressing. In the UK, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and
Sport (DCMS) has undertaken a substantial volume of work to address this.
This has included consultation with industry and others to establish a Code
of Practice (DCMS 2018) that details 13 principles manufacturers should
follow (e.g. not using default usernames and passwords), as well as the
commissioning of research to develop the evidence base. They have
consulted with industry and the public on policy options which include the
use of a labelling scheme (mandatory or voluntary) to indicate the level of
security devices provide, or regulation that would require devices to meet
minimum security standards, have recently funded voluntary assurance
schemes (see https://bit.ly/3tPZWW8) and are planning a new law that
would require manufacturers to meet minimum security requirements (see
https://bit.ly/2Qcjzt). Other countries are pursuing similar options (for
Canada, see http://bit.ly/3q4XXe3) and some (e.g. Japan, and Finland, see
http://bit.ly/2MF5in4) have also implemented voluntary labelling schemes,
and hopefully these approaches will address the shortcomings identified
soon. However, countries are addressing these issues at different rates and
even if all countries took the same approach today, there already exist large
numbers of devices on networks that will be insecure. It will be difficult to
address these legacy problems unless the security of these devices can be
updated or devices recalled. This seems unlikely but other options could be
explored such as the widespread use of (smart) routers to identify and
isolate vulnerable devices in real time (Dietz et al. 2018). Routers act as a
gateway between the home and the Internet (see Llinares and Johnson
2018) and so from a situational crime prevention perspective represent a
sensible target for crime prevention efforts in this context.
In this chapter, we have considered the types of offending made
possible by the IoT, but we were unable to discuss the prevalence of
offending. For some crimes (e.g. theft) incidents often go unnoticed at the
time of the offence due to the stealth involved. For example, victims may be
targeted while shopping or using public transport, but only notice that items
have been stolen when they return home. The same may be true for attacks
involving the IoT. However, in this case, and perhaps particularly for
consumer IoT, victims may never realise that devices have been
compromised unless they have some form of intrusion detection system in
place, or the nature of the attack makes this obvious (e.g. a hacked video is
used for criminal gain). For example, victims who are being stalked may
not realise devices are being misused in this way. As such, unlike urban
crime it will be difficult to estimate levels of victimisation using traditional
methods (e.g. using survey or police data). It is hard to understand and
prevent problems without data and so effort needs to be invested in
techniques to measure IoT-facilitated crime. It will likely be necessary to
use approaches more commonly applied in the field of information security
—such as honeypots,3 which are essentially digital twins of real devices
used to monitor malicious activity so that it can be studied (e.g. Mokube
and Adams 2007)—but new approaches may also be required.
 In closing, we have focused here on devices found around the home.
These are now commonly owned, but not ubiquitous. To ensure that we do
not see a widespread crime harvest, it is imperative that these devices are
secured now. What is true for the security of the consumer IoT is perhaps
even more so for implantable medical devices. However, as far as we are
aware, the situation is currently not any better for the Internet of medical
things. Addressing these threats should thus be a priority for manufacturers
and regulators alike.

Recommended Readings
An excellent book on the security of the Internet and how this is evolving is
Click here to Kill Everybody by Schneier (2018). It discusses problems
associated with the Internet and devices that are increasingly connected to
it, how current approaches will not work and alternative approaches that we
should pursue. Brewer et al.’s 2019 book Cybercrime Prevention provides a
review of what we know (and don’t) about preventing cybercrime. For
those interested in the human factors involved in information security,
Kevin Mitnick’s 2003 book The Art of Deception comes recommended.
Krebs on security (https://krebsonsecurity.com) is a terrific site for up-to-
date security news and investigation.

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Footnotes
1 For the academic review, the number of articles reviewed was too large to cite them all here. For
details of the articles to which we refer, see Blythe and Johnson (2021).

2 It is worth noting that the purpose of the hack was not always known, and may sometimes have
been to enslave a device for the purposes of conducting DDoS attacks.

3 For example, see https://blog.nicter.jp/2021/03/nicter_statistics_2020_4q/.

Part VI
Towards a Better Security
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_34

34. Professional Security in the Fourth

Industrial Revolution
Alison Wakefield1 and Michael Gips2
(1) Cybersecurity and Criminology Centre, University of West London,
London, UK
(2) Global Insights in Professional Security, LLC, Bethesda, MD, USA

Alison Wakefield (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Abstract
This chapter examines the evolving nature and scope of professional
security and the opportunities and challenges facing the security profession
today and in the years to come. Drawing on their experiences in leadership
roles in ASIS International and the UK’s Security Institute, the authors
discuss the key features of contemporary professions and the challenges
they face in the coming years and decades. These include those presented
by the fourth industrial revolution, as the World Economic Forum describes
the era we are now entering. Among the notable trends impacting the
security profession that they identify are the exponential growth of cyber
security threats, the rise of convergence thinking, career pathways and skills
development to meet current and future needs, and the impact of the
COVID-19 pandemic. Wakefield and Gips argue that, for security
practitioners, the pace of change is such that the ability to continually adapt
and develop their practice is vital, while their representative bodies need to
be able to support them in developing the widening knowledge and skill
sets necessary for the future.
Introduction
The ongoing shift towards a more automated world, encapsulated in the
concept of the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ (4IR) (Schwab 2017, 2018),
raises important questions for individual professionals, professional
disciplines and the bodies that represent them about the adaptations they
must make. Writing about the future of professions, Susskind and Susskind
(2017) predict ‘a steady decline in the need for traditional flesh and blood
professionals’ (p. ix), calling for a fundamental rethinking of the role of
professions as societies confront broader questions about the advancement
of artificial intelligence and the future of work. The security challenges
presented by an increasingly digitized society, and the well-recognized
global cyber security skills gap, suggest that the security profession is
unlikely to decline but will need to adapt and evolve significantly, building
the capacity of its members to do the same.
This chapter provides an orientation for such change, taking stock of
how professions in general and the security profession specifically have
developed and are likely to change in the future. It reviews key dimensions
of the sociological analysis of professions to date, examines the distinctive
features of the 4IR and the collective challenges for the many stakeholders
responsible for the delivery of societal security, and then considers key
dimensions of the future of the security profession. This latter section
places a particular emphasis on the need for the individual professional to
adapt their practice to ‘converged’ threats and engage in ongoing
development to maintain the currency of their skills.

The Characteristics of Professions

The security risk management profession is concerned with the protection
of assets: people, property and information. It is based primarily on the
delivery of three interdependent elements: physical security (protecting
people, premises and physical assets from actions or events that could cause
damage, loss or harm), personnel security (mitigating insider risk and
enhancing trust in staff, suppliers or business partners with access to its
important assets), and information security (protecting electronic, print and
other information from unauthorized or unintended access, disclosure,
tampering or destruction) (Wakefield 2021). The governments of the UK,
Australia and New Zealand have adopted the umbrella term ‘protective
security’ for security risk management strategies and measures across the
three dimensions, emphasizing their interconnectedness (see e.g. Cabinet
Office 2018; Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department 2018;
New Zealand Government 2018). However, in today’s rapidly digitizing
world, organizations are prepared to invest huge sums in information
security, which has become a burgeoning industry, while personnel security
remains something of a ‘Cinderella subject’ with comparatively little being
done about insider risk (Martin 2019).
Accordingly, the world’s largest association for security practitioners is
ISACA, which is focused primarily on information security and has over
145,000 members at the time of writing (ISACA 2021). ASIS International
claims a global membership of approximately 34,000 practitioners engaged
in the protection of people, property, and/or information assets (ASIS
International 2021). Among the numerous membership bodies in existence
globally, other associations are country-specific, such as the UK’s Security
Institute, with over 4000 members (Security Institute, 2022); represent
parallel or overlapping fields such as business continuity management, as in
the case of the Business Continuity Institute, reporting over 9000 members
globally; cover subsets of security like the Association of Threat
Assessment Professionals; or serve a particular sector, such as the
Association of University Chief Security Officers. These examples
represent just a fraction of the bodies in existence; Cybercrime Magazine
(2021) lists more than 90 cyber security associations alone.
The activities of such organizations in supporting the development of
their members and promoting best practice represent part of a journey taken
by all occupational groups seeking to enhance their cohesion and standing,
which is the focus of a distinct body of social science known as the
sociology of professions. The definition of a profession has been greatly
debated, and it might alternatively be depicted as ‘an elite occupation doing
a specialised task or set of tasks’, ‘the application of a body of knowledge
by a group to a field or set of problems’, or ‘institutionalised expert
knowledge used within a given field of activity’ (Burns 2019: 45). The
concepts of ‘profession’, ‘professionalization’ (‘the process to achieve the
status of profession’) and ‘professionalism’ (‘an occupational or normative
value’ and, in later thinking, a ‘discourse’) now feature extensively in
sociological research (Evetts 2013: 781–782).
 The longest standing examples of professions are medicine and law,
taking centuries to become fully established and recognized. Professions are
associated primarily with service-sector, knowledge-based occupations, and
typically grounded in university education and vocational training and
experience (Evetts 2013). They have been described as ‘the main way of
institutionalizing expertise in industrialized countries’ (Abbott 1988: 323)
which, as Burns elucidates, ‘combine in various ways science, technology,
expert knowledge, formal systems, care, acting for the benefit of society—
all central matters in developing a modern functioning society’ (Burns
2019: viii). He describes them as a Western invention that has adapted over
time and demonstrates regulatory oversight, and in which governments
have been ‘continually and iteratively involved’ (p. 135).
The sociology of professions has long explored the core characteristics
that differentiate them from other occupational groups. The dominant
perspective is functionalism, associated with founding father of sociology
Emile Durkheim and later Talcott Parsons, with a focus on how social
processes and institutions function within the systems in which they play a
part (see Ackroyd 2016; Burns 2019). In a series of lectures delivered
between 1890 and 1900 and first published in English in 1957, Durkheim
(2018) conceived professions as ‘moral communities’ that addressed a gap
in the regulation of the marketplace. Parsons (1951) built on Durkheim’s
work, emphasizing the professions’ importance in industrial society by
playing a key role in its modernization.
Functionalist models of the 1950s and 1960s identified the main traits
that characterized professions, mostly taking reference from professions’
views about themselves (Ackroyd 2016; Burns 2019). Such elements
included a long and expensive education and training, autonomy of work, a
public service orientation, adherence to a code of conduct or ethics, trusting
relations with clients, and altruistic and universalistic values. Where such
characteristics did not apply, the term ‘occupation’ was deemed more
suitable and, when only some of these were present, the term ‘semi-
profession’ was proposed (Etzioni 1969)). However, some (e.g. Hughes
1958) interpreted the distinction between professions and occupations as
differences only of degree. Simonsen (1996) drew on trait approaches to
argue that security risk management had, at the time of writing, established
the foundations of professionalism. While not well developed, the discipline
was heading in the right direction, he argued, because the following
elements were beginning to manifest: defined standards and a code of
ethics; an established knowledge base including professional journals;
recognized association(s) as a forum for discussion and development of the
profession; a measurable set of competencies along with appropriate
certification programmes; and an educational discipline preparing the
student in the profession’s specific functions and philosophies.
These perspectives did little to advance understanding of the power of
such occupational groups, or why the discourse of professionalism had such
appeal across all occupations (Mieg and Evetts 2018). In the 1970s,
functionalist theories were increasingly challenged by conflict approaches,
inspired by the ideas of Karl Marx, one sharp critique describing them as
‘professional ideology cloaked in value-neutral garb’ (Abel 1979: 82).
These new approaches also evidenced the negative effects of professional
action, including ‘limiting competition, overpricing, rent-seeking [the
attempt to gain wealth through manipulation] or occupational self-interest
rather than cost-effectiveness and efficiency’ (Burns 2019: 21). One well-
cited contribution was Larson’s (1977) concept of the ‘professional project’,
referring to initiatives by occupational collectives to define themselves,
raise their professional status, and insulate themselves from the wider
labour market. For example, Howe (1986) documented social workers’
efforts in the 1970s and 1980s to construct their tasks as professional and
intellectually complex in nature, and even to ‘ditch the dirty work’—
shifting the focus from the less glamorous aspects of their role towards the
more sophisticated. Larson (1977) viewed such undertakings as being
motivated solely by self-interested aims to monopolize the labour market
and win the spoils of doing so.
Newer perspectives present a much wider variety of views on the
complexities of contemporary professions, professionalization, and
professionalism in late modernity. Often challenging the implicit suggestion
of functionalism that how things are reflects how they should be, they stress
the importance of adaptation, and consider the relationship of professions
with the significant trends of late modernity, associated with rapid societal
change, the erosion of tradition, and continuously changing social practices,
including considerations of gender, class, race, and sexuality (Burns 2019).
Evetts (2013: 781) argues that we might alternatively view professions
today as the ‘structural, occupational and institutional arrangements for
work associated with the uncertainties of modern lives in risk societies’,
given the extent to which they deal with risk and enable clients to manage
uncertainty.
Susskind and Susskind (2017: 15) argue that today’s professions share
four features to varying degrees: ‘(1) they have specialist knowledge; (2)
their admission depends on credentials; (3) their activities are regulated;
and (4) they are bound by a common set of values’. While professions are
largely still seen as having great normative value, promoting better practice
in their occupational fields, they are undoubtedly also motivated by the
quality assurance and market advantage being bestowed or received (Burns
2019). Writers like Burns and Susskind and Susskind (2017) provide useful
contemporary critiques that can be applied across most professions,
including slowness of adaptation to an increasingly globalized and high-
tech world, and inequities in consumer access to such expertise. In the legal
profession the world over, for example, hourly rates have become so
unaffordable to most individual consumers and businesses that their
demands are increasingly being met in new ways. In an earlier publication,
Susskind (2008) predicted that, in the longer term, lawyers will largely be
replaced by computerized systems, less costly workers and online self-help
tools.

Confronting the Fourth Industrial Revolution

As with other professions, security professionals and the bodies that
represent them need to understand fully the implications of the
transformations now taking place, to ensure that they adapt accordingly.
Globalization is now accelerating at such a speed that some are using terms
such as ‘hyperglobalization’ (e.g. Rodrik 2011; Subramanian and Kessler
2013; Inoue 2018) and ‘globalization 4.0’ (Baldwin 2018) to convey its
pace and impact (see also Wakefield 2021). Inoue (2018) attributes this to
three factors: the extensive growth in global trade and consequential
expansion of cross-border economic integration; changing norms of human
communication and reduction of sociocultural barriers facilitated by social
media and the Internet; and rapid socioeconomic changes driven by
technological innovations such as the Internet of things, big data, and
artificial intelligence. The concept of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR),
sometimes alternatively referred to as ‘Industry 4.0’ (see Rojko 2017),
provides a useful framework for thinking about the collective impact and
implications of an increasingly technologically integrated world. The first
industrial revolution of around 1760 to 1840 had been characterized by the
mechanization of production through water and steam power, while the
second commenced in the late nineteenth century and established mass
production fuelled by electricity, gas and oil. The third industrial revolution,
beginning in the 1960s, was also known as the digital revolution as it was
brought about through the development of electronics, mainframe
computing, personal computing and the Internet.
Coined by Klaus Schwab (2017, 2018), Founder of the World Economic
Forum, the 4IR refers to the advanced stage of industrial development that
we are now entering, significantly impacting the ways in which humans
live, work and relate to each other. Having started early in the new
millennium, facilitated by the Internet, using the power of digitization and
information technology to enable all dimensions of production to be
connected in real time, it is bringing about an unprecedented speed and
scale of innovation and change, disrupting most industries across the world.
AS Schwab (2017) summarizes, the 4IR is characterized by the growing
interrelationship between physical innovations (such as autonomous
vehicles, 3D printing, advanced robotics, and new materials, including
advanced nanomaterials such as graphene); digital innovations (such as
technologies enabling IoT—including sensors, big data, and cloud
computing—blockchain technology, and the on-demand economy
epitomized by Uber, Airbnb, and Deliveroo); and biological innovations
(such as genome editing—the modification of DNA in living organisms—
which raise profound ethical issues but have significant implications for
spheres such as medicine, agriculture, and biofuels).
In his second book, Schwab (2018) emphasizes that 4IR requires
widespread changes in approach, for example, that governments must invest
in more agile approaches to governance that empower communities and
deeply engage business and civil society; businesses need to be aware of the
opportunities that 4IR presents and develop ways of working that are
sensitive to their impact on employees, customers, and communities; and
individuals must get involved in conversations about the implications of
4IR and experience the technologies associated with it. The key challenges
to confront include ensuring ethical considerations are built into
technological development processes, and preparing people adequately for
the changing nature of work and particularly the impact of accelerating
automation. Indeed, the World Economic Forum’s (2020) Future of Jobs
Report, in its third edition at the time of writing, highlights how the
employee skills profile seen by employers as being required to perform
most jobs is already evolving rapidly and requires ongoing re- and
upskilling. The most sought-after job skills by 2025, according to their
latest survey, were analytical thinking and innovation; active learning and
learning strategies; complex problem-solving; critical thinking and analysis;
and creativity, originality, and initiative. Schwab writes with an optimistic,
galvanizing tone but, since the speed of technological advancement is
already a significant challenge for governments, their capacity to adapt
adequately as it accelerates further is questionable. As the UK Ministry of
Defence (2018) acknowledges in the latest edition at the time of writing of
its foresight report Global Strategic Trends, managing this process may be
especially difficult in political systems with short election cycles; less
democratic countries without such vulnerabilities may be more adaptive to
these new challenges and opportunities.
To mitigate the adverse impacts of 4IR, bold political decisions will be
needed, and new ways of working will need to be established. Global risks
and threats are becoming more varied, global, complex, and catastrophic.
The latest edition of the US National Intelligence Council Global Trends
foresight study (2021), published in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic,
paints a formidable picture of the global security challenges we are likely to
face in the coming decades, underpinned by five themes:
Shared global challenges which, as with COVID, may lack a human
perpetrator, and can intersect and cascade in unpredictable ways;
Fragmentation, since a more connected world does not mean a more
cohesive world and can mean quite the opposite for communities, states,
and the international community;
Disequilibrium, since the so-called international system is not set up to
mitigate effectively the global challenges now faced;
Greater contestation within communities, states, and the international
community as a result of fragmentation and disequilibrium; and
Adaptation, identified as the priority for the many actors in the
international system, and the source of future advantage.
The interdisciplinary endeavour of complexity theory, which has grown
out of systems theory, is becoming increasingly influential in the security
arena, since the effective governance of complexity is critical to building a
resilient future (see Wakefield 2021). In complex systems, changes in
outputs are not necessarily proportionate to inputs. Small influences can
have large effects, as captured in the popular metaphor of the ‘butterfly
effect’. The Ministry of Defence (2018) and National Intelligence Council
(2021) reports highlight the extent to which today’s governments remain
overly focused on old problems and are inadequately structured for today’s
risk landscape. Arising from such domains as technology, environment,
biology, and warfare, the major contemporary risks are individually quite
unlikely and may take decades to arise, falling beyond typical political time
scales, so they have not been treated as priorities for governments.
Examples of plausible global catastrophic risks (GCRs) put forward by the
Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge
(2019: 1) include:
Tipping points in the natural order due to climate change or mass
biodiversity loss;
Malicious or accidentally harmful use of artificial intelligence;
Malicious use of, or unintended consequences from, advanced
biotechnologies;
Natural or engineered global pandemic; and
Intentional, mis-calculated, accidental, or terrorist-related use of nuclear
weapons.
Such risks have multiple dimensions of complexity, relating to levels of
connectivity, non-linear dynamics, rapidly changing circumstances, and
emergent properties that produce frequent surprises. Resilience thinking, an
approach that recognizes the complexity and interconnectedness of security
challenges and advocates holistic and systemic solutions, has already
become influential across multiple policy dimensions including
international development, national security, urban design and management,
and organizational risk management. Coaffee and Chandler (2017: 389)
argue that resilience ‘offers an antidote to the vast challenges of coping with
and managing future uncertainty and a way to assess the challenges that
society faces, as well as providing a potential framework by which to
respond’. Yet the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the grave weaknesses
that still remain within governmental preparation to manage the distinct
challenges presented by GCRs. The intensity of global interactions has
facilitated the rapid spread of COVID-19, and its impact has been severe,
due to the cascading effects of the closure of borders, lockdown of
populations, disruption of supply chains and resultant economic uncertainty
on national economies, businesses, and individual workers.
To become more resilient to complex challenges, Pegram and
Kreienkamp (2019: 3) argue that governments and other actors in global
governance must ‘throw off the shackles of old ways of thinking and
embrace a complexity paradigm’, which requires ‘both revisiting the design
logics underlying how we build global governance structures, as well as
adopting a complex sensibility more capable of responding adequately to
instability, surprise and extraordinary change’. Since existing structures are
ill-equipped for mitigating GCRs, they put forward a set of
recommendations for supplementing inherited governance system design
and practices with design principles oriented to dealing with such risks.
Among these, Pegram and Kreienkamp seek to encourage ‘evolutionary
design’ methods, which first emerged in programming and software design
but are increasingly being applied in policy design for complex social
systems, continually adapting to changing circumstances and allowing for
continuous incremental changes, and term this a ‘complex governance
approach’. Highlighting the importance of actions to enhance awareness
and understanding of the problems faced, their recommendations include
calls for:
Better modelling and analysis tools, drawing on big and open data.
Effective deliberative mechanisms that are collaborative and inclusive
(e.g. conservation knowledge co-production with local and indigenous
communities);
Transparency of approach to prevent information hoarding (such as a
nation’s late disclosure of a pandemic) and increase government
accountability (e.g. nations’ commitments to Paris Agreement targets);
Adaptive policy responses, that enable continuous learning through
‘coordinated experimentation, simultaneous probing of strategies,
feedback loops on success and failure, rapid action to correct failure
before they cascade, and incentives for scaling up success’ (p. 25); and
Adaptive system design that includes ‘stabilizing system dynamics
through strategic intervention, responding to unintended consequences,
stabilizing reciprocal expectations among participants, and rebalancing
 power differentials in the interests of system integrity and social
cohesion’ (p. 27).
All of these recommendations are as relevant to individual security
professionals and their professional bodies as to governments,
intergovernmental organizations, multinational corporations, and other
powerful actors on the global stage. Security professionals will need to
coordinate with a widening range of stakeholders and help their employers
and clients navigate the security challenges of a world that will only
become more complex and uncertain.

The Security Profession in the Fourth Industrial

Revolution
The projections of Susskind and Susskind (2017) for the future of
professions provide thought-provoking reading, exploring the implications
of machines increasingly taking over many of the tasks of human
professionals, and of ongoing advancements in the distribution of
knowledge, including the increasing availability of specialist professional
knowledge freely or cheaply online. They rightly view this dissemination of
expertise as a positive trend, allowing its benefits to be spread much more
widely. Where their work is contestable is in its prediction of a steady
decline in the need for human services. Free access to information is not
necessarily an impediment to consumer spending, and the authors choose
not to address crucial issues that are deemed as being beyond their remit
and for others to pursue, including ‘questions of privacy, confidentiality,
security, and liability’ as well as ‘the dark side of the internet and the many
nefarious uses to which, regrettably, our systems are being put’ (p. 4).
For the security profession, while technical advancements are changing
the balance between frontline workers and security technology, and many
such jobs are among those at risk of automation (see World Economic
Forum 2020), projections suggest that the opposite will be the case for
professional security services due to a well-recognized cyber security skills
gap discussed below. As our reliance on connected technology grows, the
opportunities for criminals to attack and compromise information systems
and data will continue to increase, impacting individuals, organizations and
the wider economy. In considering the implications of the 4IR for the
security profession, three topics are examined: the evolution of professional
security, the convergence of physical and information security, and trends in
professional development described by Walby and Lippert (2015) as the
‘new security credentialism’.

The Evolution of Professional Security

It is striking how far and how fast professional security has already evolved.
Corporate security arrangements in the twentieth century were relatively
hidden, being primarily seen as overhead costs and therefore considered to
be of relatively low status in organizational hierarchies, and well-removed
from board-level decision-making (Lippert and Walby 2014, 2020; Walby
and Lippert 2015). Dalton (2003) identified four phases of corporate
security development that still stand up well today, reflecting its evolution
from an operational, to a tactical, and finally to a strategic function in
organizations with a well-developed security department. He described the
first phase as the ‘green shack’ era, referring to the lowly position from
which security personnel operated and the limited resources available. The
second he termed the ‘physical security’ era, which saw a more direct focus
on the protection of assets, with many units coming to be labelled ‘loss
prevention’ departments. His third ‘corporate security’ phase reflected the
emergence of this new label and the expansion of security responsibilities
beyond physical security, as they began to feature in wider business plans.
Dalton’s fourth and final phase, the ‘total asset protection era’, referred to
its further expansion and collaboration with other business units to
encompass the protection of assets both tangible and intangible (without
physical form, such as reputation or intellectual property), and increased
involvement in corporate strategic planning and business development
(such as undertaking political and security risk analysis and due diligence to
support decision-making on entering new and sometimes unstable markets
overseas). His book also noted the gradual emergence of chief security
officer roles, beginning just before 9/11.

The Convergence of Physical and Information Security

Another significant trend of the new millennium has been the increasing
focus on the ‘convergence’ of different security-related business functions
that have historically been managed separately. Most attention has been
given to that of physical and information security (see e.g. Aleem et al.
2013; Wakefield 2014; Conference Board of Canada 2018; Microsoft and
Accenture 2018), but international research by the ASIS Foundation (Beck
et al. 2019) suggests that the convergence of either physical or information
security with business continuity management—the advance planning and
preparation undertaken by organizations to enable them to restore their
business functions following disruption—is more commonplace, reported in
nearly half of the organizations that were surveyed.
Before computer networks existed, information security fell squarely
under the aegis of the traditional security programme. Since the
establishment and global penetration of the Internet brought about new
forms of ‘cyber-dependent’ threat (McGuire and Dowling 2013), the need
for specialized expertise in operating systems, networks, applications, and
protocols brought about a separate field of information security alongside
but often distinct from physical security. Today’s security professionals
have to be comfortable with both, although in some ways the former is
surpassing the latter. The value of companies’ information assets has grown
exponentially relative to their physical assets, encompassing the personal
data of customers and employees, as well as all types of business
information. An international survey of chief executive officers (CEOs),
chief information security officers (CISOs) and chief security officers
(CSOs) conducted by the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security and the
International Security Management Association (2019) found that, in the
contemporary risk climate, the CISOs were receiving more attention and
funding than CSOs (while noting the achievements of the CSO community
in terms of maturing physical security when compared with cyber).
Demand for information security professionals and the supply of
opportunities now significantly outpaces the market for physical security
staff, as illustrated in the respective membership sizes of ISACA and ASIS
International, and the increasing focus by governments and organizations on
the global cyber security skills gap. The (ISC)2 Cybersecurity Workforce
Study 2020 estimated that there is a current gap of 3.1 million workers
((ISC)2 2020). Notably, the term ‘cyber security’ is now often used
interchangeably with ‘information security’ although there is arguably a
subtle difference, with the former relating to the defence of systems rather
than the protection of information (Wakefield 2021).
The US government first acknowledged the need to build cyber security
capability in its national workforce in 2009, when its Comprehensive
National Cybersecurity Initiative, established by Presidential Directive the
previous year, launched a new work stream to expand cyber education,
stating that:

In order to effectively ensure our continued technical advantage and

future cybersecurity, we must develop a technologically-skilled and
cyber-savvy workforce and an effective pipeline of future
employees. It will take a national strategy, similar to the effort to
upgrade science and mathematics education in the 1950s, to meet
this challenge. (Executive Office of the President of the United
States 2010)

A National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), a partnership

between government, academia and the private sector led by the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the U.S. Department of
Commerce, was established to take the lead in addressing these goals,
(Peterson et al. 2020) publishing a Workforce Framework for Cybersecurity
(NICE Framework) in 2017 (updated in 2020). In 2020, the National
Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies (NICCS) within the US
Department of Homeland Security launched a Cyber Career Pathways Tool
informed by the NICE Framework that identifies five work areas—IT,
Cybersecurity, Cyber Effects, Intel (Cyber), and Cross Functional—and 52
job roles.
In the UK, developing cyber security skills in the workforce is a
dimension of the UK’s National Cyber Security Strategy 2016–2021 (HM
Government 2016), developed further in an Initial National Cyber Security
Skills Strategy (HM Government 2018). In 2021, the UK government
launched a Cyber Security Council to implement the skill strategy, and
published a ‘careers route map’ (Cyber Security Council 2021) detailing 16
specialisms in cyber security and pathways through and between them,
addressing a dearth of guidance on such routes that have made cyber
security ‘a confusing landscape to navigate, compounding the diversity
challenges evident across the workforce’ (HM Government 2018: 3). The
extent of the skills gap facing the UK has been detailed through a
government survey (McHenry et al. 2021), from which it was concluded
that high proportions of UK businesses lack staff members with the
technical, incident response and governance skills needed to manage their
cyber security, and that approximately 680,000 UK businesses (50 per cent)
have a basic skills gap without the capacity to implement the minimum
requirements of the government’s Cyber Essentials information assurance
scheme.
From cyber security’s earliest days, convergence advocates have tried to
bring physical and information security together, with the argument that
security needs to be viewed holistically rather than broken down into silos.
Other related disciplines, such as business continuity, have also either spun
off security or arisen independently, and have been eyed for convergence
with physical and cyber security. A succinct explanation of convergence
comes from the ASIS Foundation report The State of Security Convergence
in the United States, Europe, and India (Beck et al. 2019: 3), which defines
it as: ‘security/risk management functions working together seamlessly to
address security holistically and to close the gaps and vulnerabilities that
exist in the spaces between functions’. The report goes on to explain that
‘Fully converged functions are generally unified and interconnected,
reporting to one security leader. They often have shared practices and
processes, as well as shared responsibility for security strategy. Converged
functions work together to provide an integrated enterprise defense’.
Convergence forms part of an enterprise-wide approach to the management
of risk (enterprise risk management) and, within such a framework, the
management of security risk (enterprise security risk management.
The World Economic Forum (2016: 78) stressed the importance of
converged solutions in its Global Risk Report 2016, stating, ‘While there
are many “C” level owners (CISO, CFO, CEO, CRO, Risk Management),
each of these owners has differing but related interests and unfortunately
often does not integrate risk or effectively collaborate on its management’.
In the ASIS Foundation study, Beck et al. (2019) looked at the factors that
drive or discourage security convergence, the benefits and drawbacks of
convergence, and the extent of convergence by geography, industry, and
organizational size. They found that 24 per cent of the organizations
surveyed reported having converged physical and cyber security (this can
be compared with the 34 per cent of end users reporting the same in an
earlier study by Gill and Howell 2016). Benefits of such an approach
identified in the report include better alignment of security strategy with
corporate goals, enhanced communication and cooperation, shared practices
and goals across functions, more versatile and well-rounded staff, and a
more efficient security operation. Challenges were reported to include
different cultures and skillsets, siloed operating traditions, and the belief
that information security requires its own department. Consequently, it was
argued that there is no standard convergence solution, and convergence
needs to be customized to match the needs of the organization and its
culture. According to the authors, overseeing a converged function
therefore requires leadership skills, management savvy, and effective
communication tailored to specific audiences, including speaking the
language of business to executives.

The ‘New Security Credentialism’

The key message of the ASIS Foundation report for security
professionalization is that today’s practitioners need not be experts in every
field or technology, but they should have command of key principles,
techniques, and technologies, and be able to adapt and communicate
effectively in a rapidly evolving security landscape. This is the climate in
which Walby and Lippert (2015) argue that a ‘new security credentialism’
has taken hold and is transforming professional security, with more security
practitioners joining professional associations and pursuing qualifications
and other forms of professional development, including the ongoing
enhancement of information security skills. Those working in security or
aspiring to do so can now choose from an array of generalist and specialist
pathways in formal security education, vocational training, and professional
certification, none of which on their own fully reflect the breadth of
contemporary security practice, as well as an increasing variety of non-
formal learning opportunities including microcredentials. These are defined
by Oliver (2019: i) as ‘certification[s] of assessed learning that [are]
additional, alternate, complementary to or a formal component of a formal
qualification’, such as those offered by the digital platforms Coursera, edX
and FutureLearn. As she explains, these are rapidly becoming an important
dimension of the digital economy in which ongoing upskilling is necessary
for workers to keep abreast of the speed of change.
Walby and Lippert (2015) propose the addition of a fifth phase to
Dalton’s (2003) typology of corporate security development, which they
attribute in part to the new security credentialism, and call the era of
‘corporate security creep’. This refers to the increasing permeation of
corporate security models and practices for governing conduct, places, and
information into the public sphere, from central government departments to
local authorities, universities, and parks, all of which are becoming subject
to more and more vigilant monitoring and regulation. The trend is
exemplified in the UK government’s Security Policy Framework (Cabinet
Office 2018), the Australian government’s Protective Security Policy
Framework (Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department 2018),
the establishment of the Government Security Profession in UK central
government, and associations supporting knowledge exchange in public
sector practitioner groups such as the Association of University Chief
Security Officers, an international association, and nationally focused
bodies like the National Association for Healthcare Security in the UK. The
Security Policy Framework of the UK government sets out principles stated
as being common to every area of security, and which emphasize the
importance now afforded to the work of the Government Security
Profession. These include the principles that: ‘Protective security should
reflect the UK’s widest national security objectives and ensure that [Her
Majesty’s Government’s] most sensitive assets are robustly protected …
Security must enable the business of government … Risk management is
key and should be driven from Board level’ (Cabinet Office 2018: 3).
The document begins with a statement on the challenges for security in
the 4IR, noting that ‘There are longstanding threats and risks to bear in
mind; but we must also continue to develop our growing appreciation of
global and cyber challenges, critical infrastructure dependencies, together
with wider resilience and sustainability issues’ (p. 2). The challenges of the
COVID-19 pandemic have brought such concerns into sharp focus, as few
security professionals were prepared for its length and severity, but were
required quickly to take on new roles and build new competencies. This
assumption of new duties raises the related questions of whether the
prolonged pandemic has actually enhanced the professionalization of
security and whether security will retain any new status and authority it
gained as the pandemic ebbs. A survey of 121 security executives
conducted by Thomson Reuters in August 2020 (Gips 2020) showed that
three-quarters of respondents said leadership viewed security more
favourably during the pandemic. Almost two-thirds believed that security
had gained ‘authority, responsibility, and voice’. Asked whether they
expected to retain or relinquish duties they gained during the pandemic.
Forty-five per cent expected to keep them, and only 10 per cent expected to
relinquish them. They suggested various ways by which they could preserve
their heightened status, including by identifying future crises early on,
providing detailed metrics of that value to business leaders, and cementing
partnerships with departments they worked with closely during the
pandemic, such as health and safety, human resources, facilities, and
operations.

Conclusion
This chapter explored the key characteristics of professions, the future
challenges they face, and the implications of those challenges for
professional security. It has shown how the academic analysis of
professions goes back as far as the late nineteenth century and enables us to
take stock of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats common
to most professions in their histories and as they look to the future. The era
we are now entering, increasingly being recognized as the ‘fourth industrial
revolution’ and characterized by accelerating technological advancement
and global interconnectedness, requires professions to show considerable
self-awareness and capacity for adaptation if they are to meet the
requirements of an increasingly uncertain and complex future world. The
chapter highlighted just how far professional security has already evolved,
and the impact that the scale and severity of Internet-based threats have had
and will continue to have on the profession, as well as the realizations about
the changing nature of global risks and threats that the COVID-19
pandemic has brought to the fore. As a rapidly changing world requires
constant updating and widening of professional knowledge and skills, the
chapter recognizes advances in the professional development landscape and
particularly the growing importance of ‘micro-credentials’. For all twenty-
first century workers of all ages, including security professionals, keeping
abreast of the pace and implications of positive and negative change is the
main challenge that we all must confront.

Recommended Readings
For a detailed analysis of the challenges that will increasingly confront
professionals and their professions in the future, The Future of the
Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Experts (Richard
and Daniel Susskind, 2017, Oxford: Oxford University Press) is strongly
recommended, and can be read in conjunction with Shaping the Future of
the Fourth Industrial Revolution: A Guide to Building a Better World by
Klaus Schwab, Founder of the World Economic Forum (2018, London:
Portfolio Penguin). Alison Wakefield’s latest book Security and Crime:
Converging Perspectives on a Complex World (2021, London: Sage)
examines the drivers of change, threats, and mitigation strategies across
multiple dimensions of analysis (e.g. the international, regional, national,
and local) and explores a wide range of interconnected security issues to
inform the student and practitioner alike. For a fuller understanding of
trends in security convergence, also recommended are the reports The State
of Security Convergence in the United States, Europe, and India (David
Beck, Michael Gips and Beth McFarland Pierce, 2019. Washington, DC:
ASIS Foundation), and Combining Strengths: The Convergence of Cyber
and Physical Security (Conference Board of Canada 2018. Ottowa: The
Conference Board of Canada).

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https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_35

35. Security or Liberty? Human Rights

and Protest
Kate Moss1
(1) College of Business, Law and Social Science, University of Derby,
Derby, UK

Kate Moss
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
The right to peaceful protest is a deeply rooted tradition in the UK.
Protected by Art. 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, it did
not become law in the UK until the passing of the Human Rights Act 1998
section 11. The right to protest has been used many times by the public to
fight for rights—such as universal adult suffrage in the early twentieth
century and to protest about government policy, such as the Orgreave
miners’ strike. Notwithstanding its protection by domestic law in the UK,
successive governments have sought to restrict the rights of protesters by
enacting a raft of new laws that are intended to combat perceived threats
including anti-terrorism and anti-social behaviour laws. In addition,
governments have directed the police to use force against such protest—
most recently in relation to Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter and
pandemic protests. This chapter will consider the right to peaceful protest as
an element of human rights that should prevail in a democratic society and
against this the efforts of successive governments to restrict this and
whether such actions are justified for the protection of national security or
whether they are an unjustified and worrying attack on basic civil liberties.
 The hostile reaction to the Bristol protest shows how unprepared
English people are for what’s coming. You don’t shut down a fascist
uprising with a conga line. And no, the suffragettes didn’t win the
vote with a tap dance. Every struggle against oppression requires a
fight, because oppressors will injure, imprison and kill you to
advance their interests. The UK government is attempting to make
protest that causes disruption of any kind a criminal offence that
could put you in jail for up to a decade. It’s time to wake up and
resist. Or at the very least, support those who do. (Mendoza 2021:
1)

This chapter considers the right to peaceful protest as an element of

human rights that should prevail in a democratic society and against this
offers some examples of efforts to restrict this. It asks the question, are such
actions justified for the protection of national security or are they an
unjustified and worrying attack on basic civil liberties? Although essentially
rooted in the UK, this chapter will also consider global examples of recent
protest and the responses to them.
In international law, the right to protest is recognised in various treaties,
including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The
United Nations and regional mechanisms, such as the African Commission
on Human and Peoples’ Rights, have also developed international
standards, which include 10 general principles that apply before, during and
after a protest. These include: respect for human rights without
discrimination; the universal right to protest; limitation of restrictions; states
must facilitate protest; force only used if unavoidable; every person can
observe monitor and record protests; collection of personal information
must be lawful; every person has the right to access that information;
protest can be carried out in private places and protestors whose rights have
been violated have the right to a remedy (Civicus 2021). In the UK the right
to peaceful protest is a deeply rooted tradition. Protected by Art. 11 of the
European Convention on Human Rights, it did not become law in the UK
until the passing of the Human Rights Act 1998 section 11. The right to
protest has been used many times by the public to fight for rights—such as
universal adult suffrage in the early twentieth century and to protest about
government policy, such as the Orgreave miners’ strike. (The Battle of
Orgreave was a violent confrontation on 18 June 1984 between pickets and
South Yorkshire Police at Orgreave in South Yorkshire, England. A pivotal
event in the 1984–1985 UK miners’ strike, it was one of the most violent
clashes in British industrial history (Mansfield 2009).
Notwithstanding its protection by domestic law in the UK, successive
governments have sought to restrict the rights of protesters by enacting a
raft of new laws that are intended to combat perceived threats including
anti-terrorism and anti-social behaviour laws. In addition, governments
have directed the police to use force against such protest—most recently in
relation to Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter and pandemic protests.
I will consider some of these examples, alongside global illustrations in an
effort to determine the current state of play in relation to the right to protest.
I have written previously (Moss 2011) that the origins of basic human
rights—including the right to protest—can be found in the work of Locke
(1689) and Paine (1776) who were amongst the first philosophers to discuss
the notion of inalienable rights. Their ideas led to further developments in
the drive to secure protection for human rights and fundamental freedoms
such as those which became enshrined in the European Convention on
Human Rights and subsequently the Human Rights Act 1998. The
incorporation of the Convention into UK domestic law demonstrated a
significant constitutional change, empowering the British judiciary to reach
decisions about potential violations of those rights outside of the
jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. Various cases have
since been taken under most of the articles of the Act (Moss 2011: 61–89).
With this in mind we could be forgiven for thinking that successive
governments have been concerned to preserve free speech because in most
Western democracies it has been widely accepted as being integral to
democracy. However, although protest is a fundamental right, protected in
domestic and international law, which the government and public
authorities have a duty to facilitate; an essential tool for expressing dissent
against those in power, and effecting social, political and economic change,
I would suggest that recent developments in the UK will soon undermine
the very fabric of this right in a more serious way than ever before. So what
I want to do in this chapter is first revisit the current legal position relating
specifically to the right to peacefully protest both in the UK and globally
and second, to look specifically to the UK and at what I see as the various
ways in which this right has been suppressed over time by successive
British Governments. Third, I want to make some suggestions about what I
see as the likely effects of a new UK law—the proposed Police Crime
Sentencing and Courts Bill 2021—which passed its second reading in the
House of Commons (by 359 votes to 263) on 16 March 2021.
I make no apology for my particular stance on this issue and having
been asked to make this contribution, find myself writing this chapter
immediately after the Clapham Common Vigil. For those readers who may
be unfamiliar with this, it was a commemoration held in London on 13
March 2021, for Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old woman who was kidnapped
and killed by a serving Metropolitan police officer. The events of that
peaceful vigil became the source of an HMIC Inquiry (2021) after the
policing of the event included Police officers trampling over the flowers
and tributes left to Sarah to get onto the bandstand to prevent speeches from
going ahead, threatening fines under coronavirus legislation and ultimately
making numerous arrests at what ostensibly was a peaceful women’s vigil.
There is no other way to put it, but this has to be a turning point for our
nation; a moment of such incredible repugnance which will certainly
feature in UK national history. What right thinking person could ever argue
that it would be acceptable to suppress, in the most violent way, a peaceful
women’s vigil—and this just days after International Women’s Day and
Mother’s Day? Yet here we are; and it is against this backdrop that I want to
write about what I see as the demonisation of the right to protest in the UK
as an example of broader global concerns about this issue.

The Current Legal Position in the UK

Freedom of assembly as enshrined in Article 11 of the Convention
protects a demonstration that may annoy or cause offence to
persons opposed to the ideas or claims that it is seeking to
promote… Any measures interfering with freedom of assembly and
expression other than in cases of incitement to violence or rejection
of democratic principles—however shocking and unacceptable
certain views or words used may appear to the authorities—do a
disservice to democracy and often even endanger it. Alexei Navalny
v Russia (2018)
 The legal position relating specifically to section 11 of the Human
Rights Act 1998—the right to peaceful assembly and association—on
which this chapter hinges (and emanating from Article 11 of the European
Convention on Human Rights) provides that:

Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to

freedom of association with others, including the right to form and
to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

This section protects the right to hold peaceful protests, meetings and
demonstrations but in spite of this, there has also always been the potential
to restrict this right on the basis of either public order or public safety
considerations, usually under the Public Order Act 1986. The limitations
which this legislation can impose on Article 11 are not insubstantial and
include the fact that organisers of public processions are required to provide
notice to the police of the event’s location and routes that the procession
will follow unless this is not reasonably practicable. The police can impose
restrictions on the freedoms of belief, expression and peaceful assembly
provided any such restriction is:
prescribed by law
in pursuit of one or more legitimate aims specified in paragraph 2 of the
Article in question
necessary
proportionate
Added to this, sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act allow the
police to impose conditions on a public procession or assembly if the police
reasonably believe that it may result in:
serious public disorder
serious damage to property
serious disruption to the life of the community or
the purpose of those organising it is the intimidation of others.
There is a power to ban a public procession under the Public Order Act,
but there has as yet, been no power to ban a public assembly. Banning a
public procession is justified only in extreme circumstances where there is a
real threat of serious public disorder, which cannot be prevented by other
less stringent measures. The rule until recently was that the mere fact that a
public procession may annoy others, or even offend them, is not a sufficient
basis for banning it. We shall come back to this point later in the light of the
Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill 2021 (PCSC).
Section 13 of the Public Order Act allows a chief officer of police to
apply to the local council for an order prohibiting the holding of a public
procession for a period of up to three months where the chief officer of
police reasonably believes that in the particular circumstances the powers to
impose conditions on a public procession will not be sufficient to prevent
serious public disorder. The council must obtain the consent of the secretary
of state before making a banning order.
The blanket application of a ban of all public processions in a particular
district raises issues regarding proportionality, as there is no ability to
consider the particular circumstances of each individual procession when
such a ban is imposed. The legal principle of proportionality requires there
to be a link between the purpose for the restriction and the measures
employed to achieve that purpose and that a balance is struck between the
two (Kudrevičius and Others v. Lithuania ECHR 37553/05 [GC], 15th
October 2015, 144.) The main considerations for this are:
is the purpose sufficiently important to justify the restriction (i.e., are
there relevant and sufficient reasons to justify the restriction)?
will the measures proposed achieve that purpose?
are the measures to be taken the least restrictive to achieve the intended
purpose?
are the restrictions to ECHR rights necessary to meet the legitimate aims
set out in the ECHR rights concerned?
If the answer to all four questions is yes, then the conditions or
restrictions imposed on a public procession or public assembly under
section 12 or 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 will be proportionate.
Currently, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill 2021—which
passed its second reading in the House of Commons on 16 March 2021—
would significantly change the legal landscape in relation to the right to
protest. Although the Government has claimed it will “strengthen police
powers to tackle non-violent protests that have a significant disruptive
effect on the public” (Good Law Project 2021), clauses 54 to 60 of the
PCSC Bill contain measures that will stifle public assemblies and
processions by giving the police more powers not only to impose conditions
on the right to public processions and assemblies but also leaving it entirely
to their discretion to determine under what conditions those can be. The
trigger for this appears to be the level of noise generated by the protest
which will be deemed to cause “serious disruption to the activities of an
organisation which are carried on in the vicinity of the procession” or
‘relevant’ and ‘significant’ impact on persons in the vicinity. Arguably this
very generic and ‘catch all’ wording would pretty much cover every protest
that could be held and thus makes it very easy for the police to justify
restrictions in most cases. Conceivably this could be seen as a significant
expansion of the measures already contained in the Public Order Act 1986;
more worrying is that it will necessitate the police making subjective
judgements about what vocal behaviour amounts to intimidation or
harassment, using as their measure vague words such as ‘unease,’ ‘alarm’
and ‘distress.’ The case of Galstyan v Armenia (2007) 50 EHRR 618
provides some precedent for the normalcy of noise at most gatherings and
one could be forgiven for thinking that outlawing the making of noise is
simply a way of outlawing the right to protest. The wording of the clauses
points to the fact that it is the impact of protests that should be stifled but
ironically that is exactly what a protest should do—have impact. Added to
this the clauses allow the Homes Secretary to decide (with very little
Parliamentary scrutiny) what amounts to “serious disruption to the
activities of an organisation which are carried on in the vicinity” or
“serious disruption to the life of the community.”
A further aspect of the Bill is that Clause 59 replaces the common law
offence of public nuisance with a new statutory offence that brings with it a
maximum custodial sentence of ten years. The only safeguard against this is
if an individual can claim there was ‘a reasonable excuse’ for the act in
question. There is both ambiguity in these provisions and therefore
critically the potential for misuse since the more vague the law, the more
potential there is for it to be misapplied. The end result will in all
probability be the same; people will be discouraged from protesting because
it will pose too great a risk and thus the right of individuals to show their
support for issues they strongly believe in will be shut down.
Suppression through the statute book is of course not new. Equally the
propensity for Governments of whatever colour to think that all social ills
can be solved by legislating is not unique but knee jerk reactions like this,
in an effort to produce a ‘quick fix’ for whatever the government finds
currently troublesome, produces nothing more than a state of ‘rhetoric over
reality’ (Prins 2007: 190). More worrying still is the manner in which the
current UK government persuades the population, via the media, that
oppressive legislation is necessary. It is a tried and tested mechanism of
governments the world over to persuade (brainwash?) the public about what
is necessary in the protection of their own interests. I have written (Moss
2009: 19) about this in relation to CCTV, which was arguably ‘sold’ to the
public on the basis that it was an element of ‘reassurance policing’ rather
than an infringement of liberty. It has been the same with the issue of
protest. The steady demonisation of the protestor as a violent thug, or part
of a baying mob has served to cast those who exercise their democratic
human right to protest about issues of national or global importance as
outsiders, misfits and troublemakers. Even a cursory glance at most of the
media coverage of protests and the language used therein is enough to
demonstrate this. Kilgo and Harlow (2019) have suggested that although
news coverage is fundamental to a protest’s viability, research suggests
media negatively portray protests and protesters that challenge the status
quo—a pattern known as the protest paradigm. Other scholars have also
articulated the concept of the protest paradigm to capture the news media’s
tendency to portray social protests as deviant, threatening or impotent (Lee
2014). All of this of course plays into the hands of any government wishing
to pass laws that might otherwise be viewed as restrictive or punitive.
Aside from these laws and those currently proposed that have been used
to encroach upon the right to protest, there have over time been other ways
in which this basic human right has been encroached upon and I shall
highlight some of these in the next section. Before I do that it is useful to
acknowledge that current waves of social unrest—some of which will be
described later in this chapter—have clearly put pressure not just on state
mechanisms of social control such as the police, but also on the private
security sector. Private security is arguably a mechanism of social control—
albeit distinct from the police by virtue of its private status—which can be
mobilised in the face of issues such as public protest. In the UK there has
been a significant expansion of private security over the past 30 or so years
and the conduct of private security guards has been particularly important in
recent cases arising from anti-fracking protests, protests at housing estates
and protests in shopping centres. Interestingly regulation of the private
security sector, including police views on its use and efficacy, has been
raised. Gill and Howell (2017: 6) found in a study of 1361 serving police
officers that “close to 6 in 10 believed private security plays a minor role in
protecting the public [and] close to 7 in 10 believed security officers do not
act as the eyes and ears of the police.” It is however, important to raise the
issue of private security in relation to the right to protest not least because
private security guards are often used by land or property owners to try to
prevent protest and other unwanted activity on their land and in their
buildings. This potentially can be problematic because in the first place
although there is no standard ‘uniform’ for such people and the high
visibility jackets and black clothing they normally wear make them all but
indistinguishable from the police. So for a protestor it would be very
difficult to discern a private security guard from a police officer but of
course their roles are very different. Any attempt that they might make to
remove or detain individuals has to involve calling the police since they
have no more legal power than any other member of the public. Like other
members of the public, security guards can use ‘reasonable force’ to
remove trespassers from private property as long as they are acting as
agents for the property owner; similarly, as can ordinary members of the
public, they can only make a ‘citizen’s arrest’ under section 24A of the
Police And Criminal Evidence Act 1984. To effect this they would be
allowed to use ‘reasonable force’ under that Act to prevent a crime or if
they have a reasonable suspicion that an offence has been committed, but
they can only detain someone if there is a risk of injury, damage to property
or that the person is likely to escape before the police have been called and
arrived. There are clearly issues of concern with this because all of these
actions would rely on private security guards being well trained and
cognisant of the law and what their limitations are within that. Added to
this, what constitutes ‘reasonable’ force or suspicion is ambiguous. So
although private security personnel generally do not have any more legal
powers than any member of the public it’s important, especially at times of
civil unrest, that private security is well trained and managed and able to
deal legally, fairly and effectively with issues of protest which might affect
properties that they have specific responsibility for. It’s equally, if not more
important, that protestors are able to recognise private security personnel
from the police in order to safeguard their own rights.
The Suppression of Peaceful Protest
The suppression of peaceful protest has been facilitated in a number of
different ways. Since the mid-nineteenth century dispersal tactics have been
a stalwart of police all over the world. So too has the use of excessive force
by the police/state which has been a defining feature of numerous protest
events. In the UK the massacre at Peterloo 1819 (which took place in
Manchester and at which 18 people died when cavalry charged into a crowd
of around 60,000 people who had gathered to demand the reform of
parliamentary representation) arguably has some parallels with both the
Clapham Common vigil mentioned already, and recent protests in Bristol
against the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill 2021. The 1819
lancing of protestors at Peterloo—resulting in 18 deaths and over 600
injuries (Navickas 2016)—is not that far away from the footage we have
today of a woman being punched square in the face and knocked out cold
by a police officer in riot gear. It’s as close as you could get really. Let’s
look more specifically at some examples of protest control mechanisms.
Subsequent to the 1990 Poll Tax riots (a series of riots in British towns
and cities against the Community Charge—colloquially known as the ‘poll
tax’—introduced by the Conservative government of Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher) the London Metropolitan Police devised the tactic
known as ‘kettling.’ This is a crowd control method that corrals groups of
protestors into a limited area so that they effectively cannot move. The
problem with this is that hemmed in, if the police start using force to
disperse demonstrators, public retaliation becomes inevitable and things can
quickly escalate because there is no escape route. My late friend and
colleague (with whom it will be obvious to the reader I did not share views
on this topic, but nevertheless shared a great mutual respect) Peter (Tank)
Waddington—the architect of kettling—often justified its use arguing that it
led to more orderly dispersal of crowds with few injuries and arrests.
Talking about the G20 anniversary protest In Trafalgar Square he
commented (2009: 1) that:

Protesters were held for several hours until they…calmed down and
were allowed to disperse. Provided there are good grounds for
taking such action, it [is] lawful and not a breach of the Human
Rights Act. No public order tactic is free of the use of force by
 police. Disorderly protesters do not willingly succumb to
containment. In a tension-filled environment sparks will inevitably
fly.

The problem I have with this is that it presupposes that protestors are
normally not calm, and that forcible containment is not a big problem when
in fact it is probably at the very least inconvenient and uncomfortable for
most people. Nonetheless Waddington presumes they should succumb to it
and if they don’t, the inevitable result will be public disorder. This shows
scant regard for the nuances involved in the issue of public protest. To be
‘corralled’ as a result of merely carrying out a basic human right will
clearly be a source of contention and why not? Should individuals choosing
to exercise their right to protest acquiesce to the inevitability of being
imprisoned in a street? The critic may say that it is the strength of feeling of
those protests that lead to public disorder, but there are many occasions
where this has proved not to be the case—Orgreave and the Clapham
Common vigil being just two examples to which I shall return in due
course.
What kettling does is detain innocent people. Of course, there may be
odd individuals amongst them who might be fairly determined to escalate
the situation but this is rarely true of the majority. Why then should
peaceful protestors be falsely imprisoned, rendered powerless to protect
themselves and effectively kept in mass detention for hours? There are both
ethical and practical difficulties associated with this which were highlighted
by the decade-long legal battle over mass arrests at the 2010 G20 summit in
Toronto in which the police and hundreds of protesters and others reached a
$16.5 million settlement.
David Waddington (1998) (as opposed to Peter) has commented that
kettling is an example of a form of strategic incapacitation that became the
dominant model within policing in the 2000s. Including the use of no-
protest zones (concrete or metal barriers and curfews), the interception and
obstruction of protesters, the disruption of assembly or convergence centres
and the use of ‘less lethal’ weapons (pepper spray, tear gas, concussion
grenades) as means of ‘retaking’ spaces of contention, it has also included
the use of intelligence and surveillance to predict or monitor demonstrators’
behaviour and assign perceived levels of risk or danger in order to carry out
pre-emptive arrests (remove ringleaders).
 It was these kinds of tactics that were used in the UK at the 2009 G20
summit, but what makes this particularly interesting—with hindsight—is
the coverage by the media and how that compares with media coverage
today. Rosie and Gorringe (2009: 1) comment that:

The casual observer of the controversy over policing at April 2009’s

G20 summit in London might have been forgiven for imagining that
Britain’s media serves as a bulwark against the abuse of power,
fearlessly illuminating and condemning injustice. The publication of
video footage and eye-witness accounts to heavy-handed protest
policing has certainly raised the profile of this issue and led,
concretely, to formal investigation of both individual police officers
and to policing strategies more broadly.

It was against this backdrop that an internal investigation of the

Metropolitan police was carried out, which was critical of aspects of the
police operation. Highlighting the fact that many Met officers failed to wear
ID numbers (why?); the need to actually communicate with individuals
being kettled and the need to facilitate ‘peaceful protest,’ it does however
fail on two significant counts. First, it assumes that it is the police who
decide who is, or is not, a peaceful protestor, and second it assumes that all
protestors are potentially violent. The successful and effective policing of
legal protests needs to acknowledge that treating all protestors as a
homogenised unruly and potentially violent mass is ineffective. Rather than
preventing public disorder this approach can escalate it and crucially it
depends on the subjectiveness of commanding officers who appear not to
reign in, intervene or reprimand officers wielding batons often against
completely innocent people.
Although kettling was not a formal practice at the time of the Orgreave
dispute in 1984 we can see if we revisit this protest that things have not
changed a great deal. Gilmore (2016: 612) comments that: “In October
2016, the Home Secretary ruled out a public inquiry into the ‘Battle of
Orgreave’, arguing that ‘very few lessons’ could be learned from a review
of practices of three decades ago. It was suggested that policing has
undergone a progressive transformation since the 1984–5 miners’ strike, at
political, legal, and operational levels.” Gilmore’s work, however, gives a
very different account of what she terms the ‘expansion of state control over
public protest’ since the strike. Anyone who has watched the footage from
the Orgreave protest will not lightly forget the images of miners being hit
over the head with truncheons, horses charging into groups of defenceless
men and one woman—Lesley Boulton—who was almost hit across the
head with some form of pole before being pulled to safety. Of this episode
she has always said: “I don’t take this image personally. It’s not about me;
it’s about something much bigger: an expression of arbitrary power”
(Boulton 2016: 1). Much of the subsequent media footage showed men
bleeding profusely from head wounds. But the view that has always
prevailed is that the miners were violent rioters and the police response was
proportionate. Television footage showed miners throwing stones but it did
so out of context. They were actually doing this in retaliation for being
charged on horses. Ninety-five miners were arrested and 55 charged with
riot about whom the [then] Home Secretary Leon Brittan said they should
be given life sentences. None of this acknowledged what the miners’
lawyers discovered under cross-examination that South Yorkshire police
had, in fact, orchestrated and correlated their witness statements (Mansfield
2009).
We are told (HMIC 2009: 27) that public order policing policy in
England and Wales has undergone significant changes in order to move
towards a new ‘human rights compliant’ framework, based on dialogue,
communication and a commitment to ‘facilitating’ peaceful protest, which
was proposed as a necessary response to help the police service ‘adapt to
the modern day demands of public order policing.’ But what have been the
tests of this in the last 21 years? Let’s take anti-fracking protests as our next
example.
There have been longitudinal case studies of the policing of UK-wide
protests against ‘fracking,’ which have sought to evaluate the impact of
policing policy changes on the operational policing of such protests. In
particular, Gilmore (2020) focuses on police definitions of ‘acceptable’ and
‘unacceptable’ protest and considers the extent to which these definitions
are reflected in the police response to anti-fracking protest. These protests
(based on genuine and well-founded concerns about the environmental
damage fracking can cause, which—let’s not forget—was subsequently
banned after an expert report found that it was not possible to accurately
predict the danger of earth tremors from the controversial gas-extraction
process) have involved significant deployment of police officers, large
numbers of arrests and high numbers of complaints about the nature of the
police response at sites such as Balcombe and Barton Moss. A useful
starting point for readers to engage with more of this is Hayhurst (2014).
Kiai (2017) identified concerns with the use of both excessive force and
mass arrest in the police response to anti-fracking protests with protestors
describing incidences of police violence, confrontation and intimidation as
well as episodes of being pushed, shoved, dragged, contained and restrained
on a daily basis. Again police officers alluded to the ‘proportionality’ of the
policing operations at fracking sites, but the experiences of protesters
indicate that the principle of ‘necessity’ is rarely considered, even though it
is an essential element of international human rights standards. Gilmore et
al. (2020: 390) work on this suggests that ‘in the case of anti-fracking
protests, an official policing commitment to a human rights approach to
protest facilitation is at odds with the empirical reality.’
So against this backdrop, currently how free are we to peacefully protest
and how is this right viewed? I would venture to say that the right to protest
in the UK has systematically been demonised, helped in no small part by
the media. Rosie and Gorringe (2009: 1) comment that: “media assertions
that ‘dangerous anarchists’ may ‘masquerade’ as peaceful
protestors….feeds into homogenising policing strategies that alienate
protestors and help create the conditions for violence.” Whilst MacWhirter
(2005) suggested it was worth remembering that riot shields and batons
have been wielded in anger too. In more recent times new waves of
protestors, such as Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter to name
but two, have been portrayed as troublemakers and have been
correspondingly stigmatised. Of course this demonisation of itself is not
new—only the characteristics of protestors and the causes they take to the
streets for are new.
Throughout the history of the world protestors have been judged
unfavourably. Held up as eco warriors, feminists, subversives,
troublemakers, insurgents, revolters and objectors, all these terms are
pejorative. But let’s take a look at some of the people who have taken part
in protests. Martin Luther King (now with his own statue in Washington)
was under constant surveillance from the FBI; American veterans of World
War I protested to receive their service bonuses early in the great
Depression but were cleared away on the orders of President Hoover; Nobel
Prize winner Linus Pauling was arrested as a protestor for nuclear
disarmament; suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst was arrested outside
Buckingham Palace. Celebrities with a history of protest include Bruce
Springstein, Jane Fonda (most recently arrested in 2020 at the age of 81 for
protesting the use of fossil fuels by oil companies), Muhammad Ali, Marlon
Brando, Humphrey Bogart, Susan Sarandon, George Clooney and John
Lennon to name just a few. I have recently been particularly interested in
the written experiences of protest of George Monbiot, British writer,
Guardian columnist and political and environmental activist. Writing in the
Guardian (2019) Monbiot commented:

A few hours after this column is published, I hope to be in a police

cell. I don’t yet know what the charge will be, where I will be
arrested or when, but I know that if I go home this evening without
feeling the hand of the law on my sleeve, I will have failed. This
might sound like a strange ambition, but I believe it is a reasonable
one. If I succeed, I will be one of many. In the current wave of
Extinction Rebellion protests 1400 people have so far allowed
themselves to be arrested. It’s a controversial tactic, but it has often
proved highly effective. The suffragettes, the Indian salt marchers,
the civil rights movement, the Polish and East German democracy
movements, to name just a few, all used it to great effect. Mass
arrests are a potent form of democratic protest.

Monbiot’s point about protest is its potential power which he suggests

comes from the fact that when individuals are prepared to put their own
liberty at risk for a cause they feel strongly about, that provides a very
powerful signal which is more likely to attract attention and cognisance of a
cause. In the case of Extinction Rebellion—the protest in which he was
involved—the cause is the potential destruction of what he calls our ‘life
support systems.’ Set against the environmentalists drive to preserve the
planet we have “the big fossil fuel companies [that] have used political
funding, intense lobbying and gross deceptions of the public to overwhelm
environmental protections and keep harvesting their massive profits”
Monbiot (2019: 1). The point is that on such an uneven playing field
activists have little or no power; they have no access to the media and have
only one weapon in this fight—their own liberty. This has had some
success; climate change is more firmly on the political agenda. President
Joe Biden recently returned to the US to the Paris Climate Accord, arguably
not just a statement of its intention in relation to climate, but also
importantly a signal that the US acknowledges it must play by the rules and
improve on previous commitments to improve carbon emissions. In the UK,
MPs approved a motion in 2019 to declare an environment and climate
emergency and the UK Student Climate Network have had some success in
mobilising students to take part in hundreds of demonstrations, arguably
elevating climate issues on the political agenda. But it remains the case that
in spite of what could be termed noble causes, the mechanism of protest,
and protestors themselves continue to be criticised and, in some cases,
prosecuted. In the meantime, getting arrested for protesting has seemingly
become easier and easier. In October 2019 the Metropolitan police imposed
a blanket ban on assemblies of more than two people linked to Extinction
Rebellion’s ‘autumn uprising’ using section 14 of the Public Order Act
1986. This is an attempt to stifle the democratic right to dissent. At the time
of his arrest during this protest, Monbiot commented that “Non-violent civil
disobedience is essential to the health of our democracy, in fact, there
would be no democracy without it. What the police were doing is draconian
and over the top, and they were directly infringing our democratic right to
protest” (Gayle and Dodd 2019: 1). The ban attracted a subsequent judicial
review of the decision in November 2019 in which High Court Judges said
the Met were wrong to impose the blanket ban because Extinction
Rebellion’s two-week long ‘autumn uprising’ could not be classed as a
single public assembly on which it could impose the order. Commenting
that the ban was ‘hastily imposed [and] erratically applied’ the judgement
was hailed as a “timely reminder to those in authority facing a climate of
dissent: the right to protest is a longstanding fundamental right in a
democratic society that should be guarded and not prohibited by
overzealous policing” (Dodd and Taylor 2019: 1). This judgement aside, the
blanket ban could easily be seen as a breach of article 20 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights which states that: “Everyone has the right to
freedom of peaceful assembly and association.” Notwithstanding this, over
time the police have acquired an extraordinary array of powers, enabling
them to shut down most protests but they have long claimed that even these
are insufficient and have argued for new powers to deter what they have
called ‘habitual protestors.’ It now appears that the current Home Secretary
is on the verge of giving them what they have wanted in the form of the
Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill 2021, but more on this later.
One criticism that has of course been levelled at the democratic right to
protest by censurers is that protest is a waste of time and police resources,
but surely free speech and protest are inherent civil liberties and surely the
police work for us—the public—and thus should protect our rights to these?
But how far will the UK government go to suppress people? To answer this
question I decided to use the case of Julian Assange—publisher and founder
of Wikileaks who amongst other things revealed evidence of US war crimes
during the Baghdad air strike of 2007 via a source named as Chelsea
Manning, former US soldier and whistle-blower. In spite of a ruling by a
British Judge that Assange should not be extradited to the United States on
charges of espionage and computer hacking, he remains in solitary
confinement in Belmarsh prison. Speaking to Novara Media In January
2021, Yiannis Varoufakis, economist, former Greek Minister of Finance and
friend of Assange, has commented that this state of affairs is a shocking
indictment of the British judiciary and “if there was a case for standing up
against a campaign to destroy an individual for doing what any journalist
would have done this was it and they missed it. It’s a great defeat for the
British Judiciary” (http://novara.media/varoufakisonassange).
So what is pertinent from this, as far as protest goes, is that it appears
that if you are labelled as a political activist by those in power you can be
denied certain rights. Assange was labelled not as a journalist but as a
political activist and on this basis he was not afforded the right to freedom
of the press. Thus, if the redefining of people not as protestors but as
‘troublemakers, activists, nuisances’ under the Police Crime Sentencing and
Courts Bill 2021 is allowed this will create a dangerous precedent. It allows
the stereotyping—in a pejorative way—of anyone wishing to hold strong
views and to express those views publicly. It defines activists and free
speech into the realms of the dangerous crackpot who is threatening the
social order. This then becomes an issue of how governments abuse power.
In Assange’s case, he has still not been convicted of anything but has been
held in solitary confinement in Belmarsh prison for 23 hours a day for over
a year. Why? Is this sending a message to other journalists not to do what
he has done? And in the same way—to draw an analogy between this case
and the persistent diminution of rights such as that to protest—does the hard
line against protestors also serve to set a precedent or make an example of
those who seek to exercise this right? To demonise those who engage in this
type of activity is also to facilitate the removing of that right since the
general public will be fed information denigrating those who protest as a
danger to society—the so-called loons and crack pots—and thus popular
opinion will not be pricked when this right is systematically reduced and
ultimately taken away completely.

Global Suppression
We can perhaps make some correlations between the Assange case and that
of Jimmy Lai—Chinese media mogul and pro-democracy activist—who
was found guilty of taking part in unauthorised assemblies during mass pro-
democracy protests in 2019. He was sentenced to 14 months in prison
having been arrested under Hong Kong’s controversial new National
Security Law. This legislation punishes anything that China considers
subversion, terrorism or collusion with foreign forces and carries a life
prison sentence. Critics like Tsui (2020) say it is aimed at crushing dissent
and erodes freedoms in the semi-autonomous financial hub, which was
returned to Chinese control in 1997. As a result, and starting in July 2020,
thousands of demonstrators in Hong Kong filled the city’s streets, broke
into the local legislature, carried out sit-ins at the airport, and turned a
university campus into a battleground—their activities only being muted by
the coronavirus pandemic. The latest imposition of the National Security
law has only served to encourage protesters to return to the streets and it
seems that the authorities there will continue their crackdown on both
public protest and media freedom in Hong Kong. Tsui (2020: 62) has
commented that: “It’s not going to end with sending Jimmy Lai to prison.”
Hong Kong has now even added ‘national security’ to the school
curriculum to bring it in line with the National Security Law imposed by
Beijing in 2020. The changes will see children as young as six being taught
about national security and will force teachers to warn primary students
against ‘subversion’ and to throw out library books considered dangerous to
the Chinese state. Liu and Riordan (2021) comment that this education
overhaul shows that China’s crackdown on the former British colony has
reached beyond jailing opposition leaders to reforming Hong Kong society
to bring it more in line with the mainland.
 We can also draw some comparisons here between the media coverage
of the Hong Kong protests and the responses to the UK protests of the past
year. Ashcombe and Cheung (2020) provide a useful commentary on the
‘Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill’ Movement (Anti-ELAB) which
caused mass protests on the street of Hong Kong and during which differing
accounts were prevalent. Taking just two media outlets in the UK at
differing ends of the political spectrum (The Guardian and Daily Mail),
they demonstrate that they adopted a broadly pro-democracy stance in
which both outlets condemned police violence. The Daily Mail emphasised
the toll of those hospitalised in the protests whilst The Guardian heavily
criticised the use of tear gas against what it called ‘peaceful protestors’ and
blamed ‘excessive force and police brutality’ for the continued
demonstrations.
Set this if you will against media coverage of the two Bristol protests
that have taken place in the past year. First the scenes that surrounded the
BLM protests and the toppling of the Colston statute. To put this in context
we are talking here about Edward Colston, deputy governor of the Royal
African Company, who oversaw the transportation of over 84,000 Africans
into slavery, of which 19,000 died when they were thrown overboard from
his ships. This was a man who grew rich from what today we would call
human trafficking and mass murder and in the midst of a protest about
BLM, it might to some seem fitting that the statue to this individual (which
let’s not forget had been the focus of a concerted campaign for its removal
for many years) was toppled and sunk in the very dock in which his ships
moored. It might also seem right therefore that no one would be particularly
offended by this. Olusoga (2020) commented at the time that although the
defence of the figure—and Colston’s reputation—was both overt and
shameless, it was not, unfortunately unique. Yet one of the most vociferous
responses was that of MP and Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick who,
in a strongly worded article in The Telegraph (Hope 2021: 1) said that
‘flash mobs,’ ‘town hall militants’ and ‘woke worthies’ were overriding due
process and that local people ought to have the chance to be consulted on
whether a monument should stand or not. “What has stood for generations
should be considered thoughtfully, not removed on a whim or at the behest
of a baying mob.” Presumably Jenrick was unaware that Colston was a
murderer? Or perhaps he thought that Bristol was all the better for having
the statute of a slaver in its midst? Or maybe he thought that the views of
the descendants of Colston’s victims were wrong for campaigning for
decades for its removal or that this campaigning was not somehow part of a
due process that had for years been ignored. Whatever the case, the
Government is now set to introduce a new law which it says will protect
historic monuments like statues—because of course that is what is most
important.
UK Home Secretary Priti Patel demonstrated a similar attitude to a more
recent Bristol protest against the impending Police Crime Sentencing and
Courts Bill 2021. Again sections of the UK media have seen this as a
chance to demonise the process of peaceful protest and no doubt in doing so
have persuaded more than a few people that this behaviour should, in
principle, be widely condemned. The Home Secretary branded the scenes
unacceptable and said thuggery and disorder would never be tolerated.
Conveniently at present, mass gatherings are currently banned under
coronavirus legislation and anyone breaching the regulations could be fined
but what started as a non-violent demonstration on a Sunday afternoon was
reported to have turned violent after hundreds of protesters descended on
the New Bridewell police station. The media also reported that two police
officers were injured, suffering broken ribs and an arm, and were taken to
hospital during violent skirmishes with masked thugs (Penna and Millimaci
2021). However, what is of more interest is that this flies in the face of
witness statements to the contrary and also does not fit in with a subsequent
announcement by Bristol police that no police officers in fact suffered any
broken bones or other similar injuries at all. What we do know however is
that video footage of the events include a woman being punched square in
the face and knocked out cold by a police officer in riot gear (Wright 2021)
which is now being investigated.
Given the global implications of this subject and the fact that at the time
of writing, former Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin has just been
found guilty of the murder of George Floyd in the USA, it is pertinent also
to look to the right to protest in America. Both the United States
Constitution First Amendment and International Human Rights Law protect
the right to peaceful protest in America. However, mirroring what we have
already seen in the UK, Pednault (2021) suggests that something of a
legislative assault has been systematically attempted against these rights
over many years. Previous attempts to curtail the right to protest gave rise
to a warning from the United Nations Human Rights High Commission
(2017) when human rights experts reported that the US was introducing
undemocratic anti-protest bills designed to criminalise or impede the rights
to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression. It seems ironic that these
bills had come at a time of numerous protests including those in relation to
Black Lives Matter movement, the Native American movements and
Women’s Marches. For example, in Indiana one such bill allowed law
enforcement officials to use any means necessary to clear the roads of
people unlawfully obstructing vehicular traffic. Several bills proposed in
Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and
Missouri disproportionately criminalised protestors for obstructing traffic
with one proposing up to seven years in prison for such an offence. It’s
clear that these measures were designed to criminalise the right to protest
and—in line with other countries that I have mentioned—seek to stigmatise
such protests as being violent or inherently criminal. The point that
Pednault (2021) ably makes however is that legally protest is not violent or
unlawful. Whilst individuals may—at a protest—act in a violent or
unlawful way, the protest of itself is not illegal. So trying to curtail these
rights is nothing new.
Subsequent to the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 a number of
protests against racism and police brutality took place in most states in
America. Unfortunately but all too predictably, the police response to this
was, without exception, to exert excessive force and brutality against those
protesting. In many cases tactics such as kettling, rubber bullets, tear gas,
stun grenades and rubber bullets were used. In Minneapolis, a journalist
was shot by the police with a rubber bullet and blinded in one eye. Wille
and Sawyer (2020) reported that legal observers from the National Lawyers
Guild were also targeted by the police even though they were visibly
identified as such. Interestingly they make a comparison in this work, of
their documentation of the use of excessive force by security services in
2019 against peaceful protestors and journalists and how, in response to
this, the US government at the time condemned that violence. In relation to
the 2020 BLM protests they say the government was silent and thus had a
double standard when it came to the policing of peaceful protests in its own
territory as opposed to that of other countries. Rather a case of do as I say
rather than as I do perhaps? Their point is sadly that many Americans
would not find this attitude surprising because they are all too aware of the
realities of abusive and racist law enforcement in the USA. The fact that the
US did not live up to the international human rights standards that it appears
to demand of other countries is no surprise. More recently the US Protest
Law Tracker—part of the International Centre for Not-for-Profit-Law
(2021)—reported that currently under consideration in 24 States are 51 bills
that would restrict the right to peaceful assembly and increase penalties for
participating in them. This is in spite of the fact that international human
rights law protects the right of peaceful assembly and requires authorities at
all levels to facilitate such assemblies and avoid unnecessary or
disproportionate restrictions on them. Planning or participating in a protest
is not a criminal issue nor should it ever be and this is enough justification
for such measures to be abandoned as being inconsistent with both
International law and the US Constitution First Amendment. Perhaps the
only hope is that as long as this right is not entirely obliterated, that people
will continue to take to the streets in an effort to ensure that the basic
human rights of citizens to protest globally are protected.
The morning after the verdict against Derek Chauvin, the media was
full of claims of justice being done; but this willingness to cast this episode
off as a tragedy to which there has been some kind of happy ending
trivialises the real issues here. When agents of the state—such as the police
—kill civilians this represents state execution and not just that, it represents
a side stepping on a grand scale, of the justice system. This was an example
of summary justice, which criminologists, lawyers and others should now
be talking about, writing about, shouting about. The people who work
within criminal justice systems should be the ones asking questions about
how justice can be overruled by the police and the fact that this was not
simply a crime against George Floyd, it was a crime against humanity and
against all justice systems.

Conclusion
Returning to the UK and the new legal provision—the Police Crime
Sentencing and Courts Bill—ultimately it is difficult to perceive it in any
other way than posing a serious threat to the right to protest. The provisions
threaten to neutralise protests, removing one of the only ways in which
people can express their views in a democratic society. Promises were in
fact made by Kit Malthouse (UK MP and Minister for Policing) in a Home
Office media blog dated 7 September 2020 in which he said in Parliament
that: “the right to peaceful protest is a fundamental tool of civic expression,
and will never be curtailed by this government” (Home Office 2020: 1). But
this legislation will do exactly that. The protest provisions in particular are
damaging because they seek to undermine the Human Rights Act 1998 and
are not proportionate in the way they seek to deal with protests. Yet this is
passing through Parliament in the UK nonetheless and despite protests that
are being held against its implementation. The question is, will these
protests signal the death knell of the right to democratically oppose what
you do not believe in and in so doing hold a government to account?
It is impossible not to set this development within the context of what
we could call the ‘pandemic year.’ The cynic might see this backdrop as the
perfect time to press through this sort of measure since it merely falls within
a period in time when some of the greatest limitations have been placed
upon people’s general freedoms. A time when the rushed through
Coronavirus Act 2020 has closed our borders, imposed enforced quarantine
and criminalised (some) people for leaving their homes without a
reasonable excuse. A good time, some might say, to further regulate
people’s lives when it has become almost normal to do so; and whilst great
swathes of the public remain fairly inert to the slow but sure diminution of
their basic human rights and fundamental freedoms, other have taken to the
streets to protest.
Ironically it has been a year of protests; Black Lives Matter, pandemic
protests, the Clapham Common vigil and now ‘Kill the Bill.’ (Local
protests in the UK against the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill).
The current UK Home Secretary has cast all of these protests as illegal and
many of those taking part have experienced aggressive police tactics such
as kettling. Elliott-Cooper (2020) found that the policing of the Black Lives
Matter protests involved excessive use of force; disproportionate targeting
of black protesters, baton charges, horse charges, pepper spray and violent
arrests; kettling—enclosing large numbers of protestors including children
and potentially vulnerable people—in confined spaces for up to eight hours,
making social distancing impossible and with no access to toilets, food or
water. This neglect of Black Lives Matter protesters has been exacerbated
by violence from far-right organised counter-demonstrators, with examples
of a seriously injured protester being searched rather than supported and
others being ignored. Elliott-Cooper (2020: 1) comments that “Experiences
and policing at the hundreds of protests across Britain varied significantly,
with some examples of light-touch policing at safe and successful
gatherings. However black-led protests disproportionately faced excessive
interventions by police.”
This Bill threatens the end of our freedom to dissent and the
culmination of a long line of restrictions of public freedoms over a year. It
effectively gives the state authoritarian power, framed in the vaguest of
language, enforced by the expansion of police powers which to date have
been misused. Amazingly we are not even being persuaded that these new
powers are necessary for the protection of domestic security—which is
usually the case—because we are all presumably so COVID fatigued that
this is deemed unnecessary. The end result of this will be an almost total
ban on peaceful protest, sweeping powers to stifle or limit it and even time
limits on the nature and duration of the noise that may accompany it. The
Bill will make the scenes that we have recently witnessed at Clapham
Common and the BLM protests common and protest will effectively no
longer be a human right. Those that put their own liberty on the line to
protest have been cast as the ‘baying mob’ and provide us with yet another
example of certain categories of society being demonised for their views.
I began this chapter with a quotation from Mendoza (2021) who
recounts some of the most troubling examples of the demonisation of public
protests (including women’s suffrage and the ANC’s struggle against
apartheid). She makes the point that non-peaceful protest is never the
intention but often denigrates to this because of the state’s heavy-handed
response to protestors. We might be 122 years on from the events that
shaped the Peterloo Massacre but in real terms, in the UK, how far away are
we from our own George Floyd tragedy where the state uses its own force
against its own population? I have written previously about my
disappointment at the stance of criminologists and criminology about whom
I wrote (Moss 2009: 161):

Criminologists around the world seem to me to be strangely silent in

relation to many of the issues I have raised here …perhaps they no
longer see [them] as being part of their domain and would rather
leave it to other organisations such as Liberty and Amnesty
International. But…this does not negate the need for academics to
involve themselves in an informed debate about…human rights,
 privacy, freedom of expression and other essential liberties about
which we appear to be increasingly complacent.

Twelve years on from this nothing has changed. Today, if you express
critical, unconventional or controversial views you are likely to be labelled
a ‘woke warrior.’ Social media has given everyone a voice irrespective of
how ill informed. Respectful debate has gone out of the window and has
been replaced by politically driven media hype, gas lighting of entire
populations and an environment where those who shout the loudest are
heard the most. But without the power of protest and freedom to carry it
out, what other measures are available to people? Writing to Congress or to
your local MP just isn’t going to change anything. Taking the knee—a
peaceful method of protest—arguably didn’t work; in fact although NFL
quarterback Colin Kaepernick did this to highlight racism, he was
subsequently not selected for the NFL’s following season prompting
accusations of non-selection for ‘political reasons.’ So if peaceful protest
doesn’t work, is it really surprising that rebellion often takes a different
form? Let’s not forget however that arguably violence is usually only a
response to violence. For sure, there is a destructive side to rebellion but
what is this a response to? Violence of the rebellion is always talked about
but what is not mentioned is what precipitates the conflict. The violence of
rebellion is only part of a context of state violence and without struggle
there will never be any progress. We have only to ask ourselves what would
not have happened without the struggle of rebellion and accompanying
protest? ‘Annoying’ protests that changed the world include the Mud March
1907 for women’s suffrage, South Africa’s National day of Protest 1950,
the end of the Berlin Wall protests, the storming of the Bastille 1789, the
Arab Spring 2010, Ghandi’s Salt March 1930 the Boston Tea Party 1771
and of course Martin Luther King’s March on Washington 1963 at which he
delivered the ‘I have a dream speech.’
It seems fitting to end with this. On 3 August 1857, Frederick Douglass
delivered a ‘West India Emancipation’ speech at Canandaigua, New York.
His words then are as powerful today and a fitting reminder of the power of
protest and why it should be fought for with everything we have.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never

will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you
 have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong, which will
be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted
with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are
prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Douglass
(1857)

Recommended Readings
In terms of the development of basic human rights, the work of Locke
(1689) and Paine (1776) should be consulted. Gibbard (1984) also provides
useful historic background material on the development of civil liberties.
Garland (2001) tackles the political and social changes that have facilitated
changes impacting the State’s response to human rights. My two previous
books in the Crime Prevention and Security Management Series (Moss
2009, 2011) published by Palgrave and edited by Martin Gill provide a
good starting point for an analysis of some of the issues concerning the
enlarged power of the state and how that affects civil liberties and personal
freedoms. The work of Dershowitz (2006) is also helpful in highlighting the
protection of civil liberties more generally. For a discussion of what is
possible when states are not held to account effectively see the work of
Green and Ward (2005). For a detailed account of the domestic legal
framework that surrounds the right of peaceful protest see Mead, D. (2010)
The New Law of Peaceful Protest, Hart Publishing.

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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_36

36. Facilitating Best Practice in Security:

The Role of Regulation
Tim Prenzler1 and Rick Sarre2
(1) University of the Sunshine Coast, Sunshine Coast, QLD, Australia
(2) University of South Australia, Adelaide SA, Australia

Tim Prenzler
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
This chapter provides a review of regulatory systems applied to the security
sector, critiquing the benefits and shortcomings of contemporary systems on
the basis of the available evidence. They summarise regulatory theory and
outline the range of conduct and competency issues behind interventions in
the industry, arguing in favour of a ‘smart’ model of licensing that includes
disqualifying offences, mandatory pre-service training and close
monitoring.

Regulation and Regulatory Theory

‘Regulation’ refers to controlling or managing organisations and activities
in a way that facilitates fulfilment of legitimate goals while eliminating or
minimising the potential for harmful effects. In other words, regulation
describes an intermediate process between prohibition and laissez-faire. In
most democracies, all private, public and community sector activities are
regulated to some degree.
There is a body of regulatory theory concerned with documenting and
evaluating regulatory practices. ‘Regulatory failure’ has been a major theme
of this work, which seeks to explain why modern societies continue to be
plagued by problems such as preventable accidents, environmental
degradation, corruption, fraud, substandard products and unfair business
practices (Grabosky and Braithwaite 1986). Explanations tend to focus on
deficiencies in regulatory agencies, including inadequate legal powers,
inadequate resources, cultures of deference and ‘capture’ of regulators by
regulated industries through undue influence and bribery. ‘Under-
regulation’ and ‘over-regulation’ are also recurring themes. The latter
includes the imposition of unnecessary regulations that stymie efficiency
and productivity.
In their pioneering work on business regulation, Grabosky and
Braithwaite developed a typology of regulatory agencies, with each
category providing an account of factors that often lead to failure. The
following summary has direct application to security industry regulation
(1986: 222–229):
1.
‘Conciliators’ disavow prosecution and seek to facilitate compliance
through dialogue and agreements between complainants and
companies;
2.
‘Benign big guns’ have extensive powers but are reluctant to use them;
3.
‘Diagnostic inspectorates’ encourage self-regulation, provide advice
and avoid confrontation;
4.
‘Detached token enforcers’ are less concerned about harmonious
relations but engage in limited enforcement;
5.
‘Detached modest enforcers’ are more active and concerned with
compliance but remain reluctant to intervene;
6.
‘Token enforcers’ actively prosecute rule violations but light penalties
mean there is very little deterrent effect;
7.
‘Modest enforcers’ are willing at times to suspend or revoke licences
and prosecute rule violators.
Since this critique was published, there have been further studies which
identify more effective approaches, including ‘responsive regulation’
(Ayres and Braithwaite 1992), ‘smart regulation’ (Gunningham and
Grabosky 1998) and ‘regulatory craftsmanship’ (Sparrow 2000). These
approaches focus on the benefits of applying different regulatory ‘tools’ in
different contexts (Freiberg 2010). The researchers argue that effective
regulation is most likely to occur when regulators (a) have a range of
strategies available to them; (b) deploy an appropriate mix of strategies and
(c) have the capacity to escalate enforcement through an ‘enforcement
pyramid’ where ‘light touch’ enforcement (at the base) is far more often
deployed than legal sanctions (at the apex).
The concepts of responsive regulation, smart regulation and regulatory
craftsmanship all deploy available evidence to inform the mix of strategies
and adjust the mix as required. The evidence can include quantitative
measures—such as complaints, adverse incidents and stakeholder surveys
—as well as qualitative indicators—such as feedback from industry insiders
and experts, and case study analyses. Responsive regulation is based upon
the assumption that industry and business have responsible members who
are concerned about fairness, quality and reputation. According to the idea
of an enforcement pyramid, placing strategies in a hierarchy allows
regulators to take a graduated approach to their task (Ayres and Braithwaite
1992). Regulators should start with strategies that facilitate compliance,
such as communication, education and persuasion. If these are ineffective,
they should move to intermediate measures, such as warnings and fines. If
these fail, then more painful measures will be required, such as licence
suspensions, business closures and criminal prosecutions. Escalation should
also be related to an associated hierarchy of the harms entailed in non-
compliance.
A common basic licensing model has emerged around security services.
Government agencies issue a licence to operate to security providers, with
the licence subject to assessment of criteria such as competence and
integrity. Competence usually entails prescribed training; while integrity
issues are addressed through disqualifying criminal offences, referee
statements, and complaints investigations and adjudications. The role of
government is to ensure universal minimum standards are in place, all
designed to protect the full range of stakeholders.

The Evolution of Security Industry Regulation

Specific regulation of security providers by government—or special
regulation—has occurred late in the history of the industry. In previous
generations, in most capitalist or semi-capitalist societies, private security
flourished without any specific statutory regulation. Security firms were
able to set up and engage clients under commercial contract law. Operatives
were able to guard property, evict trespassers or unruly patrons, conduct
investigations, arrest thieves and repossess property, either as free citizens
—engaging in citizens’ arrests for example—or as the agents of property
owners (including government property) (Sarre 2014).
Prior to the introduction of special regulation, industry sectors were at
times subject to limited forms of general occupational licensing or
registration, or were subject to specific standards or government decrees
(Prenzler and Sarre 2012; Weber 2002). Groups such as private
investigators, guards, debt collectors and process servers would be required
to obtain a licence from a court or police station by showing they were not
bankrupt or had a criminal history. This approach has, however, been
described as largely tokenistic, with no training requirements, systematic
criminal history checks, inspections or proper complaint mechanisms.
Obtaining a licence was often ‘as simple as filling out a form, paying a fee,
and taking it to the local licensing sergeant … after which you could strap a
gun to your hip and protect premises, go on patrol and provide cash
carrying services’ (Cowan 2009: 77).
The introduction of more advanced industry-specific regulation has
been associated with several factors (Weber 2002; Wildhorn 1975). The
first was a growing number of conduct scandals and revelations of poor
standards in the industry. The second was growing recognition of the power
of security providers over citizens (Sarre 2014). The third was the rapid
growth of the industry, from the 1960s, which magnified the first two
factors as increasing numbers of people became subject to the almost
ubiquitous presence of the industry (van Steden and Sarre 2007a, 2007b;
Sarre and Prenzler 2011). The exercise of authority by security officers
represented a particular challenge. The expansion of private security into
‘mass private property’ threatened the democratic principles of equality
before the law and equal protection associated with public policing
(Shearing and Stenning 1981). At a minimum, it was felt that security
officers needed to be trained in their legal powers and responsibilities.
Moreover, a system was required to ensure officers did not exceed their
authority, especially in areas of risk such as detention and arrest, entry to
property, search and seizure of goods, surveillance, questioning, use of
force, refusal of entry and removal of persons from property (Kakalik and
Wildhorn 1971a). It was also essential that security providers received
adequate training to ensure they had the practical knowledge and skills
necessary to carry out their functions.
The introduction of industry-specific legislation occurred in a highly
piecemeal fashion, mainly from the 1960s and 1970s. For example, in
Europe, Sweden introduced named legislation in 1974; Finland and France
in the 1980s; and Luxembourg, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Greece
and Portugal in the 1990s (Weber 2002). In the United States, the licensing
of ‘private watchmen, private detectives, and private policemen’ has been
traced as far back as an 1875 statute in Missouri (Moore 1990). A 1971
survey found that 38 of 50 states had regulatory statutes (Kakalik and
Wildhorn 1971a).
Button and George (2006) proposed criteria for describing and
evaluating regulatory systems with the concepts of ‘width’ and ‘depth’.
‘Width’ describes the extent to which licensing covers all security activities.
‘Depth’ refers to quality controls—through mandated training and
disqualifying offences, for example. The Button and George (2006) study
reviewed systems in Europe, North America and several other locations,
finding wide variation across these two dimensions, but with a general lack
of both width and depth. For example, some European countries had basic
training requirements up to 200 hours, while many locations in the United
States required only 8 hours.
CoESS (the Confederation of European Security Services) has
published occasional data from an ‘EU legislative mapping’ exercise. The
most recent report, for 2013, is somewhat dated now. It is nonetheless
instructive, highlighting the wide variation observed by Button and George.
The 2013 report deployed a six-part hierarchy to classify 34 countries.
Criteria included licensing of companies and operatives, mandated basic
training and criminal record checks. No countries were classed as ‘non-
existent’ or ‘weak’ in regulation. Seven were classed as ‘very strict’
(CoESS 2013: 250). There appeared to be some depth in basic training for
guards, with an average of 98 hours. However, there was wide variation in
this area. Sweden required 288 hours of basic training for guards and 44
hours for managers. Bulgaria reportedly required 40 hours of training for
guards and 960 hours for managers. Austria had 7.4 hours of basic training
for guards.
More recently, Button and Stiernstedt (2018) assessed security industry
regulation in 26 European countries using a 100-point scale across 22
criteria. These included some neglected measures of ‘depth’, such as
compulsory codes of conduct, exams in assessment and tests for the quality
of conditions of employment. The highest score was 94/100 (for Belgium)
and the lowest was 22/100 (for the Czech Republic).

The Rationale for Regulation: Limiting Abuses

The discussion above referred to the way in which industry growth was
accompanied by increasing concerns about misconduct and inadequate
service. Prenzler and Sarre (2008) integrated a variety of sources on
misconduct in the industry internationally, including findings from judicial
inquiries and government reviews. They argued that the industry has a
clearly identifiable risk profile, which derives from opportunities and
pressures intrinsic to security work. The industry profile overlies common
integrity risks in business. The authors developed a typology of 11
categories of unprofessional conduct (2008: 266–268):
1.
Fraud
2.
Incompetence and poor standards
3.
Under-award payments and exploitation of security staff
4.
Corrupt practices
5.
Information corruption
6.
Violence and associated malpractice
7.
False arrest and detention
8.
Trespass and invasions of privacy
9. Discrimination and harassment

10.
Insider crime
11.
Misuse of weapons.
This can be compared with a typology developed in an earlier RAND
Corporation study in the United States in the early-1970s based on case
studies, litigation against security providers and complaints. Kakalik and
Wildhorn (1971b: 57–61) proposed the following problem areas:
Abuse of authority
Dishonesty and poor business practices
Access to confidential police records and gathering information from
third parties
Non-reporting of crime and the ‘private’ system of justice
High false-alarm rates
Personnel quality, training and supervision.
Whichever way risks are categorised, it is evident that misconduct is
highly variable in intensity and extent. In some jurisdictions, wrongdoing
has been serious and recurring over long periods of time. For example,
assaults by security staff on patrons at entertainment venues has been a
common problem around the world. In other cases, there has been less
evidence of malpractice, but nevertheless regulation has been introduced or
enlarged as a precautionary measure (White 2015).
When security regulatory agencies are established, something of the
need for their services can be seen by the volume and types of complaints
they receive. The RAND study is instructive in that regard. Seventeen
agencies reported the following categories and numbers of complaints for
one year (Kakalik and Wildhorn 1971b: 54):
Violation of regulation (413)
Improper uniform or identification (369)
Shootings (55)
Impersonating a police officer (34)
Theft (29)
Failure to serve as agreed (29)
 Misrepresentation of services or fees (28)
Violation of gun regulation (22)
Illegal access to police records (18)
Assault or use of excessive force (13)
Negligence (13)
Operating an unlicensed business (13)
Drunkenness (12)
Conviction of a crime (9)
Offensive language (8)
Killings (8).
There were also cases of ‘false arrest, improper detention, invasion of
privacy, improper search, improper interrogation, bugging, wiretapping, and
extortion’ (Kakalik and Wildhorn 1971b: 54).

The Rationale for Regulation: Enabling Security

The introduction of special regulation was primarily associated with
protecting clients and members of the public from abuses by security
providers. Governments also, at times, recognised that a more ethical and
competent private security industry was needed to augment public sector
policing agencies in the fight against crime. This need extended to calls for
police and private security to overcome their traditional detachment or
enmity and enter into partnerships. The view was supported by the fact that
security guards were generally much cheaper than police and that private
security technology further reduced labour costs while extending
guardianship opportunities (Sarre and Prenzler 2011).
In 1971, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (within the
United States Department of Justice) convened a meeting of private security
representatives to discuss issues in private security and the role of the sector
in crime prevention. The meeting led to the establishment of the Private
Security Advisory Council, which operated until 1977. The Council
published a major report, Law Enforcement and Private Security: Sources
and Areas of Conflict and Strategies for Conflict Resolution, which was
aimed at improving cooperation. Recommended strategies included
improvements in licensing (including minimum training and criminal
history checks) along with higher-level professional certification, sharing of
criminal intelligence, high-level liaison, and training and protocols for
interaction (Private Security Advisory Council 1977: A-4).
In that regard, the growing body of research on successful public-
private crime prevention partnerships underscores the potential for greater
gains (Prenzler 2017). For example, Sarre and Prenzler documented
successful long-term partnerships between police and private security in
stadium security (2011: 84–91). In most cases, the less expensive security
guards provided a widely dispersed and visible presence, and operated
CCTV, while police provided backup with an array of weapons and greater
authority for arrest and detention. The significant potential of private
security to reduce very different types of crimes has also been documented
—with provisos about the importance of regulatory controls to ensure
quality in service delivery—including, for example, in domestic violence
(Harkin 2019) and cyber security (Button 2020). More broadly, enhanced
product standards and rules have been shown as important to improving the
effectiveness of security devices in diverse areas including burglary-
resistant hardware (Park and Cho 2018) and security drones (Cansler 2020).
The United Nations has also advocated for governments to make greater use
of private security to reduce crime—subject to adequate regulation—
especially where there are significant inequalities in the provision of
security and high costs in public policing (UNODC 2014).
One of the impetuses behind the adoption of security industry regulation
in the United Kingdom in 2003 was the need to find solutions to high rates
of crime. The Security Industry Authority, installed as part of the new
Private Security Industry Act 2001 (as amended), was charged with
improving conduct and competency in the industry and facilitating public-
private cooperation in crime prevention. In the words of the Foundation
Chair of the Authority:

One of the reasons we came into being was to contribute as

effectively as possible to a fundamental Government objective—
reducing crime and the fear of crime … But there is still a long way
to go before the private security industry is viewed with trust by the
general public, as a partner by other law enforcement authorities,
and as making a real contribution to the fight against crime.
(Security Industry Authority 2004: 2)
In the same period, the ‘reassurance policing’ agenda, and public
expectations about visible authority and protection, supported the
deployment of security officers in public places, with a number of exemplar
programmes on record (Crawford et al. 2005).
The post-9/11 counter-terror agenda boosted the idea of private sector
contributions to crime prevention and national security. In 2005, the United
States Department of Justice issued a report, Engaging the Private Sector to
Promote Homeland Security: Law Enforcement-Private Security
Relationships. The report argued that public law enforcement and private
security could not effectively protect vital infrastructure when working
separately. The main recommendations included operational protocols,
communication and coordination networks, liaison officer roles, and
improved training in the private sector (National Institute of Justice 2005).
These sentiments were echoed in Australia in the mid-2000s when the
Council of Australian Governments (COAG) initiated a national
qualifications framework for security operatives, in recognition of ‘the
important contribution the private security industry makes in supporting
Australia’s counter-terrorism arrangements’ (COAG 2005: 5).
The case for private security involvement in national security was
bolstered in the 2010s by the escalation of terror attacks in public places—
with terrorists deploying knives, firearms, vehicles and suicide bombings.
Policy-makers recognised that guards were often on site and acted as first
responders to incidents. They were potentially capable of earlier
interventions to prevent attacks or reduce their escalation—subject to better
training and competence (Bergin et al. 2018). More recently, the industry
has been prominent in enforcing COVID-19 pandemic control measures
throughout the world, working closely with health and law enforcement
professionals (CoESS 2020). In Australia, failures in hotel quarantine
procedures in some locations were related in part to inadequate training and
supervision of private sector guards contracted in by governments (Coate
2020; Siebert 2021).
Finally, it should be noted that public opinion surveys suggest that most
respondents find the presence of security officers to be reassuring (van
Steden and Nalla 2010). However, positive personal interactions mediate
these views, leading to the conclusion that ‘the industry needs to
incorporate elements that heighten the security guards’ image, as well as
their utility to be an effective and trusted presence in quasi-public spaces
where a large amount of public life takes part’ (van Steden and Nalla 2010:
219; see also Nalla et al. 2017).

Security Industry Regulatory Contexts

This section outlines the advantages and disadvantages of standard
contextual forms of industry regulation. The existence of the framework
pre-dates industry-specific legislation and now operates in tandem with it.
The format is based on several studies, primarily Sarre and Prenzler (1999,
2009: 226ff) and Stenning (2000).

Criminal Law
In theory, the threat of prosecution, fines or imprisonment provides a
powerful deterrent to security providers against criminal law violations,
including offences such as homicide, assault, criminal negligence, theft,
trespass, fraud, harassment and threats. Sanctions also provide some justice
to victims. Research shows clearly, however, that the criminal law has very
limited penetration into the crime problem in any jurisdiction, and that
includes crimes by security providers (Davis et al. 2003; Sarre and Prenzler
2009). The requirement for a high standard of evidence in criminal law
often makes it difficult to prove offences involving security staff. In recent
years, CCTV footage has helped secure convictions against violent security
officers, but this form of regulatory oversight is weakened by its sporadic
nature. Overall, criminal law is deficient as a regulatory tool as it fails to
provide a systematic preventive effect.

Civil Law
Security providers are also subject to civil claims (seeking damages) by
clients and ordinary citizens, and there are numerous examples of
successful legal suits on the record internationally (Davis et al. 2003; Sarre
and Prenzler 2009: 73ff). Civil law can provide redress for persons who are
victims of breaches of contract, including recovery of losses due to
inadequate security. Security providers have also been successfully sued for
false imprisonment, assault and harassment. However, while the civil courts
have a lower standard of proof than criminal courts, taking private legal
action involves numerous uncertainties, and unsuccessful litigants are often
left with financial costs. Consequently, civil law is also entirely inadequate
to ensure competence and probity.

Market Forces, Commercial Law and Employment Law

The free market, underwritten by standard government protections,
provides another regulatory mechanism. In theory, competition and
government enforcement of contract law should serve to deter or correct
misconduct. Firms that fail to deliver can be sued for breach of contract.
Loss of reputation will deter new clients. Again, however, the record does
not support the theory. Some of the case studies behind the misconduct
typologies (above) have involved fraud where customers were unaware of
major breaches of contract, or where low bid contracts were able to be
staffed by virtue of under-award payments about which clients were either
ignorant or uninterested. The market also fails to protect innocent third
parties, such as victims of assault by security officers at entertainment
venues. The long history of abuses in private security is a classic example
of ‘market failure’ (White 2015: 425).

Industry-Specific Regulation
The inadequacies of this general legal framework have driven the
development of the following three specialist forms of regulation.

Self-regulation
Self-regulation involves the formation of voluntary associations dedicated
to industry professionalism. This is done through conditional membership,
and promulgating standards through codes of conduct and technical
specifications. Members are able to promote their firms using the
association as a badge of competency and integrity. Association staff carry
out checks on applicants and deal with complaints. Breaches of standards
result in membership suspension or revocation. The effectiveness of self-
regulation is most likely dependent on the rigour of background checks,
conduct standard-setting and enforcement of rules, although there appears
to be no systematic research on this topic. Moreover, the record shows that
many disreputable firms can operate without holding membership in an
industry association. Associations tend to support special regulation in
terms of a ‘level playing field’ to ensure fair business competition and in
recognition of the fact that security clients and the general public need a
layer of protection that can only be provided by government (Sarre and
Prenzler 2011).

Co-regulation
Co-regulation occurs in most jurisdictions on a de facto basis through the
co-existence of private professional associations and special regulation.
Two Australian states (New South Wales and Queensland) adopted
mandated membership but with no solid evidence of a beneficial effects,
and New South Wales later dropped the requirement (Prenzler and Sarre
2012).

Special Government Regulation

Industry-specific regulation was designed to cover the gap in contextual
laws and self-regulation. It was not intended to replace these mechanisms—
and others such as workplace safety, liquor licensing or product standards
legislation. As indicated earlier, the fundamental requirement of special
regulation is that security providers must hold a government-issued licence
in order to operate legally. The licensing system is usually created through
named legislation, with a specialist agency tasked to administer the Act.
These regulatory agencies have been located variously within police
departments and fair trading or consumer affairs departments. In terms of
commercial providers, a specialist business licence is required for the
owners of security firms, aligned with criteria designed to protect clients
and third parties, including bankruptcy exclusions, insurance requirements
and a physical address. For ‘operatives’—workers or employees (including
owner operators)—licences are issued subject to minimum qualifications
and integrity criteria. The latter primarily entails the applicant not having
committed a disqualifying offence. Operative licences are usually issued in
categories for specific functions, such as guard work, cash-in-transit, crowd
control, private inquiry and advising on security measures.

Critiquing Special Government Regulation

In addressing the advantages and drawbacks of this model, it should first be
said that there is a dearth of comprehensive impact research on the topic.
This is despite the widespread rhetoric about the need for rigorous
programme evaluation and accountability in government. Regulatory
impacts should be analysed with time series data triangulating sources such
as complaints and complaint dispositions, adverse incidents (such as brawls
and major security breaches), injuries, observations and inspections,
litigation, criminal prosecutions, media reportage, and stakeholder
experiences and opinions. This should include data from comparison
jurisdictions where possible. Although not a direct measure of conduct,
licence application rejections and licence revocations should also be part of
regulatory impact assessments. These figures are a useful indicator of the
number of potentially undesirable persons who are excluded from the
industry by regulatory requirements. For example, in 2019–2020, the
United Kingdom’s Security Industry Authority issued 124,173 licences,
rejected 1523 applications and revoked 984 licences (Security Industry
Authority 2020a: 7).
Despite the absence of comprehensive impact assessments, there are
studies that provide some insights into the effects of regulation. De Waard’s
(1999) review of security industry regulation in Europe describes a study
that sought to correlate regulatory quality with industry quality. The report
is not publicly available, but de Waard’s summary is instructive
nonetheless:

Research conducted by the Confédération Européene de Service de

Sécurité (CoESS 1997) indicates that Sweden and the Netherlands
come first when quality is taken into account. Germany and Great
Britain have the lowest score while these countries employ almost
60% of all EU-security personnel. The survey data come from the
most important clients of the private security industry. It is notable
that in countries with a low-quality score, no statutory national
standards for entrance to any of the major sectors of the private
security industry exist (Great Britain, Ireland and Germany). On the
other hand, in countries where comprehensive and wide regulation
exists, the quality, according to customers, is high (Sweden, the
Netherlands). (de Waard 1999: 161)

The most useful published assessments of regulatory impact involve

stakeholder surveys. For example, a 2004 Australian public opinion survey
showed very high levels of support for the basic licensing model: 95%
support for licensing security guards, 90% for crowd controllers, 83% for
locksmiths and 81% for alarm installers (Newspoll 2004). There have also
been surveys of industry members—owners, managers and operatives—in a
range of jurisdictions. These tend to show high levels of in-principle
support—in the range 80% to 95%—for the basic licensing model, but with
many frustrations expressed about how systems operate in practice,
especially regarding claims of significant under-enforcement (e.g.,
Cunningham et al. 1990: 155; Prenzler 1995; Prenzler and Hayes 1999).
Examples of practitioner surveys from two countries—the United
Kingdom and Australia—illustrate a common ambivalence. In the United
Kingdom, a 2009 survey of security providers (conducted eight years after
the introduction of the Private Security Industry Act 2001) found that only
34% of respondents supported the view that there ‘appears to be less
criminality in the private security industry as a result of statutory
regulation’ (White 2015: 430). However, follow-up interviews suggested
that many survey respondents interpreted ‘criminality’ in terms of
unlicensed security work rather than any criminal offence. There was a
more general view that regulation had reduced criminality in the form of
assaults, insider theft, drug dealing, extortion and protection rackets. At the
same time, the surveys and interviews found that practitioners felt under-
enforcement was a significant problem, including a lack of physical
inspections and a dearth of prosecutions. In terms of training and
professionalism, 72% of respondents felt that standards had been lifted,
although the interviewees identified a problem with an overly general
curriculum and inadequate quality controls on trainers.
A 2010 survey in the United Kingdom of security ‘suppliers’ and
‘operatives’ was, however, largely positive. The following are some key
findings regarding perceptions of suppliers:
82% agreed ‘there is trust in staff because of criminal records checks’
76% agreed ‘the buyers of security guard services recognise the value
licensing has on the industry’
72% agreed ‘there is greater awareness of the role that security guards
can play in providing security and community safety’
63% agreed that ‘licensed staff are sufficiently trained to meet the
requirements of the job’
62% said they had ‘saved on training because we have been able to
recruit staff who are already trained’ (Security Industry Authority 2010b:
28, 30).
In addition, very few suppliers reported licensing having a negative effect
on their businesses, with 56% reporting increased business in the preceding
two years. The survey of operatives also yielded largely positive findings.
Of those who had worked in the industry prior to regulation:
78% agreed ‘there is more trust in security guards because of criminal
records checks’
72% agreed ‘the training has improved my ability to do my job’
50% agreed ‘the public has greater respect for security guards now
because we hold a recognisable, national licence’ (Security Industry
Authority 2010b: 46–56).
Of all operative respondents, 32% agreed that pay and conditions were
better as a result of licensing. Of those who paid for the cost of their
licence, 60% agreed the cost ‘was worth it’.
In a survey of door supervisors, focused on their personal safety, 67%
said they had experienced violence, with 54% stating they had been
physically attacked in the past, and 22% experiencing an injury. At the
same time, 76% agreed that training ‘has improved my ability to do the
job’, 83% felt that ‘SIA licensing has increased the professionalism of those
working in the door supervision sector’ and 79% said that licensing had
‘decreased criminality’ in the sector (Security Industry Authority 2010a:
50–54). In 2015, the Security Industry Authority published a more detailed
study of violence and the industry. The study included stakeholder
interviews and focus groups, and a practitioner survey. Unfortunately, the
key results were not reported in quantitative terms. However, the summary
clearly reinforced the picture of improvements from regulation along with
the need for better pre-licence training in risk assessment, body language,
first aid and verbal de-escalation skills (Cragg Ross Dawson 2015).
In Australia, a 2010 survey by the authors of security firm owners and
security managers found strong support for the basic elements of existing
licensing systems, but with mixed views on specific aspects (Sarre and
Prenzler 2011: 53–81). In terms of pre-licence training, a majority felt that
courses were adequate in teaching basic security procedures (83%),
occupational health and safety (78%) and knowledge of law (60%).
However, skills training was considered inadequate for self-defence (75%),
communication (73%), conflict resolution (69%) and physical restraint
(69%). In addition:
 66% believed the system had reduced assaults by security personnel
60% believed regulation had reduced injuries to security personnel
67% felt that compliance with standards was not effectively monitored
59% thought the system was highly ineffective in removing disreputable
operators.
A similar survey of security operatives, by the same authors, found that
57% felt regulation helped reduce assaults by security officers on members
of the public, but only 24% believed the system had helped reduce assaults
on officers (Sarre and Prenzler 2011: 131).
In sum, insider accounts indicate that regulation is often characterised
by under-regulation. Similar conclusions have been drawn from practitioner
surveys in Turkey (Cihan 2016), Finland (Santonen and Paasonen 2016)
and New Zealand (Bradley 2016). A number of explanations for under-
enforcement have been put forward by researchers (e.g., Wildhorn 1975;
White 2015). Consistent with findings from regulatory theory, under-
resourcing of regulators is a recurring theme, along with insufficient
personnel to conduct inspections and investigations. Another explanation
concerns insufficient powers, including limitations on access to premises or
inadequate sanctions. More generally, there is often an implication that
regulators are overly deferential towards the industry or simply lack zeal in
carrying out their work. Indeed, according to Grabosky and Braithwaite’s
(1986) formulation, most agencies could be categorised as ‘detached token
enforcers’, or ‘modest enforcers’ at best.

Smart Regulation for the Security Industry

A central challenge for business regulation is how to support service
delivery, employment and profitability while minimising or eliminating
fraud, violence and other abuses. In the case of the security industry, too
much regulation will stifle legitimate and essential crime prevention
activities (Tilley 2018). Too little regulation risks the onset and perpetuation
of problems outlined in preceding sections of this chapter—including
suboptimal security for clients and the general public. Finding the right mix
should be the outcome of a smart regulatory approach—one that is data-rich
and seeks to be responsive to the needs and interests of all stakeholder
groups. The following subsections attempt to distil available lessons from
experience with industry regulation to-date. The first part is concerned with
establishing the most basic level of intervention necessary to ensure
minimum protections. This basic system should be feasible in developing
countries as well as wealthy countries. Where the model is not
economically viable in impoverished jurisdictions, it should remain
aspirational. Although ‘minimal’, the model remains ‘smart’ in being data-
driven. The second section describes ‘stepped up’ interventions, applicable
to address particular problems or where resources allow for a more nuanced
approach to industry professionalisation. The latter should be focused on
lifting the overall performance of the industry as a highly effective force to
prevent crime, including acting as equal partners with public authorities in
crime prevention programme.

Smart Regulation: A Minimal Model

Available research, as outlined above, indicates strongly that there is a basic
licensing scheme which has in-principle consensus support from the public,
industry, academics and government. In the first instance, licensing should
be comprehensive in covering all security activities, given that all areas of
security carry misconduct risks or require government underwriting of
competency. Depth of regulation should initially be provided through
disqualifying offences in order to keep out persons with a record of
misconduct. The principle of offender rehabilitation needs to be set aside in
security—at least for fixed periods—because of particular sensitivities
around past criminal offences in areas such as theft, dishonesty, illicit drugs
and violence. Disqualifying periods should vary with the seriousness of the
offence. Lifetime exclusions should operate for the worst categories of
offending. Databases for criminal convictions should be checked as often as
possible and reach as broadly as possible. Fingerprinting or palm printing
allows for checks on persons wanted on warrants or suspected of crimes.
Adequate depth of regulation should also be achieved by matching
training requirements to specialist licence categories. The common
approach is to set a basic security curriculum with additional subjects for
specialisations. There should be a separate licence for weapons, and
conditions on weapons carriage such as safe storage. The type and level of
pre-entry training qualifications should be based on standard training needs
analyses, drawing on the input of different groups including practitioners
and clients. The curriculum should cover legal powers and accountabilities,
as well as security procedures and physical skills. There needs to be a strict
quality assurance programme in training to make sure skills are transmitted,
practised and tested to appropriate standards, with controls in place to
prevent cheating. Security providers are often first responders in
emergencies, and security work can involve violence. Consequently, first
aid is important both for the protection of security officers as well as clients
and third parties. Pre-entry qualifications should thus include a first-aid
certificate for frontline officers. Training institutes should be audited by an
independent body—either the regulator or a government training authority.
Training needs analyses should be one part of a broader consultative
process that includes owners of security firms, security managers,
employees, labour unions, clients, the general public and relevant
government agencies including police, public defenders and prosecutors.
An industry stakeholder committee is advisable, so long as the operational
independence of the regulator is not compromised. Periodic surveys of
stakeholder groups should be used in order to test the impact of regulation
and identify gaps and needs. Regulatory impacts should also be analysed
with access to time series data across areas such as complaints, litigation,
injuries, prosecutions and media reportage.
An enforceable code of conduct should be developed to guide conduct,
inform training curricula and inform a disciplinary matrix when breaches
are detected. Regulators need to ensure the system is accessible to
aggrieved persons, that complaints are subject to rigorous independent
investigation, and that there is fair and timely adjudication. Licence fees
should be kept to a minimum to ensure the effective operation of the
regulatory system. A cost-recovery model is arguably the most viable. Fees
should not place unjustified burdens on licence-holders, and fees should not
be used as a general source of revenue by governments.
Regulatory agencies should be proactive in going beyond a passive
model of processing licence applications and simply responding to
complaints. They need to be innovative in testing compliance; for example,
through covert observations and random audits, including audits of tender
documents. They should also have a research unit that addresses current and
emerging policy issues. Examples would include steroid use by crowd
controllers, the adequacy of legal powers for security providers, and the
impact of regulation on the industry in terms of business viability and
service delivery. Finally, regulators should be accountable to the public by
being required to publish annual reports with details of their activities,
complaints dispositions, evidence of regulatory impacts and a ‘report card’
on the industry generally.

Smart Regulation: Optimising Crime Prevention

Beyond the basic model there are a number of ‘add-ons’ that can be applied
to address specific problems and enhance the industry’s potential to deliver
better public security. In regard to conduct issues, more interventionist
measures have been introduced in locations where there has been recurring
criminality. Examples include required declarations of criminal associates,
and discretion to reject applications or revoke licences based on criminal
intelligence that remains confidential to the regulator (Prenzler and Sarre
2012). The problem of violence perpetrated by crowd controllers has also
been addressed in part by a capacity for regulators to require psychological
assessments and to conduct drug and alcohol tests (Prenzler and Sarre
2012). Another regulatory option is to specify ratios for the number of
crowd controllers required per patron numbers in entertainment venues.
This can be prescribed in liquor licensing legislation. The completion of
incident logs can also be used to enhance accountability and to support
investigations. In federal systems it is advisable to have a programme that
promotes nationally consistent standards.
Although regulation is often thought of in terms of constraining
operatives, a progressive regulator can contribute to industry effectiveness
by several means. One example involves granting special powers to
selected licence-holders. Examples include the right to apply for a search
warrant, the right to access government information under certain
circumstances, and greater legal protections against illegal actions taken in
good faith (e.g., false arrest, or causing bodily harm during an intervention)
(Sarre and Prenzler 2009: 240, 2011). Regulators can play a role in
facilitating industry professionalism by mandating security management
qualifications. They can also encourage in-service education by granting
discounts on licence fees for specified qualifications or evidence of
refresher courses, including in areas such as crime prevention. Flexibility in
addressing public security needs can be addressed through the capacity to
issue temporary licences when large numbers of security workers are
needed for special events—operating under supervision with essential
minimal training.
 In terms of facilitating the crime prevention benefits of regulation, the
Security Industry Authority in the United Kingdom has initiated a set of
notable enhancements to its basic licensing system. Under the title
‘Protecting Society’, it offers training, education and reporting options in
‘workplace safety’, ‘violence reduction’, ‘counter-terrorism’, ‘responding to
hazardous substances’ and ‘combatting child sexual exploitation’ (Security
Industry Authority 2020b). The Authority also has an ‘SIA Heroes’
programme that promotes accounts of security providers ‘who go above and
beyond the call of duty’, profiling ‘the great work the security sector does
to protect the public and national infrastructure’ (Security Industry
Authority 2020c).

Conclusion
This chapter has proposed a model of smart regulation for the security
industry designed to avoid the pitfalls of both under-regulation and over-
regulation. A smart regulatory system would use economic analyses and
stakeholder feedback to ensure controls do not create unjustified restrictions
on business activity and market reach. At the same time, regulators need to
do much more than simply process licence applications and respond to
complaints. In that regard, the chapter has outlined a dynamic system, with
built-in performance assessment, designed to match regulation to risk. The
challenge is to find the best mix of strategies to protect against abuses and
ensure quality in security services. The latter criterion is increasingly seen
as a core task of regulators: to maximise the general crime reduction effects
of the industry, including through eligibility to participate in public-private
partnerships. The challenge for contemporary policy-makers is to design
security options that best deliver effective, appropriate and fair policing, be
it public or private or a combination of the two. Cleverly fashioned
regulation is essential to that process.

Recommended Reading
The 2014 report State Regulation Concerning the Civilian Private Security
Services and their Contribution to Crime Prevention and Community Safety
by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime describes a minimal set
of standards for the industry and makes a cogent case for a public interest
benefit from government engagement with the industry: located at https://
www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/crimeprevention/
Ebook0.pdf.
Similarly, the 2007 report Regulating Private Security in Europe: Status
and Prospects, published by the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control
of Armed Forces, sets out the need for regulation and includes a clear set of
recommendations for minimum standards and harmonisation across
jurisdictions: located at https://www.dcaf.ch/sites/default/files/publications/
documents/PP20_Born_Caparini_Cole_.pdf.

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M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_37

37. The Necessary Yet Nebulous Nature of

the Informal Security Sector in South
Africa
Gregory Breetzke1 and Tshiamo Mosuwe1
(1) Department of Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology,
University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

Gregory Breetzke
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
While it has long been understood that informal security measures can be
amongst the most effective, they have been much less discussed. This
chapter addresses these measures, taking the South African township of
Mmakau as an example. Against a background in which the police have
been deemed to be ineffective, citizens have formed informal security nodes
such as street committees and taxi associations, among others. In addition to
a fascinating insight into informal security at work, the authors provide a
more nuanced understanding of the shift in the contemporary governance of
security in the country.

Introduction
South Africa is plagued by high levels of crime and high levels of fear. The
country consistently ranks as one of the most violent places on earth
(Global Peace Index 2020), and was recently characterised as a ‘war zone’
by the country’s Minister of Police (Merrington 2018). One of the most
distinguishing features of crime in South Africa is not so much its volume
but rather its violence. Of the over two million crimes committed in
2019/2020, over 30% were violent (South African Police Services (SAPS)
2020). Reported and recorded cases of homicide are often used as a key
indicator of trends in respect of violent crime as they can be independently
verified. Accordingly, an average of 57 people are murdered each day in the
country, comparable with the United States and China, but with these
countries having populations six and thirty times greater than South Africa,
respectively. A summary of homicide trends since democracy by the
Institute of Security Studies (2019) indicates an initial 55% decrease in
murders in South Africa from 1995 to 2011 followed by a 35% increase in
homicides up to 2018. The most common cause of homicide was personal
arguments, followed by gang-related disputes and domestic violence.
Almost 60% of women who are murdered by their partners are shot dead.
National victimisation studies, which have been developed largely to
supplement official crime statistics in the country, provide equally
discouraging readings. Two such studies have found high levels of
underreporting of crime, with less than half of all crime victims reporting
their experiences to the police (Statistics South Africa (SSA) 1998; Burton
et al. 2004). The results of the most recent victimisation study revealed that
the prevalence of certain types of crime such as house break-ins could be as
much as six times greater than the official police statistics indicate, with the
vast majority of cases going unreported in this category (SSA 2019). Across
all the crime categories, the levels of households not reporting crimes to the
police range between 14% (for theft of motor vehicles) and 65% (for street
robbery).
Fear of crime among South Africans is also high. Over 60% of adult
South Africans worry about their home being burgled or becoming a victim
of violent crime, while around a fifth of adults worry constantly about crime
impacting their lives (South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS)
2013). While patterns of fear of crime have remained relatively stable over
the past decade (Roberts 2012), the overarching trend is one of consistent
worry, which, for a sizable minority, has a serious impact on the quality of
their lives (Roberts and Gordon 2016). Of course, not only does the fear of
crime have an impact on mental and physical health-related issues
(Chandola 2001; Roberts et al. 2012; Browning et al. 2012; Wilson-
Genderson and Pruchno 2013) but in the South African context, the fear of
crime is thought to be a major factor that constrains efforts by the
government and non-state actors to promote socially cohesive communities
and a caring society (Roberts and Gordon 2016). The latter point is
significant as the country has struggled to translate the ‘Rainbow Nation’
moniker it adopted during the transition to democracy in 1994 into practice,
with the country arguably more socially fractured and less structurally
cohesive than it has ever been. Indeed, data from the most recent South
African Reconciliation Barometer (SARB) survey (2019) indicates that less
than a third of South Africans often or always talk or socialise with
someone from a different racial group.
The response to increased crime and feelings of fear among the South
African population has been a dramatic upsurge in a variety of mechanisms
—both formal and informal—aimed at increasing their sense of security.
From a purely situational crime prevention perspective residents and
communities have increasingly employed various types of target hardening
and access control mechanisms. As Snyders and Landman (2018, p. 266)
indicate:

Moving through any neighbourhood in South Africa one is

confronted with the fortification of private homes, shopping malls,
parks and open spaces and business complexes. High walls, burglar
bars, electric fencing—all forms of target hardening, as well as
guard dogs and private security firm signs are present everywhere.

South Africa currently has the largest private security sector in the world,
valued at approximately 2% of the country’s total gross domestic product
(Singh 2008; Abrahamsen and Williams 2011). Astonishingly, since 1970,
the industry has expanded at an average annual rate of 30% (Irish 1999),
while there are currently almost 500,000 active registered security officers
on patrol in the country (Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority
2017). This number is nearly double the size of the South African Police
Services and South African National Defence Force combined. The growth
of non-state policing, particularly related to the private security industry,
has raised a number of questions across disciplines concerned with
violence, (in)security, and what this means for the authority and legitimacy
of the state in South Africa (Diphoorn 2016). Nominally, and
constitutionally, the SAPS are in charge of preventing, combating and
investigating crime in South Africa; however, the SAPS since its inception
in 1995 has been plagued with allegations of being nefarious and corrupt
(Faull 2007; Newham and Faull 2011; O’Regan and Pikoli 2014; Ivković
and Sauerman 2015). According to the South African Social Attitudes
Survey (SASAS)—a nationally representative household-level survey of
citizens’ attitudes—roughly two-thirds of South Africans believe that the
most corrupt government officials in South Africa are located in the
national police service (SASAS 2013), with the police even being described
as the primary agent of corruption in the country (see Bruce 2008; Ivković
and Sauerman 2015). The effectiveness of social control depends on the
compliance and cooperation of citizens who recognise the police as being
competent and trustworthy since trust is a core value in determining
legitimacy. On the other hand, negative attitudes towards the police result in
mutual strife, disorder and inefficiency in policing. Currently, trust in the
SAPS is low (Faull 2007), with the reporting of crime considered to be a
waste of time and effort by the majority of the South African population
(Burger 2011).
A related consequence of rising crime and fear in South Africa since
democracy—and the concomitant inability of the state to control and/or
reduce these—has been the rapid growth and proliferation of the informal
security sector in the country. By the informal security sector we refer to
semi-legal and/or even criminal organisations involved in security
provisions. According to Martin (2013), so-called informal security nodes
(ISNs) distinguish themselves from private and state security in that they
operate largely beyond the confines of the state. They are, most often,
unregulated and are prone to using illicit force to assert and maintain
control. In this chapter, we explore the informal security sector in South
Africa. We initially examine its rise in South African society through the
lens of the transition to democracy and highlight some of the main ISNs
that have operated and continue to operate in the country. The central
hypothesis is that the informal security sector has become, in many
instances, the de facto law enforcement actor in the country, notably in poor
and rural communities due to the security-related functions they perform,
and the concomitant inability of the state to perform their perfunctory role.
Finally, a case study is outlined in which we highlight the interaction
between informal security providers and the community in the South
African informal settlement of Mmakau, located in the North West province
of the country. Informal security groups are particularly prevalent in poorer,
more informal areas, which tend to be less adequately protected by the
state. The experiences of this community in dealing first-hand with these
informal security provision actors will provide a greater understanding of
the shift in the contemporary governance of security in the country.

A Brief History of (In)Security in South Africa

One of the main goals of the African National Congress (ANC) since its
ascension to power in South Africa in 1994 has been to transform (and
reform) the structures and institutions in the country that served to oppress
the majority black African population under apartheid. Chief among these
institutions was the police services. Under apartheid, the former South
African Police (SAP)1 typically acted as agents of the state against
‘apartheid offences’, with only one in ten members of the SAP actively
engaged in criminal detection and investigation during this period
(Dipenaar 1988). According to Leggett (2004), the SAP was more a
counterinsurgency force constrained to fighting political enemies than a
bastion of law and order. Indeed, the SAP were known for being brutal,
corrupt and inept (Rauch 2000), and had little regard for actually dealing
with crime unless it involved the political opponents of the then ruling
National Party. The transition to democracy and the attendant reformation
of the police into a more representative and democratic institution has been
challenging. According to Rauch (2000, p. 119):

It never occurred to the leaders and members of the African

National Congress (ANC)—the main democratic opposition party—
that the police, who had been so ruthlessly effective against them,
would be any less effective against criminals in the new era.

According to Baker (2009), current security sector reform practices are

most often based on two false assumptions, namely that the post-conflict
state is able to deliver policing to a majority of its population, and that the
post-conflict state is the principal actor in policing provision. Both
assumptions have turned out to be the case in post-apartheid South Africa.
In terms of the former, the newly created SAPS has been plagued with
allegations (and convictions) related to corruption not only at the lower
levels of operation but also among many top-ranking officials. These
include, among others, Piet Meyer (the former KwaZulu-Natal Provincial
Head of Organised Crime) and Albert Eksteen (former National Head of
Organised Crime) in 2000 and 2001 respectively, as well as the former
Head of Crime Intelligence, Richard Mdluli. Two of the most recent
National Police Commissioners (Jackie Selebi (2000–2009) and Bheki Cele
(2009–2012)) have also been either convicted or suspected of corruption
and removed from office, while the former Acting National Police
Commissioner, Khomotso Phahlane (2015–2017), was also suspended and
later arrested twice on allegations of corruption and fraud (Serrao 2018;
Peiffer et al. 2019). In terms of the latter, the majority of the South African
population simply do not see the SAPS as the principal actor in providing
security in the country. While the SAPS may have the legislative mandate
to be the principal actor in policing South Africans, a growing informal
justice system exists in the country, headed by local street patrols, taxi
associations and self-organised hyper-local justice committees. This
informal system of security has its historical roots in apartheid and is born
out of the desperation and frustration of mainly township residents who see
the SAPS as corrupt and incompetent. Under apartheid, the distinction
between formal and informal security was politically and legally ambiguous
(Robison et al. 2008), and this ambiguity continues to permeate South
African society, with residents increasingly reliant on informal security
nodes to maintain law and order. Indeed, arguably the biggest challenge to
security sector reform in South Africa since democracy has been that the
formal security establishment currently exists alongside an informal
security sector that serves the security needs in communities far from the
purview of the state.

Informal Security Nodes in South Africa

There are a number of different types of informal security nodes in
operation in South Africa. According to Gillespie (2014), these nodes
operate mainly in townships located on the urban periphery of South
African cities where trust in the formal state system of security is low or
non-existent. By townships we refer to mainly black African residential
areas that lie adjacent to major towns and cities in South Africa. Under
apartheid law, these areas were set aside for non-white residents but were
under-developed and under-serviced during this period and were, and in
many instances continue to be, plagued by poverty, poor or non-existent
health systems, ill-equipped and overcrowded schools, inadequate social
security, and high levels of unemployment. Informal security nodes
operating in township settings are extremely flexible, responsive and
attuned to township life, making them the preferred system of security
operating in these areas. Importantly, they also intersect with each other to
create a complex network of informal actors dealing with crime control.
Perhaps the most ‘formal’ informal node of security provision in these areas
are community policing forums (CPFs). CPFs are a legal civilian structure
created in the 1990s and mandated to liaise between local residents and
local police members on matters of local crime control and reduction. Every
police precinct in the country is constitutionally bound to have a CPF.
Primarily established to build trust and legitimacy between residents and
the SAPS, these forums now form an integral part of policing local
communities, particularly in more deprived areas. Despite some noted
successes (see Lambrechts 2012; Hattingh 2015), these forums have,
however, either become dysfunctional (Shaw 2002; Malatji 2016) or
evolved into more informal vigilante-type groups intent on exacting
revenge (Martin 2013). According to Brogden and Nijhar (2005), this is
most likely due to historical mistrust between police and the public in the
past. Local communities want the police to be held accountable for past
misdeeds while the police would prefer that past transgressions be
forgotten. Robison et al. (2008) note that it is important to recognise that
such community policing engagement forums need to be aware of the
constraints imposed by the authoritarian legacies of the past. In some
communities efforts by the police to integrate into local communities have
been greeted with suspicion (Van Graan 2006), while others have seen these
forums as a mechanism by which local residents can assert control and
claim a right to enforce ‘order’ regardless of the costs (Martin 2013).
Political party interference in the operating of CPFs (Mistry 1996) and
power struggles between CPF members and local SAPS members (Shaw
2002) have also been listed as contributing to the inability of these forums
to engender a truly collective mandate against crime.
Arguably the most popular form of informal security are street patrols.
These involve residents undertaking day and/or night-time patrols within a
particular block and/or ward within an area. Patrolling can be undertaken
alone or in conjunction with non-governmental organisations operating in
the area. Patrollers are volunteers and most often unarmed. Closely linked
with street patrols are so-called street committees, which are a less
organised form of patrol that most often operate in the immediate vicinity of
where they live (Gillespie 2014). Street committees are a policing strategy
established under former President Jacob Zuma in 2008 due to the
recognised failure of the CPFs. According to Minnaar (2009), desperate
communities often took it upon themselves to form these committees,
operating under the auspices of the CPFs, without any reference to local
policing structures or formal partnerships with the SAPS. By loosely
affiliating with local CPFs, these committees were provided with some
form of legitimacy, although they largely operate without any special legal
authority. According to Martin (2013), these street committees conduct
many policing activities for which they have no authority, including
searching houses for illegal weapons, recovering stolen property, and other
regulatory actions related to the policing of crime and deviancy. The actions
of these groups can result in vigilante behaviour and acts of so-called mob
justice against perceived perpetrators of crime. In the South African
context, the latter refers to the spontaneous public punishment (either a
beating and/or death) of an individual caught red-handed in the commission
of a crime. One of the earliest street committees formed to fill governance
voids in the provision of security, protection and ‘public order’ was the so-
called People Against Gangsterism and Drugs. Initially begun as a lobby
group aimed at pressuring the ANC government to fight the illegal drug
trade and gangsterism on the Cape Flats of South Africa, the group evolved
into a vigilante organisation responsible for numerous acts of violence and
urban terrorism in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Another formidable informal security actor extremely active in South
Africa are local taxi associations. Taxis are by far the single greatest
provider of public transport in the country, serving almost 75% of the South
African population daily (Fobosi 2020). Importantly, they are not metred
taxis but so-called minibus taxis that operate on the fringes of legality. The
industry is largely unregulated and informal, with almost no taxi owner
fully registered as a tax entity (Transport Education and Training Authority
2018). The industry runs on a cash-only basis. Taxis are operated and
managed by taxi associations who are responsible for controlling,
organising and dividing up taxi routes between different operators and
associations, as well as setting taxi fares and managing the taxi ranks. They
also, however, provide an alternative justice system, particularly in the
townships. As Gillespie (2014, pp. 8–9) notes:

For a price, they deal with everything from reprimanding a naughty

child on behalf of the parents, to apprehending serious criminals,
from doing weapon raids in schools, to mediating broken contracts.
They are known for their excellent success rate in finding stolen
goods and getting compensation out of perpetrators. They credit
these results to not having to abide by the methods of the police.

The taxi industry is extremely powerful in South Africa and its evolution
into a broker of justice is dangerous. Taxi violence is endemic in the
country, with the industry synonymous with accidents, crime and gender-
based violence (Moolman and Kgosimore 1998; Zessis et al. 2000;
Sekhonyane and Dugard 2004; Mackay and Callie 2010), among others.
The fact that these associations have become an institution that residents
approach to deal with crime and violence in their communities speaks to the
degree to which more formal policing structures have not only become
increasingly marginalised but essentially ignored. It is important to note that
all the informal networks of security provision mentioned above interact,
complement and, at times, compete with each other in attempting to provide
a measure of security to communities. Sadly, they also reflect the daily
reality that a large number of South Africans experience every day, that is,
high levels of crime and the concomitant inability of the state to prevent and
reduce it.
A final informal security entity operating in the country, particularly in
more rural areas, are tribal authorities. In South Africa, these authorities are
seen as the representatives of the community and as such are entrusted with
harmonising community customs and traditions within the overarching
ethos of the Constitution of the country. Leadership within tribal authorities
is hereditary, with no formal electoral process. Under apartheid these
authorities had numerous important administrative responsibilities such as
settling minor disputes, providing labourers for public works programmes,
and, importantly, maintaining law and order in their demarcated region.
Since democracy, tribal authorities have generally struggled to place
themselves within the modern structures of a democratic government
(Amtaika 1996). However, they are still legislatively able to perform a wide
range of functions for residents that live in their area, including providing
safety and security and administering justice (based on customary law)
(Williams 2010). Notably, their importance in South African society,
particularly in rural areas, has not diminished but rather been emboldened
as they act as a conduit through which political parties are able to engage
with their constituents ‘on the ground’.
It is clear that among a large number of South Africans these informal
security nodes are preferred to formal security agencies. According to
Ogbozor (2016), this is most likely due to three related factors: availability,
trust and their effectiveness. First, the ISNs are always available and prompt
when their services are needed; second, residents repose more trust in them
than the police, especially given the alleged tendency of police officers to
collect bribes and subvert the cause of justice; and third, these groups are
more effective in dealing with security issues decisively, unlike the police
that are often slowed down with bureaucratic bottlenecks. The preference
for ISNs is particularly relevant in more rural and/or poorer areas where
police are under-resourced and struggle to provide adequate security and
protection to residents. Indeed, while mistrust in the police is evident
throughout all of South Africa, it is most acutely felt at the local level where
communities are more often reliant on their services. The following case
study presents a brief exploration of the use of ISNs in an informal
settlement in South Africa, and highlights the blurred distinction between
the formal and informal security mechanisms in such communities to the
extent that it is difficult to determine at what point the formal security ends
and informal security begins.

The Case of Mmakau

Mmakau is a village located outside the town of Brits in the North West
province of South Africa. The village has a population of roughly 37,000,
of which almost 99% are black African. Mmakau is poor; almost 55% of
residents are unemployed while the annual household income is just less
than R30,000 (£1400) per year (Statistics South Africa 2011).
Approximately 35% of all dwellings are informal shacks, with almost 38%
of residents having no access to piped water and a staggering 70% of
residents having no access to a flush toilet (Statistics South Africa 2011).
Over 20% of households are headed by children under eighteen, with the
annual household income for child-headed households roughly R2400
(£110). For a relatively small village, Mmakau has a disproportionately
high number of crimes, particularly violent crime. Over 40% of all crime
committed in Mmakau is violent, which is above the national average of
34% (South African Police Services (SAPS) 2020). Just under 1000 serious
violent crimes were committed in Mmakau during the 2018/2019 reporting
year, including 250 incidences of assault and 22 cases of murder or
attempted murder. Despite being almost uniformly poor, property crime is
rampant with an astonishing 238 cases of robbery, 267 cases of burglary
and 181 cases of theft reported in Mmakau in 2018/2019, placing greater
financial strain on the livelihoods of residents. Of greater concern is the fact
that crime in Mmakau is increasing, with 18 of the 32 categories of crime
recorded by the SAPS having increased since the previous reporting period
(2017/2018). This includes assault with intent to inflict grievous bodily
harm, which increased by 61%, and common assault, which increased by
16%, while property crimes such as robbery at residential and non-
residential premises have increased by a staggering 162 and 123%,
respectively. Residents are aware of the growing crime problem in the
village, particularly related to violence:

We are targeted in the morning when we go to work, especially

those of us who live far from the taxis, because it’s dark, and only a
few people are in the streets at those times of the morning.
(interview MM12)

When the men feel like their wives are being disrespectful, their
men hit them. Whether you are angry or not in the house, as a
woman, don’t try speak up because these men will hit you.
(interview FM31)

My house was broken into. It happened a few months ago but

thinking about it still hurts me. I was home alone when it happened,
they tied me up and locked me in the bedroom. I’m lucky that they
didn’t hurt me but they took my phone, money and most of the
electrical appliances. It still affects me because I am an old woman
and my grandson needs me to provide for him. (interview MM12)
People in the community believe that the crime problems identified in the
village are due to the fact that foreign nationals have infiltrated Mmakau
and are largely responsible for the crime afflicting the community. This has
caused growing resentment among the local community towards foreign
nationals and resulted in a number of xenophobic attacks. South Africa as a
whole has experienced sporadic incidences of xenophobic violence since
democracy, the most recent in 2019 when a series of violent attacks were
instigated against mainly Nigerian and Zimbabwean migrants in Durban
and Johannesburg, respectively. Mmakau lies near the main transport route
to Zimbabwe in the north of South Africa, making it a popular location for
foreign nationals:

One night my friends and I were robbed by a group of foreign

nationals. They took our laptops and our phones, and it still upsets
me because we opened a case but because they don’t have
documentation the police can’t trace or identify them. (interview
MM24)

Many of the foreign-nationals that live here don’t have papers and
official work, but they are able to pay rent and have cars. Where
does that money come from? (interview FM45)

In terms of governance, the village is headed by the Bakgatla Ba Mmakau

tribal authority and is under the chieftainship of the Motsepe clan.
Nominally, and constitutionally, the SAPS are in charge of preventing,
combating and investigating crime in Mmakau; however, residents are
generally in agreement that the police have failed in their mandate to
maintain public order and protect the inhabitants of the village and their
property. In fact, residents have completely lost faith in the police to the
point of accusing them of being complicit in the commission of crime. The
lack of trust in the police has reached the point where residents are reluctant
to report crime to the police for fear of reprisals. Residents believe that
police often disclose who reported the crime to the suspected offenders and,
once released, the accused will attempt to exact revenge.

The police don’t stop crime they are often part of the crime
(interview MM31)
 When there are meetings in Brits town, they (the police) go in
numbers with their cars, but when there is a crime reporting, all they
do is give us a case number and they tell us to keep looking for the
perpetrators and when we have information we must come to the
cops and report back. Even when they give us case numbers, they
lose our case information so what’s the point of reporting?
(interview FM23)

It’s all the same, whether we report or not nothing changes, the
police won’t follow up. (interview MM9)

Responses such as these not only reflect the utter mistrust residents have in
the police but a growing desire for an alternative form of security to
guarantee public safety and perform many other ancillary security
functions. It is largely for this reason that residents increasingly rely on the
informal security nodes to provide (or impose) various forms of security
and protection. These include the local tribal authorities as well as street
committees and patrolling groups who are loosely affiliated with the local
CPF. In Mmakau these units patrol the streets of the village on a nightly
basis, undertaking a number of policing activities such as stop-and-searches
of houses and individuals, recovering of stolen property and other
regulatory actions without any special or designated legal authority.

We assist the police by propelling them to maintain social rest. They

(the police) tend to feel supported if we attend the community and
department meetings and we attend the meetings to ensure we are
updated in community matters. (interview MM29)

Interestingly, despite the lack of formal legitimacy and no mandated

authority or effective regulation, residents consistently expressed the belief
that patrollers were not only necessary but essential in keeping their
community safe. Previous research has reported low levels of trust in
community patrollers (see Martin 2013) as residents believe that such
patrols are often infiltrated by foreigners seeking revenge for xenophobic
attacks. We found no evidence of patrols in Mmakau being infiltrated by
non-South African nationals. Neither did we find any evidence of patroller
victimisation in this study and, in fact, residents appeared to be largely
thankful for the services they provide. Indeed, no dangers of any form (i.e.
violence, torture, killings) were identified by residents with the activities of
the patrollers, and they largely believe that the neighbourhood patrollers do
the work of the police and are sympathetic towards them as they are seen as
providing a ‘free’ service to the village. Of concern, however, is the fact
that patrollers do not have any official uniform and are not armed, and are
therefore not able to protect themselves in the event of a confrontation. The
lack of any unique identifying features or armed protection naturally
increases the risks for the patrollers.

It’s risky patrolling these streets but we would rather die patrolling,
knowing that we were making living here safer for our families.
(interview MM29)

Settlement residents are unanimous in their belief that the introduction of

the patrollers at the beginning of 2019 has led to the community being a
safer place to live. In fact, what was increasingly clear from discussions
held was that these patrollers have become the de facto police in the village.
Interestingly, the traditional role of the tribal authority in crime prevention
and mitigation in Mmakau has changed. Whereas previously, tribal
authorities were deeply embedded in villages such as Mmakau and as such
were intimately involved in crime-related issues in their communities, their
mandate has changed to mainly dealing with the implementation of local
government legislation. They see their role as merely peripheral, and do not
become involved in any form of crime-related matter unless it pertains to a
local government issue such as a land dispute, at least in Mmakau. Tribal
authorities are now also elected by the government and do not assume their
role through royal bloodlines. This has fuelled tensions and has led to civil
unrest in many rural communities in South Africa with implications for
crime and security.
The collective responses shown above illustrate the multifaceted nature
of the crime issues plaguing impoverished communities on the urban fringe
of South African society like Mmakau. They also demonstrate the growing
complexity inherent in policing them. The inability of state institutions such
as the SAPS to provide capable and democratically accountable authority
and effective management in the village is glaringly obvious, and it is
evident that the informal security sector such as the ‘patrollers’ will most
likely play a greater role in managing law and order issues in the village for
the foreseeable future.

Conclusion
This chapter has sought to explain the nebulous nature of the informal
security sector in South Africa. This is not an easy undertaking. The sector
is largely undefined (and under-studied) in the country despite playing a
significant role in maintaining social order in a large number of
communities. Indeed, in many instances it represents the only reliable and
trustworthy mechanism available to deal effectively with society’s concerns
regarding their safety and security. The sector is also, however, mostly
unregulated and illicit, and has been known to engage in criminal and
vigilante activities itself (see Martin 2013). The fact that the informal
security sector largely shapes the governance of security in countries such
as South Africa is not particularly uncommon; rather, it is the extent to
which it is relied upon that is not only unique but should be of concern to
the South African government. According to Isima (2007), far greater
emphasis has been placed on the governance of the security sector in
countries such as South Africa than on the actual provision of physical
security for citizens. This has largely played out in the South African
context where state role-players involved in security provision appear more
interested in power dynamics and posturing than delivering on their
foremost mandate to protect the residents of the country. South Africa has
one of the largest national police forces in the world. Sadly, it is also one of
the most under-funded and under-resourced, resulting in it simply being
unable to act as the primary source of security provision in the country. In
its place is a complex set of informal security operators that collude and, at
times, collide to provide various forms of security and protection largely
outside the rule of law and the reach of formal regulation. Nowhere is this
more evident than in poor communities where security is so desperately
needed yet so scarce. As alleged by interviewees in Mmakau, the SAPS are
not only incompetent but are also complicit in committing criminal offences
within the community, providing an empirical example of how deep the rot
lies within formal security institutions.
While the inability of state actors such as the police to control crime in
the country could represent a broader failure of the post-apartheid
government to build bureaucratic capacity for effective service delivery
during the transition to democracy (Isima 2007), it could also simply reflect
a generalised apathy on the part of the police in dealing with crime. Either
way, roughly 66% of South Africans do not trust the single agency tasked
with providing them with security (see Afrobarometer 2018). This presents
complex analytical and political challenges for the South African
government. Do they continue with the status quo and let an autonomous,
largely community-led justice security practice continue unabated? Or do
they seek to define (or redefine) the relationship between formal security
agents such as the police and ISNs? In terms of the latter, a memorandum of
understanding that spells out the terms of collaboration or partnerships
should, at the very least, be drafted that clearly defines the terms of
cooperation between these two actors.
There can be little doubt that the growing reliance on the informal
security sector in South Africa raises key political and normative issues.
However, these debates must take place in the light of the fact that the
boundaries between formal and informal security have already undergone
significant transformations both globally and locally. We would argue that
the example of Mmakau is not unusual but rather increasingly common
across the country. Informal security nodes are already integrated into
complex networks of authority throughout most regions of the country that
challenge any clear-cut distinction of formal versus informal authority. Far
from being ‘illicit’, ISNs form a vital cog in the wheel of security provision
in South Africa. Understanding their development and rapid proliferation
since democracy is crucial to reducing the scourge of crime that continues
unabated in the country.

Recommended Reading
Readers of this chapter may consult the long list of references if interested
in engaging further in any of the topics raised throughout. However, for a
more concise list of the main key references used to guide this study readers
should use the list outlined here. A good place to start is Rauch (2000), who
does an excellent job in chronicling police reform and South Africa’s
democratic transition, while Leggett (2004) and Singh (2008) provide
excellent descriptions of policing and crime control in the post-apartheid
era. The work of Martin (2013) was key in defining and highlighting
informal security nodes (ISNs) in general and how they operate in certain
areas, with specific reference to South Africa. Although primarily focused
on ‘mob’ justice, the work of Gillespie (2014) also provides an excellent
outline of various forms of informal security sector involvement in crime
prevention in impoverished settings in South Africa. Other notable works
on the informal security sector in other parts of the world can be found in
Robison et al. (2008) and Ogbozor (2016). For a broader discussion of
political legitimacy in post-apartheid South Africa readers should read
Williams (2010). Readers are encouraged to read more broadly articles and
reports concerning contemporary roles of the informal security sector in
other settings. A number of the reports cited in this chapter can be read
online.

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Footnotes
1 The police under apartheid were called the South African Police (SAP). Post-apartheid, they were
renamed the South African Police Services (SAPS).
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_38

38. Facing the Future: The Role of

Horizon-Scanning in Helping Security
Keep Up with the Changes to Come
Paul Ekblom1
(1) Department of Security and Crime Science, UCL, London, UK

Paul Ekblom
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
Crime is a moving target for security. Political, economic, social,
technological, legal and environmental changes, combined with adaptive,
enterprising and networked offenders, mean that the crimes we have to
tackle will change, and that the solutions that work against existing crimes
may no longer do so in future. On the bright side, those same background
changes may supply new possibilities for designing effective and acceptable
security measures that overcome limitations experienced today. In both
cases, responding when new crimes or new security technologies emerge
comes a poor second to active, rigorous anticipation—not least because of
the often substantial lags between conception, development and deployment
of new security measures. Horizon-scanning comprises a range of
techniques which have been widely applied in governmental, private and
third sectors. This chapter reviews how they have been applied to crime,
with particular reference to recent efforts to blend horizon-scanning with
Crime Science, at the UCL Dawes Centre for Future Crime.

Introduction
Our journey into the future is accelerating. We have seen new and more
efficiently tapped sources of energy (from wood, wind and water to coal,
oil, nuclear, solar and wind again) and power (humans and horses to steam
and then electricity); new information and communications technology
(printing, telegraph, telephone, wireless and Internet; calculators,
computers, industrial control systems and the Internet of Things); new
materials (from wrought iron to cheap steel to Kevlar armour and smart
materials) and new manufacturing processes (from cottage industry to
mass-production to 3D-printing and nanotechnology). The general shift of
activities to cyberspace has removed many of the natural brakes on human
activities that derive from distance, time, energy, inertia, physical
enclosures and material supplies—enabling rapid and cheap scaling up and
rolling out. We are poised for further advances—quantum computing, able
to work faster and solve challenging problems in novel ways; fusion energy,
with (eventual) limitless clean power; autonomous vehicles, promising
greater safety and more efficient road use. Beside these and other trends we
have seen sudden events or shocks ranging from financial crashes to wars
and pandemics. These interact together and with social, economic, political,
legal and environmental changes—as when Covid-19 meets ageing
populations or Brexit interacts with just-in-time supply chains. All such
changes and interactions may affect wellbeing, health, trade, migration,
food supplies… and of course, crime and security.
Besides causing change, individuals, organisations and societies adjust
to it and utilise it for good or ill. The existence of adaptive, enterprising and
networked offenders, perhaps empowered by new technologies and on the
look-out to exploit or actively create new illicit opportunities, means that
the crimes we must tackle have been changing. Security faces targets that
move ever faster and in more complex ways. Twenty years ago who would
have envisaged 3D-printed guns, miniature networked security or spy
cameras, genetically engineered illicit drug production, cyber-bullying or
ransomware? Like military commanders doomed to fight previous wars,
those responsible for ensuring the security of products, processes, places,
services and systems are often caught out by changes that were either
unexpected or whose early indicators were ignored. Pease (2000)
introduced the term ‘crime harvests’ to depict the production of items like
mobile phones whose designs were naïve to crime risks, and whose roll-out
engendered a wave of theft or misuse, followed in turn by hasty, clunky
attempts at retrofitting remedial security.
When they do respond to crime, governments and police services
nowadays emphasise the evidence-based approach. Unfortunately, the
security solutions shown to work currently may no longer do so in future,
and new kinds of crime might emerge requiring entirely new solutions. And
security and offenders are engaged in a range of arms races (Ekblom 2017)
in which novel security techniques and technologies are pitted against novel
perpetrator techniques perhaps nefariously repurposing novel technologies
in move and counter-move. Ekblom and Gill (2016) describe an arms race
between Provisional IRA terrorists and the security services.
But those same background changes that potentially boost crime may
supply new possibilities for designing effective and acceptable security
measures that overcome constraints and limitations experienced today, and
may even extend what security can do. While affordable drones, for
example, can be misused by criminals to deliver drugs to prisons they can
also contribute to highly cost-effective and agile surveillance or pursuit.
Waiting until new crimes start happening, though, leads to the
consequences of lags in policymaking, development and roll-out of security
action. And when it does come the action may be awkwardly retrofitted,
rather than optimally designed in from the start.
There are diverse approaches to future crimes on various time and
geographic scales. The most ambitious is horizon-scanning, now widely
used in governmental, private and third sectors. This chapter reviews how
horizon-scanning can be applied to tackle crime and improve security. It
first reviews how security currently faces the future, followed by accounts
of the challenges of anticipation, and the nature, purposes and ingredients of
horizon-scanning. It then describes alternative ways of imagining future
worlds. Finally, it seeks to merge anticipation with crime science, and its
approaches to causation, intervention and the security process; innovation;
and research.

How Does Security Face the Future?

I define security primarily as deliberate action to reduce the risk of and
from criminal events, taken before, during or after those events. Risk
concerns future unknowns. ISO 31000 defines it as the effect of uncertainty
on objectives, covering both adverse and beneficial events. Both apply to
criminals and to security—and one side’s loss is the other’s gain. In turn,
from the security perspective, risk of and from crime comprises possibility
(the classes of adverse event we want not to happen), probability and harm.
Harm comes from the event itself (e.g. loss of assets, or injury during
robbery) or subsequently (e.g. misuse of stolen credit cards, or the
likelihood that criminals will repeat their own successes or emulate
others’).1
This is the here-and-now task of security. But the dynamic picture
painted in the introduction necessitates more: security also involves
adapting to changes in the nature and patterns of crime and reducing the
rate of growth of crime. Accelerating rates can be especially troublesome,
as security, regulations and the law lag further behind, and knock-on harms
proliferate; and mounting political or business pressures force suboptimal
responses, as arguably happened in the 1990s with the rush to mount CCTV
schemes of variable quality in response to crime waves. To handle change
in the nature and rate of growth in crime, security must extend conventional
risk management and embrace the future far more systematically and
imaginatively.
Various crime and security strategies are available. On crime:
Systematically spotting emerging crimes and heading them off by
addressing the causes that underlie them or preparing for mitigation. This
requires monitoring/notification systems, across the police service, in
private security or within a particular industry, combined with channels
for mobilising action.
Anticipating new criminal opportunities and motivational influences on
offenders engendered by technological and social changes over various
timescales. This can involve both crime risk assessment (the potential
effect on the crime risks of interest, of incoming changes from other
domains) and crime impact assessment (the potential effect of one’s own
planned activities/products on crime) (see, e.g., Monchuk and Clancey
2013).
Blocking the emergent/anticipated crimes by making changes: in the
everyday world including the designs of products, places, procedures,
services and systems (Ekblom 2014); in the wider operating
environment, including regulations, laws and enforcement institutions;
 and at a societal level including marshalling social disapproval, for
example of using mobile phones whilst driving.
Crimeproofing—a combination of anticipation and blocking—identifying
at the design stage those classes of product, service and so on judged to
be at elevated crime risk, and boosting the security specification
accordingly to avoid crime harvests. The most familiar risk-factor cluster
here is CRAVED (Clarke 1999), which identifies ‘hot products’ at
especial risk of theft as Concealable, Removable, Available, Valuable,
Enjoyable, Disposable. Armitage and Pease (2007) describe a practical
attempt to apply CRAVED to mobile phones and other portable
electronic devices, to raise the security specification for those items
classed as high risk.
Developing ways to diminish offenders’ capacity to adapt and innovate.
This is challenging because it must be done subtly, without inhibiting the
adaptive capacity of legitimate business. This may include the strategy of
security by obscurity—that is, making it harder for offenders to know
what security is being deployed, how it works and its weak spots.
On security:
Maintaining spare capacity/redundancy to boost resilience against
sudden crime waves.
Spotting, developing and deploying emerging technologies for crime
prevention.
Anticipating broader preventive opportunities and helping make them
happen, for example taking deliberate advantage of widespread camera
phones.
Undertaking security impact assessments to identify and mitigate adverse
side effects of security measures, for example on business practices or
intergroup relations.
Developing and disseminating the capacity to out-innovate adaptive
offenders against a background of technological and social change that
may favour first one side, then the other (Ekblom 2017; Ekblom and
Pease 2014). It is pointless winning individual battles in an arms race but
losing the wider campaign.
As noted, responding generally comes a poor second to active, rigorous
anticipation. But there are trade-offs between them. Responding diminishes
the risk of wasted effort. A near miss here was with the switch to digital TV.
To keep analogue TV sets working, users required ‘set-top boxes’ to
convert the signal. At £100, these were anticipated to be theft-prone.
However, before government or insurance companies could prompt costly
target-hardening of the designs, TV service providers decided to supply the
boxes to users for free, eliminating the incentive for theft.

The Challenges of Anticipation

Anticipation is tricky and potentially overwhelming. There are many crime
types, using diverse perpetrator techniques, any of which could change
tactically. There are many crime targets and crime environments, and we
know how context-dependent security interventions can be. Criminals can
misuse a huge range of resources as tools, weapons or decoys, and a similar
breadth of security methods could exploit new technology—or be defeated
by it. The flow of scientific/technological innovations has become a torrent,
and the security side must address the criminal opportunities not just of
individual instances but combinations. For instance, the 9/11 attack was
facilitated by the arrival of cheap steel and electric elevators enabling
skyscrapers, which became attractive and vulnerable targets (cf. the EVIL
DONE risk factors: Clarke and Newman 2006), and much later, the
evolution of easy-to-fly aircraft and flight simulator training; broader
contextual changes like live broadcasting amplified the offenders’
psychological impact.
The simplest approach to anticipation is induction, which underlies the
familiar technique of crime pattern analysis/hotspot mapping. The
assumption is that tomorrow’s crimes in a given locality will resemble
yesterday’s. More sophisticated variants of induction include time series
analysis, as with the Home Office’s modelling/forecasting of national crime
trends taking account of other explanatory variables (Harries 2003). In that
instance, the strong negative relationship seen over decades between
personal disposable income and property crime ceased to hold after the
2008 financial crash; one explanation for this was the ‘security hypothesis’
(Farrell et al. 2011)—that widespread and significant improvements in
situational interventions like car security had broken the link. More
generally, we can never be sure statistical modelling has captured all the
relevant contextual factors, and if these change, the real outcomes will
diverge from the forecasts. And data to undertake such analyses may be
unavailable at suitable temporal/geographical scales, although this is
tending to diminish.
More fundamentally, the underlying causal mechanisms that generate
crime patterns over time may be tricky to discern and forecast because these
often interact in complex ways, producing emergent properties and
nonlinearities. Here, a steady trend or a constant property of some product,
process or phenomenon suddenly undergoes a discontinuity, or a step
change in an unexpected direction. An intriguing instance of nonlinearity
occurred on the island of Bali. Telephone handsets suddenly started
disappearing from phone boxes—but only coastal ones. Apparently, the
locals had discovered that wiring the handsets to batteries and immersing
them in the sea produced a screaming noise, which attracted fish. Whoever
could have predicted that?
So attempting to anticipate the future in ways that are reliable and valid
enough to act upon in good time and with a sufficient prospect of avoiding
(or compounding) harm is challenging. If major risks—intense shocks or
high-volume trends—are to be addressed then it is vitally necessary to
undertake anticipation systematically, covering various timescales and with
suitable investment in rigour and theoretical plausibility. But it is crucial to
do this with imagination, insight and flair. Anticipation at this upper end of
the sophistication scale is known as horizon-scanning, or foresight.

What Is Horizon-Scanning?
The UK government’s Chief Scientific Advisers’ Committee (2004, p. 3)
defined horizon-scanning as follows: ‘The systematic examination of
potential threats, opportunities and likely developments including but not
restricted to those at the margins of current thinking and planning. Horizon
scanning may explore novel and unexpected issues as well as persistent
problems or trends’. They further noted that this should involve going
beyond usual sources and timescales.
Examples of crime/security-focused horizon-scanning exercises include
two run by the UK government’s Foresight programme. The first (2002)
was a general purpose crime panel2 which inspired various development
projects; the second, a (2004) focus on cybercrime.3 Other projects included
a crime dimension within another field, for example a 2006 one on
intelligent infrastructure.4 More recent scans have been conducted, for
example by the Dawes Centre for Future Crimes at UCL (below).

The Purposes of Horizon-Scanning

Horizon-scanning delivers more than just forecasts. The Institute of Risk
Management (2018) identifies several applications:
To deepen understanding of the driving forces affecting the future
development of a policy or strategy area.
To identify gaps in understanding and bring into focus new areas of
research required to understand driving forces better.
To build consensus amongst diverse stakeholders about the issues and
how to tackle them.
To identify difficult policy choices and trade-offs that may be
encountered in the future.
To create a new strategy that is resilient/adaptable to changing external
conditions.
To mobilise stakeholders to action.

The Ingredients of Horizon-Scanning

Horizon-scanning requires:
A ‘futures mindset’ ready to contemplate diverse possibilities and
surprises, whilst holding the distinct perspectives and needs of offenders
and security.
Appreciation of background changes to society, whether trends or
‘shocks’ (like the Covid-19 pandemic), and how these can affect crime
and security.
Use of empirical and theoretical research to guide anticipation whilst
acknowledging its limitations.
Willingness to obtain and critically explore diverse data and perspectives,
for example on promised future technologies or predicted societal
changes.
Capability of handling uncertainty and gaps in knowledge.
Ability to entertain conflicting viewpoints and complexity.
Capacity to envisage alternative, holistic views of future worlds.
Futures Mindset
The minimum for undertaking horizon-scanning is readiness to imagine
new circumstances or worlds. As a simple example, local governments
worldwide are guilty of providing wheelie bins for refuse that serve as
climbing aids for burglars. Why did nobody ‘think thief’, envisage this
possibility and incorporate elementary and perhaps cost-free security
attributes into the design requirements, generating features like sloping or
floppy lids? Crime science (below) helps to identify more systematic and
specific requirements that criminals or security might want.

Background Changes
Horizon-scanners have ways of ‘dividing up the future’ into ready-to-grasp
chunks, with variations on a theme, such as PESTLE, STEEPLE and the
most inclusive, PESTELOMI. This directs us to consider upcoming changes
in Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, Legal-
regulatory, Organisational, Media and Infrastructural domains (one would
nowadays add Health—PESHTELOMI). Any of these could influence the
immediate causes of crime by increasing motivation (e.g. social conflicts)
or opportunity (e.g. rising commodity prices, as happened with copper
(Sidebottom et al. 2014)). This may be direct, as with copper, or indirect, as
with the increases in demand in China that led to copper shortages—causes
of the causes of crime. Likewise with security, direct influences could
include the arrival of body-worn cameras; indirect ones could come from
anywhere in the immediate operating environment, such as changes in
social acceptability of certain surveillance methods, or regulations limiting
exchange of personal data between security organisations.

Use of Research
Crime-related research can contribute statistical time-series and models, as
mentioned, as well as theories and process models for conducting crime
prevention/security. Both the latter, especially if tested and validated, and
expressed in ‘perennial’ terms that are detached from ‘here-and-now’
contexts, should apply to future changed circumstances (risk factors for
theft of ‘hot products’, e.g. Concealability and Removability, will never
change even if technological or economic developments mean the specific
instances of what is concealable or removable do.) However, using theory
to forecast complex social trends like crime must go beyond individual
theoretical principles (e.g. Routine Activities, below) to understand how
multiple principles interact in the real world. Social science finds this hard
even in the present. This requires caution when bringing together what we
know about crime and security and about wider PESHTELOMI factors,
what changes are likely in the latter and how together they might influence
crime.

Data Sources
Horizon-scanning necessarily draws on more varied sources than
conventional research. Technology reports, serious journalistic articles, and
white papers on changes in regulations, taxation, business practices and so
on are all relevant. But a critical approach is obligatory, as is cross-checking
through multiple sources. Sometimes, Delphi polling (e.g. Coutorie 1995) is
used for formalised and carefully structured attempts to consult diverse
experts on strategic issues and priorities. Usually participation is
anonymous, and there are several rounds of response, consolidation and
review.

Uncertainty
Conventional handling of uncertainties in trend modelling includes error
bars and statistical confidence intervals. We can assess the consequences of
false positive and false negative errors in our predictions—what’s at stake,
for whom? But once we move beyond induction it may be impossible to
quantify uncertainty, and we are into the realm of ‘known and unknown
unknowns’.
Issues with available research and other data sources apart, many gaps
and inconsistencies remain. In such circumstances researchers customarily
either stop making inferences or try to fill the gaps with more studies. But
there are plenty of decisions that police and crime prevention and security
practitioners must take now, in the absence of full and reliable evidence—
whether to invest in particular training facilities, technologies,
infrastructures and so forth. Arguably it is better to take those decisions on
the basis of some indicative information, carefully handled, rather than
none. This means finding unconventional ways of handling uncertainty.
More distant horizons hold more uncertainty as there is more time for
new influences to emerge and interact, and for assumptions about contexts
to grow outdated. Horizon-scanners must acknowledge that narrow, highly
specific forecasts are almost certainly going to prove wrong.5
A key concept here is the so-called cone of uncertainty.6 This
schematically shows time moving forward to a potentially infinite range of
futures progressively diverging from each other. These can be subdivided
into ever-narrower nested cones—preposterous, possible, plausible,
probable, centring on the baseline future: the one assumed to occur if
nothing unexpected intervenes. This is business as usual, or the smooth
continuation of current trends. The range judged worthwhile to address is
the cone of plausible alternative futures: plans to cope with, or to exploit,
any such changes must be appropriate, workable and robust.
Normally, we consider variation in multiple dimensions, sometimes
referred to as axes of uncertainty, for example, free trade—protectionism
and political stability—instability. Dimensions imply steady variation, but
in fact the space mapped out within a futures cone can contain peaks and
troughs. Risk managers must confront the possibility of sudden adverse
events that are of low probability, but if they do happen, high harm, as with
rare terrorist attacks or major one-off hacking waves exploiting a pervasive
security vulnerability. These are known as wildcards (Mendonça et al.
2009). Markley (2011) expands the wildcard concept (preferring the term
‘surprises’) by considering the whole array of combinations of high/low
probability, impact and credibility of the anticipated future trend or event.
Users apply the results of horizon-scanning to prediction (‘What might
we have to cope with, and how?’) or prescription (‘What is our preferred
future?’ e.g. low fraud plus low regulatory burden), where the aim is to
identify the best way to make that future happen. Of course, other parties
may be trying to nudge events towards their own preferred future—claims
about the anticipated technological or market success of particular
proprietary products and services need sceptical handling.
One way to reduce uncertainty is by identifying leading indicators—
changes which reliably precede the change of interest, whether the link is
made via empirical association, theory or logic. Thus we may bet with some
confidence that an increase in the price of copper will be followed after
some lag by an increase in metal theft (unless policymakers, law
enforcement and, perhaps, rail operators have acted on the warning or,
longer term, cheaper alternatives to copper are developed).
 While leading indicators are by definition well-grounded, when such
information is lacking it may nevertheless be possible to cautiously use so-
called weak signals. These are warnings, events and developments that are
still too vague to permit accurate estimation of their impact and/or plan
complete responses (Hiltunen 2008). Attributes of weak signals (https://
www.sitra.fi/en/articles/what-is-a-weak-signal/) include novelty, surprise
value, capacity to challenge existing assumptions, and relation to a
significant issue which may emerge after some delay. Weak signals may
contribute less to substantive evidence-grounded anticipation and more to
‘stimulus value’ in prompting wider-ranging discussion.

Controversy, Complication and Complexity

Attempts to anticipate future developments in crime and security encounter
topics where experts’ views strongly diverge. This makes it harder to argue
convincingly for a particular view of the future; indeed, such divergences
should be declared and it may make sense to incorporate them in alternative
visions.
Complication and complexity are another matter. We have already noted
the issue of nonlinearities, where some event or other change induces a
qualitatively or quantitatively unexpected outcome, for example a tipping
point. Interactions between individual causal factors for crime and with
their context can generate many combinations of influences on crime and
security to consider as future possibilities. Crime and security typically pose
‘wicked’ problems (Rittel and Webber 1973; Borrion et al. 2020), that is,
those which are hard to solve because of incomplete, contradictory and
changing requirements, or, alternatively put, problems which are complex,
dynamic and networked (Dorst 2015).
The notion of complex adaptive systems (Dekkers 2017) covers those
many circumstances which bedevil policy and practice in the present, and
challenge horizon-scanning even more. Here, the various agents operating
and interacting in some socio-technical system respond to anticipated or
manifest changes in the behaviour of other parties or in the environment, by
making adjustments of their own. Apart from invalidating purely
descriptive forecasts, complex adaptive systems can jeopardise attempts to
move towards particular preferred futures. ‘System failures’ (Chapman
2004) can neutralise interventions (as when offenders circumvent new
security arrangements or seat belts cause drivers to take greater risks); lead
to security arms races (Ekblom 2017); or lead to unexpected ‘backfires’, as
when hackers misuse official penetration-testing software to find
vulnerabilities in systems.7
In navigating these tricky realms of complexity, it is important for
horizon-scanners to know what kind of problems they are facing in their
current/future operating context. The Cynefin framework8 was developed to
guide understanding and response (Snowden and Boone 2007). Cynefin
distinguishes four domains (plus a residue labelled ‘disordered’).
Clear/simple/obvious: ‘known knowns’. Here, rules or best practice are
in place, the situation is stable, and the cause-effect relationship clear: if
you do X, expect Y. The advice here is to ‘sense–categorise–respond’:
establish the facts, categorise and then respond by following rules or
applying best practice.
Complicated: ‘known unknowns’. The cause–effect relationship requires
analysis/expertise, yielding a range of right answers. The framework
recommends ‘sense–analyse–respond’: assess the facts, analyse and
apply the appropriate good operating practice.
Complex: ‘unknown unknowns’. Cause–effect can only be deduced
retrospectively; there are no right answers. The recommended approach
is ‘probe–sense–respond’.
Chaotic: here, cause and effect are unclear, and events too confusing to
await a knowledge-based response (Lambe 2007). Practitioners should
‘act–sense–respond’: act to establish order; sense where stability lies;
respond to turn the chaotic into the complex.
Trying to develop, for instance, a merely ‘complicated-appropriate’
response for some anticipated issue that is actually complex or chaotic will
likely end in costly mistakes.

Views of Future Worlds

So taking a holistic, systems view of the future, or even of some closely
defined domain like vehicle security, is vital. And developing richer
pictures of the future is important if only to boost the engagement,
imagination and comprehension of the participants in horizon-scanning
exercises, and also to communicate effectively with the consumers of the
outputs, who may be policymakers, practitioners, the media or business
leaders. Yet any attempt to fully sketch the myriad interactions that will
generate some realistic future world is doomed to failure due to empirical
and theoretical poverty and the limits to computation. How then to proceed?
Alternatives include scenarios, simulations and narratives, and graphical
presentations.

Scenarios
Scenarios are the most familiar approach, and usually involve defining a
space of future possibilities using two axes of uncertainty. An example is in
the UK Foresight programme’s ‘Intelligent Infrastructure 2055’ project
(Ekblom 2006). The axes represent (1) transport varying between high and
low environmental impact, and (2) societal acceptance versus resistance
regarding intelligent infrastructure. The four quadrants so defined each
constitute a scenario, which is usually given an engaging label: Good
Intentions (high-impact high-acceptance), Perpetual Motion (low-high),
Urban Colonies (low-low), Tribal Trading (high-low). As mentioned, I
contributed a crime perspective on each scenario using the Conjunction of
Criminal Opportunity framework (below) to give a systematic and detailed
treatment.
But often the choice of scenarios and axes is arbitrary. Shearer (2005)
lists various criticisms, including a concern that the axes and scenarios
selected reflect the author’s assumptions and biases. Also, the labels may be
superficial and oversimplifying, and considering just two axes is arbitrary.
Cubes with eight scenarios are visualisable,9 but the cognitive overload
(plus airtime constraints in group work) rapidly becomes unmanageable.
A more systematic approach to homing in on critical dimensions is
General Morphological Analysis (GMA). Originally developed for
astronomy, this is now applied to analysing wicked problems. This
identifies key parameters (equivalent to axes of uncertainty) and crosses
them to define a ‘typological field’ (multidimensional grid of possible
futures). This is used to generate scenarios. Tzezana (2017) applied GMA
to analyse the futures of crime and terror in the age of the Internet of
Things. On a crowdsourcing platform 50 experts in cyber-security and
elsewhere identified the most important factors in each of three parameters:
targets, motives and methods. They then ranked each factor according to its
likelihood or impact, enabling creation of a typological field of 9660
combinations of factors—each of which could define a scenario. Following
systematic filtering based on expert rankings plus other considerations,
three combinations of high impact/high likelihood were expanded on and
developed into scenarios, plus three combinations of high impact/low
likelihood (wild cards/surprises). The scenarios comprised: (high-high)
Blackmailed power plant, The open cyber-wallet, Malicious smart assistant;
(high-low) Green war (drones v power plant), Botnets v rail signalling for
lulz (fun), AI worm infecting hospital systems for ID theft.

Narratives
Van der Steen (2008), discussing ageing, sees future narratives as ‘stories
about what the future, or possible futures, may … look like and that connect
these possible futures to current issues for political debate…’ (576). Like
scenarios, future narratives can be engaging, and positively immersive—
indeed, sci-fi stories such as Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror series (www.
imdb.com/title/tt2085059/) manage to combine disparate elements to
generate rich and convincing views of possible futures, extrapolating
emergent trends (like online blackmail for entertainment or insect-sized
drones used to hunt people down) to extremes. As specific predictions these
are unlikely to come true but act as powerful stimuli for discussion or to
present particular arguments about the kinds of futures we want to happen
or to avoid. Interestingly, organisations such as the UK’s Defence Science
and Technology Laboratory commission sci-fi writers to prepare stimulus
materials for horizon-scanning exercises.

Simulations
All is not lost with research-based approaches to envisioning the future.
Modelling and simulation, especially when combined with big data and
theory, can increasingly bring together a range of interacting causal
influences both in the here-and-now (‘What if we block that street off to
traffic?’) and in broader futures (‘What if all town centres were
pedestrianised?’). The most sophisticated simulations use agent-based
modelling (e.g. Birks 2017), which involves creating a virtual townscape,
for example, and populating it with software agents. These are simulacra of
people with highly simplified behaviours, desires and emotions, acting as
criminals, potential victims and/or police patrols, perhaps also equipped
with particular tools or other resources. Although so far this technique has
focused on testing criminological theory, it has potential to explore impacts
of operational or strategic changes (e.g. What might restriction of vehicle
miles—perhaps due to energy shortages—do to police patrolling patterns
and arrest/deterrence functions?).

Graphical Representations
For purposes of engagement, stimulation and communication of complex
ideas, horizon-scanners have eagerly embraced the possibilities of graphic
and communication design (albeit not always for the better). Examples
include system maps, which show complex interrelationships between
causal influences, or between agents and their environment; and technology
roadmaps, which show either how a diversity of inventions have come
together to make something possible today (consider all the technologies
that made mobile phones possible) or what is needed to converge on some
desired future (e.g. all the inventions needed or the problems to be solved
before we achieve commercial nuclear fusion, with likely timelines). An
example is on p. 75 of the UK Government Office for Science Futures
Toolkit.10 Upcoming risks can be plotted in various ways, such as ‘risk
radar’.11 Here, types of risk (PESHTELOMI, etc.) are shown as segments
round the compass; timescale by radial distance from the centre; and
magnitude by colour-coding of the individual risk items shown as blobs at
appropriate polar coordinates. The same approach can be used to present
anticipated technologies.12

Enter Crime Science

Crime science is the application of scientific methods and knowledge from
many disciplines to the development of practical and ethical ways to reduce
crime.13 The empirical side of crime science has tended to rely on induction
to anticipate future crime patterns in the more or less here-and-now. But
given the limitations of induction already described, horizon-scanning must
also exploit tested theoretical/practical frameworks.
By adopting the futures mindset, each crime science framework can be
repurposed (see Johnson et al. 2019), to pose sharp questions about future
crime and/or security. The questions cover on the one hand causation of
crime and intervention in its causes, and on the other, the process of doing
security, policing and crime prevention.

Causation and Intervention

Routine activity perspective (Cohen and Felson 1979; Pease 1997; Felson
and Eckert 2015) considers how everyday activities bring together a likely
offender with a suitable target/victim, in the absence of capable guardians.
Changes to the activity/properties of any of these elements can influence the
likelihood of crime. Consequently, we can ask of any technological or
social change across the PESHTELOMI field: How might this future
innovation or change affect likely offenders, suitable targets and capable
guardians? How might it bring them together or keep them apart?
Rational choice perspective (Cornish and Clarke 2017) considers
offenders’ decisions whether to commit a particular crime in terms of
perceived risk, effort and reward, that is, opportunity, and their career-level
criminal involvement choices, based on ‘opportunity structure’ (what sort
of living they can make from crime). How might a change influence actual
and/or perceived risk, effort and reward for a given opportunity, or for
wider criminal involvement? What new crime opportunities might this new
technology or business model create?
Crime pattern theory is a geographical approach to understanding
offender activity spaces and movement patterns and how this shapes their
perception and awareness of local environments and the crime opportunities
they offer (e.g. Brantingham et al. 2017). How might change affect
offenders’ ability to move within, spot opportunities and familiarise with
risks in their activity space? How might that activity space itself change
with, for example, the introduction of new transit systems, use of mobile
navigation applications that direct people through areas they would
otherwise not visit, or as a consequence of receiving data on the activity of
places? How might offenders develop activity spaces in virtual or other
environments made accessible by new technology? (For example,
unmanned aerial vehicles make the vertical dimension easily accessible to
people.)
Crime precipitators are factors in or near the immediate crime
situation which influence the motivation/emotion of offenders, making their
search for, or exploitation of, criminal opportunities more likely.
Environmental cues, events or influences can prompt, pressure, permit or
provoke criminal behaviour (Wortley 2017). How might innovation/change
influence the nature, strength and patterns in situational precipitators, or
the susceptibility of offenders to them?
 Twenty-five techniques of situational prevention comprise a
catalogue of practical techniques14 organised around many of the above
perspectives (risk, effort, reward to offender; excuses and provocations).
How might innovation/change enable or constrain the successful operation
or implementation of each of these categories or exemplars of preventive
technique?
The conjunction of criminal opportunity (CCO: Ekblom 201115)
facilitates holism. It combines the preceding situational prevention
perspectives with various offender-oriented approaches in an integrated
suite of 11 immediate causes of criminal events, and counterpart
intervention principles. These causes and interventions could change in
future and thus offer broad leads to systematically envisaging
crime/security possibilities. How might innovation/change affect each of
these immediate causes of criminal events, and how they interact? How
might it affect the scope for intervention in those causes? An illustration is
in Ekblom (2002) and application to cybercrime in Collins and Mansell
(2004).
Misdeeds and security framework is a ‘think thief’ approach to
distinguishing several broad ways whereby products, places, procedures
and systems can feature in criminal affordance and action (Misappropriated,
Mistreated, Mishandled, Misbegotten, Misused, Misbehaved with,
Mistaken), as well as in security counterparts (see Ekblom 2005, 2017).
From the offender’s perspective, how might I Mistreat, Misuse (etc.) that
innovation? From a more detached viewpoint, how might
innovation/change enable or constrain Mistreatment, Misuse and so on by
offenders?
Risk and protective factors, for example CRAVED (Clarke 1999),
have been developed to inform understanding of what makes a product
‘hot’, as mentioned. How might innovation/change affect these risk factors,
or the capabilities and intent of offenders who might exploit them?

Doing Crime Prevention, Policing and Security

How might future changes impact the processes of doing crime prevention,
policing and security? This enormous domain can be simplified through
process models. Security process models are diverse, at their most generic
relating to the risk management framework in ISO 31000, and ISO 27001,
which specifies information security management systems. Policing too has
various process models, including Problem-Oriented Policing16
(POP) which shades into crime prevention. For space reasons I only cover
the problem-oriented approach, but a similar futures take can be applied to
any process model.
The most familiar process model underlying crime prevention and POP
is SARA (Scanning, Analysis, Response, Assessment17). I have argued,
however, that this is insufficiently detailed to capture all the necessary
practice knowledge and have therefore developed a counterpart, the 5Is18
(Ekblom 2011). The top-level task streams comprise Intelligence,
Intervention, Implementation, Involvement and Impact. Each splits into
sub-tasks/processes: for example Involvement, the human/organisational
side of Implementation, covers partnership, mobilisation and climate-
setting. We can therefore ask: How might future PESHTELOMI changes
affect each of the 5Is tasks and sub-tasks?
Intelligence and Intervention cover causes and, obviously, interventions
in crime so the crime science frameworks can address both
cause/intervention and process together. Regarding the police or private
security we can consider future changes within the organisation (e.g.
staffing or expertise levels), in its immediate operating environment (e.g.
regulations, traffic levels, etc.) and wider background changes. For each
such change (or perhaps changes in combination),
Might it increase or decrease the risk of crime and influence feelings of
safety?
What might the harmful or beneficial consequences be for society (or
some specific sector/organisation) of that change in risk?
How might the background change affect the capacity of police/security
to continue implementing current preventive interventions, or to
introduce new ones?
How might it affect involvement—police partners’ ability and motivation
to support or collaborate on prevention?
How might it affect other stakeholders in supporting or undertaking
preventive action?
For more particular examples, how might greater social division affect
the police’s capacity to mobilise people to undertake domestic crime
prevention actions? How might new technology such as face-scanning
affect police capacity to catch and deter offenders, and what impact might
that have on the public climate of acceptance?

Innovations: Supply and Demand

Innovations in products, buildings, services, systems and procedures all
have crime implications, boosting or reducing the risk, and helping or
hindering security. Frameworks of engineering inventiveness like TRIZ19
and technology roadmapping can help us forecast which innovations may
be expected to emerge, for the benefit of criminals or security. A common
criticism of police (e.g. Goldstein 1990) and other organisations is that they
are prone to solution-led thinking (‘What can we do with this new gizmo?’
‘Let’s buy in CCTV’). Designers prefer clients to focus on specifying
requirements, leaving them with the freedom to develop appropriate
solutions, or even reframe the question (Dorst 2015). This also boosts
performance in crime/security arms races (Ekblom 2017; Ekblom and Pease
2014); however, clients worry that innovations may be harder to cost. But
the solution-oriented and requirement-oriented stances all have their place
in tackling the future.
First, we can distinguish between innovations which might have a
causal influence on offending and/or security, versus functional for one or
other party. We illustrate this with drones.20 Causal influences might
include increased provocation and stress from the noise and intrusion of a
neighbour’s drone hovering over one’s garden—which could engender
conflict. Functional influences concern how drones might serve criminal or
security purposes. The functional can be divided in turn. On the demand
side, what do criminals or security need to be invented, to solve their
problems/complete an opportunity? Is any specific requirement holding
them back, like drones’ maximum flight duration? On the supply side, what
can this new piece of science or technology do for criminals or security?
Answering the latter is of course best done via a well-developed
requirements list rather than the ‘goodie-bag’ approach above.
Still on the functional side, we can use the Misdeeds and Security and
CCO frameworks to identify possible criminal affordances. As a resource
for crime, drones can be Misused (hostile reconnaissance, bomb or drug
delivery), Misbehaved with (noise, intimidation, voyeurism) or Misled with
(causing panic or riot). As a target of crime drones can be Misappropriated
(stolen, or deliveries stolen from), Mistreated (shot down by angry
neighbour), Mishandled (false licence, smuggled in) or Misbegotten
(counterfeit model, spares). And on the security side, drones can be Secured
against the above risks (e.g. identification, geographical limiters), Serve
security (surveillance, detection, pursuit) and Proofed against Mistakes (e.g.
automated logs/checks).
What is it about drone technology that renders it functional and engages
the affordance of criminals and security alike? Here we could discuss a
number of rotors, battery capacity and so on., or even durability and speed,
but a more profound way exists to express ‘essence of drone’ for futures
purposes. Drones supply active, mobile and agile, cost-effective
telepresence of human agency connected for real-time sensing, perception
and action (including carriage) in places and dimensions where humans
cannot safely or conveniently go. A statement like this is of greatest use in
horizon-scanning, freeing the imagination from here-and-now mechanics to
consider the widest range of possibilities.

Crime Futures Research

Various institutions have sought to develop and undertake crime futures
thinking. The College of Policing England & Wales produced a report
(College of Policing 2020) on the future operating environment to 2040
identifying ten major trends for which police should be planning. The
Universities’ Police Science Institute in Wales have studied how crime
prevention is being/could be framed to respond to the altered spectrum of
risks (Innes et al. n.d.). The European Forum for Urban Security has a
working group on security and innovation.21 Europol conducts occasional
forward looks, for example on the future of organised crime,22 which go
beyond their normal threat assessments, as does23 the Australia-New
Zealand Policing Advisory Agency.24 ASIS, the global security practitioner
organisation, has produced a ‘Scouting the Future’ expert review of
trends.25 Perhaps the most ambitious programme on horizon-scanning is
being conducted within the UCL Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science, by
the Dawes Centre for Future Crime.26 Since 2017, this programme has
conducted diverse scoping studies (e.g. Johnson et al. 2019) and sandpit
exercises among stakeholders leading to funded projects on issues such as
the crime/security implications of counterfeiting, new materials, artificial
intelligence, cryptocurrencies and biohacking (e.g. Elgabry et al. 2020). The
institute runs a PhD programme and presents a module on horizon-scanning
in the Masters in Crime Science.

Conclusion
The future is coming at us ever faster and from all angles. Day to day, or
even year on year, risk management of the conventional kind is insufficient
to enable security providers, whether in the police, local/national
government or the private sector, to anticipate emerging and future trends
and high-impact events, and to take action in good time rather than react in
catch-up mode. The trends and events may be crimes themselves, those
which influence crime risk, or those which act on the provider institutions
themselves and their operating environments. A systematic, rigorous but
creative and engaging investment in horizon-scanning, whether in-house or
outsourced, is a vital element for security to handle a challenging and
changing future. The data, frameworks and tools to undertake this task are
available and progressively evolving.

Recommended Reading
All weblinks in this chapter are at
[crimeframeworks/futures/securityhandbooklinks—to be checked after
copyediting]
Goodman (2015) provides an engaging and well-thought-through
forecast of future crime. The Institute of Risk Management guide on
horizon-scanning gives a good overview of approaches.27 The UK
government Futures Toolkit offers a comprehensive practical guide at the
policy/programme level,28 as do Hines and Bishop (2013). For keeping up
with developments in trends and techniques the UK government Futures,
Foresight and Horizon-Scanning blog29 merits regular checking. The ASIS
Scouting the Future expert review is also good (see Note 25). For
graphically envisaging futures, the Envisioning radar timeline and
Futurism’s linear equivalent are excellent (see Note 12). The UCL Dawes
Centre for Future Crime (see Note 26) is a useful link to cutting-edge
research.
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Footnotes
1 Further discussion is in Ekblom (2011) and at https://crimeframeworks.wordpress.com/definitions/
.

2 https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100710015618/http://www.foresight.gov.uk/
OurWork/Completed2002.asp.

3 www.gov.uk/government/publications/cyber-trust-and-crime-prevention.

4 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/intelligent-infrastructure-futures. The full list of

projects is at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/foresight-projects.

5 For example, see https://list25.com/25-famous-predictions-that-were-proven-to-be-horribly-wrong/

.

6 The fullest version is at https://thevoroscope.com/2017/02/24/the-futures-cone-use-and-history/.

7 For example, https://www.zdnet.com/article/hackers-are-exploiting-microsoft-word-vulnerability-

to-take-control-of-pcs/.

8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework.

9 For example, https://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2010/ekits/Evolving_Internet_GBN_Cisco_2010_

Aug_rev2.pdf.

10 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/
674209/futures-toolkit-edition-1.pdf.

11 See example at p9 of www.theirm.org/media/7423/horizon-scanning_final2-1.pdf.

12 An excellent interactive example is https://radar.envisioning.io/horizons/?pg=explore. A linear
equivalent is https://futurism.com/images/things-to-come-a-timeline-of-future-technology-
infographic.

13 www.ucl.ac.uk/security-crime-science/about.

14 https://popcenter.asu.edu/content/25-techniques.

15 And http://5isframework.wordpress.com.

16 https://popcenter.asu.edu/.

17 https://popcenter.asu.edu/content/sara-model-0.

18 https://5isframework.wordpress.com.

19 https://www.triz.org/triz/evolution/2-triz.

20 Ironically, the Misdeeds and Security framework was developed (Ekblom 2005) for a UK police
technology strategy group which at the time considered (among much else) the future of unmanned
aerial vehicles and concluded that they would never be allowed in the hands of the public.

21 https://efus.eu/en/topics/activity/20342/.

22 https://www.europol.europa.eu/publications-documents/exploring-tomorrow%E2%80%99s-
organised-crime.
23 For example, https://www.europol.europa.eu/activities-services/main-reports/european-union-
serious-and-organised-crime-threat-assessment-2017 and https://www.europol.europa.eu/activities-
services/main-reports/internet-organised-crime-threat-assessment-iocta-2020.

24 https://www.anzpaa.org.au/ArticleDocuments/180/seven_megatrends.pdf.aspx; and an immediate

post-Covid analysis of changes https://www.anzpaa.org.au/ArticleDocuments/176/2020%20
ANZPAA%20Annual%20Trends%20Analysis%20summary.pdf.aspx.

25 https://www.asisonline.org/globalassets/foundation/documents/research/asis-scouting-the-future-
exec-summary-revised.pdf.

26 www.ucl.ac.uk/jill-dando-institute/research/dawes-centre-future-crime I declare an interest as

collaborator with Efus and the Dawes Centre.

27 https://www.theirm.org/media/7423/horizon-scanning_final2-1.pdf.

28 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/futures-toolkit-for-policy-makers-and-analysts.

29 https://foresightprojects.blog.gov.uk/.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_39

39. The Securitization of Terrestrial

Protected Areas
William D. Moreto1
(1) Department of Criminal Justice, University of Central Florida,
Orlando, FL, USA

Abstract
The author’s growing concern over global environmental matters, including
the protection of endangered fauna and flora species, has brought to the
forefront the role of security strategy, personnel, and technology. In
particular, the management and monitoring of terrestrial protected areas
(PAs) have increasingly emphasized the need for, and reliance on, security
measures in many parts of the world. This chapter examines the ongoing
discussion on the securitization of PAs and provides insight on the potential
benefits and problems of such strategies, in relation to both crime and harm.

Introduction
Increased attention to the human dimensions of environment-related matters
has led to growing recognition of the intersection of biodiversity and
ecology with enforcement and security. Researchers have also
acknowledged the need to better understand and situate this intersection
within the broader social, political, and economic environment. In
particular, consideration and scrutiny has been placed on investigating the
amplified securitization of terrestrial protected areas (herein referred to as
PAs), particularly as it relates to presence of the military. Indeed, militarized
conservation (Duffy 2014) or “green militarization” (Lunstrum 2014) has
received much scholarly attention in recent years, with much of the
commentary and empirical research pointing to the increased use of and
reliance on military equipment, technology, personnel, and weaponry in
PAs (Marijnen and Verweijen 2016; Jooste and Ferreira 2018; Massé et al.
2018).
This chapter discusses the securitization of terrestrial protected areas
and is separated into five sections. First, an overview of two main
management and monitoring strategies for protected areas relevant for the
present discussion will be provided. Next, I provide an overview of how the
contemporary securitization of protected areas is framed. After, I discuss
three key factors related to the securitization of terrestrial protected areas:
(1) role and role orientation of protected area authorities, (2) the use of
technology in PA management, and (3) community-protected area authority
relations. Finally, a road map for future research will be provided.
Importantly, while the objective of this chapter is to provide an exploration
of the existing literature, when applicable, I will also draw from and reflect
on my fieldwork that has examined wildlife law enforcement, ranger
culture, and wildlife crime.

Protectionist and Community-Based Natural

Resource Management Models for Protected
Areas
Before describing the two main strategies for protected area management
relevant for the current discussion, protected areas need to be first defined.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) provides the
following definition: “A protected area is a clearly defined geographical
space, recognized, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective
means, to achieve the long term conservation of nature with associated
ecosystem services and cultural values.”1 According to the United Nations
Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre, protected
areas account for approximately 15.4 percent of the world’s terrestrial
surface area and 3.4 percent of the ocean/marine area.2 The IUCN’s Global
Programme on Protected Areas identified three key priority areas in its most
recent IUCN Programme for 2017–2020, which provides a working
framework that can be used for planning, implementing, monitoring, and
assessing conservation initiatives. The framework includes 1) the valuing
and conserving of biodiversity and nature, 2) promoting and supporting
effective and equitable governance of natural resources, and 3) deploying
nature-based solutions to ongoing global and societal challenges.3 This
chapter focuses on terrestrial PAs.
In general, there are two main approaches that have been historically
utilized to safeguard terrestrial PAs: protectionist and community-based
natural resource management, and community participation models (Hayes
2006). The former promotes a fortress conservation perspective (see
Brockington 2002) that largely relies on formal forms of enforcement and
security. In some cases, such enforcement and security may depend on a
militarized or paramilitarized presence within PAs. The latter attempts to
encourage, incentivize, and directly incorporate local community
participation and involvement in PA management and monitoring (Berkes
2004; Kothari et al. 2013). Although research examining community
conservation has shown some promising results (Mishra et al. 2003; Ohmer
et al. 2009), researchers have also raised concerns over altering or shifting
community attitudes toward nature (see Büscher and Dressler 2012).
Moreover, while community-based natural resource management strategies
are considered to be a more people-centered alternative to the ‘fences-and-
fines’ approach promoted by protectionist models, important questions have
been raised as to what constitutes a “community,” and the importance of
recognizing this nuance when considering community conservation
initiatives has been raised (Agrawal and Gibson 1999). Others have also
commented on the need to better understand and account for local culture
and customs (Waylen et al. 2010), while also accounting for the varied and
wide-ranging possibility of opportunities that can stem from a community
conservation perspective (Adams and Hulme 2001).
As mentioned, protectionist models rely on enforcement and security
measures to manage and monitor terrestrial PAs. Prior research suggests
that enforcement strategies are important in addressing illegal activities that
occur within PAs (Hilborn et al. 2006; Jachmann 2008). However, other
researchers have found that current enforcement strategies, including ranger
patrols, may have a limited deterrent effect (Plumptre et al. 2014).
Additionally, scholars have raised concerns over shoot-on-sight policies
embedded within and reinforced by war-like conservation mandates
(Neumann 2004). Not surprisingly, the protectionist model is most
associated with the securitization of terrestrial PAs, which I will now
discuss.
The Framing of the Contemporary Securitization
of Protected Areas
Although a full in-depth discussion on the social ecological environment
that contributes to and influences the securitization of PAs is beyond the
scope of this chapter (see Duffy 2010; Kelly and Ybarra 2016;
Ramutsindela et al. 2020), it is important to provide an overview of this
literature to better situate this chapter. First, it is worth noting that not all
PAs that utilize enforcement or security strategies are managed or
monitored by military or paramilitary organizations. For example, rangers
working in Mount Mantalingahan Protected Landscape, who engage in
enforcement patrols, are not paramilitarily trained and are not provided with
firearms. In fact, during my attendance at the 9th World Ranger Congress in
Nepal, there were several rangers from a number of countries that were
surprised at the amount of coverage and discussion on paramilitary training,
technology, and equipment occurring at the event.
While securitization and state-sponsored militarization are not
synonymous, they are at times viewed to be. For the purposes of this
chapter, however, securitization is not limited to state-sponsored forms of
militarization but also includes paramilitary and non-state-sponsored forms
of security (including NGO-supported and former military training and
personnel). Moreover, for this discussion, securitization includes strategies,
training, and equipment that are non-military in origin, but focuses on
securing and reinforcing PA boundaries. Broadly stated, the securitization
of PAs has a long history, particularly as it relates to exclusionary,
protectionist models of PAs. However, within the last three decades, there
has been an increased emphasis on and use of militarized enforcement in
many PAs around the world. Indeed, there has even been discussion about
the role that militarized zones and military training areas have in sustaining
biodiversity (Kolbert 2016). For example, Arimoro et al. (2020) found that
the isolated and secure nature of military training areas has contributed to
thriving wildlife populations in Brazil, while Roman and Kraska (2016)
propose that the US Naval Station in Guantánamo Bay be re-purposed into
a conservation zone between the US and Cuba due to the flourishing
wildlife. Not only would this result in sustaining the biodiversity in the
area, but the authors also argue that this would lead to improved relations
between the two nations.
This increased emphasis on and use of militarized strategies can be
attributed to several factors, including the existence and framing of threats
that may be present in PAs, the availability of resources, funding, and
technology, and political will and pressure, among others. These factors are
especially relevant when it comes to the framing of wildlife crime as a
threat to national security. When viewed from a securitization perspective
(see Balzacq et al. 2016), the framing of wildlife crime as a national
security issue is straightforward, particularly as it relates to wildlife
trafficking, with at least two primary scenarios typically taking center stage.
The first scenario emphasizes the international security threat.
Specifically, illegal wildlife markets are being exploited by transnational
organized crime groups due to their low risk and high reward status. This
results in the framing of wildlife trafficking as a form of transnational
organized crime as opposed to a distinct crime in itself (see also Wyatt et al.
2020; Moreto and van Uhm 2021). In being framed as a transnational
organized crime, wildlife trafficking is viewed to also reflect and manifest
the characteristics of transnational organized crime groups, including the
use of violence (Zimmerman 2003). Additionally, concern over the
exploitation of borders further reinforces the notion that wildlife trafficking
is a national security threat. By framing wildlife trafficking as a security
threat, enforcement- and military-based responses are not only viewed to be
acceptable, but also justified.
This perspective has gained considerable traction in the last decade. For
example, during the 2018 London Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade,
leaders from over 80 countries voiced support for recognizing the illegal
wildlife trade as a “highly organized, sophisticated criminal activity.”4 Not
surprisingly the framing of wildlife trafficking as a national security threat
has impacted government interest and support. For instance, in their review
of projects supported by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service
International Affairs, Massé and Margulies (2020) found support of funding
resources for conservation efforts shifting to approaches more geared
toward tackling wildlife trafficking as opposed to other priorities. They
attribute this to the changes in the geopolitical ecology of conservation
which now have national security interests at the center of foreign
conservation assistance.
 The second scenario focuses on the potential domestic security threats,
including terrorist groups and armed militias, that may exist and operate
within PAs and may be involved in wildlife crime. For example, Naylor
(2004) described how conflict groups would illegally hunt and kill
elephants as a means to rebel against governments, while also using
“conflict ivory” to obtain weapons, while Wyler and Sheikh (2008)
suggested that Somali warlords were involved in wildlife trafficking.
Moreover, Felbab-Brown (2015) described how the Taliban were believed
to be associated with the illegal hunting of falcons in Afghanistan. Despite
these potential links, some scholars caution against broad statements linking
terror and rebel groups to wildlife crime, and have raised concerns on how
such linkages further support, reinforce, and justify militarized responses
(Duffy 2014).
An important caveat to all of this, however, is the need to distinguish
between actual and perceived threats, as the latter can carry as much weight
as the former. I recall from my fieldwork in Uganda that despite there being
relatively little reason for concern at the time that rebel forces were
currently living and operating within some of the PAs, some rangers still
reflected on and referred to the potential for present threats whenever they
would go on patrol. This concern was compounded in locations that
bordered other nations, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Not only were rangers concerned about the role that porous borders played
in wildlife crime, they were also worried about the potential for rebel
groups to spill over into Ugandan PAs. Notably, in some cases, perceived
threats can also result in a ‘better-safe-than-sorry’ mentality that effectively
functions as a means to justify increased fortification and use of weaponry
and force. This further reinforces the combatant nature of PA management
and monitoring and effectively creates a war-like environment with
combatants on different sides (see also O’Grady 2020), while also
supporting more direct inclusion and involvement of the military, or at the
very least, paramilitary training.

Taking Stock of the Securitization of Protected

Areas
While much attention has been placed on understanding broader social,
economic, and political elements outlined in the previous section, less
emphasis has been placed on exploring the organizational, occupational,
and interpersonal factors that influence and are influenced by the
securitization of PAs. This is not surprising given that research investigating
ground-level authority personnel is still relatively under-developed.
However, a better understanding of how the securitization of terrestrial PAs
is reflected in the ground-level attitudes and realities of those tasked with
such security is warranted, and provides context and insight on how policy
may guide practice.
This section provides an overview of key organizational, occupational,
and interpersonal elements related to the securitization of PAs. For ease and
focus, three key themes will be covered: role orientation of PA authorities,
the use of technology in PA management, and community–PA authorities’
relations. Once again, where applicable, I will draw from my own fieldwork
and experiences to further support the information provided.

Role and Role Orientation of PA Authorities

During the 9th World Ranger Congress (WRC) held in 2019 in Chitwan,
Nepal, rangers from around the world participated in the world’s largest
ranger-focused event. The congress focused on several themes (some of
which will be discussed in this section), including ranger welfare, rangers
and local communities, indigenous rangers, ranger capacity, women in the
ranger workforce, the role of ranger associations, and the use of technology.
Additionally, a central theme that permeated many of the presentations and
panels throughout the congress centered on defining and distinguishing the
role of rangers in PA management and monitoring. Not surprisingly, these
discussions largely reflected how the ranger profession is framed in ongoing
conservation efforts. For example, mention of rangers being ‘guardians’
was often raised and associated with the central role of rangers in protecting
and overseeing the well-being of wildlife, particularly fauna species. In
other cases, people referred to rangers as “authority figures” or “security
personnel” and focused on their role in enforcing compliance through laws
and regulations, as well as shielding and reinforcing PA boundaries and
spaces. In some situations, attention was drawn to elements of the
profession that are often not front-and-center, including firefighting,
human–wildlife conflict intervention and response, and tourism-related
activities. In few cases, consideration regarding the potentially oppressive
nature of rangers regarding local communities was raised as well. Overall,
these discussions highlighted the varied role that rangers have around the
world. Much attention during the WRC was placed on rangers working in
the Global South, which is not surprising given that much attention has
been placed on conservation efforts and wildlife crime in African, Asian,
and South American settings from governments, non-governmental
organizations, and local and international enforcement agencies (e.g.,
INTERPOL).
Rangers, however, are not the only individuals tasked with the
management and monitoring of PAs. PAs, as well as adjacent buffer zones,
can also be watched over by local communities, including indigenous
rangers (see Reed et al. 2020) and community watch groups. For example,
Community-Based Anti-Poaching Operation committees were developed to
enable, encourage, and facilitate local communities in helping manage PAs
and related natural resources. A key element of this approach involves
youth-led community-based anti-poaching units.5 Despite the existence of
community-based alternatives, PAs throughout Nepal are primarily
managed and monitored by the Nepali army. Ghale (2018: n.p.) observed
how “protected areas in Nepal are militarised zones where governance
largely means law enforcement.” Indeed, in addition to national security
and disaster management, a key duty officially assigned to the Nepali army
is nature conservation. According to the Nepali army website, there are 12
battalions and independent companies comprising just under 6800 troops
tasked with protecting 12 out of 22 protected forests in the country,
reflecting a heavy military presence.6 Military presence within PAs has also
been documented in other places around the world. For example, Dwyer et
al. (2016) examined the role of the military in the administration and
protection of PAs in Laos.
What is particularly unique about the role of the military in PAs in
Nepal is the explicit emphasis on nature conservation in its operational and
organizational mandate. While I was conducting fieldwork there, it was
clear from my discussions and interviews with military personnel that there
was a considerable sense of pride in being able to work within the PAs. In
fact, it was viewed by some to be a type of reward to be selected to work
within PAs, particularly those that were home to charismatic megafauna
like tigers or rhinos given the attention and interest these species generate,
domestically and internationally. This was unlike my experiences in
Uganda, where military personnel that were tasked to work alongside
rangers appeared to be less enthusiastic about working in PAs.
In Uganda, the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) works directly with
the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) in a coordinated partnership
referred to as the Special Integrated Force for Wildlife Tourism (SWIFT).
This partnership partly stems from the potential domestic security threats
mentioned above but is also a result of the limited personnel and resources
readily available to the UWA. In order to support the PA management and
monitoring operations of the UWA, SWIFT ‘rangers,’ who are UPDF army
personnel, are allocated and tasked to work alongside UWA rangers. During
my fieldwork in Uganda, it was clear that while UWA and UPDF were able
to work in unison and that there appeared to be coordination and
collaboration between the command staff, there still seemed to be some
challenges. Namely, there was concern over the intrinsic investment that
SWIFT rangers had in conservation efforts as it was believed by study
participants that SWIFT rangers viewed their role in monitoring PAs to be a
waste of their training. In other words, they were trained for security, not to
protect wildlife or wild spaces.

Technology and Training PA Authorities

The availability and use of technology for conservation purposes is not a
new phenomenon. For instance, camera traps have been used for decades to
document wildlife activity. More recently, however, there has been
increased discussion and application of specific forms of technology to
bolster the effectiveness and efficiency of PA management and monitoring.
One such technology is closed-circuit television (CCTV). CCTV for
crime prevention and security has been extensively studied as it relates to
crime in public places (see Piza 2018; Welsh and Farrington 2009). In
recent years, the application and use of CCTV for PAs has received
attention as well, particularly as it relates to facilitating and supplementing
visitor experiences in PAs (see Verma et al. 2015). CCTV also provides
additional support in terms of security surveillance for managing and
monitoring PAs. For example, in Tikauli forest in Chitwan, Nepal, 32
CCTV cameras were installed in 16 separate locations in order to monitor
the activities of both humans and wildlife alike (Samiti 2017). Not
surprisingly, concerns over the use of such surveillance technology have
been raised, particularly as it relates to reinforcing coercive conservation
strategies that perpetuate militarized forms of conservation enforcement and
security (Adams 2017).
Another form of technology that has received increasing attention is
acoustic sensors.
While acoustic sensors and indices have been used in conservation for
general PA monitoring (e.g., Astaras et al. 2020; Wrege et al. 2017; Campos
et al. 2021), they have also been used to assess and direct anti-poaching
efforts. At times referred to as gunshot detectors, acoustic sensors have
been used in both terrestrial and marine landscapes, including in Dja Faunal
Reserve in Cameroon (Criddle 2020) and Cod Grounds Marine Park and
Solitary Islands Marine Park National Park Zone in Australia (Kline et al.
2020).
Arguably, one of the most controversial forms of technology that is
being used in monitoring PAs is unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or
drones. Early proponents of the use of UAVs for PA management and
monitoring not only advocated that such technology would be useful in
providing more coverage and more information that could guide ground-
level operations, but that UAVs would also help ensure the safety of rangers
(Siber 2014; Snitch 2015; WWF 2015). More recently, the application of
UAVs, including for imaging, has highlighted their potential use for other
conservation purposes as well. For example, Ballari et al. (2016) found
promising support for the use of UAVs in monitoring vegetation
degradation in the Galapagos Islands (Ballari et al. 2016), while Mangewa
et al. (2019) argued that UAVs could be beneficial if integrated within
existing ecological monitoring systems that monitor community wildlife
management areas in Tanzania.
Critics, however, caution that UAVs may have unintended
consequences, including concerns over ethical practice, data security, and
psychological well-being, as well as reinforcing a fortress conservation
mindset (Sandbrook 2015). Furthermore, UAVs, for better or worse,
represent and reflect a symbolic shift toward the militarization of PAs
(Duffy 2014; Lunstrum 2014). Additionally, questions related to the
sustainability and practicality of such technology warrant consideration.
Finally, justifying the costs of UAVs in circumstances where organizations
have limited resources and rangers are ill-equipped, lack access to clean
water, and are provided with inadequate shelter (see Belecky et al. 2019)
also raises questions.
Community–PA Authorities’ Relations
I will now discuss the impact and role of securitization in the development
of community–PA authorities’ relations. In essence, while the protection of
wildlife and wild spaces can have significant ecological, economic, and
even political impacts, the human costs can also be considerable. For
example, the development of PAs, particularly when local community input
has not been solicited (or when received, not accounted for or respected),
can establish or reinforce existing biocentric ideologies that center on the
purity of wild spaces (see Rottman 2014), which may (in)advertently
develop policies that alienate or displace communities, including
indigenous peoples. Duffy (2010: 53) succinctly states, “Biodiversity thus
provides a rationale for the creation and maintenance of areas where
wildlife is protected, but people are forced out.” In essence, priority is
placed on non-human species and wild places over humans and their local
communities, cultures, customs, and well-being. Additionally, PAs can
reduce or even remove access to natural resources that communities rely on
(Agrawal and Gibson 1999; Duffy 2010). This not only negatively affects
income generation and sustenance, but also compounds increasing socio-
economic disparities due to increased costs of living in many places around
the world. Moreover, expectations from the Global North of what
constitutes wilderness and appropriate use of wildlife potentially result in
establishing “military-focused versions of the security exception to trump
other approaches to security” (Dwyer et al. 2016) within PAs.
As has been discussed, the securitization of PAs has tended to focus on
minimizing threats against designated spaces and the wildlife that inhabit or
traverse such locations. However, security can also be explored from the
perspective of securing and protecting communities from threats that
originate from the wild. Increasingly, the impact of human–wildlife conflict
(herein referred to as HWC) on local communities has received attention
from researchers and PA managers. Simply put, HWC refers to
circumstances where encounters between humans and wildlife result in
harm to one or both parties. The conflict may include wildlife species
negatively impacting human sustenance or livelihood through livestock
depredation or crop consumption and destruction. Conflict may also arise
when wildlife harm or kill people. In response, humans may retaliate
against wildlife, which can result in harm or death of wild species
(Woodroffe et al. 2005; Nyhus 2016). Such conflict is believed to be
exacerbated in circumstances where there is competition over land and
water resources resulting in increased interaction between wildlife, humans,
and domesticated animals (Campbell et al. 2000). While not an exhaustive
list, examples of HWC that have been explored within the empirical
literature have included human conflict with tigers (Shepherd and Magnus
2004), elephants (Choudhury 2004), lions, crocodiles, and hippopotamuses
(Dunham et al. 2010), and snow leopards (Maheshwari and Sathyakumar
2019).
There are several strategies used to mitigate HWC and these include
economic incentives and direct payments for losses, compensation schemes,
economic benefits generated from wildlife and tourism, the use of buffer
zones, fencing, education and awareness, and problem animal control
(Dickman 2010; Van de Water et al. 2020). PA authorities have a particular
role in education and awareness, as well as problem animal control, which
in effect reflects a security function for local communities against threats
originating from PAs. However, this is not without its own challenges and
complications. While HWC appears to be relatively straightforward,
scholars have noted that HWC is not simply the interaction and conflict
between humans and wildlife, but may also reflect or contribute to human–
human conflicts (Dickman 2010). Thus, and as stated previously, when
considering the securitization of PAs, it is important to also recognize the
potential role that authorities have in protecting communities from threats
perceived to be resulting from the presence of the PA itself.
In a study examining HWC in Uganda, I interviewed rangers from the
Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) and examined the role that HWC had in
retaliatory killings, illegal killings, and community–ranger relations
(Moreto 2019). I found that rangers believed that HWC prompted,
provoked, pressured, and permitted community members to engage in
retaliatory killings. As I summarized (Moreto 2019: 72):

Finally, study participants described how community members

would often attribute ownership and responsibility of problem
species to the rangers. Respondents explained how community
members would complain about the perceived double-standard that
existed. Specifically, wildlife species and PA land were protected by
rangers from harm, while community members were not—at least
not in the same extent as the former […] Villagers would blame
 HWC on the rangers’ inability to properly manage wildlife species.
This led to mistrust between communities and rangers, as well as
frustration from both parties.

The role of securitization as it relates to community–PA authority

relations can be viewed from different perspectives and should not simply
be viewed from the perspective of securing the PA from people, but also
securing people from the PA. By doing so, a more accurate representation
of the potential role (and possible inadequacies) of securitization can be
assessed. Further, the opportunities to engage in a more nuanced assessment
of the securitization of terrestrial PAs may be possible by broadening its
scope to account for both crime and harm to both environment and people
(see White 2010).

Discussion
The securitization of terrestrial PAs is a complicated and complex issue that
has important implications for global, regional, and local conservation
efforts. While the existing conceptual and empirical literature provides a
solid foundation, additional research is still needed to further understand the
impact, limitations, and possibilities associated with the securitization of
terrestrial PAs, as well as the identification of alternative strategies (see
Moreto and Pires 2018). In general, future researchers should further
explore the human dimensions of the securitization of PAs. Such research
should not only examine the perceptions of local communities, but also of
PA authorities who are tasked with such securitization. Additionally, any
existing or proposed security measures should be independently and
rigorously evaluated. Unfortunately, few security measures within terrestrial
PAs are ever evaluated. Generally speaking, the evaluation of conservation
programs, particularly those involving a third party, has historically been
relatively rare given the number of programs and initiatives that are
implemented (see Kleiman et al. 2000).
To do so, I suggest using a realist evaluation approach (see Pawson and
Tilley 1997) to ensure that not only is an outcome evaluation performed but
a process evaluation is completed as well. In situations where an evaluation
is completed, it is often centered on only assessing the outcome of the
strategy or project, not how it was implemented. However, it may be
especially important to know how security measures are implemented, how
such measures are communicated to and received by different stakeholders,
and what impact the surrounding social, political, and organizational
environment has on the success (or lack thereof) of the approach.
Researchers should also examine the varying degrees of PA
securitization that exist around the world. Securitization is often presented
as an umbrella term within the conservation literature that encompasses a
wide variety of agencies, strategies, technology, and personnel. However,
such generalized statements often oversimplify ground-level realities that
are present.
Future studies should disentangle the distinct and varied nature of
securitization as it relates to different PAs located in parts of the world. As
discussed in this chapter, much emphasis has been placed on (and should
continue to explore) the technological and personnel aspects of the
securitization of terrestrial PAs, but more insight is needed on the
organizations that are directly and indirectly involved as well. Indeed, while
some organizations, including some of the ones mentioned above, appear to
have a solid system in place, such systems may not be applicable (or
appropriate) in other contexts. In other words, any form of security must not
only be assessed in terms of its potential effectiveness, but also its ethical
application. What may be effective and viewed to be appropriate in one
context may not necessarily be so in another.
Finally, I recommend that researchers draw from criminal justice theory
to assess the factors that influence the adoption of specific strategies and
technology, as well as how such adoption is coupled (possibly loosely) with
behavior and attitudes of personnel on the ground (see McGuire and Duffee
2015). Indeed, this is a space where criminal justice, as a field, can be
particularly useful in contributing to conservation social science (Bennett et
al. 2017; Moreto and Charlton 2021). By examining factors that influence
and impact the organizations themselves, a better understanding of how
policies, strategies, and technology are adopted, communicated, and
reinforced may be achieved. Through such assessments, it may be possible
to identify elements of the organization that can be leveraged to maximize
the positive benefits of security, while minimizing or eliminating
detrimental or harmful features.
Recommended Reading
A comprehensive case study examining the securitization and protectionist
models of conservation was performed by Brockington, D. (2002). Fortress
Conservation: The preservation of the Mkomazi Game Reserve, Tanzania.
Bloomington, IN: James Currey. Papers that have explored the intersection
of the militarization and securitization of conservation from a political
ecology perspective include Lunstrum (2014). Green militarization: anti-
poaching efforts and the spatial contours of Kruger National Park. Annals of
the Association of American Geographers, 104(4), 816–832, and Marijnen,
E., & Verweijen, J. (2016). Selling green militarization: the discursive
(re)production of militarized conservation in Virunga National Park,
Democratic Republic of the Congo. Geoforum, 75, 274–285. A critical
discussion on the militarization of protected areas can be found in Duffy,
R., Massé, F., Smidt, E., Marijnen, E., Büscher, B., Verweijen, J.,
Ramutsindela, M., Simlai, T., Joanny, L., & Lunstrum, E. (2019). Why we
must question the militarization of conservation. Biological Conservation,
232, 66–73.

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Footnotes
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2 Retrieved on January 14, 2021 from: https://www.unep-wcmc.org/featured-projects/mapping-the-

worlds-special-places.

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programme.

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illegal-wildlife-trade-as-serious-organized-crime/.

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poaching-operation-nepal.

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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_40

40. The Carbon Footprint of Crime and

Security
Helen Shoesmith1 , Ian Brunton-Smith2, Andromachi Tseloni3,
Rebecca Thompson3 and Angela Druckman2
(1) Ministry of Justice, HM Government, London, UK
(2) University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
(3) Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Abstract
There has been little discussion or consideration to date of the carbon
footprint of crime and security, despite climate change impacts and much
needed carbon reduction pervading political agendas around the world. This
chapter addresses the gap by examining which burglary prevention
measures are both low carbon and effective in preventing burglary. You will
read about the Security Protection Factor and how a combination of
window locks (which are especially effective), door locks, and external and
indoor lighting is shown to be effective and low carbon, while burglar
alarms and CCTV perform less well. The findings can be used to inform
more sustainable choices for security and product design.

Introduction
Public concern for the environment is a topical issue; global climate
change, in particular, has been identified as one of the greatest challenges of
our time (United Nations 2016). Emissions of greenhouse gases,
predominantly carbon dioxide (CO2), resulting from human activities, have
reached the ‘highest levels in history’ producing widespread impacts on
human and natural systems (Pachauri et al. 2014). Climate change is
therefore a global and pressing issue and the Paris Agreement (UNFCC
2015), signed by nearly 200 counties, calls for global greenhouse gas
emissions to be reduced. There is therefore a clear need for governments,
businesses and individuals to consider their environmental impacts
wherever possible. Public concern for the environment is also at an all-time
high with visibility of this issue being raised by public figures of all ages
and across various platforms, from Sir David Attenborough’s “Planet
Earth” television series to Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future climate
strikes (FridaysForFuture 2020). In the UK, the commitment to reduce
emissions is enshrined in law through the Climate Change Act (Climate
Change Act 2008) and the UK Government has recently committed to net
zero emissions by 2050 (Gov.uk 2019). It is important therefore that climate
change permeates all policy areas, including crime prevention (Pease 2009).
The benefits of crime prevention are obvious in terms of reduced burden
on society and the economy. Preventing crime saves lives, improves
wellbeing and limits costs associated with property being lost, damaged or
wasted (HMIC 2014). Savings are also made in terms of time, work and
money expended on dealing with the consequences of crime. The launch of
the Modern Crime Prevention Strategy, and recently the Safer Streets Fund,
by the Home Office (UK Government department), for example, clearly
demonstrates that prevention is a key priority of UK Government policy
(Home Office 2016; College of Policing 2020).
Savings offered by crime prevention, however, may be more than just
financial. A study into the carbon cost of crime conducted by Pease (2009)
demonstrated that crime could have a substantial impact on the environment
in terms of a large carbon footprint and introduced the idea that ‘it would be
difficult to envisage a high crime society being a low carbon society’ (page
3). A follow-up study by Skudder et al. (2016) went further to produce a
detailed assessment of the carbon emitted from criminal activity each year
in England and Wales, which was estimated at around four million tonnes
CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) (Skudder et al. 2016). This begs the
question: Do crime prevention measures produce less carbon than the
crimes they prevent? If they do, then they potentially provide additional
benefits that have previously been overlooked.
In this chapter, we assess the carbon emissions associated with crime
prevention measures to enable comparisons with the carbon emissions of
the crimes they aim to prevent. We focus in particular on those measures
associated with preventing domestic burglary, as this has been shown to be
the offence with the largest overall contribution to the total carbon footprint
of crime, accounting for over 30% of emissions (Skudder et al. 2016).
Households in England and Wales rely on various security devices to
protect them from burglary, the most popular being locks on doors and
windows, security lighting, security chains and burglar alarms (ONS 2019).
Other forms of security such as CCTV systems are rare in private
households (Tseloni et al. 2014, Table 2) but may be increasing in
popularity. However, not all devices and their combinations can prevent
domestic burglary to the same extent (Tseloni et al. 2014).
We identify those security measures, both individually and used in
combination, that are the least (and most) carbon costly. We then compare
the carbon costs of each measure with an indicator of their effectiveness,
known as the Security Protection Factor (Tseloni et al. 2014). This allows
us to identify win-win measures in terms of security and environmental
performance, that is, measures that are effective at reducing the number of
offences that occur and have low emissions.

Background
Previous research suggests households with no security have higher
burglary rates than those with security (Mayhew et al. 1993; Budd 1999;
ONS 2013; Flatley et al. 2010). The growth of security measures in
households and the increasing emphasis on private security has been linked
to the drop in property offences (Aebi and Linde 2010; Clarke and Newman
2006; Van Dijk 2007; Vollaard and Van Ours 2011). The increased number
of security devices installed in homes and businesses has also been
proposed as the most likely explanation for the drop in crime since the mid-
1990s (Farrell et al. 2014).
Tseloni et al. (2014) explored the presence of security devices and
burglary risks in order to establish the effectiveness of each device type,
both individually and when used in combination with others. To this end,
the study employed population-based data from the Crime Survey for
England and Wales (CSEW) from 2008/2009 to 2011/2012 detailing the use
of security devices within homes, to produce a Security Protection Factor
(SPF) for each device and combination. The SPF compares the overall
burglary risk to the burglary risk of households without security and those
with particular security devices (either individual devices or combinations).
 The burglary security measures examined included locks, security
chains, burglar alarms, indoor and external lights, window grilles or bars,
dummy alarms and CCTV systems. They found that external lights or door
locks offered the highest protection against burglary of households relying
on a single security device. One of the most effective combinations of
devices included window and door locks, indoor lights on timers and
external lighting (known as WIDE), which afforded 49 times more
protection against burglary than no security (Tseloni et al. 2014). Rather
surprisingly, however, alarms in properties without any other device slightly
increased burglary risk compared to no security. Furthermore, adding a
burglar alarm reduced the overall preventive effectiveness of most security
combinations. Tilley et al. (2015) highlighted that burglar alarms, although
having high plausibility to prevent burglary, are unlike door or window
locks as they do not create a physical obstacle to burglary (see also
Thompson et al. 2018). Also, alarms do not increase the risk to a potential
burglar approaching the target property, as would be the case with external
lights or CCTV. Alarms may indeed act as flags for criminals to target
properties or they may simply be installed but not used; or, if triggered, they
are ignored by neighbours, passers-by and the police, making them
ineffective (Tilley et al. 2015).
Increased security adds value in terms of social and economic benefits
as people avoid becoming victims (Clarke and Weisburd 1994). The
environmental benefits or pitfalls, however, of increased security have yet
to be explored in any great detail despite a clear relationship between crime
prevention and environmental considerations in the pursuit of sustainability.
Cozens (2007) recommended that researching areas of potential conflict
between ecological sustainability and designing out crime would aid urban
sustainable development efforts. Existing guidance relating to community
safety highlights that designing out crime should be central to the planning
and delivery of new developments, in order to ensure sustainable
communities, where crime and disorder do not undermine quality of life or
community cohesion (Home Office 2004).
In order to justify the use of crime prevention measures, it is important
that the benefits outweigh the costs involved. These can be economic, social
or environmental costs/benefits and each is important to consider as part of
decision making when assessing security requirements. The Home Office
use a national database to estimate the economic and social ‘cost of crime’,
and the first comprehensive estimates produced in 2011 presented the
monetised cost of domestic burglary (in a dwelling) to be £4000 (Home
Office & Ministry of Justice 2011). This monetised figure includes the
physical and emotional impact on victims, average value of property stolen
or damaged, the cost of police investigations, the cost of other criminal
justice system services such as courts, probation and prison services, and
the costs associated with anticipation of the offence including defensive
expenditure and insurance.
Skudder et al. (2016) added to this body of research by estimating an
intangible environmental cost of crime, in the form of a carbon footprint.
The carbon footprint attributed to an incident of domestic burglary was
estimated to be just over 1 tonne (1154 kg) CO2e, equivalent to around
2750 miles of driving an average passenger car (ibid.). This has been
replicated more recently to estimate the carbon footprint of crime in
Victoria, Australia (Baird and Burcher 2020). We use this carbon footprint
estimate of burglary from Skudder et al. (2016) as the baseline against
which the environmental impact of burglary prevention measures is
compared.

Methodology
In this section we establish the carbon footprint of several burglary
prevention measures and compare these to the footprint of an incidence of
burglary. The footprints are estimated using data from environmental
declarations scaled up to an average household footprint by multiplying by
the number of measures expected in a typical household. We estimate the
footprint of both individual measures and those used in combinations within
households. We also compare the environmental performance of the
measures with an indicator of their effectiveness, their SPFs, estimated by
Tseloni et al. (2014), to establish which measure, or combinations of
measures, were most preferable if effective and low-carbon burglary
prevention is required.
The devices studied included those in the Crime Prevention Module of
the CSEW: door double locks or deadlocks, window locks, external lights
on a timer or sensor, indoor lights on a timer or sensor, CCTV,1 burglar
alarms and security chains. Where no environmental information was found
relating to specific measures, it was not estimated. We have highlighted
these products in order to recommend that companies address these gaps.
Details of the steps carried out to estimate the carbon footprints of crime
prevention measures are described below.

Carbon Footprinting Crime Prevention Measures

All products and services have an environmental impact, whether during
their production, use or disposal (European Commission 2003). To establish
the carbon footprints of burglary prevention products, we used existing
studies that consider all carbon emissions associated across all aspects of
the product’s life cycle. These studies are known as Life Cycle Assessments
(LCAs) and estimate emissions associated with the product from raw
material extraction all the way to disposal, including the manufacturing of
the product and emissions associated with its use (e.g. electricity). LCAs
also take into account any recycling or re-use applications before final end-
of-life disposal. More specifically, in this section we utilise environmental
declarations, which are a standardised type of LCA study, enabling
comparisons between products that provide the same function (BSI 2010).
Environmental declarations are defined by an international standard (ISO
14025) and are becoming increasingly important as a means of
communicating environmental impact data about products in the supply
chain. The declarations summarise details of the environmental impacts of
the product under scrutiny, including the global warming potential (GWP—
measured in kg carbon dioxide equivalent or CO2e), for each aspect of the
product’s life cycle. Across this life cycle the total amount of these
emissions represent the total embodied carbon (or carbon footprint) of the
individual product, which this study used in order to compare products. It
should be stressed that the goal of carbon footprinting is to reduce
environmental impacts rather than deliberating on the level of accuracy of
the results (RICS 2012).
There are a variety of environmental declaration schemes across
industrial sectors, such as Eco-Leaf, eco-profile, environmental product
declarations (EPD), environmental profiles and product environment
profiles (PEP) (BSI 2010). EPDs, for example, cover products related to the
construction industry, whereas Eco-leaf and PEPs cover electronic products.
The use of existing environmental declarations had its advantages: first
it negated the necessity to perform new LCA studies for the specific
products of focus (performing LCAs is time-consuming, data intensive,
expensive and can include the challenge of commercially sensitive data).
Also, as environmental declarations follow a set of strict rules and
standards, their results make them suitable for comparison across products,
and thus help inform choices about which burglary prevention measures are
the most ‘environmentally friendly’.
Details of the search strategy and eligibility criteria used to find
environmental declarations can be found in Table 40.1 and the appendix of
Skudder et al. (2017). The smallest, largest and average (median, to
discount outliers) footprints found in each set of declarations were used as
the indicative footprint for the burglary prevention products. The smallest
provides an idea of the minimum footprint expected from the measure, the
largest the maximum expected and the median the most likely estimate of
the footprint. It should be noted that although there are many different types
of each of the crime prevention measures available to buy from a consumer
perspective, many are likely to be of similar material composition (e.g.
most door locks are made from aluminium alloys), and potentially of
similar size and shape. As such, it is deemed reasonable to use the footprint
of those products with an environmental declaration to represent those
products that do not yet have an environmental declaration.
Table 40.1 Summary of assumptions of number of each security device within a typical household

Crime Assumptions of number Details

prevention within a household over a
measure 10-year lifespan
Door locks 4 Three doors (two locks on front and one on each back
(D) door)
Window 11.36 Eight windows, 1.42 locks on each
locks (W)
Burglar 1 system A system comprises a control unit, an alarm (ringer) and
alarm (B) two sensors
Indoor 1 Only one indoor light on a sensor or timer was assumed
lights (I) to be needed to create the illusion of someone
occupying a house to deter burglars
External 3 Three lights (one by each door)
lights (E)
CCTV (C) 6 Three cameras (one by each door) and each replaced
after five years

Full details in Appendix 2 of Skudder et al. (2017)

Number of Security Measures Installed per Household
Assumptions
In order to estimate the carbon footprint of the burglary prevention
measures installed in a home, the number of measures per typical household
must be estimated. Table 40.1 details the number of each measure used to
estimate the footprint per household (the full methodology calculations
detailed in Appendix 2 of Skudder et al. (2017), on which this chapter is
based). Table 40.1 also shows the assumed lifespan of the presence of these
products within the household over 10 years in order to make the household
footprints comparable. The household footprint of each measure was found
by multiplying the individual measure footprint by the number assumed
present in each household.

Establishing Low-Carbon and Effective Measures

Once a household footprint was established, measures were then assessed
on their own within a household and when used in combination. It is
common, for example, for houses to have both secure door locks and
window locks, and some may choose to install CCTV or burglar alarms or
use external lighting or indoor lights as burglar deterrents. We used Tseloni
et al. (2014)’s full Security Protection Factor (SPF) database (the extended
version of their Table 40.2) to compare combinations of measures. Security
chains as a measure were included within the original Tseloni et al. study
but were omitted from this study since no footprint estimate was available.
This resulted in 30 combinations, instead of the original 55 within the
Tseloni et al. study. The footprint of the combinations of measures was
calculated by adding the footprint of the measures together. We calculated
the minimum, median and maximum for each household measure
combination in order to establish what the likely footprint would be, and the
best- and worst-case scenarios for each measure.
Table 40.2 Number of environmental declarations included within study and associated carbon
footprints (Skudder et al. 2017—Table 3).

Burglary prevention Number of environmental declarations Median carbon

measure included within study footprint
(from CSEW) (kg CO2e)
(Mean when <2
studies found)
Burglary prevention Number of environmental declarations Median carbon
measure included within study footprint
(from CSEW) (kg CO2e)
(Mean when <2
studies found)
Door double or deadlocks 11 3.1
Window locks 3 4.2
Burglar alarm 2 (control unit) 352.5
10 (room sensor) 5.4
2 (ringer) 26.5
Indoor lights (on a sensor 6 60.4
or timera)
External lights (on a 4 134.5
sensor or timer)
Security chain None found
CCTV 7 66.3

aIndoor lighting for security purposes would normally be on a timer to

create the illusion of someone being in the household. However, no
environmental declarations that specifically mention timers were found so
the indoor lights on a sensor are used as a proxy for this

The carbon footprint of a burglary is estimated at around 1000 kg CO2e

(Table S6, Skudder et al. 2016). When the household carbon footprints of
the measure(s) were compared to the carbon footprint of one incident of
burglary, those that resulted in a higher footprint than that of burglary were
deemed high carbon and designated low environmental performance. If,
however, the measures had a lower carbon footprint than the footprint
attributed to a burglary, they may offer a net carbon saving (if the products
prevent the offence from occurring): these products were categorised as
high environmental performance and are preferable over those with low
performance. To make the above comparison straightforward and highlight
those measures that provide greater carbon savings when compared to a
single burglary incident the carbon payback ratio was calculated by dividing
the footprint of a burglary by the footprint of the security device. A carbon
payback ratio equal to 1 implies that security devices produce the same
amount of carbon as the burglary incident they prevent. A burglary
prevention measure or a combination of devices with a carbon footprint
three times greater than the footprint of a burglary would yield a carbon
payback ratio of 0.33, indicating a greater carbon cost for the prevention
measure than for the offence itself. Conversely, a prevention measure (or
combination) with a carbon footprint half that associated with burglary
would produce a carbon payback ratio of 2, and those with even smaller
footprints yield higher carbon payback ratios. Therefore, security devices
and their combinations with carbon payback ratios higher than 1 are
deemed to perform well with respect to environmental concerns.
To identify those measures that not only showed high environmental
performance but also were more effective at protecting against burglary, we
then plotted the measures by both the carbon payback ratio and their
effectiveness indicator (SPF). The SPF is also a ratio measure as it indicates
the level of security conferred relative to the absence of security devices:
burglary prevention measures with a SPF less than 1 indicate worse
protection than no security at all (lack of effectiveness). Those with a SPF
higher than 1 confer greater protection than no security (good preventive
effectiveness) (Farrell et al. 2011; Tseloni et al. 2014). This enables us to
highlight the most ideal measures using these comparisons to identify those
with high environmental performance and high effectiveness.

Results
Product Footprints
Our search for environmental declarations relating to burglary prevention
measures yielded 45 declarations eligible for inclusion within the study.
Table 40.2 summarises these and their associated average carbon footprint
estimates. The crime prevention measure with the highest individual carbon
footprint is the burglar alarm control unit (352.3 kg CO2e), and the lowest is
door locks (3.1 kg CO2e). For full details of the declarations, see Appendix
Table A.3 in Skudder et al. (2017).
Figure 40.1 details the median, minimum, maximum and interquartile
ranges of carbon footprint estimates found within the environmental
declarations. Burglar alarm room sensors and CCTV show the largest range
of any of the measures. In contrast, window and door locks footprint
estimates are much more clustered around the median value.

Fig. 40.1 Highest, lowest, quartile range and average (median) carbon footprints of different
burglary prevention measures from environmental declarations (Skudder et al. 2017—Figure 2)

Household Footprint and Comparison with Footprint of

Burglary
Table 40.3 details minimum, median and maximum carbon footprint
estimates per household and the resulting best-, median- and worst-case
scenarios of potential carbon payback ratios when compared to the footprint
of a burglary. The carbon payback ratios are calculated by dividing the
footprint of a burglary by the household footprint of the security device. For
example, the installation of door locks shows the highest payback ratio with
around 80 times fewer carbon emissions than allowing a burglary to take
place (1000 kg CO2e for a burglary divided by 12.5 kg CO2e—the median
footprint of door locks within a typical household). Of course, the minimum
footprint results in the best-case carbon payback ratio and the maximum
footprint in the worst-case. None of the measures included within the study
have a footprint higher than burglary (all carbon payback ratios were higher
than 1). Even the measure with the largest individual footprint, burglar
alarms, still resulted in between 2 and 3 times fewer emissions than those
associated with a single incident of burglary. The following sections focus
on the median carbon payback ratios and compare individual devices and
combinations to a measure of their effectiveness.
Table 40.3 Burglary prevention measures’ carbon footprint (min, max and median) per household
and carbon payback ratio (Skudder et al. 2017—Table 4)

Crime prevention Carbon footprint per Carbon payback ratioa

measure householda (burglary footprint over security
(Kg CO2e) footprint)

Minimum Median Maximum Best case Median Worst case

Door locks (D) 1 13 51 673 80 20
Window locks (W) 44 48 50 22 21 20
Burglar alarm (B) 339 390 581 3 3 2
Indoor lights (I) 40 60 102 25 17 10
External lights (E) 286 404 423 3 2 2
CCTV (C) 26b 398 519 38 3 2

aCalculations may not sum due to rounding to nearest whole number

bEnvironmental declaration did not include in-use life cycle stage, which

explains the smaller overall footprint

Carbon Payback and Crime Prevention Effectiveness

Figure 40.2 compares the carbon payback ratios of individual crime
prevention measures with their SPFs. This enables us to identify the
effectiveness and environmental performance of each measure. The most
desirable measures (high environmental performance and high
effectiveness) are located towards the top or towards the right of the
diagram and those towards the bottom or the left are the least desirable.
Fig. 40.2 Burglary prevention measures plotted by their effectiveness and carbon payback ratio
(median values only) (Skudder et al. 2017—Figure 3). (Notes: Measures with a carbon payback ratio
lower than 1 (below the horizontal dotted line) are higher carbon than one incident of burglary, and
measures that have an SPF of lower than 1 (left of the vertical dotted line) offer less protection than
no security at all. Abbreviations as per Figure 4)

Measures with a carbon payback ratio lower than 1 (below the

horizontal dotted line) are shown to be higher carbon than an incidence of
burglary (at 1000 kg CO2e per incident). There are, however, no measures
below this line as all measures have a carbon payback ratio higher than 1.
The device with the highest carbon payback is shown to be double door or
deadlocks with nearly 80 times less carbon emitted than that compared with
an incidence of burglary.
The measures are spread between left and right on the SPF scale,
highlighting those that are more or less effective. Window locks and indoor
lights are highest in effectiveness, albeit both with non-statistically
significant SPFs (Tseloni et al. 2014), whilst also having a high
environmental performance (between 17 and 21 times fewer emissions than
burglary). These measures therefore may also be desirable individual
measures. If the statistical reliability of burglary prevention (SPF) is to be
considered alongside environmental performance the best individual
measure is door double or deadlocks and the second best external lights.
The least desirable individual measure is burglar alarms, as they have a
low environmental performance (only 3 times fewer emissions than
burglary) and an SPF lower than 1, meaning that they offer less protection
than no security at all (left of the vertical dotted line). Tseloni et al. (2014)
suggested that a house with a burglar alarm and no other security may flag
the existence of valuables, and they acknowledge that burglar alarms also
require action on the part of the householder to become functional against
burglary. However, it should be noted that a property with a burglar alarm
and no other security is rare (212 (0.6%) out of around 37,000 properties in
their study (Tseloni et al. (2014), Table 1).
Figure 40.3 shows the combinations of measures’ carbon payback ratio
and SPF, again plotted to show comparisons between effectiveness and
environmental performance. The carbon footprints of the measures included
in the combination were added together before being divided by the
footprint of burglary to derive the carbon payback ratio. For example, the
footprint of the WIDE combination is around 524 kg CO2e (404 kg for
external lighting, 60 kg for internal lights, 48 kg for window locks and 13
kg for door locks), which divided by the 1000 kg CO2e from an incidence
of burglary gives a carbon payback ratio of 2.2.
Fig. 40.3 Combinations of burglary prevention measures plotted by their effectiveness and carbon
payback ratio (median only) (Skudder et al. 2017—Figure 4). (Notes: Measures with a carbon
payback ratio lower than 1 (below the horizontal dotted line) are higher carbon than one incident of
burglary, and measures that have an SPF of lower than 1 (left of the vertical dotted line) offer less
protection than no security at all. Abbreviations: W window locks, D door double or deadlocks, E
external lights on a timer or sensor switch, I indoor lights on a timer or sensor switch, B burglar
alarm, C CCTV)

The most desirable combination for burglary prevention (right-hand side

of the diagram) is external and indoor lights with window and door locks
(WIDE), and external lights and window and door locks (EWD). Also
considered desirable in terms of carbon payback are the measures clustered
in the top left section, which have higher environmental performance but a
slightly lower effectiveness (although these measures still offer more
protection than no security). These include all possible combinations of
indoor lights, window and door locks (WD, ID, IW and IWD).
The least desirable combinations (bottom left of diagram), with low
effectiveness and low environmental performance, include external and
indoor lights with window locks and burglar alarm (EIWB); external lights
with burglar alarm and door locks (EBD); external lights with window
locks, burglar alarm and door locks (EWBD); indoor lights, window locks,
burglar alarm and door locks (IWBD); and indoor lights with window locks
and burglar alarm (IWB). Common to all these combinations is the burglar
alarm, which reflects its poor individual performance. Combinations with
five or six measures (bottom right of diagram) are also undesirable with
higher effectiveness but lower environmental performance. The CEWBD
combination (all measures but indoor lighting) and all six measures
combination (CEIWBD) have a carbon payback ratio lower than 1, meaning
they are higher carbon than an incidence of burglary (at 1000 kg CO2e),
which is considered undesirable.

Discussion
The social and economic benefits of reducing crime are well understood but
the potential environmental benefits are yet to be developed fully (Pease
2009; Skudder et al. 2016). Actions taken to prevent crime should not be
exempt from the current global effort to reduce emissions. The aim of this
chapter was to estimate the carbon impact of burglary prevention measures
and identify those that are both low carbon and effective. By analysing
environmental declarations of commonly used burglary prevention
products, we have estimated the average carbon footprint of various
measures, including locks, security lighting, burglar alarms and CCTV
systems. The study by Skudder et al. (2017), on which this chapter is based,
is believed to be the first review of carbon footprint information related to
burglary prevention devices.
We have highlighted that in terms of environmental impact, burglary
prevention measures installed in households have relatively small carbon
footprints (between 12 and 400 kg CO2e) with no individual measure
exceeding the carbon footprint associated with an incidence of burglary
(1000 kg CO2e). All individual measures considered produce less than half
the emissions associated with a burglary, and in some cases combinations of
measures produced over 80 times fewer emissions than a single burglary,
showing potential carbon paybacks if burglaries can be avoided by
implementing these measures. Only two combinations of measures (one
with five measures and one with six) exceeded the footprint of a burglary.
Of course, the desirability of these measures is subject to their
effectiveness in preventing burglaries from occurring. We therefore plotted
the carbon payback ratio (footprint of burglary over the footprint of the
measure) alongside an effectiveness indicator (the Security Protection
Factor). When burglary prevention measures are used in isolation, window
locks, indoor lighting and door locks are found to be the most desirable as
they are highest on the environmental performance scale (with higher
carbon payback ratios) and highest on the effectiveness scale. When
combinations of measures were analysed, the most desirable combinations
included window locks, door locks, and indoor and external lighting
(WIDE). The least desirable combinations (lower environmental
performance and lower effectiveness) were those that include burglar
alarms.

The Way Forward

Research around this subject can be expanded in several ways. The
availability of environmental declarations to estimate carbon footprints is
central to this work. As environmental declarations are very product
specific, the results can vary considerably due to the sources of data used,
the product designs or manufacturing techniques.
As environmental declarations are costly to undertake and produce, it is
likely that only ‘higher spec’ or ‘higher-grade’ products generally have
environmental declarations. Lower-grade products may have differing
environmental impacts (such as the carbon intensity of the manufacturing
process), but these are difficult to estimate, and so results may be biased
towards representing the impacts of only higher-grade products. Future
work would ideally include a larger number of environmental declarations
for each product type and include those of varying quality (and higher and
lower prices).
The time period differences for SPFs calculations (2008/09–2011/12),
environmental declarations (2007–2015), carbon footprint estimates (2016)
and housing stock (2010) also demonstrate further limitations. The
preventive effect and related SPF values of security devices and their
combinations may well alter over time. This has been evident with burglar
alarms, which used to prevent burglaries effectively in the period
1992/1996 (Tilley et al. 2015), unlike more recent years examined
(2008/2009–2011/2012). It may therefore be worth updating estimates
if/when updated SPFs,2 cost of crime estimates (Heeks et al. 2018),
footprint estimates, or environmental declarations become available.
 This chapter presents conservative estimates for both the preventative
effect and the carbon payback ratio of security measures. The findings build
on those of Tseloni et al. (2014), who assessed the effectiveness of these
products but did not consider the carbon implications. The SPFs indicate
the preventative effect of a security device for a year due to crime survey
constraints. As it would be realistic to assume that burglary risks for longer
than annual time windows are higher than those within a year (Wittebrood
and Nieuwbeerta 2000), the SPF values arguably underestimate the
preventative effect of security during a 10-year period. In addition, we only
compared the footprint of burglary prevention measures to the footprint of a
single burglary. It is likely that once installed these measures may prevent
more than one incident of burglary taking place in the course of the 10 years
of the devices’ lifespan assumed here. Therefore, our study may also
underestimate the level of carbon payback ratio, as the emissions associated
with the consequences of two or more burglaries may be avoided.
Future research in this area could fine-tune both estimates of preventive
effectiveness and carbon payback across different types of housing, with
due consideration also given to residing households’ plausible accessibility
to burglary security deriving from income and tenure constraints and their
likely burglary incidence (mean number of burglaries rather than risks) over
concurrent time periods. For example, it would be realistic to assume that
the carbon payback ratio is even higher than estimated herein for
particularly vulnerable households, such as social renters whose burglary
risk and incidence is well above average (Hunter and Tseloni 2016; Tseloni
and Thompson 2018).

Decreasing the Carbon Footprint of Burglary Prevention

A natural extension of this study is to consider how to reduce the footprint
of the burglary prevention measures studied. There are many ways
manufacturers can reduce the embodied carbon of their products. The
process of commissioning an environmental declaration that estimates
environmental impacts is a good starting point, since LCAs are considered a
viable screening tool that can pinpoint environmental hotspots in complex
value chains (Hellweg and Canals 2014). A common way to reduce
emissions is to focus on the elements of the product with the highest impact
first. For different products, savings can be made in various ways
throughout the lifecycle stages and, as noted by the European Commission’s
Integrated Product Policy Statement, it is important that all environmental
impacts should be considered throughout the life cycle in an integrated way
to ensure that negative impacts are not simply shifted from one part of the
life cycle to another (European Commission 2003).
For manufacturing, there are several ways to save embodied carbon of
products, by using fewer materials, using alternative materials (higher
recycled content), using ‘clean’ (renewable) electricity, or minimising waste
(or re-using or recycling more) throughout the manufacturing process
(WRAP 2016). For the construction of buildings (of which security
measures may be considered a part), the use of recycled materials such as
steel or aluminium, as a substitute for virgin materials, can confer savings
of up to 50% of the embodied energy (Chen et al. 2001). The way in which
businesses monitor their environmental impact throughout manufacturing or
distribution is also important and the certification of environmental
management systems has been shown to have a significantly positive effect
on the innovation of more environmentally friendly products (Rehfeld et al.
2007).
Other types of burglary prevention that are not physical products may
also potentially offer low carbon solutions to preventing burglary and other
types of crime. Examples of this include advice and guidance from websites
such as police.uk and thecrimepreventionwebsite.com. Common sense
measures, such as not leaving doors and windows open—which is the
method of entry in about one fifth of burglaries in England and Wales (ONS
2019)—and/or valuable items on show, is often important in reducing
opportunities to commit crime, as highlighted by ‘opportunity’ being one of
the key drivers of crime within the Home Office’s Modern Crime
Prevention Strategy (2016).

Conclusion
This chapter helps inform crime prevention specialists of the environmental
impact of burglary prevention products and presents comparisons with the
carbon emissions of the crimes they aim to prevent. We have shown that
effective burglary prevention does not have a significant carbon footprint
when compared to the emissions associated with burglaries that can be
prevented. Window locks are found to be the most effective and low-carbon
measure available individually. Combinations of window locks, door locks,
and external and indoor lighting (WIDE) are also shown to be effective and
lower carbon. Burglar alarms and CCTV do not perform as strongly, with
higher carbon footprints and lower security against burglary.
We have also shown that crime prevention measures may be able to
offer more than monetary savings or reduced social impacts, as it is clear
that careful choice of burglary prevention measures can save carbon
emissions, whilst still ensuring a secure and safe home. It is encouraging
that the security industry as a whole is beginning to pay attention to
environmental impacts, as shown by the availability of environmental
declarations related to burglary prevention measures. In future there will be
a greater need to consider environmental impacts, and substantial emission
reductions are required, in particular, over the next few decades to reduce
climate risks in the future (IPCC 2014).
Our findings are of considerable benefit to security professionals by
highlighting that crime prevention measures have varying environmental
costs, and that it is not necessarily the most successful security measures
that are most carbon costly. In fact, the opposite is true, with many of the
most successful security devices having a comparatively small carbon
footprint, enabling security professionals to make win-win choices. This
information could also be incorporated into future house building and
renovation guidelines. There is already a need to consider the
environmental impact of housing, but connecting this to crime
prevention/security represents an additional benefit. For example, the
opportunity to install security measures (better locks) could be combined
with installation of energy-saving or other environmentally friendly
initiatives (double glazing).
The results presented in this chapter also raise awareness of
sustainability issues as part of security choices and offer an important
contribution towards a growing connection between security and
sustainability agendas. Cozens (2007), for example, highlighted an explicit
need to integrate crime issues within sustainability frameworks. Also,
Armitage and Gamman (2009) highlighted the importance of ensuring that
any steps forward for the green agenda, such as minimising carbon
emissions, do not present a step back for the crime agenda (and vice versa).
We have shown that sustainability considerations can be considered
alongside security choices and that win-win measures (in terms of security
and low carbon) can be chosen to minimise impacts whilst not
compromising safety.
As both security and sustainability considerations are often neglected in
the face of economic pressures (with the exception of national
security/national infrastructure concerns), awareness of these issues
amongst sustainability and security professionals is essential to avoid long-
lasting damage to the environment and risks to community safety.
We understand that security choices around the home are made in
various ways and it is unlikely that the carbon footprint of these products
will be a deciding factor alone. But if it is possible to secure homes against
burglary while minimising the environmental impact, then low-carbon
measures may be more favourable to householders concerned about the
environment. In this chapter we have highlighted that win-win solutions are
available for low-carbon, highly effective security measures, and we hope
that this will inform choices made by security specialists, now and in the
future.

Recommended Reading
Although research detailing the carbon costs of crime or crime prevention is
rare, there are several associated readings recommended to those interested
in this novel research area. The founding study which was first to attempt to
estimate the carbon cost of crime by Pease (2009) is a must read. This is
followed by three published papers by the carbon cost of crime research
team led by Skudder (2016) and Skudder et al. (2017), which firstly
estimate the carbon footprint of crime, then assess the carbon impact of the
crime drop, and finally compare the carbon footprint of crime prevention
measures to identify low carbon and effective methods of crime control.
The most recent estimates of the economic and social cost of crime by the
Home Office (UK Government Department) have been expanded to
consider the carbon impacts (Heeks et al. 2018, Annex 3), which provides
an insight into how policy makers and those assessing impacts of crime
prevention may take this into account in future.

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Footnotes
1 CCTV cameras are currently not examined but were included in the 2008/09 to 2011/12 CSEW,
the most recent datasets this chapter analyses.

2 ONS has updated SPFs based on 2012/2013 to 2018/2019 CSEW data. Their findings are broadly
similar to those previously found, that is, the ‘best’ combination is WIDE whilst burglar alarms
protect from burglary less than no security and when added to most combinations reduce their overall
preventative effect (email correspondence between ONS and Andromachi Tseloni, September 2020).
Part VII
The Impact of Security
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_41

41. Security and International Crime

Drops
Nick Tilley1 and Graham Farrell2
(1) Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, University College
London, London, UK
(2) School of Law, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

Nick Tilley (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Graham Farrell
Email: [email protected]

Introduction
If it bleeds it leads. Crime increases make good news stories, but crime
declines do not. The prolonged and unexpected crime drop in most high-
income countries from the 1990s has been slow to penetrate public
consciousness. Even now, any sign of a new or rising crime type is far more
likely to receive media attention.
The media emphasis is reflected in other vested interests. Crime rises
are good for the police who request more resources, for the security
industry as consumers invest more, for opposition politicians who exploit
them for political gain, and for researchers because they make cases for
funding easier to mount. In comparison, few have an interest in global
crime drops. Moreover, emphasising falls in crime risks accusations of
complacency and indifference to the harm suffered by victims.
What we are left with is a relatively small crime drop literature, much of
it poor, and some involving crime-drop denial on the tenuous grounds that
there are some places and crimes where crime has not fallen. This is
disappointing: citizens have a strong interest in being and feeling safe. It is
for this reason that we have devoted over a decade to scrutinising the
various proposed explanations, devising and testing our own, and distilling
the lessons for crime prevention. Moreover, our explanations do not involve
any denial that there have also been some rises: the explanation we use
predicts some crime increases amidst the crime falls.
Our conclusion is that security measures have played the pivotal role in
producing widespread drops in crime and criminality in recent decades. In
this chapter we do not explain our reasons for rejecting other explanations.
Interested readers can find these in other papers (Farrell 2013; Farrell et al.
2014). Instead, we focus on what our research has found about the role of
security measures and suites of security measures in producing steep drops
in domestic burglary and vehicle theft that dominated crime figures in the
early 1990s in most Western countries. The findings are robust. We go on to
describe what these drops meant in terms of criminality. We show how the
evidence suggests that a by-product of the reduction in high-volume crimes
has been a reduction in entries into criminal careers. Next, we move to
policy implications. First, we consider the qualities that good security
should have. In response to critics who highlight possible negative aspects
of some security measures, we describe the desirable attributes of good
security: these include crime prevention efficacy alongside other quality-of-
life aspects. Second, we consider how good security comes to be adopted
and what policy measures could encourage it. But before we come to these
issues we begin by providing some evidence of the international nature of
the crime drop.

The International Crime Drop

Volume property crimes began to decline in the United States from the early
1980s at the latest, though it was the pronounced decline in violence in that
country from the early 1990s that garnered more interest. Hence early and
idiosyncratic explanations focused on US violence (Blumstein and Wallman
2006). As the more widespread nature of the crime drop became evident,
the limitations of explanations invoking special conditions in the United
States became increasingly clear. Nevertheless, and somewhat remarkably,
some of these America-first explanations persist as if the rest of the world
and its research did not exist.
The most robust data on crime rates come from well-conducted
victimisation surveys, given that many crimes are not reported, and of those
reported not all are recorded by the police. Among these, the International
Crime Victimisation Survey (ICVS) is the only methodologically
standardised general crime victim survey. The same questions are asked
about crime incidents that are described in the same way by interviewers.
Its limitations are that it is not conducted regularly, it has relatively small
samples per country, participating countries vary by sweep, and it is unable
to estimate crime levels and changes in them for relatively rare offences.
Sweeps of the ICVS that took place in 1989, 1992, 1996, 2000, and
2005 were drawn on by Tseloni et al. (2010) to examine whether there had
indeed been an international crime drop. Those countries that had
participated in at least three sweeps were identified. There were 26 of them,
and these formed the basis for the analysis. The findings were clear. There
had been a general downturn in crime internationally from the early to mid-
1990s. Between 1995 and 2004, it was estimated that, across the board,
there had been substantial falls in theft of and from vehicles, burglary,
personal theft, and assault, ranging from a 77 per cent drop in theft from
vehicles to a 17 per cent drop in theft of vehicles. These falls followed a
prolonged period of crime increase and had not been expected by policy-
makers, citizens, police, or politicians.
Tseloni et al.’s findings complement those found in studies in individual
countries, some using police data where similar overall patterns are
generally identified, although the timing and slope of the falls vary. Falls
have also been widely found for homicide, for which the vagaries of
reporting and recording are generally less of a problem, and for which
crime surveys are clearly unsuitable. There is now ample evidence from
multiple studies, using diverse methods to show that the crime drop is
widespread in terms of both countries and types of offence.
The fact that drops in crime are widespread does not, of course, mean
that they are universal, nor does it mean that they are irreversible. Some
specific crimes have increased, for example Internet-related fraud, and
some crimes, including domestic burglary and car theft, are beginning to
show increases at the time of writing after a long period during which they
have fallen. Any adequate explanation of the widespread falls in crimes
needs to be consistent with rises that have also been observed. Indeed, best
of all would be an explanation of the widespread falls that could also
explain rises where these are found.

The Role of Security Measures in Producing Falls

in Vehicle Theft and Domestic Burglary
Drawing on ideas first mooted by Ronald Clarke (Clarke and Newman
2006) and Jan van Dijk (van Dijk 2006; van Dijk et al. 2007), the initial
hypothesis we tested and confirmed is that crime dropped because of
widespread increases and improvements in security. These increases and
improvements include, for example, more and more sophisticated security
tags in shops; more and technically improved CCTV in public and semi-
public places; improvements in ambient lighting; the use of personal and
property alarms; the installation of security bollards in front of vulnerable
buildings; the spread of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design
(CPTED); the use of security screens in cash-handling organisations such as
banks, building societies, betting shops, and ticket offices; the development
and routine inclusion of an array of security measures to cars including
central locking, alarms, electronic immobilisers, and trackers; the spread of
bike stands and improved locks to attach bikes to the stands; a veritable
army of security staff in public and private places; and so on. Not all
measures are effective and not all are desirable for reasons other than their
efficacy, but it is difficult not to be impressed by the avalanche of security-
related measures and activities introduced in response to decades of
increasing crime.
To test our hypothesis that security played a central role, we focused on
high-volume crimes for which we had excellent long-term crime survey
data with questions about relevant security devices at the time of the
offence. The Crime Survey for England and Wales (then named the British
Crime Survey) was our main data source. It goes back to 1981. We
examined vehicle theft and domestic burglary for which similar questions
about the experience of the crimes and security measures have been asked
over time (Farrell et al. 2010, 2011a, 2011b; Tseloni et al. 2017, 2018).
We developed what we referred to as a ‘Security Impact Assessment
Tool’ (SIAT) to calculate ‘Security Protection Factor’ (SPF) scores (Farrell
et al. 2011b). SIAT compared the crime rate of those with a given security
device or set of devices against those with no security devices. The resultant
SPF score allowed us to estimate the change in risk associated with
different security devices, or sets of them, compared to having no security.
For example, a score of 2 indicated that this device or set of devices was
twice as safe (or half as at risk) as those without any device. Fortunately,
the Crime Survey of England and Wales asks about security devices in
place at the time of the burglary.
The findings are unambiguous. First, security reduces risks (Farrell et
al. 2011b for car theft, Tseloni et al. 2015 for domestic burglary). Second,
the addition of two or more security devices up to about four conferred
more security than would be expected simply by summing their SPF scores
(Farrell et al. 2011b; Tseloni et al. 2015). That is, combinations of devices
produced extra benefit over and above what would be expected. This is a
less obvious finding, but of great practical importance. Third, the addition
of a burglar alarm, counter-intuitively, was found consistently to increase
risk of burglary (Tilley et al. 2015a).
Table 41.1 shows the security protection conferred for burglary security
devices (Tseloni et al. 2015). The SPF columns show the effects of the
devices and combinations of devices. For combinations of devices, the net
interaction columns show the added value from suites of devices (i.e. with
the SPF of the individual devices subtracted). The difference between
WIDE and WIDEB shows the protection lost by adding a burglary alarm to
the other four devices. The effect of adding a burglary alarm to other
combinations was consistent: adding an alarm reduced protection from
burglary.
Table 41.1 Security Protection Factors and net interaction effects of security configurations

Security configuration SPF Net interaction

Burglary Attempt Burglary Attempt
WIDE 49.12** 21.78** 33.23 13.00

WIDEB 29.62** 10.77** 12.84 1.35

W 6.58 3.99 n/a n/a

I 3.5 1.47 n/a
D 2.79** 1.34** n/a n/a
E 3.01** 1.99* n/a n/a
*0.05 > p-value ≥ 0.01; **p-value ≤ 0.01
Abbreviations: W = Window locks; I = Indoor lights on a timer or sensor
switch; D = Door double or deadlocks; E = External lights on a timer or
sensor switch; B = Burglar alarm

The unexpected burglar alarm finding has many possible explanations

(which we could not test so far). It may, for example, be that the
proliferation of cheap, low-quality alarms is responsible. False alarm rates
over 95 per cent may have led to deterioration in police attendance,
reducing risk to burglars. This may mean that an alarm is a visual cue of
potential rewards rather risk to burglars (Tilley et al. 2015). For domestic
burglary, the optimal combination of security measures comprises key-
operated Window locks, Internal lights on a timer, Double or deadlocks to
doors, and External lights. We use the acronym WIDE to describe this
effective yet economical group of measures (Tseloni et al. 2018).
Except for the alarm finding, the additional protection provided by
combinations of devices over and above the sum of their individual effects
is repeated in relation to vehicle theft (Farrell and Tilley 2017).

Security and Criminality

The crime drops have been steeper for vehicle theft and burglary than other
crime types. This is important for two reasons. First, burglary and vehicle
theft were by far the commonest recorded crimes at the start of the crime
drops. Second, car theft in particular was a debut crime. That is, conviction
for car theft frequently marks the onset of a criminal career (Svensson
2002). Our ‘debut crime hypothesis’ (Farrell et al. 2015) is, therefore, that
security measures have prevented many criminal careers because tempting
property crimes are no longer an easy route into crime for teenagers.
Furthermore, youths stealing cars for fun also recruit others into stealing
cars for fun and thereby into crime careers. Criminality is transmitted peer
to peer though joyriding. Making it too difficult and too risky to steal cars
cuts off that pathway.
As evidence accumulates, there is increasing support for the debut crime
hypothesis. First, the drop in criminal involvement associated with the falls
in numbers of crime incidents is heavily concentrated in the young. The
reduction in youth offending is as international as the crime drop. The
second two panels in Fig. 41.1 show this for England and Wales (for similar
findings related for the United States, see Puzzanchera 2020). The data for
both England and Wales and the United States relate to arrests, rather than
convictions. Arrests provide the best indicator we have from administrative
data about those involved in criminal activity, notwithstanding the fact that
only a minority of many crime types are cleared up by the police. Figure
41.1, Panel A reminds the reader of the overall crime drop in England and
Wales as measured by the CSEW by offences per 1000 population between
1999/2000 and 2017/2018. There was a steady fall of around 60 per cent
over close to two decades. Figure 41.1, Panel B shows the arrest rate per
1000 members of different age groups. All have fallen, but the drop
amongst those over 21 is small and the drops for those aged 10-17 and 18–
20 are dramatic. The rate for 10–17-year-olds declined to be no higher than
that for those aged over 21. Figure 41.1, Panel C presents the changing
index of representativeness over the 20-year period. The index of
representativeness calculates whether the share of arrestees reflects the
share of the population. A score of 1 shows that the proportion of arrestees
reflects the proportion in the population of the given age group; less than 1
and the age group is underrepresented; and more than 1 and the age group is
overrepresented. This shows that the 10–17-year-olds are no longer
overrepresented in the population of arrestees, that the 18–20-year-olds
have become much less overrepresented, and that the 21 and over arrestees
are coming much closer to representativeness of the overall populations.
This does not, of course, mean that the over 21-year-olds are becoming
more criminal: only that the overall (declining) population of arrestees is
becoming more representative, in age terms, of the general population in
England and Wales. The crime drop is, thus, closely associated with
absolute and relative reductions in the criminality of young people.
Fig. 41.1 The decline in crime and youth offending in England and Wales, 1999–2018. (Source:
CSEW, and arrests data from Office for National Statistics)

The second piece of evidence relates to the temporal order of crime

drops. High-volume property crimes, including in particular vehicle theft,
began to fall before other crime types, especially violence (Farrell et al.
2018). Moreover, the types of vehicle theft that fell were ones in which
young people (adolescent boys in particular) were most likely to participate
in groups. This is seen in the steeper reduction in thefts of cars that were
later recovered, which are typically stolen for joyriding. Thefts involving
permanent loss, associated with older and more professional offenders
dropped much more gradually. This is the pattern that would be expected if
the security devices made cars difficult but not impossible to steal, where
younger, more inexperienced thieves targeted easier-to-take cars that would
provide them and their friends with fun (Farrell et al. 2011a). A study of US
motor vehicle thefts finds, similarly, that the size of subsequent cohorts of
offenders was reduced following the introduction of vehicle security
improvements (Dixon and Farrell 2020).
The debut crime hypothesis is an important correction to the notion that
criminality is simply a function of poor parenting, dysfunctional
communities, genetic abnormalities, the underclass, or some form of social
malaise. Rather, an important route into criminality is opportunity and
temptation. This means that much will be achieved in reducing criminality
by reducing opportunities of the kind exploited by those stealing cars for
fun, a proportion of whom are thereby drawn into criminal lifestyles.

Good Security
Security itself has been the target of widespread and sustained criticism
(e.g. Zedner 2003; Neocleous 2007). Charges include that it is divisive (e.g.
gated neighbourhoods); that it is ugly (e.g. shutters and bars to windows);
that it creates disabling fear of crime (e.g. by tacitly reminding people they
are at risk); that it fails to address root causes of crime (e.g. ignoring the
need to address inadequate life chances); and that it is inequitable (e.g.
being affordable only by the relatively rich against whom potential offences
are displaced to the relatively poor).
Although we think these critiques are overstated, we also think that it is
important to acknowledge that security measures are not unequivocally
good. Effectiveness is not the only measure of desirability. The old adage
about the ends not justifying the means holds good for security measures.
Critics of security have a point in reminding us that this is the case.
However, any notion that security is always unequivocally a bad thing is,
we think, absurd. In an effort to discriminate ‘good’ from ‘bad’ security and
also to help inform those designing, developing, and implementing security
measures, we have tried to delineate desirable attributes of security. These
include efficacy as one, but only one component (Tilley et al. 2015b, Farrell
and Tilley 2017, 2020).
We refer to security that passes muster as ‘elegant’, and we use the
acronym ‘DAPPER’ to capture the generic attributes that security must
have to be considered elegant. DAPPER refers to:
Default: the default condition produced by the device, design, or practice
is secure rather than insecure.
 Aesthetic: the security device, design, or practice is aesthetically neutral
or pleasing.
Powerful: the security device, design, or practice operates through one or
more powerful preventive mechanisms.
Principled: the security device, design, or practice is principled in ethical
terms; for example, it increases rather than reduces freedom and
increases rather than decreases equity.
Effortless: for the end user or beneficiary the security device, design, or
practice is effortless, taking little or no time and effort to engage.
Rewarding: the security device, design, or practice is rewarding in cost-
benefit terms.
The practical meaning of the DAPPER criteria becomes clear with an
example. For instance, take security measures now fitted to almost all new
passenger cars:
They are activated by default when the driver leaves the vehicle.
Moreover, door locks are activated by default as the car is driven off.
The main security measures (central locking, electronic immobiliser, fuel
cap operated from inside the vehicle, distributed audio system, alarm,
etc.) do not impinge on the appearance of the vehicle—they are thus
aesthetically neutral.
The security measures activate well-established crime prevention
mechanisms (e.g. alarms increase the perceived risk, and electronic
immobilisers increase the difficulty for would-be car thieves).
The security measures are principled in that they reduce the need for
drivers to remember to activate devices and allow them to pop into shops
(e.g.) without having to worry about or spend time making sure that the
vehicle is secure. Also, although often first built into more expensive
makes and models (and in that way possibly rendering less expensive,
less well-protected models more at risk), the security innovations quickly
spread across all makes and models.
Most modern car security measures are effortless. No effort or time is
needed to engage them in comparison to, for example, mechanical
immobilisers (‘crook-locks’ and similar) that had to be applied manually,
or removable radio-cassettes that had to be pulled out and carried around,
or doors that needed to be locked individually, or aerials that had to be
 depressed when leaving a car and raised on re-entering if the radio was to
be used.
Finally, the suite of security measures that has come to be built into cars
during manufacture are less expensive than if retrofitted, and they have
proven enormously effective in saving the direct and indirect costs of
high rates of vehicle theft.
In terms of elegance, the security measures that are now taken for
granted in cars are exemplary. They are also aspirational in that, in other
areas, critics may have good points to make about the shortcomings of
security measures: household security alarms, for example, can be
ineffective, create noise pollution, have to be set manually, and are often not
cost-effective. There may sometimes need to be trade-offs between the
different aspects of elegance, at least in the short term. However, in the
longer term, architects of security devices, designs, and policies should, we
think, aim towards increasing elegance in their products. This is especially
important as security measures are developed to address emergent crime
problems, springing from opportunities inadvertently created by new social
and technological developments, such as the Internet, online shopping, and
online banking. Since cyber-security is typically software based, there are
signs that it has great potential to be seamlessly integrated at minimal cost
to users: we have progressed from manual to auto-updates for many
software defences, and, increasingly, to secure transactions as the elegant
default.

Producing Good Security

Some security measures are deemed so undesirable or dangerous that their
use is controlled by statute in many jurisdictions. The use of broken glass
atop walls below a given height, the use of firearms, and the use of razor
wire are all examples. The supply of other security measures is deemed so
beneficial that they too are covered by statute in many countries: the
requirement that minimum standard electronic immobilisers be fitted to new
cars is relatively widespread. Hence regulation is one way of requiring or
encouraging the adoption of elegant security measures and the prohibition
of measures that fall too short of the ideal.
Regulation, however, is a blunt instrument (Ayres and Braithwaite 1992;
Tilley 2018). It often applies where the behaviours are not needed. It can
impose costs both to police the regulation and for those covered by it to
adhere to what is required. It can elicit only token compliance, to the letter
rather than the spirit of what is required. It can often easily be evaded. It
provokes resistance from those inconvenienced by the regulation. It can
quickly become outdated and irrelevant as technology and social practice
develops. If penalties for failure to comply are too low, many of those to
whom it applies will ignore the requirement. If penalties are too high, courts
will be reluctant to convict those who ignore the regulation. Although
regulation may sometimes be useful, there are good reasons to find other
ways of securing more elegance in the development and application of
security measures.
The market is the traditional mechanism for generating improvement.
Perfect competition stimulates innovation as better products win over
customers. Better products lead others to emulate successful innovation and
to try to outdo it. Initially only the better off may be able to afford the high-
quality products, but in the interests of increasing market share mass
production and lower prices follow, the less well-off then becoming
beneficiaries. In relation to vehicle security, the market seems to have
played some part, with manufacturers of more expensive vehicles
sometimes taking the lead in such innovation, as with central locking and
inbuilt alarms. Improved security measures have spread across makes and
models, as manufacturers have taken them up. However, markets are never
perfect, and the market for security measures has its own distinct features.
Security measures have been found to involve ‘grudge’ expenditure
(Goold et al. 2010). There are no immediate benefits from it. It only reduces
the possible risk of some future, but uncertain loss. For poorer people, in
particular, amongst whom risks of victimisation tend to be relatively high,
the costs of high-quality security measures, relative to their incomes, are
also relatively high. Moreover, the landlords of those living in rented
accommodation, who are at higher risk of burglary than owner-occupiers,
have little incentive to invest in high-quality security measures, bar
potential reputational damage, and, perhaps, greater difficulty in finding
tenants. Ironically, those who need good security most can least afford it or
are at increased risk of burglary because their landlords are not direct
beneficiaries of expenditure on improved security for their tenants.
However, where there are collective sources of tenants, for example,
university accommodation services, they may be able to exert some market
pressure on landlords to provide adequate security.
Perfect markets depend on perfect knowledge. This is conspicuously
absent. Those in the business of selling and profiting from security have
strong interests in overstating effectiveness and also in overstating need.
Some parts of the private sector have an interest in making sure that
effective security measures are put in place, but simply do not know what is
most effective. Insurers providing cover for theft are a case in point. They
have an interest in those they insure minimising their risk to save on claims
that would otherwise be made. Moreover, those who are insured have an
interest in others installing effective security measures to reduce burglary
rates and hence premiums.
The market has become better informed by some measures taken by
insurance companies, for example by publishing ranked lists of models
where rates of vehicle theft are especially high (Hazelbaker 1997) or by
funding research organisations that systematically test how well security
measures resist efforts to overcome them, for example Thatcham Research
in the UK.1 Consumer organisations and their publications, such as the
Consumers Association and Which?, can provide for more informed
customers as can academic researchers able to assess the outcome
effectiveness of security measures and suites of them, as we have done.
Independent providers of quality indicators (such as kite-marks) for
independently tested security measures that meet minimum standards can
help inform the customer. However, none of these remedies for the
imperfect market is likely to be sufficient even in relation to efficacy, where
expenditure is reluctant and price is liable to lead to cheap choices, with
rather little attention to quality or efficacy. Moreover, the tests that are used
tend to prioritise effectiveness rather than the wider range of desiderata for
elegant security captured by DAPPER.
There are clearly major benefits of market mechanisms where
conditions exist or can be created to allow them to stimulate elegance. They
require a way for the customer to reveal a preference for elegance and for
improvements in elegance. On example comes from Disney Resorts, which
build security seamlessly and inconspicuously into their operation
(Shearing and Stenning 1992; Tilley 2018). It is no bolt-on extra creating a
burden on visitors. It requires no effort on their behalf as they are steered
into movements and behaviours that allow them and other visitors to spend
their days safely at the attraction. Disney creates default behaviours that
effectively regulate behaviour in ways that do not infringe liberties but
allow Disney to profit with few if any external costs to the public purse,
despite the very large numbers of people passing through.
The UK’s Home Office Police Research Group (PRG) kick-started
some market interest in improvements in vehicle security when it calculated
the relative risks of car theft from different makes and models and
published the results, highlighting the enormous variations and also the ease
with which many cars could be stolen (Houghton 1992; Laycock 2004). In
effect this shamed car manufacturers with an interest in a good reputation
into improving security to high-risk vehicles (Pawson 2002). The measures
have since trickled down to almost all newly manufactured cars. It also, of
course, alerted prospective customers to the theft risk they faced if buying
the high-risk models and makes.
The work of PRG highlights one type of activity open to government to
encourage elegant security improvements, but which fall short of
regulation. There are others. A rough distinction is sometimes made
between ‘sticks’, ‘carrots’, and ‘sermons’ as governmental instruments to
encourage particular behaviours (Bemelmans-Videc et al. 2011). Sticks
comprise statutory regulation and penalties for non-compliance. Carrots
comprise monetary or non-monetary rewards for compliance. Sermons
comprise a range of forms of exhortation to encourage compliance (e.g.
heaping ignominy on those who fail to comply and feting those who do so,
and simply stating an authoritative moral case for undertaking or eschewing
particular action or in this case security designs).
We think that there is a role for governments and other civil
organisations to do more to promote elegant security, in ways that depend
on neither regulation nor the market, neither of which is ideal as a
mechanism for encouraging elegance in security. Creating prizes (carrots),
commending elegant security measures (sermons), writing reviews of
security measures that go beyond across-the-board defensiveness or attacks
(more sermons), subsidising security amongst the needy only if it meets
elegant standards (carrots), byelaws requiring security measures of a
minimum standard of elegance or forbidding especially inelegant security
measures in especially sensitive locations (local sticks) are all possibilities
(Tilley 2018).
Conclusion
The growth and improvement of security over the past 30 years has led to
welcome and dramatic falls in crime and criminality. They have helped
bring out the inadequacy of the criminal justice system as a means of
reducing crime. Criminal justice systems can do little on their own to
reduce risk, increase effort, reduce rewards, reduce provocation, or remind
citizens of rules in ways that reduce crime. Security measures, at their best,
can help activate several of these powerful crime prevention mechanisms.
There is now a strong body of evidence that security measures have reduced
crime and criminality and produced a reversal in what was widely assumed
to be an inexorably risking level of property and personal crime.
Dystopian critiques of security for its ugliness, divisiveness, and
contribution to increased fear of crime are overstated. Yet security measures
are not unequivocally and universally desirable. The economic and social
costs of security are only worth bearing if there are commensurate benefits
in terms of efficacy and quality of life overall. Moreover, improving
security involves not only reducing financial costs but also minimising
inconvenience to users and beneficiaries, enhancing rather than reducing
civil liberties, and improving rather than degrading the environment.
In the coming years, new developments producing new crime
opportunities can be expected. The history of crime is largely a history of
changing opportunities to offend, brought about as unintended
consequences of pursuing other objectives, often providing social benefits.
The car created an explosion of crime because of its attractiveness as a
target and its utility in the commission of crimes. The mobile phone
likewise created another explosion in crime, because of the value of
handsets, their portability, and, similarly, their utility in organising crimes.
The self-service shop created a third explosion in crime providing both
temptation and opportunity to walk out without paying for goods.
Pharmaceuticals provide new, ever more powerful, and eventually cheaper
ways of dealing with disease, but they create new opportunities for their
illicit use, trafficking, production of counterfeit drugs, and the distribution
of potions that are either ineffective or harmful. The Internet is almost
certainly the contemporary major driver of a range of crimes,
notwithstanding its obvious social utility.
 The challenge in all cases is to devise and develop goods and services
that minimise the unintended crime harvest without creating potential
disutilities. We therefore have a continuing collective interest in devising
socially acceptable and responsible elegant security measures and policies.

Recommended Readings
The most comprehensive account of the international crime drop and the
role of security in producing it is Farrell et al. (2014).
Wide-ranging collections of papers on the international crime drop and
attempted explanations for them include van Dijk, J, Tseloni, A. and Farrell,
G. (2012) The International Crime Drop. Basingstoke: Palgrave, and Tonry,
M. (2014) Why Crime Rates Fall and Why They Don’t, Crime and Justice
Volume 43. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
A summary of critiques of security, a response to those critiques, and an
account of elegant security can be found in Farrell and Tilley (2020).
A summary of critiques of situational crime prevention measures
(including security) and a response to them can be found in Clarke R.V. and
Bowers K. (2017). Seven Misconceptions of Situational Crime Prevention,
in N. Tilley and A. Sidebottom (eds) Handbook of Crime Prevention and
Community Safety, Second edition, London: Routledge.

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burglary risk? A counterintuitive finding and possible explanations. Crime Prevention and
Community Safety 17(1): 1–19.

Tseloni, A., Farrell, G., Thompson, Evans, and Tilley, N. (2017) ‘Domestic burglary drop and the
security hypothesis.’ Crime Science 6:3.
[Crossref]

Tseloni, A, Mailley, J., Farrell, G. and Tilley, N. (2010) The cross-national crime and repeat
victimization trend for main crime categories: Multilevel modeling of the International Crime
Victims Survey. European Journal of Criminology 7(5): 375–394
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Tseloni, M. Thompson, R., Grove, L., Tilley, N. and Farrell, G. (2015) The Effectiveness of Burglary
Security Devices. Security Journal. doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/sj.2014.30.

Tseloni, A., Thompson, R. and Tilley, N. (2018) Reducing Burglary. Switzerland: Springer
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Footnotes
1 https://www.thatcham.org/what-we-do/security/, accessed June 28, 2020.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_42

42. The Role of Crime Prevention Through

Environmental Design (CPTED) in
Improving Household Security
Rachel Armitage1, 2 and Lisa Tompson2
(1) Applied Criminology and Policing Centre, University of Huddersfield,
Huddersfield, UK
(2) Institute for Security and Crime Science, The University of Waikato,
Hamilton, New Zealand

Rachel Armitage
Email: [email protected]

Lisa Tompson (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Abstract
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is an approach
to crime reduction that involves the design, build and future management of
places and spaces according to five key principles: surveillance, defensible
space, physical security, movement control, and management and
maintenance. Grounded in the Opportunity Theories of crime, CPTED
focuses upon reducing opportunities for offenders—largely, increasing
perceived risk and reducing likely rewards. Focusing upon the application
of CPTED to residential housing within the UK, and its merit as a burglary
reduction measure, this chapter presents an overview of the principles of
CPTED alongside associated evidence of effectiveness and an overview of
the implementation of CPTED within planning and policing policy and
practice, including the UK’s Secured by Design (SBD) award scheme. The
chapter presents the results of a recent systematic review of nine studies,
concluding that the available evidence on the effectiveness of SBD shows a
statistically significant overall burglary reduction effect, equating to 53%
fewer burglaries than the non-SBD control group. The chapter concludes
with a suggested re-orientation of CPTED and its focus. Presenting findings
from a study of 22 incarcerated burglars, the research suggests that there
may be merit in re-orienting CPTED’s focus to incorporate ‘designing in’
pro-social attachments to place, as opposed to limiting attention on the
principle of ‘simply designing out’ illegal behaviour.

Burglary Risk
Residential burglary whilst in decline (Farrell 2021) is a crime that imposes
multiple negative effects on individuals, communities and statutory and
voluntary agencies. Those experiencing burglary are affected emotionally,
physically and financially (Brown and Harris 1989; Shaw and Chenery
2007; Heeks et al. 2018; Cohen 2000); communities with high levels of
burglary see a flight from crime (where people can), as well as reductions in
community cohesion and confidence (Rogerson and Pease 2019); and
response agencies (police, forensics, doctors, legal to name a few) see
resources overwhelmed by demand (Laufs et al. 2020).
Whilst difficult to give an accurate reflection of burglary risk, following
a year of significant changes to mobility within properties and wider
communities (England saw three lockdowns—March 2020, November
2020 and January 2021), there is clear evidence that, changes specific to
Covid-19 aside, burglary has declined significantly in England and
elsewhere (see Farrell 2021 for a review of the crime drop). Burglary
figures for the year ending March 2020 confirm what we know regarding
burglary risk for household and neighbourhood characteristics: risk is not
uniform, and, essentially, those in the younger age categories, ethnic
minorities, single parents, those living in the 20% most deprived
neighbourhoods and those renting their property are at a greater level of
risk. These factors are largely out of our control. Other than flagging risk
and directing resources, there is little we can do with this information. Yet
there are features of properties and neighbourhoods that can be controlled
(albeit not all within the residents’ power to influence) and that will
positively affect our burglary risk, including the level and nature of security
(ONS, September 2020), the design and layout of the street (Johnson and
Bowers 2010; Armitage 2018b) and the network of connections within the
surrounding area (Birks and Davies 2017; Gerell 2021).

Security Measures
Improving the physical security of residential properties reduces burglary
risk, but what may appear obvious hides a little more nuance specific to the
level and combinations of security devices, and nowhere is this more
clearly demonstrated than in the series of publications analysing the CSEW
led by Tseloni et al. (2014, 2017a, 2017b) that demonstrate the differential
impact on burglary of combinations of household security devices. The
‘nuance’ relates to specific crime prevention devices (most notably burglar
alarms) not acting as protective factors in preventing burglary, as well as
refuting any belief that ‘the more [security devices] the merrier’—
protection does not consistently increase with the number of devices that
make up each combination. This is confirmed in the CSEW data for the
year ending March 2020 that whilst ‘no, or less than basic’ security results
in the highest risk of burglary (4.3), properties with ‘at least basic’ security
(0.6) experienced a lower level of risk than those with ‘enhanced security’
(1.3). Analysing CSEW burglary data between April 2007 and March 2012,
Tseloni et al. (2017a) established that particular security device
combinations resulted in significant protection against burglary. CWSD—
CCTV, window and door locks and security chains resulting in 52 times
more protection than no security, and WIDE (indoor and outdoor lights and
locks on windows and doors) giving 49 times more protection.
On a broader level Vollaard and Ours (2011) report the findings of an
extensive assessment of the changes in building security standards (to
include security) in the Netherlands. Similar to England and Scotland, albeit
much earlier, building regulations were enhanced in 1999 to include the
requirement for all windows and doors (on new build properties) to be
made from material certified and approved by the European ENV
1627:1994 Class 2 standard, or the Dutch NEN 5096, Class 2 standard.
Using data from four waves of the annual National Victimisation Survey,
the results revealed that the regulatory change resulted in a reduction in
burglary (within the sample) from 1.1 to 0.8% annually—a reduction of
26%. The evaluation also revealed that this reduction had not resulted in a
displacement of crime to other acquisitive crime offences.
 On a more micro level, when interviewing incarcerated prolific
burglars, Armitage (2017) found that, when describing the features of
housing design that deter them from offending, they named physical
security as the second most important factor (after surveillance). The
concept of physical security was referred to by each of the 22 burglars an
average of five times, in total 103 occasions across the sample.
The focus of this chapter is the crime reduction intervention Crime
Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), which whilst
including the principle of physical security (doors, windows, locks, fences
etc.) also includes the broader principles of the design and layout of a
property and the street on which it is located (we refer to this here as design
and layout), and the wider network of street connections that make up the
development on which the property is located. This chapter does not seek to
consider the historical development of CPTED, nor its limitations (for a
summary see Armitage 2018a). The focus will be upon implementation
within policy and practice, evidence of effectiveness and consideration for
broadening of scope.
CPTED has been defined in broadly similar terms by Crowe (2000),
Ekblom (2011) and Armitage (2013). Each refers to the design and
manipulation of the built environment, to the desire to reduce crime and the
fear of crime and to enhance quality of life through the reduction of
opportunities for crime.

The design, manipulation and management of the built environment

to reduce crime and the fear of crime and to enhance sustainability
through the process and application of measures at the micro
(individual building/structure) and macro (neighbourhood) level.
(Armitage 2013, p. 23)

Based upon the Opportunity Theories of crime (Routine Activity

Theory—Cohen and Felson 1979; Rational Choice Theory—Cornish and
Clarke 1986 and Crime Pattern Theory—Brantingham and Brantingham
1981), CPTED seeks to increase the risks associated with committing a
crime—through enhanced surveillance, defensible space and physical
security; reduce the ease with which targets can be identified, selected,
navigated and egressed—through movement control; and reduce the
perception of reward (versus risk)—through management and maintenance.
These five principles, defined by Armitage (2013), are used
interchangeably, with differences in terminology. For example,
guardianship can be referred to as territoriality or defensible space;
movement control as permeability, connectivity etc., however, the premise
behind the specifics of implementation remains the same.

Design and Layout

Properties, and the developments upon which they are located, when
designed according to the principles of CPTED would maximise natural or
informal surveillance. Specific features of the design would include:
1.
Orienting properties to face the street
2.
Ensuring that active rooms are at the front of the property
3.
Ensuring lines of sight are kept free of obstructions such as high
fences/walls/shrubbery
Research with convicted burglars suggests that levels of informal
surveillance play a key role in their decision making. Most significantly, in
interviews with 22 incarcerated burglars, Armitage (2017) found that the
principle of surveillance (not necessarily the specific term) was the most
commonly named deterrent feature of the design and layout of images that
they were shown—referred to on 133 occasions and by all 22 burglars.
Similar studies with offenders (Reppetto 1974; Nee and Meenaghan 2006;
van Sintemaartensdijk et al. 2020) have confirmed that burglars are deterred
by the risk of surveillance, prefer to avoid properties where there is a risk of
active guardianship and are attracted to properties where there is an element
of cover. Armitage’s (2018b) qualitative analysis of burglar response to
target attractiveness confirmed that burglars are attracted to properties with
limited surveillance opportunities.
Surveillance is also confirmed as a risk factor when analysing crime
data, with victimised properties being designed with lower levels of natural
surveillance (Winchester and Jackson 1982; van Der Voordt and Van Wegen
1990; Armitage 2006; Reynald 2009; Armitage et al. 2010; Moir et al.
2017; Reynald et al. 2018).
 Another principle of CPTED, incorporated within the design and layout
of properties and their wider surroundings, is defensible space. The term
introduced by Oscar Newman (1973) largely describes the extent to which
the ownership of space is clearly defined, eliciting (or not) a territorial
response from those responsible for that space. In the simplest terms,
defensible space describes the extent to which space is allocated in terms of
ownership/responsibility, and the clearer this is, the more likely that those
responsible will act accordingly—or potential offenders will perceive that
they might. In terms of specific measures to maximise defensible space,
examples include the use of symbolic barriers—a narrowing of the road
entrance, a change in colour and/or texture, the use of fencing (albeit low
and transparent) to demarcate public/private space and the use of signage
indicating ownership.
Research examining burglar perceptions of risk confirms that the
concept of defensible space is a significant deterrent (Brown and Bentley
1993; Armitage 2017). Brown and Altman (1983); Armitage (2006) and
Montoya et al. (2014) also confirming that properties designed with higher
levels of defensible space experienced lower levels of recorded burglary. In
interviews with incarcerated burglars, whilst the concept of defensible space
was only referenced eleven times by burglars describing what they saw as
deterrent features, it still played a key role in influencing decisions
regarding risk.

Street Networks
CPTED asserts that the network of streets upon which a property is located
will also influence the likelihood of burglary risk—the principle of reducing
connectivity, also referred to as permeability or through movement, applies.
This is perhaps the most contentious of the CPTED principles, in that much
planning policy (see below) that supports the notion of designing out crime
also promotes increasing through movement—as a means of increasing
walkability and reducing the impact of motor vehicles on street frontages.
The notion of reducing the ‘risk’ of poorly designed pathways/walkways as
opposed to aiming for an enclosed development has progressed
significantly over the past decade, and what was once presented as a
polarised debate—cul-de-sac versus through roads—is now largely
understood as a much more nuanced issue.
 Research examining the links between connectivity and burglary risk
has almost exclusively confirmed that the presence of more street
connections is associated with enhanced burglary risk (van Der Voordt and
Van Wegen 1990; Wiles and Costello 2000; Armitage 2006; Armitage et al.
2010; Johnson and Bowers 2010; Johnson and Bowers 2014; Davies and
Johnson 2014; Birks and Davies 2017). Armitage et al. (2010) found that,
compared to a ‘true’ cul-de-sac (with no connecting footpaths), through
roads experienced 93% more crime, and ‘leaky’ culs-de-sac (with
connections) experienced 110% more crime. That leaky culs-de-sac are the
most vulnerable street network is confirmed by Hillier (2004) and Armitage
(2006). Johnson and Bowers’ (2010) research also supported the idea that
the cul-de-sac is the safest street layout and went further to distinguish
between sinuous and linear layouts, with sinuous presenting the lowest
burglary risk. The concept of through movement and the presence of/flows
of people within an area produce two possible crime prevention outcomes.
The presence of more people creates more potential offenders/targets, thus
increasing the crime risk; and the presence of more people creates more
potential capable guardians, thus reducing crime risk (Gerell 2021). In
reality, equating levels of permeability within a housing development, with
other hot spot locations (say busy transport hubs), is not helpful.
Connections may provide the means, and encouragement for pedestrian
movement, but the flow is unlikely to be enough to produce what Jacobs
(1961) referred to as eyes on the street, or the guardianship that may
enhance perceptions of risk for offenders. What it generally produces is
more an opportunity to access, move through and egress an area and a
legitimate reason to be in a given place that allows inconspicuous ‘rooting’.
As Armitage’s (2017) research with incarcerated burglars revealed, the
footpath provides just this opportunity:

I would first walk up and down the footpath and have a look at what
I could see in the houses. The houses are on a public footpath, no
one would give me a second glance if I walked up and down. Even if
a tramp walked up and down they wouldn’t look out of place. It’s a
footpath, no-one can question you. (Participant Six)

Birks and Davies (2017) confirm this curve-linear relationship, their

study revealing that moderate reductions in connectivity resulted in
increased levels of victimisation, but that at an inflection point of 30% road
closures, further reductions in permeability led to overall reductions in
crime.

Implementing CPTED in the UK

Consideration for Crime Prevention Within Planning Policy
Whilst the picture has changed considerably, constructively and less so,
regarding the extent to which security has been recognised within planning
policy, the current position is encouraging (see Armitage 2018b for a
detailed review). One of the key planning policy developments has been the
inclusion of security within building regulations, introduced in England in
2015 and Scotland in 2018. Approved Document Q—Security in Dwellings
(MHCLG 2015) introduces security standards for new builds that are in line
with the physical security requirements of SBD. The regulations states that
‘reasonable provision must be made to resist unauthorised access to any
dwelling; and any part of a building from which access can be gained to a
flat within a building’. The Scottish building regulations go further,
specifically referencing SBD as a proven means of meeting the
requirements of the regulation.
The National Planning Policy Framework (MHCLG 2019) includes
Sections 8 (Promoting Healthy and Safe Communities) and Section 12
(Achieving Well-Designed Places) that each reference the need to achieve
safe and secure design. Whilst this overarching policy guides design
principles, the National Model Design Code (MHCLG 2021) outlines the
‘how to’, with its Supplementary Guidance Notes providing detailed
guidance. Page 31 of the Code states, under ‘Public Space: iv) Secured by
Design’, that all schemes should aim to create a safe and secure
environment. It goes on to state that codes may incorporate guidance on the
securing of the home in accordance with Part Q of the Building
Regulations. The Code’s Supplementary Guidance Notes state on page 62
that: ‘Reducing crime has a significant impact on building strong
communities and ensuring the long-term sustainability of a development.
The increasing threat of terrorism also needs to be considered in the design
of public places’. It goes on to asset that: ‘Neighbourhoods need to be
designed to make people feel safe and to reduce the incidence of crime in
accordance with the recommendations of Secured by Design…Support
advice is available from the police through a network of Designing out
Crime Officers (DOCOs). Secured by Design advice incorporates proven
crime prevention techniques and measures into the layout and design of
places and spaces’ (p. 62). This is without doubt the boldest indication that
crime prevention—in the form of SBD compliance—is a considerable
element of government policies.

The Secured by Design (SBD) Award

SBD is a UK-based crime prevention initiative that sets standards, based
upon the principles of CPTED, for the design and build of specific
environments. Developments meeting these standards are ‘awarded’ SBD
status. SBD sets standards of physical security as well as consideration for
crime prevention within the design and layout of developments—thus
addressing surveillance, connectivity/through movement,
territoriality/defensible space, management and maintenance as well as
physical security. SBD represents a security standard—properties that are
labelled SBD must meet stringent criteria. However, it also represents a
process of close consultation, often involving negotiation and compromise,
between police DOCOs, planners, developers and architects, to ensure that
a development meets the required standard within a particular context that
may include, for example, other local planning constraints and local crime
and disorder problems and risks. The standard is prescriptive with regard to
physical security (part 2), yet the implementation of design and layout (part
1) is, to some extent, flexible and open to different interpretations and
ultimately compromises (Monchuk 2016; Monchuk et al. 2018). The
ownership and strategic management of SBD lies with Police Crime
Prevention Initiatives (Police CPI) now housed within MOPAC (Mayor’s
Office for Policing and Crime, London); yet the implementation, delivery
and daily management of the scheme are led by police DOCOs.
To date, the most comprehensive stocktake of the evidence for SBD
comes in the form of a systematic review by Armitage, Sidebottom and
Tompson (in production). This evidence synthesis scoured the literature on
SBD up until January 2021 using a typical search strategy that combined
searches of electronic bibliographic databases, forward and backward
citation analysis of eligible studies and extensive consultation when
searching for grey literature (that which is not published by commercial
academic publishers). To be included in the synthesis, studies had to:
1. Cite SBD as the central focus of the research.

2.
Relate to the built environment (buildings, parks, estates).
3.
Be published after the SBD scheme was initiated in 1989.
4.
Use a control area that permitted calculation of an appropriate effect
size.
5.
Take place in Britain.
6.
Be available in English.
Nine studies were deemed eligible for quantitative synthesis using these
criteria. In Table 42.1 the results relating to these nine studies from
Armitage et al. (in production) are reproduced in odds ratios. Seven of these
studies were grey literature, which suggests that evaluations of SBD
interventions are not routinely published in academic outlets, a critique of
CPTED more generally raised by Armitage and Ekblom (2019), who make
a strong call to action in improving the precision, sophistication and
credibility of the subject, and enhancing its connections with Crime Science
more generally. Six of the studies referred to new build developments, with
two studies examining the effect of houses retrofitted to adhere to SBD
standards, and the final examining both. A range of units of analyses were
used, from estates to unitary authority areas, which highlights the
heterogeneity across the studies. Just under half of the studies (n = 4) were
small-scale interventions, with fewer than 1000 houses in the treatment
group.
Table 42.1 Odds ratios of effects from primary studies eligible for meta-analysis reproduced from
Armitage et al. (in production)

Study Grey literature? Effect size 95% CI Significant?

Armitage (2004) Yes −0.69 0.29 0.87 Yes
Armitage (n.d.)—Devon and Cornwall Yes −0.72 0.03 7.85 No
Armitage (n.d.)—Hertfordshire Yes −0.03 0.25 3.76 No
Armitage and Monchuk (2011) No −1.38 0.02 4.10 No
Study Grey literature? Effect size 95% CI Significant?
Armitage (2004) Yes −0.69 0.29 0.87 Yes
Bone et al. (1994) Yes −1.08 0.01 16.47 No
Brown (1999) Yes −0.91 0.17 0.97 Yes
Jones et al. (2016) Yes 0.49 0.91 2.93 No
Teedon et al. (2010) No −0.94 0.08 1.81 No
Ward (2017) Yes −2.96 0.04 0.24 Yes

The effect sizes taken from these nine studies all use police-recorded
burglary data, and the outcomes were measured post-intervention for a
treatment and a control group. Data representing the most reliable control
group (when more than one was reported) are used in these calculations. In
Table 42.1, values below 1 indicate a burglary reduction effect in the
treatment group, values above 1 indicate a burglary increase effect, and
values that straddle 1 indicate no conclusive statistical relationship. We see
from Table 42.1 that only three of the eligible studies (Armitage 2004;
Brown 1999; Ward 2017) show a statistically significant burglary reduction
effect at the individual study level.
As mentioned above, many of these studies have small samples of
houses in both the treatment and control groups. From a statistical
perspective these studies can be considered to be underpowered. Meta-
analysis is an aggregative technique which essentially pools all of these
effect sizes, and by increasing the sample size, it increases the statistical
power to detect an effect, if one indeed exists. After the data from each
study was converted into odds ratios and associated confidence intervals,
meta-analysis was completed in accordance with good practice standards
(e.g., taking the natural logarithm of the odds ratios, using inverse
weighting, assessing for heterogeneity, using random effect models).
The meta-analytic results of pooling the effects from the above nine
studies produced an effect size of 0.47 (95% confidence interval: 0.23–
0.95). This means that taken together, the available evidence on SBD shows
a statistically significant overall burglary reduction effect, equating to 53%
fewer burglaries than the non-SBD control group.
These results are positive and bring together a small number of
methodologically sound evaluations of this crime reduction intervention. In
the interests of transparency, and because of the importance of scrutinising
all outcomes, it is worth taking some time to consider the different impacts
of what should be a relatively consistent standard. The presentation of
negative evaluation results, particularly in an area where the evaluator is
viewed as what Matassa and Newburn (2003) refer to as a Product
Champion, is often viewed with a cynical, hostile and largely defensive
response. Unfounded conclusions are made—usually as a defensive
response: ‘It must be the DOCO’s fault’, ‘it must be the data’, ‘it must be
the evaluator’, when a more constructive response—‘let’s investigate why’
should result. Akin to the engineering model discussed in Tilley (2016),
failure should be seen as something to be unpicked and built upon, not
excused, ignored or hidden. However, we are not inclined to report the bad
news. Ekblom (2011) highlights how, on establishing a new column in the
Crime Reduction Digest on ‘learning from mistakes’, in a one-year period
they only received one submission, the column being disbanded before it
even began. This was not a reflection of the resounding success of all
policing initiatives; it was a reaction to the belief that pervades the culture
that bad news is not helpful.

Replication
Learning from what works is extremely important and being able to
replicate an intervention within a different context—be that geographical or
temporal can save time and resources and enhance the likelihood of
success. It is important to know what works or does not work, within
different contexts, to avoid re-inventing the wheel and wasting precious
time and funding. Replication of successful programmes is an effective way
of transferring practice knowledge. Crime prevention practice, if not always
published, is littered with examples of replication failure—the attempt to
replicate a project or intervention that has not produced those prior
successful outcomes. Tilley’s (1993) presentation of the findings from the
Safer Cities Programme (within the UK) discusses examples of replication
failure, in particular, the ineffective attempts to replicate the Kirkholt
Burglary Prevention Project. Ekblom (2011) also highlights examples from
the Crime Reduction Programme (that followed Safer Cities) where
‘marked successes [were] occurring’ (p. 11), yet the mainstreaming of these
crime reduction programmes that followed (often based upon replication)
revealed that: ‘Replication of individual success stories was challenging’
(p. 11).
 ‘Strict replication’ (Tilley 1993), by its very nature, is not possible with
crime reduction programmes. Even if the intervention is rigorously
replicated, with high levels of programme integrity, the time, space and
individuals will not be the same. Lipsey’s (1999) meta-analysis of probation
interventions compared 196 ‘practical’ (routine/real-world) programmes
with 205 ‘demonstration’ (pilot/experimental) programmes and found that
the former was only half as effective. There are countless examples of
individual projects that have produced successful reductions in crime (or
whatever outcome is desired), yet this success does not translate when the
scheme is rolled out or mainstreamed, largely because of the level of
programme integrity that was retained—in knowledge, application,
commitment (to name but a few factors).
In the case of the replication of SBD, the difficulties of maintaining
programme integrity would appear less challenging—the scheme is based
upon compliance with fairly rigid standards/criteria. However, whilst Part 2
(physical security) comes with little flexibility, Part 1 (design and layout) is
open to different interpretations (and rightly so), largely based upon context
and local constraints. This is no limitation—it is what Ekblom (2011, p. 51)
refers to as ‘intelligent replication’. Replication of the scheme and its
theory, mechanism and standards may be less rigid, but the
individual/personnel element, in this case, the implementation by 100s of
DOCOs, will vary dramatically and replication will be far from Tilley’s
‘strict’. The variations in interpretation, the compliance with standards, the
consideration for and working within local context, the element of
compromise, the quality assurance and signing off and the auditing post
completion leave replication less than complete, and whilst this is
‘intelligent replication’ (in theory), in practice it ‘could’ be a failure to
actually deliver SBD in its purest/ideal form—something that would
influence evaluation outcomes.

Explaining Replication Failure

Ekblom and Pease (1995) outline the different possible explanations for
replication failure. Measurement failure—failure of the evaluation to detect
a real effect; theory failure—the idea or mechanism upon which the
intervention is based was unsound; and implementation failure—the idea
was sound but was not properly put into practice. Establishing which of
these has influenced failure is vital. If an intervention is perceived as
ineffective, yet the problem is not the intervention but its implementation or
the measurement of its effectiveness, the consequences for future crime
reduction are considerable (should it be withdrawn). It is not sufficient to
say an intervention worked or did not. To avoid the risk of inaccurately
labelling an intervention/product/scheme a ‘failure’ or (equally damaging)
to avoid replicating a scheme within an inappropriate context, we must
ascertain what worked, how it worked and why it worked. This is very
much the case within the engineering model of evaluation. As Tilley (2016)
outlines, failure, as well as success, is unpicked and abstracted from,
leading to modifications of product/intervention. Success or failure is not
viewed as the end result. Pawson and Tilley’s (1997) Realistic Evaluation
and later Johnson et al.’s (2015) EMMIE (Effect, Mediators/Mechanisms,
Moderators, Implementation and Economics) have helped to convey this
message and convince both academics and, more importantly, practitioners
and policy-makers that going beyond what works to explore what works, in
what context and why, is the key to learning from and successfully
replicating crime prevention interventions: ‘Without such information,
attempts at replication vary considerably in terms of what is actually done’
(Johnson et al. 2015, p. 468).
Failure to replicate the previous success of a crime reduction
intervention can occur for a variety of reasons. Implementation failure is
one of the more likely explanations, and as Pease (2010) highlights, this
needs to be considered and explored to avoid the inaccurate conclusion that
a failure relates to the strength of an intervention when in actual fact the
failure lies with its implementation.

How Can This Apply to SBD?

There are several possible explanations as to why SBD may fail to produce
a crime reduction benefit (or a significant reduction), and whilst the
scenarios differ, each represents what is fundamentally an inaccurate
measure of SBD. An evaluation may have selected SBD properties that have
been awarded SBD status and ‘signed off’ by the local DOCO, yet those
properties are not adequately designed or built, specifically in terms of the
more nuanced part 1 of SBD. Thus, being labelled SBD, they might fail an
external audit. Armitage et al. (2010), Armitage (2013), Monchuk (2016),
Monchuk et al. (2018) have highlighted the issues of competency,
consistency, knowledge and application amongst DOCOs. This has been
exacerbated by cuts in police budgets, redundancies and re-deployment of
police staff into this very specialised role. This scenario is therefore a real
possibility. A second explanation, still an inaccurate measure of SBD, might
involve a developer having no requirement, incentive or desire to build to
SBD, yet being aware of the general principles of good quality design,
building to what constitutes SBD but not applying for SBD status. In an
evaluation that included these properties, you would have control
developments, defined as Non-SBD, that, in all but the name, met the SBD
standards. Again, this would negatively affect evaluation results—the
control performing as well as the SBD sites. There is no indication that less
than positive results indicate a failure of the theory or concept of SBD as a
CPTED intervention.

A Concluding Word on Re-orienting the Focus

CPTED, as a burglary prevention measure, is receiving increasing
recognition as an effective tool and as a necessity in achieving good design,
and as Armitage and Ekblom (2019) suggest: ‘who wouldn’t want to grab
the baton and run’ (p. 246). There is a temptation to leave CPTED alone, it
is gaining recognition in planning policy and practice, and rigorous reviews
show positive effects. Yet, it feels apt to use this conclusion to at least
propose a re-focus (not a re-write) to re-consider some of the fundamental
theories of crime prevention and to build on recent research.
Research conducted with those convicted of a high number of burglary
offences and currently incarcerated within four prisons in the north of
England confirmed, and to some extent refuted, the existing principles and
implementation of CPTED (as discussed earlier in the chapter). However, it
also revealed another element of the design of housing that impacted
offender decision making, and this relates specifically to the emotions
evoked by images of houses that were interpreted as being occupied by the
elderly, those with a disability, those on low income/benefits, those with
children, or images that participants associated with where they/their
families grew up or currently resided. Whilst there is always a risk that
offender-based research involves some element of false morality—the
participant responding in what they consider to be a morally appropriate
way, the consistency of responses across all 22 prolific burglars would
suggest that the responses are worth further consideration. Before exploring
the theoretical and practical implications of these findings, below are some
examples of responses given by participants when asked to describe their
reaction to a series of images of residential housing.
When shown two separate images of bungalows, almost all (21 and 20
of the 22) participants stated that they would not burgle those properties.
The explanations for these decisions almost exclusively involved the
morality of burgling a home resided in by the elderly, and how this would
make them feel or how others would see them. The extracts below show
examples of how participants referred to their morals when making their
decisions regarding target selection:

It looks a bit like an old people’s complex to me, so I wouldn’t burgle

there. I’ve done houses before where I’ve got in and it’s smelled
liked old people, so I’ve left straight away—it’s a moral decision.
Your low life might do old people?!. (Offender 20)

This is blatantly old people’s housing and I would not burgle there.
A lot of people would and if I look back, a lot of people I mixed with
would and they would even target old people. I would never as my
mum brought me up to have pride and morals. (Offender 4)

Participants regularly referenced a family member, usually their mother

or grandma in explaining their response to the image, suggesting that the
property evoked an emotional reaction that would influence their decision
making:

They’re tidy, but they’re old people bungalows—I don’t target old
people, it’s not right. They’ve got stuff, but I wouldn’t want it to
happen to my Nana and she lives in a bungalow. (Offender 17)

The responses regularly described how this target selection would be

viewed by others, and what impact this would have on them, either in
prison or within their community if they went ahead.

No, it’s old people’s homes. In prison you know if people have
targeted old people and these people should be on a wing with the
nonces. (Offender 7)
 It’s old people’s homes so no. When you go to prison people would
know you had targeted an old person’s house and you would be
scum. I could get in easily but this is a moral judgement. (Offender
6)

In a similar pattern to the descriptions of the elderly, participants also

spoke of how others might burgle properties that they felt were designed for
those with disabilities, but they would not.

I wouldn’t entertain this these are disability houses and disability

cars. There are burglars who target vulnerable people but I’m not
like that. (Offender 12)

Similar, consistent responses were given to images of properties that

were perceived to be social housing, with explanations for those responses
following two themes—the residents have very little, and it would be
morally wrong to take the little that they have; or the image reminds them
of their own community/where they grew up and to target your own would
feel wrong.

I feel bad about burgling anyway, it’s a dirty crime, so I wouldn’t

want to steal from people on benefits. (Offender 7)

I’d probably stay away from here, it’s the kind of area that I grew up
in. You don’t steal from people who’ve got fuck all in the first place.
(Offender 10)

One particularly interesting element of these responses is the regularity

with which participants deflect to others; there are those that would and
those that would not, and that they form part of the latter group. We know
that social housing and/or properties in low socio-economic status areas
experience higher levels of burglary, so somebody does not have the same
morals. And yes, this could lead us to deduce that these responses are worth
little serious consideration. However, regard for evidence is a fundamental
element of evidence-based policy. SBD’s own guidance stating that: ‘The
police service continually re-evaluates the effectiveness of Secured by
Design and responds to emerging crime trends and independent research’
(PCPI 2019, p. 2). And thus, an element of re-consideration could be
warranted. The narratives could be false; however, there could also be some
truth within them, and as such, potential burglars may feel an attachment to
certain properties, based upon visual cues that create an emotional response
that affects their decision making. Be that based on morality, reminders of
family/their own community or a rational decision that there is no need to
target the vulnerable when other targets are available.
As discussed earlier in the chapter, CPTED is very much founded on the
Opportunity Theories that emphasise the role of place (albeit alongside
other elements) in target selection. In this context, consideration for a
version of CPTED that includes designing to prompt a moral attachment
might draw upon Social Action Theory (Wikström 2004, 2010; Wikström et
al. 2012) that (in its simplest terms) explains crime as an interaction
between individual (with propensity to commit crime), setting (with
criminogenic features) and self-control (the ability to align behaviour with
moral values when faced with pressures/inducements to choose a course of
action). In the case of our images of properties, we have a set of 22 prolific
offenders whose burglary history is validated by their incarceration for
specific offences (individual), and we have a series of properties that,
according to CPTED theory, crime statistics and prior research, have many
design features that would leave them vulnerable to burglary (setting).
Wikström et al. (2018) explain how ‘situation’ is not simply the setting,
in the place-based sense, but a particular ‘perception of action alternatives’:
Situational Action Theory proposing that ‘only the part of the environment
(‘the setting’ that a person experiences with his or her senses can influence
his or her perception of action alternatives and choices’ (Wikström et al.
2018, p. 16). In this sense, it is not just the individual, or the environment
that is vulnerable to crime, but the combination and (crucially) that
individual’s interpretation of that setting. Willcocks et al. (2019) turn their
focus to a possible third-generation CPTED that considers: ‘how positive,
pro-social ‘opportunities’ can be considered with at least equal weighting
to the mitigation of crime ‘risks’ in built environments’ (p. 217), second
generation having evolved to consider the importance of community
participation in creating safer communities (Saville and Cleveland 2008;
Atlas 2008). Willcocks et al.’s interpretation and adaptation to take in the
‘pro-social’ very much focusing on the encouragement of vibrancy, the
promotion of street activity and, in turn, the enhancement of local
confidence. The promotion of the pro-social in this sense being focused
upon a change in behaviour and perceptions amongst legitimate users of
space, as opposed to the proposed focus upon promoting or evoking pro-
social responses to places amongst those with illegitimate intentions. Why
the focus has remained so intently upon designing out crime as opposed to
designing in the pro-social remains unclear, but to exclude this potential
development from future CPTED iterations would seem regressive. A
Crime Prevention Through Pro-social Design (CPTPSD) model would
build upon the many existing crime prevention approaches, (e.g., Roach et
al.’s 2020 ‘nudging down crime’) alongside the theoretical recognition that
individual interpretations/affordances play a key role in the interplay
between environment and offender. We need to re-focus this intervention to
encompass consideration for the pro-social ‘pulls’ as well as the focus on
design that deters, each play a key role in influencing offender decision
making.

Recommended Readings
Tseloni et al. (2017b) provide an excellent summary of levels, patterns and
preventative approaches to domestic/residential burglary and is a great
place in reviewing the current literature around this subject, and it is worth
reading the series of papers on the effectiveness of security and particularly
the association with the burglary drop, including Farrell et al. (2011),
Tseloni et al. (2014, 2017a, 2017b). For a more detailed review of CPTED,
Armitage and Ekblom (2019) present a series of contemporary
considerations of this crime prevention approach and assess strengths,
limitations and areas for improvement.
The most accessible readings on the concept of designing out crime
within residential housing include Poyner (1983), Poyner and Webb (1991)
and Newman (1973). For a summary of these, including a detailed review
of the history and implementation of CPTED within housing, see Armitage
(2013).

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M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_43

43. Examining the Use of Video

Technologies in Retailing
Adrian Beck1
(1) University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

Adrian Beck
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
The chapter reviews the way in which video technologies are utilised by
retail organisations—offering a framework that captures the various use
cases that are employed—in order to better understand how they are
deriving benefit from this investment. To date, it has been a technology
closely associated with, and focused upon, the delivery of safety and
security in retail spaces. However, new use cases are emerging that may not
only enhance its capacity to deliver these objectives but also enable it to
contribute more broadly across retail organisations.

Context
It is hard to overestimate the extent to which video technologies are now
embedded in societies around the world, although estimates on the scale of
the market are often difficult to ascertain, particularly for the retail sector.
One technology provider has suggested that the global market for video
hardware and software used in retailing in 2020 was about $1.7 billion,
rising to perhaps as much as $2.2 billion by 2023.
This is perhaps not surprising—the use of video technologies in
retailing is not only longstanding but increasingly ubiquitous—it is hard to
find a segment of retail space that is not under the gaze of some form of
video system. Indeed, retailing has been at the forefront of the use of what
are often called closed circuit television (CCTV) systems since the 1970s
and 1980s (Farrington and Painter 2003; McCahill 2002; Norris et al. 1998;
Welsh and Farrington 2009). Primarily deployed as a crime prevention and
detection tool, and initially based upon analogue technologies, it is now
going through a period of considerable and remarkable change (Beck 2008,
2020; Gill and Spriggs 2005; Graham et al. 1995). This is being driven by a
rapidly changing technological and social context, including major
developments in digitisation and analytical capabilities, significant
reductions in capital costs, advancements in miniaturisation and networking
capabilities, and growing societal acceptance of the routine surveillance of
public spaces (Dorrier 2016; Kirkup 1999; Kirkup and Carrigan 2000; Liu
and Chen 2011; Mackay 2006; Norris et al. 2004). This has led to the
potential role and capability of video technologies in retailing beginning to
expand beyond its traditional role as merely a facilitator of safety and
security—an insurance safety net should anything untoward happen—to
one which impacts upon a broader range of retail activities (Ditton et al.
1999; Dodd et al. 1998; Gladwell 1997; Graham et al. 1995; Kirkup 1999;
Kirkup and Carrigan 2000; McLuhan 1999; Mackay 2006; Mandeville
1994; Mathieson 2006; Phillips and Bradshaw 1991; Snowdon 1995;
Zurawski 2009).
However, capability does not always translate into actual use—just
because a technology can do something does not always mean that it will be
used as originally intended or deliver on initial expectations. For instance,
in the early days of the use of CCTV systems in public spaces in the UK,
grandiose claims were frequently made about its capacity to significantly
reduce crime, which were seldom found to have much veracity (Gill and
Spriggs 2005; Keval and Sasse 2008; Loveday and Gill 2003; McCahill
2002; Stedmon, Wilson 2005).
Similarly, within retail spaces, early studies found little evidence that
these systems had much of a lasting impact on levels of retail loss, and
invariably it was almost impossible to achieve a favourable return on
investment (ROI) on purely retail loss reductions alone (Armitage 2002;
Beck and Willis 1992; Kajalo and Lindblom 2010a, 2010b; Kajalo and
Lindblom 2011a, 2011b).
Moreover, the recent rapid growth in the development of video systems
that can potentially provide an ‘analytic’ capability—in effect building
some form of automation into the viewing, reviewing and responding
process—has further heightened interest in utilising these systems more
broadly across retailing. Talk of video-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) and
Machine Learning (ML) technologies being the next ‘big’ transformative
change is a recurrent theme, but whether their introduction and use
currently makes sense or are indeed the most appropriate interventions to
address the pressing and varied concerns of retailing is certainly open to
debate and critical review (Kilcourse and Rosenblum 2020).
The purpose of this chapter, therefore, is to review the way in which
video technologies are utilised by retail organisations—to offer a
framework that captures the various use cases that are employed—in order
to better understand how they are deriving benefit from this investment. To
date, it has been a technology closely associated with, and focused upon,
the delivery of safety and security in retail spaces. However, new use cases
are emerging that may not only enhance its capacity to deliver these
objectives but also enable it to contribute more broadly across retail
organisations.

Research Methodology
This chapter is based upon data collected in 2019/2020 from in-depth
interviews with representatives from 22 retailers based in the US and
Europe. They represented some of the largest retail businesses in the world
with collective sales in 2019 of nearly €1trillion, equivalent to
approximately 12% of the total US and European retail market. In addition,
interviews were carried out with representatives from five video technology
providers. Those retailers that took part in the research were self-selecting
—an online survey was distributed through existing contacts, representative
trade associations and social media platforms, asking respondents to
describe their use of video technologies. Those completing the survey were
then asked whether they would be prepared to take part in more detailed
interviews (quotes from these interviews are presented in this chapter).
Given this method, the assessment presented below does not claim to be
based upon a representative sample of all retailing—it is only based upon
what some companies are doing, and it is recognised that, given the
dynamic nature of this sector, there is likely to be a wide range of other
video technologies and use cases in existence that are not included.
 While there is no agreed definition, throughout this chapter the terms
‘video technologies’, ‘CCTV’ and ‘video systems’ will be used
interchangeably to refer to any system designed to observe, collect, collate
and analyse both analogue and digital images derived from various types of
video cameras (Taylor 2010; Taylor and Gill 2014). For the sake of brevity,
the term ‘loss prevention’ will be used to describe the retail function tasked
with the management of retail losses (Beck 2009).

Understanding the Retail Decision to Invest in

Video Technologies
Because retailers have been investing in video technologies since the 1970s,
it could be assumed that a clear framework of why and how it is being
utilised would be apparent. However, evidence of ubiquity does not always
translate into uniformity of purpose nor understanding of rationale.
Certainly respondents to this research had very mixed views on what the
overall purpose of their video systems was although most erred towards a
more established ‘security’ orientation: ‘The main purpose is about the
prevention and detection of crime—provide evidence to see what is
happening to try and stop it’; ‘It [video] protects assets and staff; it’s to
deter internal and external theft and identify offenders’; ‘Historically it’s
been used primarily to catch/identify bad guys…deterring and detecting
thieves and investigating crime’.
For others, however, the purpose had become much more blurred and
unfocused: ‘What’s the primary objective of CCTV in our business, to be
honest, I’m not really sure what it’s for—from a theft perspective it’s pretty
limited’; ‘We need to figure out our strategy to understand what we want
video to do; if we are not careful, we will not have a joined up approach’.
There was certainly a growing realisation from some respondents that for
their video investment to make sense, then its purpose had to be
increasingly more than just delivering a form of securitised comfort
blanket: ‘Business intelligence is where the opportunity is right now;
making the argument for spending a lot of money on cameras and
surveillance equipment just for the benefit of security is beginning to be a
very difficult argument to make’. This lack of an overarching common view
of the purpose of video technologies in retailing is well reflected in the
breadth of use cases to which is it now being used, and while security and
crime prevention undoubtedly remain a dominant driver of purpose, other
functionality is increasingly being drawn into the broader rationale for its
use.
Since its early introduction into retailing, video systems have presented
a challenge in terms of showing a clearly identifiable return on investment
(ROI), particularly relating to the tangible components of retail loss. For
instance, installing CCTV has rarely translated into a measurable and
sustainable reduction in shrinkage (Beck 2016; Beck and Willis 1999). But,
in many cases, its role has often been seen as delivering much more
intangible benefits that are less easy to capture in a business’ Profit and
Loss (P & L) account, such as staff and customer safety and protecting
organisational reputation. As one respondent described: ‘Our ROI is much
more subjective and intangible but we know that store management are
more likely to leave if violent incidents are not resolved’.

Developing a Video Utilisation Framework for

Retail
The research identified a rich tapestry of use cases and applications for
video technologies in retailing, and these can be categorised into eight
discrete areas (Fig. 43.1).
Fig. 43.1 Retail utilisation of video technologies

Delivering Deterrence
Since its introduction, a key tenet of video technologies has been their
supposed ability to create a deterrent effect—to put off would-be offenders
because they are concerned about an elevated risk of being caught (Ekblom
and Hirschfield 2014; Short and Ditton 1998). This typically works in two
ways: first, creating an increased sense of risk that a security response will
be triggered, leading to a higher chance of being caught in the act; and
second, an elevated sense of risk that offenders will be identified and
subsequently caught and prosecuted (Felson 1986; Cornish and Clarke
1986; Cusson 1993). In both scenarios the would-be miscreant needs to not
only be aware of the presence of the video system but also believe it
delivers a credible risk—either somebody is watching in real time and can
respond, and/or the recorded images will be capable of being reviewed and
used for identification and possible prosecution (Beck 2016).
However, proving this is not easy—the complexity of measuring
deterrence is well known—how can you prove that something did not
happen that might have happened had the video system not been present?
Certainly, studies have been undertaken to try and measure changes in key
indicators such as the number and types of crimes and levels of loss before
and after the introduction of video systems, but there is often a plethora of
confounding factors that undermine the reliability of the results (Ditton
1998; Eck and Guerette 2012; Gill and Spriggs 2005; Pawson and Tilley
1997; Piliavin et al. 1986; Taylor 2010). Of particular concern is the extent
to which the growing ubiquity of video systems undermines their deterrent
potential—are the general public and offenders alike simply becoming
oblivious to their presence? (Tilley 1993). In some cases, retailers have
tried to counter this effect by ‘advertising’ their presence, noticeably
through the use of Public View Monitors (PVMs), which show consumers,
via a large display, an image of themselves (and others) entering or visiting
particular parts of a store. While some limited research (Hayes and Downs
2011) has suggested they do have some impact on rates of loss, one
respondent to this research was summarily dismissive of their value: ‘We
have stopped fitting PVMs—because they are as effective as a bell box
[external burglar alarm box]; everybody has them and nobody needs to be
reminded that you have a camera system because everybody’s got one’.

Creating ‘Personalised’ Deterrence

While the generalised deterrent capacity of video systems was regarded by
some respondents as waning, there was evidence that the focus of
generating video-based deterrence was shifting away from the general
towards the specific—making it much more oriented towards the individual
rather than consumers in general. This trend of ‘personalising’ deterrence
was evident in several technologies being utilised, not least Body Worn
Cameras (BWCs), Face Boxing, and Self-Scan Personal Display Monitors
(SCO PDMs).
Body Worn Cameras
While the use of BWCs is now relatively common by law enforcement in
many countries, their use in retail environments is still a recent
development (Lum et al. 2019). But of the 22 companies taking part in this
research, nearly two-thirds (60%) were either using or trialling some form
of BWC. The technology was typically used for the following reasons:
Generate Deterrence: Show offenders—usually via a body-mounted
screen—that their behaviour (including what they say) is being recorded,
encouraging them to desist from what they are doing.
Support Prosecution/Punishment: Provide video evidence that can be
used as part of a prosecution/banning order/disciplinary action.
Moderate Staff Responses: Act as a control on staff behaviour when
dealing with offenders—deter wearers from stepping outside agreed
boundaries of acceptable behaviour, such as using inappropriate
language, using excessive force or pursuing offenders beyond agreed
zones of engagement.
Offer Reassurance: Provide reassurance to wearers and other staff that
there is an increased likelihood that miscreants will be identified and
prosecuted/banned.
Inform Staff Training: Provide images that can be used for training
purposes to improve the way in which retail employees recognise, avoid
and respond to challenging incidents.
Of the 13 companies using or had tried using BWCs, the majority
employed them only on in-store security guards (70%) while just two
retailers had taken the decision to offer them to retail staff, although a third
company was contemplating doing this. Whilst it was not possible to get
extensive and definitive data on the extent to which the use of BWCs had
impacted upon levels of violent incidents in retail stores, 7 of the 13
companies had carried out some form of evaluation/review, often based
upon small trials in a few stores. For all those that had carried out a trial,
they found that the use of BWCs was associated with a reduction in the
number of incidents of violence and verbal abuse: the lowest reduction was
recorded at 30% while the highest was an 80% reduction.

Face Boxing
While certainly less prevalent than BWCs, the use of ‘Face Boxing’ on
Public View Monitors (PVMs) was another example of how retailers were
trying to ‘personalise’ the deterrent component of their video systems. This
is a relatively simple technology that digitally ‘draws a box’ around the
head/face of all those entering a retail store. The general idea is that it gives
the impression that the company may be using some form of facial
recognition (even though this technology was not actually in use) or it
simply catches the attention of the consumer: ‘We use Face Boxing on
PVMs—nothing being stored; it is a relatively crude technology to give the
impression we have facial recognition in operation’.
As with many other video systems, it is very difficult to know the extent
to which this type of technology has an impact on levels of loss or incidents
of violence and verbal abuse, although one respondent claimed that it had
had an effect: ‘in the stores where it has been used, we have seen a drop in
losses and a drop in incidents of violence’.

Self-Checkout Personal Display Monitors

A third technology used to generate a more personalised deterrent was the
use of video screens attached to Fixed Self-Checkout (SCO) terminals.
Research has shown that the risk of errant behaviour at SCO terminals is a
growing concern, particularly from users either not scanning items or
mispresenting items to secure a lower price (Beck 2018a). The use of SCO
PDMs is an example of retailers further personalising the risk amplification
process, in effect saying to the user: ‘look, we are recording what YOU are
doing at this SCO machine’. Respondents to this research echoed this view:
‘SCO is a big risk for us, we need to show the shopper that they will get
caught and we think PDMs help to do this’.
It is still early days in terms of understanding the effectiveness of any of
the various ways in which retailers are trying to moderate SCO-related
losses, but one UK Grocer shared some of its findings relating to the use of
SCO PDMs. In a trial measuring the change in store shrinkage in ten stores
before and after the introduction of SCO PDMs, it found that losses were
significantly lower in nine of these stores. While encouraging, more
research is required to understand the extent to which these systems impact
upon store losses and whether their ‘potency’ is eroded over time as has
been found with other forms of video-based deterrent (Beck and Willis
1999).
Undertaking Reviews
While deterrence was a widely articulated passive use case for video
systems in retailing, using them more actively to undertake reviews of
recorded images was almost as prevalent. Globally, retailers are probably
one of the largest non-governmental collectors of video images (Beck
2020). As one technology provider described: ‘A several hundred store
chain with 10 lanes of checkout will probably have 1000 years of video
stored at any point in time’. This enormous library of images represents
both a challenge and an opportunity to retailers—a challenge in terms of
how to retain and access this information, and an opportunity to review
activities that may provide value. It is important to recognise that this form
of video review is not generally regarded as video analytics—the selection
of images to review is rarely automated or driven by algorithms but done
simply by other data triggers or manual interventions. Most respondents
identified three main areas where post hoc review of video images was
taking place on a regular basis: collecting evidence on persistent offenders,
scrutinising exception reports from Point of Sale (PoS) systems and
reviewing incidents relating to health and safety.

Collating Evidence to Support Prosecutions and Alerting Store

Teams
For numerous retailers their post incident reviewing process was focused
upon trying to collate sufficient evidence on persistent offenders to facilitate
either their prosecution and/or the imposition of company-specific
sanctions: ‘We build dossiers on repeat offenders and then give them to the
police’. Others echoed this use: ‘We create a folder with all the available
evidence including CCTV and then give this to the police—without video
they [the police] won’t do anything’. For those retailers that had developed
a Centralised Command Centre (CCC) to monitor their distributed video
systems, this was often one of its core activities. In addition to building
evidence files on persistent offenders, some respondents used the review of
shop theft incidents to alert store staff of potential criminal gangs that may
be heading in their direction: ‘We send reports out to stores warning them
of potential gangs in the area—what they look like and what they might
target’.

Scrutinising Exception Reports on Sales Transactions

A second area of video review related to assisting in the assessment of retail
transactions deemed to be ‘unusual’ or exceptional. This is an example of
where video played a confirmatory role when connected with other systems,
such as data mining software utilised to analyse PoS and Refund data.
Numerous systems exist that ‘mine’ PoS data, looking for unusual
incidents, such as staff members who perform above average numbers of
refunds or voids, or carry them out at unusual times such as when the store
is closed to customers. It is then the task of investigators to determine the
veracity (or not) of these ‘exceptional’ transactions and, where appropriate,
build a case to act against staff deemed to be behaving inappropriately.
Certainly, without the capability to review video images, this would be a
time-consuming and challenging process.

Assessing Health and Safety Incidents

Where the post hoc review of video images was of particular value was in
relation to ‘accidents’ occurring in retail premises, such as customers and
employees tripping and falling. Depending upon the part of the world in
which a business operates, this is probably one of the most expensive
liabilities retailing faces. In the UK, for example, over 11,000 retailer
employees a year are involved in slips and trips resulting in a serious
incident, and it has been estimated that health- and safety-related incidents
cost in the region of £5.2 billion a year (Health and Safety Executive 2020;
Malley 2018; Morris 2015). Respondents highlighted the value video data
can play in checking the veracity of any given claim: ‘In a [distribution]
depot there have been 4 or 5 claims which have been proven to be false—
historically we would have just paid out to protect the brand but now there
has been a cultural change as a consequence of putting in the cameras’. This
was echoed by other respondents who pointed towards a pre-video
corporate culture of presumption of liability and payment of claims due to a
lack of easily accessible counter evidence. Other respondents highlighted a
related financial benefit of having a video system capable of effectively
monitoring and limiting a business’ exposure to false claims, namely a
reduction in the cost of insurance premiums: ‘At the moment we pay out on
nearly 90% of claims against us due to no CCTV … we believe we can
reduce our insurance premium by 50% by showing them the processes we
[now] have in place’. Another respondent estimated that insurance
premiums were between 2 and 5% lower because they had the video
capability to review claims made against the business.

Carrying Out Monitoring

The third way in which some respondents were utilising their video systems
was to use them to enable real-time viewing. When CCTV was first
introduced, this was considered to be the primary way in which it would be
used—operators ‘watching’ over surveilled areas ready to react (Gill and
Spriggs 2005; Sivarajasingam and Shepherd 1999). This is best
characterised by the ‘wall of monitors’ often seen in some security control
rooms (Stedmon et al. 2011; Wilson 2005). However, the reality is that
using humans to try and identify incidents from what can sometimes be tens
of thousands of cameras often covering large, complex, crowded and
rapidly changing environments is at best challenging (Keval and Sasse
2008; Loveday and Gill 2003). Many thefts in retail stores can be quick,
discrete and covert events that are hard to identify at the best of times.
When they happen in large, crowded stores, the odds of a video operator
witnessing the event is highly unlikely. This has led many retailers to curtail
the extent to which they have staff actively monitoring real-time video
feeds (Taylor and Gill 2014). However, several respondents identified some
of the ways in which real-time monitoring took place within their
organisations.

Centralised Monitoring
One company made use of a HQ-based security function to undertake real-
time monitoring of selected stores at night, while another utilised video to
monitor the activities of replenishment staff: ‘We know the staff working at
night are aware that Big Brother is watching—the phone is ringing seconds
later saying “hey why did you in the red coat walk out the door just now,
you didn’t call me?”’ In both these cases, the much less dynamic and
complex nature of the night-time store environment probably makes the
identification of ‘exceptional’ activities easier to identify.
Another company provided real-time monitoring when a store reported
a particular type of incident—the CCC would communicate with the local
loss prevention team to manage the issue. Interestingly, one company
described how its CCC used real-time monitoring to provide reassurance to
staff concerned about their safety: ‘[Store] Staff can phone us if they feel
vulnerable entering and leaving a store so that we can keep an eye on them’.
Finally, another respondent described how they used real-time monitoring
to undertake ‘virtual’ store audits to check on process compliance.

In-store Monitoring
In the not-too-distant past real-time in-store monitoring was probably one
of the biggest uses of video systems—a security guard either in a room
watching multiple screens, or at a CCTV podium situated near the entrance
of the store. While the latter remains a relatively common sight in larger
retail stores, the reality for some respondents was that this was as much
about creating a deterrent effect as it was about actually enabling guards to
identify offending in real time—part of the development of an illusionary
‘theatre of security’ to amplify a sense of risk (Schneier 2009). In an effort
to make video feeds more accessible, one company was trying out new
ways to do this: ‘We are going to try out “mobile podiums”—the guard will
carry around a mobile device that will give them access to the CCTV store
system’. No doubt in certain retail locations there may well continue to be a
case for real-time monitoring of multiple video feeds, but the reality of
ever-growing staffing costs, increasingly complex retail environments and
the developing capabilities of video analytics may well mean that this use
case becomes less evident in the future.

Ensuring Compliance
As the application of video systems expands around the world, some
retailers have increasingly found that their use is no longer a business
choice but rather a statutory requirement for them to be able to either
operate in particular locations or trade certain types of goods. The issue of
Compliance, therefore, is the fourth use case for video systems.

Meeting Legal Requirements

Like many advancements in technologies, the early use of video systems in
many countries largely developed within a regulatory vacuum; users had
little guidance or control over how and where they should or should not be
used (Hier et al. 2011; Taylor 2010). Since then, numerous countries have
developed laws and regulations covering their use in public and indeed
private spaces, with some setting very strict limitations on who and what
can be surveilled and for how long images can be retained (Ferryman 2016;
Gras 2004; Hartmus 2014).
However, in some countries, there are also statutory requirements for
the use of video systems by retailers when operating in what are regarded as
high-crime/risk areas and when selling certain age-restricted products such
as alcohol and cigarettes. While some respondents were not clear exactly
why some local authorities in the UK in particular tied the issuance of
alcohol licences to the installation of CCTV, it was evident that this
consideration was part of the rationale for its introduction. As with other
use cases, it was not possible to identify the monetary value that this
brought, although it can be imagined that for some grocery retailers, not
having the opportunity to sell alcohol would create a major dent in sales and
profits.

Influencing Staff Behaviour

Ensuring staff compliance with company processes was also considered to
be a key use case for video systems. One respondent thought it impacted
not only in this respect but also in terms of the way in which video
mitigated staff responses to incidents of customer theft: ‘staff won’t go out
on a limb and ignore company policy, such as tackling a shoplifter outside
the store if they are going to be caught on cameras as well’. This is a similar
moderator effect as described by some respondents to the use of Body Worn
Cameras where the recorded evidence could be damning for both the
offender and the wearer of the device. Of course, this type of effect (staff
compliance) overlaps with the issue of deterrence as discussed earlier and
requires staff to not only be aware of the presence of video systems but also
believe they are effective and will invoke a reaction.

Generating a Response
Four of the companies taking part in this research had developed a
particular use case for their video systems that utilised them to create a
centralised response to incidents of violence against store staff.

Store Panic Alarms

In this use case, panic alarms installed in retail stores trigger an alert at a
CCC where staff can view a live video feed and, when considered
appropriate, take actions to try and encourage the offender to desist. This
could take the form of playing a recorded audio message or initiating a real-
time announcement. One respondent described how they thought this
worked: ‘Some call it the “voice of God” effect—shocks offenders into
changing their behaviour; it is also a real voice and not a recording—can
make the message context specific: “you in the red jacket…”’. Another
respondent stressed the importance of talking directly to the offender:
‘Operators have the licence to decide what they broadcast given what they
can see and what they think might put them off’.
Another retailer highlighted the way in which it fostered a better
relationship and response from the police: ‘they are more likely to respond
if you have a visual verification of what is happening’. Retailers using this
approach could provide only limited evidence on the extent to which it
affected levels of store violence although all thought it had reduced the
number and impact of incidents.

Providing Reassurance
One of the recurring challenges of measuring the ‘value’ of video systems
is that it can be tasked with delivering outcomes that are often hard to
quantify financially—the intangible benefits that are much discussed and
appreciated, but rarely capable of being included on a business’ P & L. A
good example of this is the sixth use case identified by respondents:
Providing Reassurance.

Staff and Public Safety

As has often been said: ‘a video camera won’t leap off the wall and stop a
member of staff being attacked’ (Taylor and Gill 2014, p. 711?), which is
true, and yet frequent security surveys have shown that staff and members
of the public are often reassured by the presence of CCTV (Chainey 1999;
Gill 2006; Sarno et al. 1999). So how does this work? It could be that the
video system provides a visual reminder of four things: security is being
taken seriously by the business; somebody is looking out for me; somebody
can send help if anything were to happen; and if something does happen,
whoever did it is more likely to get caught and will not be able to do it
again.
For customers, the presence of video in retail stores is now very much a
given, perceived as an integral part of the fabric of modern retail
environments and one part of a societal infrastructure of security
technologies increasingly visible across many urban spaces (Beck and
Willis 1995). As such, retailers that choose not to participate in this ‘theatre
of security’ may be open to accusations of not taking the safety of their
customers ‘seriously’, a charge that is likely to be alarmingly amplified
through social media when incidents take place away from the gaze of a
video camera. As such, while enabling the delivery of reassurance is
another of the intangible benefits of video systems, it may be one that
retailers will struggle to ignore in an increasingly connected and surveilled
world.

Informing and Enabling the Business

While the previous six use cases have had a predominantly security and
safety focus, the seventh is related to how video is being used to make retail
organisations more operationally effective and profitable. This broadening
beyond loss prevention is certainly something which has been pushed by
the video industry although few of the respondents to this research could
point towards concrete examples within their businesses. However, the
growth in the use of video analytics may herald a brighter future for this
particular use case. In this respect, this section looks only at examples of
enabling and informing businesses through video systems that do not rely
on some form of automated analytic capability.

Understanding Customer Behaviours

Only two of the companies responding to this research provided examples
of how they were using video to better understand customer behaviours
(Dodd et al. 1998). The first was driven by their Customer Experience team
taking a video feed from a selection of stores to review aspects of store
operations. Another example was using video to analyse the behaviour of
customers when they arrived to pick up orders and whether this had driven
any upselling activity. Both examples highlight how a non-security retail
function had begun to utilise the potential of video to inform business
decisions, albeit in a very manual and limited fashion.

Store Design Reviews

One other area where video was used to inform and enable business
decisions was in the review of store design. As with the previous examples,
this was very much a post hoc manual review process looking at the flow of
customers and how changes in product location had an effect. Through a
detailed research process analysing video and sales data, one company had
been able to make changes to their store design to reduce bottlenecks at
peak times.

Identifying, Detecting and Alerting: Video Analytics

The final use case proposed by respondents was focused upon video
systems undertaking some form of analytic enabling the business to
automatically identify and detect events of interest. This is regarded as the
‘new frontier’ of video although some of this capability has been in
operation for many years, such as the detection of unauthorised movements
in the proximity of buildings (Hesse 2002). In other areas, the technology is
much more cutting edge, such as developments in facial recognition,
identifying non-scanning and mis-scanning at self-checkout machines, heat
mapping and customer dwell times, customer counting, tracking deliveries
and product picking accuracy, pre-emptively identifying potentially violent
incidents, capturing customer not present refund frauds and even the
automatic identification of shop thieves.
For those with long memories of retail loss prevention, many of the
current claims made by some providers of video analytics will sound
unerringly familiar, not least to those made about Radio Frequency
Identification Technologies in the early 2000s. It was claimed that this
technology would bring an end to shop theft through the creation of a
completely transparent retail supply chain where every product could be
uniquely tracked in real time (Beck 2007, 2018b). Like numerous
technologies swirling around the retail world, it is often easy to be beguiled
by the purveyors of promises—offering enticing pathways in the never-
ending search for the illusive silver bullet that will deliver the ultimate loss
prevention solution (Beck 2020).
However, respondents to this research were aware of the hyperbole that
is often associated with video analytics, with one describing it as the
‘Emperor’s New Clothes’. While this is probably unfair, there was certainly
a degree of scepticism about the applicability and scalability of many of the
analytics currently being offered. What seems apparent is that the capacity
of many video analytics to deliver value is significantly affected by three
inter-connected factors: contextual complexity, clarity of purpose and
operational management (Beck 2020). As the operating environment
becomes more complex, then it becomes far more difficult to ensure that the
analytic is not overwhelmed by False Positives. Similarly, unless its
purpose is clearly defined then the analytic can suffer from a surfeit of
‘Overload Positives’—large quantities of unhelpful activations due to ill-
defined and overly inclusive system parameters. Moreover, operationalising
the scaling of video analytics is challenging—if a traditional video system
could be regarded as an axe, then a video analytic is much more equivalent
to a scalpel. It requires precise calibration and control in the way it is
installed and used, heavily affected by its environmental context and easily
undermined unless carefully managed and maintained (Beck 2020).
Unless these three factors of scalability, complexity and clarity are not
carefully managed and monitored, then there is a real danger that video
analytics can become mired in the ‘Crying Wolf Syndrome’—subject to
retail ridicule and labelled a costly distraction. It is therefore important that
developers of these technologies move cautiously, responsibly and
realistically, working with users to develop a realistic and considered
approach to the successful application of a range of video analytics in
retailing.

Summarising the Utilisation of Video Technologies

in Retailing
Despite being used in retailing for more than 40 years, there have been few
if any systematic reviews cataloguing how video technologies are utilised in
this environment. As detailed in this chapter, eight major use cases can be
identified, and these can be further summarised into four distinct modes of
use: Passive, Reactive, Active and Proactive (Fig. 43.2).
Fig. 43.2 Four modes of video use in retailing

Passive uses of video rely upon its presence to generate some form of
response or enable an activity to happen—deter thieves from committing a
crime, encourage staff to comply with business procedures and/or ensure
businesses met legal requirements. Reactive uses focus upon the post hoc
review of video data to enable undesirable events and players to be
identified and/or business decisions to be informed and improved. Active
use is very much concerned with utilising video systems in real time to
instigate a response and/or identify miscreant behaviour. Finally, Proactive
use is concerned with how video can be used to automate, speed up and
improve many of those activities currently undertaken through the Reactive
and Active uses thus far.
While traditional interpretations of the role of video systems have
largely focused upon their capacity to detect, deter and reassure, the
research presented in this chapter shows that while these will remain
important drivers for investing in this technology, its role is becoming much
more expansive, incorporating a growing range of activities and retail
functions. In addition, as the technology evolves further, its use could also
grow to not only encompass more tasks but also assist a broader range of
retail functions, particularly as the technology is developed and integrated
with other data systems. It is highly likely, therefore, that retailing will be
an environment where video systems continue to be utilised to not only
deliver safety and security but also enhance business profitability.

Recommended Readings
While there is a considerable amount of literature available on the use and
effectiveness of CCTV systems in public spaces, there is less available on
its use in the retail environment. For discussions on the general
effectiveness of CCTV, see Gill and Spriggs (2005), Taylor (2010), Taylor
and Gill (2014), Welsh and Farrington (2009).
Beck and Willis carried out some early evaluations of the use of CCTV
in retail spaces (1992, 1999) as did Loveday and Gill (2003). More recently,
Beck provided a review of the use of a range of crime prevention
approaches in retailing, including the use of CCTV (2016). He has also
completed an extensive review of the use of video technologies in retailing,
including the growing use and challenges associated with video analytics
(2020). In addition, Kajalo and Lindblom have published a series of papers
looking at perceptions of security in retailing and the role of CCTV (2010a,
b, 2011a, b). More specifically, Hayes and Downs have looked at measuring
the effectiveness of public display screens in retailing (2011) and Kirkup on
how video can be used to monitor retail footfall (1999).

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M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_44

44. Making an Economic Case for Security

Matthew Manning1 , Christopher M. Fleming2 and Hien-Thuc Pham3
(1) Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
(2) Griffith Business School, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
(3) Tunbridge Wells, Kent, UK

Matthew Manning (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Christopher M. Fleming
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
Authors of this chapter look at the generally positive image of security that
evolves from applying an economic analysis. Reviewing 32 studies using
different economic forms of analyses and accepting a lack of robust data on
the costs and benefits of specific interventions, they conclude that most
studies found that the security and crime prevention interventions produced
benefits larger than costs, and thus there is prima facie evidence that such
interventions are economically efficient.

The role economics plays in the prevention of crime is not particularly well
understood outside the discipline. Economists are often employed in the
security and broader crime prevention industry to undertake cost-benefit
analysis (CBA). However, they possess a range of tools beyond CBA that
have the potential to assist in shaping modern crime prevention and security
policy. Bushway and Reuter (2008) recognise the modern economist for
making three major contributions: (1) theory—for example rational choice
theory, which is the core to both theoretical and empirical economics; (2)
specialised economic techniques—for example cost-benefit analysis (CBA),
econometrics and efficiency models; and (3) areas of expertise—economists
unique understanding of market models, which can be thought of as the
heart of economics. The focus of this chapter is CBA. A full review of the
contribution that economics makes to criminology and by extension to
security is provided by Manning (2018).
CBA was first proposed in 1844 by the French engineer A.-J.-E.-J.
Dupuit. However, it was not formally applied until the 1936 US Flood
Control Act, which required that the benefits of flood-control projects
exceed their costs (Talvitie 2018). For the sake of simplicity, CBA is a
systematic approach to examining the relative strengths and weaknesses of
alternative actions or options with the goal of maximising societal welfare.
In the context of security and more broadly, crime prevention, CBA can be
used to quantify the efficacy of interventions or policies aimed at enhancing
security or preventing crime (Manning and Wong 2014). In short, CBA
provides evidence regarding the economic efficiency of a policy or
programme relative to other alternatives by providing a common monetary
metric from which alternative options can be compared. With CBA
evidence, policy makers can develop an economic rationale for the
allocation of scarce public resources. CBA promotes good fiscal
management as it ensures that policy makers choose alternatives that
deliver the highest return on investment. The programme may be effective
but the question looms as to whether it is economically efficient. There is a
flawed logic in assuming that effectiveness equals efficiency. Without the
CBA test, we cannot fully answer the efficacy question—and thus the cost
to society is the potential mismanagement or misallocation of public funds.
The term CBA is often used interchangeably with a range of other
economic analysis (EA) techniques that differ with respect to data, the
degree of analytical sophistication and theoretical underpinnings. Table 44.1
provides a brief summary of common EA techniques. In short, the results
derived from the CBA approach provide an estimated aggregate value of a
policy as measured by its net benefit (NB), where NB = SB [societal
benefit]—SC [societal cost] (Manning et al. 2016). NB is normally
accompanied by a cost/benefit ratio (CBR) or benefit/cost ratio (BCR). This
is simply the ratio between the expected or actual benefits of an option
(expressed in monetary terms) relative to its costs. The rule of thumb is the
lower the cost to benefit ratio the better. Another criterion often employed
by government is net present value (NPV). NPV is simply the algebraic
difference between discounted (i.e. the present value of a payment or a
stream of payments that is to be received in the future) benefits and costs as
they occur over time.
Table 44.1 Common economic analysis techniques

Type of Measure Measure of Strengths Weaknesses

analysis of cost outcomes
Cost- Monetary Units of Easy-to-incorporate Hard to interpret when
effectiveness value of effectiveness standard evaluations of there are multiple
resources effectiveness measures of effectiveness
Good for alternatives Only useful for
with small number of comparing two or more
objectives alternatives
Cost-benefit Monetary Monetary value of Can judge absolute Difficult to place
value of benefits worth of a project monetary values on
resources Can compare BC results salient life benefits
across a variety of
projects
Cost-savings Monetary Monetary savings Good for assessing the Difficult to place
value of resulting from the savings generated to monetary values on
resources impact of stakeholders salient life benefits
intervention
Cost-utility Monetary Units of utility Incorporates individual Difficult to arrive at
value of preferences for units of consistent and accurate
resources effectiveness measures of individual
Incorporates multiple preferences
measures of Cannot judge overall
effectiveness into single worth of a single
measure of utility alternative

Source: Manning and Wong (2014)

Conceptual Foundations of CBA

The conceptual foundations of CBA are founded in neoclassical or “new”
welfare economics, which in turn has its foundations in the utilitarianism
school of economic thought commonly associated with the writings of
Hume (1739, 1751), Bentham (1789) and Mill (1848). Utilitarianism is a
consequentialist (where the consequences or outcomes of an action
determine its moral worth) philosophy that remains a fundamental ethical
foundation of neoclassical economics. Followers of the school believe
everyone obtains utility or measurable satisfaction from his or her
consumption of commodities. A basic premise of neoclassical welfare
economics is that the purpose of economic activity is to enhance the well-
being of the individuals who make up society and that these individuals are
the best judge of how well off they are in a given situation. Of course, an
individual’s welfare depends not only on their consumption of market
goods but also on the provision of public and quasi-public goods, such as
law and order (Jeffery 1971). It follows, therefore, that the basis for
deriving measures of the economic value of changes in levels of security is
its effect on human welfare (Freeman et al. 2014).
Changes in society’s welfare resulting from policies, programmes or
actions that have an impact on individual and community levels of security
can be evaluated by calculating the net social benefits for each alternative
as described above. The quantification of these benefits and costs is the key
outcome of CBA. That is, CBA is a policy assessment method that
quantifies the value of policy consequences in monetary terms to all
members of society. CBA focuses on allocative efficiency—indicating that
resources are deployed in their highest valued use in terms of the goods and
services they create.
A key criterion of allocative efficiency is Pareto optimality, named after
a chief proponent of welfare economics, Vilfredo Pareto. Pareto optimality
is perhaps the most well-known concept in neoclassical welfare economics;
it and the associated notion of a Pareto improvement has a basic tenet; for
welfare to be at a maximum, it must be impossible to alter resource use or
allocation in a way that makes any individual better off without making
another worse off (Tisdell 2005). Of course such a test is very difficult to
satisfy; most, if not all, resource allocation decisions create both winners
and losers. Recognising this, Kaldor (1939) proposed a new criterion; an
improvement exists if the gainers could potentially compensate the losers
and still be better off. This proposition was supported by Hicks, who also
offers a complementary criterion; an improvement exists if the losers cannot
profitably bribe the gainers to oppose the change (Hicks 1939, 1940, 1941).
Scitovsky (1941) demonstrates the need for both Kaldor’s and Hicks’
criteria to be satisfied for a change to be regarded as unambiguously
favourable (known as the Kaldor-Hicks criterion or Scitovsky reversal test)
(Ng 2003).
 A fundamental weakness, and paradoxically also a strength, of the
Kaldor-Hicks criterion is that transfer between gainers and losers need only
be possible, no such transfer need actually take place. Distributional
concerns are therefore not considered. Little (1949, 1957) maintains that
distributional effects need to be taken into account for a change to be
considered an improvement. He puts forward an alternative criterion based
upon two premises: (1) an improvement exists if someone is made better off
without anyone being made worse off (the Pareto criterion); and (2) ceteris
paribus, an improvement exists if the distribution of income is made more
equal (Ng 2003). In effect, Little’s criterion poses three questions: (1) Are
the gainers able to compensate the losers and remain better off? (2) Are the
losers unable to profitably bribe the gainers to forgo the change? And (3) is
there an improvement in income distribution? If the answer to (3) is
positive and at least one of the answers to (1) and (2) is also positive, the
change represents an improvement in resource allocation or use. A further
highly restrictive criterion is proposed by Buchanan (1967), in which a
change is considered efficient if all members of society unanimously
consent to it. In practice, however, the Kaldor-Hicks criterion remains the
dominant test of most decision-making analyses (Ng 2003; Tisdell 2005).
CBA is not without its areas of contention. For example, some dispute
the fundamental assumptions of CBA (i.e. that the sum of individual utility
should be maximised and that one can trade off utility gains and losses
among people). Critics of CBA argue that there is no theoretical basis for
making trade-offs between one person’s benefits and another person’s costs.
There is also disagreement about how to monetise costs and benefits, what
impacts are (especially over time), whether an impact is a cost or a benefit,
and how to make trade-offs between the present and the future. These are
all discussed in detail in Boardman et al. (2018).

Conducting CBAs
CBAs can be conducted at different points in the project or intervention
cycle. Ex ante CBA is conducted prior to the intervention and is useful in
demonstrating whether resources should be allocated to a project or
intervention. Ex post CBA is undertaken at the conclusion of the project or
intervention. In medias res CBA is conducted during the intervention.
Comparative CBA compares ex ante prediction with ex post results.
 There are nine steps to undertaking a CBA, which are summarised
below.

Step 1: Specify the Set of Alternative Projects

In this step all feasible policy options should be considered. In practice,
often a short-list is made and options with “fatal flaws” discarded, and it is
unusual for formal CBAs to consider more than four alternative options.
For theoretical consistency a counterfactual, commonly referred to as the
status quo, should always be one of the options.

Step 2: Decide Whose Benefits and Costs Count (Standing)

Standing determines whose benefits and costs will count. Standing is
usually most appropriately specified at the national level. However, some
favour global standing, especially where there are international spillovers
(prominent examples include CBA of climate change policies: the Stern
Review (Stern et al. 2006)). For other kinds of projects, some advocate
standing at a lower level, such as state/province or local government. In
practice, the entity commissioning the CBA often determines whose
benefits and costs are considered relevant. For example, CBAs
commissioned by local governments are typically only concerned about the
impacts on constituents within their local government area.

Step 3: Identify and Catalogue Impact Categories and Select

Measurement Indicators
In this step, all categories of physical impact of the alternatives should be
identified and catalogued as benefits (e.g. a reduction in burglaries) or costs
(e.g. financial expenditure on security measures), with appropriate
measurement indicators specified. Economic costs (and benefits) are
relevant, not just accounting costs (i.e. direct out-of-pocket expenses).
Therefore, it is important to include opportunity costs (the value of the next-
highest-valued alternative use of an input) and externalities (costs and
benefits that accrue to stakeholders outside of market-based transactions).
In the context of security, external costs could include the cost to
neighbouring properties of becoming an easier target for criminals, when
only some neighbours significantly increase their level of security; external
benefits could include the deterrence effect gained by a household from a
neighbour’s investment in CCTV should it cover public space.
Step 4: Predict the Impacts Quantitatively over the Life of the
Project
Prediction is difficult, particularly if the project has a long-time horizon or
if the relationships between variables are complex. For proposals with long-
time horizons, many assumptions about future impacts will need to be
made. For regulatory programmes, one of the main difficulties is predicting
how the regulated community will respond to the regulation (e.g. the
response of some landowners to the US Endangered Species Act (Adler
2008)). Moreover, secondary impacts (impacts in other sectors that have
connections with the one being regulated) also need to be considered.

Step 5: Monetise (Attach Monetary Values to) All Impacts

In CBA, value is measured in terms of “willingness to pay” (obtained from
demand curves). Some benefits or costs will be easier to value in monetary
terms, as they are items traded in markets. However, many impacts will not
have an observable market value. In these cases, some proxy market value
must be derived, often using non-market valuation techniques.1

Step 6: Discount Benefits and Costs to Obtain Present Values

Impacts are discounted because almost everybody has a preference for
consumption now rather than later. The appropriate discount value method
and level is contentious as it necessarily disadvantages proposals with large
upfront costs and benefits accruing many years into the future. In practice
for most applications the rate is mandated by a government agency. A low
discount rate implies that a dollar in one year is very similar to a dollar in
any other year. A high discount rate implies that a dollar in the near term is
much more valuable than one later on. Thus, the higher the discount rate,
the more favourable are policies/programmes that have relatively high
short-term payoffs. For public policy programmes with short time horizons
(less than 20 years), a discount rate that is close to the government bond
rate is usually acceptable.

Step 7: Compute the Net Present Value of Each Alternative

The net present value (NPV) equals the present value (PV) of benefits
minus the present value of costs:
 The rule of thumb is to choose the alternative with the largest NPV. The
alternative with the largest NPV represents the most efficient allocation of
resources of the alternative projects considered. If the proposal has an
NPV > 0, then it is worth considering on its economic merits. If the
proposal has an NPV < 0, then it fails to return benefits larger than its costs.
An alternative measure is the benefit-cost ratio. This is the PV of
benefits divided by the PV of costs. If the proposal has a BCR > 1, then it is
worth considering on its economic merits. If the proposal has a BCR < 1,
then it fails to return benefits larger than its costs.

Step 8: Perform Sensitivity Analysis

A thorough CBA should test the sensitivity of the result. Often there is
uncertainty surrounding predicted impacts and their monetary valuation.
Sensitivity analysis is undertaken to examine the robustness of the point
estimate to alternative assumptions about impacts and values. Sensitivity
analysis is undertaken by varying the assumptions/estimates within
plausible bounds and recalculating the NPV/BCR. This only raises issues
when the sensitivity analysis yields results that suggest the policy decision
would be different under alternative assumptions/estimates.

Step 9: Make a Recommendation

The project with the largest NPV is the most efficient of those considered.
Note that the project with the largest BCR is not necessarily the most
efficient. The BCR may be used to make sure that benefits exceed costs, but
beyond this it is a misleading indicator in making policy decisions. NPV
and BCR both address the relative size of benefits and costs. The
distribution of these benefits and costs is also an issue. The distribution of
benefits and costs is primarily a matter of equity or fairness. There are two
main types of equity: horizontal and vertical. Horizontal equity is a case of
treating similarly situated people in a similar way. Vertical equity refers to
how a policy impinges on people who are in different circumstances, in
particular on people who have different income levels (progressive vs.
regressive).
Examples of Security-Related Economic Analysis
A review of the literature revealed 32 studies that perform some form of
economic analysis of a security-related intervention (Table 44.2). These
interventions are categorised as either
Target hardening: to make a target more resistant to attack, or more
difficult to remove or damage.
Natural surveillance: to increase visibility of the property to discourage
offenders, such as improved street lighting and neighbourhood watch
interventions.
Formal surveillance: for example, the use of alarms, CCTV, security
guards and store detectives to create a deterrent effect.
Target removal: for example, the movement to a cashless society where
consumers and vendors are holding less money in notes and coins.
Identifying property: using unique identification numbers or markers to
make it more difficult to sell stolen goods.
Offender monitoring: using Global Positioning System (GPS) or Radio-
Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to monitor offenders’
movements.
Table 44.2 Identified studies

Primary Reference Type of Results

intervention economic
techniques analysis
Target hardening
Alley gating Bowers et Cost- BC ratio = 0.96 (after 6 months) and 1.86 (after 12
al. (2004) benefit months).
analysis
Kay et al. Cost- BC ratio = 2.79.
(2002) benefit
analysis
Sturgeon- Cost- BC ratio = 2.19.
Adams et al. benefit
(2005) analysis
Thompson Cost- BC ratio = 1.24.
et al. benefit
(2002a) analysis
Primary Reference Type of Results
intervention economic
techniques analysis
Thompson Cost- BC ratio = 1.87.
et al. benefit
(2002b) analysis
Agar Cost- BC ratio = 4.04.
(2011)a benefit
analysis
Locks, Ekblom Cost- BC ratio = 1.83.
alarms, entry (1996) benefit
system analysis
Time locks, Clarke and Cost- BC ratio = 1.71.
cash limit McGrath benefit
(1990) analysis
Natural surveillance
Improved Painter and Cost- BC ratio = 6.19 (Dudley), 5.43 (Stoke-on-Trent).
street Farrington benefit
lighting (2001) analysis
Formal surveillance
CCTV Gill and Cost- BC ratio: 1.24 in city outskirt and 1.27 in high-risk car
Spriggs benefit park, and cost per crime prevented: GBP 620 (high-risk
(2005) analysis car park)
There are NPV calculations for each of the 13 CCTV
projects.
CCTV Poyner Cost- BC ratio = 2.35.
(1988) benefit
analysis
Security Knight Cost- BC ratio = 1.31.
guard (1994) benefit
analysis
Silent alarms Schnelle et Cost- BC ratio = 0.36.
al. (1979) benefit
analysis
Target removal
Removal of Forrester et Cost- BC ratio = 5.04.
coin meters al. (1990) benefit
analysis
Identifying property
Primary Reference Type of Results
intervention economic
techniques analysis
Property Laycock Cost- BC ratio = 0.78.
marking (1986) benefit
analysis
Offender monitoring
Electronic Turner et al. Cost High-risk sex offender monitored by GPS costs an
monitoring (2015) comparison average of USD 4600 per year more than those
supervised on intensive caseloads (without GPS).
(Omori and Cost Average daily cost per parolee: active GPS USD 33.43,
Turner comparison other parole USD 13.51, prison (including reception
2015) centres) USD 97.50, gaol USD 88.94.
Gies et al. Cost GPS cost per person is USD 21.2 while traditional
(2013) comparison supervision is USD 7.20 per day per parolee.
Armstrong Cost Weekly cost of keeping a person in prison is GBP 610,
et al. (2011) comparison while the weekly cost to manage someone on HDC
(Home Detention Curfew) is GBP 126.
Bales et al. Cost Prison costs USD 20,108 per inmate per year (6 times
(2010) comparison more expensive than active GPS, and 28 times more
expensive than RFID).
Marklund Cost The daily cost for a client with electronic monitoring is
and comparison almost as high as the cost of a place in an open prison.
Holmberg
(2009)
Gowen Cost Average daily cost of home confinement with electronic
(2000) comparison monitoring was USD 17.98 compared to USD 64.32 in
federal custody.
Dodgson et Cost- After 16 months, total cost was GBP 35.4m, prison
al. (2001) savings resource savings were GBP 84.6m, net benefits were
analysis GBP 49.2m, total 2600 prison places saved.
Wise (2004) Cost- GPS monitoring programme saved USD 140,640 in
savings incarceration costs.
analysis
Harig (2001) Cost- Placement cost-savings for whole programme estimated
savings to be USD 97,000–USD 110,000. Total annual cost
analysis averaging more than USD 78,000 to institutionalise a
juvenile delinquent. Net savings USD 215.36 per day.
Lobley and Cost- If electronic monitoring replaced prison sentences in
Smith savings 40% of cases, this could produce an overall cost saving
(2000) analysis ranging from approximately GBP 0.33 million to GBP
1.7 million.
Primary Reference Type of Results
intervention economic
techniques analysis
Pearson Cost Daily cost per offender is USD 15.50 (active GPS).
(2012) analysis
Erez et al. Cost Daily costs per offender are USD 11.80 for active GPS
(2012) analysis and USD 6.80 for passive GPSb.
Tennessee Cost Daily costs per offender are USD 7.70 for active GPS
Board of analysis and USD 4.25 for passive GPS.
Probation
and Parole
(2007)
Shute (2007) Cost Daily cost per offender is GBP 42 (passive GPS).
analysis
Jannetta Cost Daily cost per offender is USD 8.75 (active GPS).
(2006) analysis
Frost (2002) Simple For 1080 violent crimes prevented a total cost saving of
cost- USD 13,581,000.
benefit
analysis

a Note, the reported benefit-cost ratio for Agar (2011) should be treated
with caution as the ratio refers to the cost-benefit of a suite of measures
adopted in the Safe as Houses project, of which alley gating was only one
component
bActive GPS refers to continuous monitoring. For passive GPS, data is

inspected retrospectively at a particular time of the day

There are several types of economic analysis employed, many of which

fall outside conventional economic analysis techniques identified in Table
44.1 and provide little guidance on the relative efficiency or effectiveness of
the intervention. For example, cost analysis refers to analysing relevant
costs of the intervention, without computing the savings or benefits from
implementing that intervention; and cost comparison analysis compares the
cost of an intervention to the cost of alternatives.
Results presented in Table 44.2 show that the benefit-cost ratios of alley
gating range from 0.96 to 4.04, suggesting in almost all cases the
intervention passes the cost-benefit test, as the financial cost is lower than
the monetary value of the benefits derived (i.e. reduction in burglaries).
With regard to improvements in natural surveillance, improved street
lighting revealed a benefit-cost ratio of 5.43. The policy implication is
straightforward, improved street lighting is an economically effective
measure of preventing property and personal crime in residential areas
(Painter and Farrington 2001). Formal surveillance, such as security guards
and CCTVs, reveals lower benefit-cost ratios than natural surveillance
(ranging from 1.24 to 2.35). However, all interventions in this category
have benefits that exceed costs.
Apropos target hardening measures such as locks, alarms and secure
entry systems, Ekblom (1996) found that these types of security are
economically effective at reducing home burglary, citing a benefit-cost ratio
of 1.83. Clarke and McGrath (1990) found that the installation of target
hardening measures such as time locks and imposing cash limits can reduce
robbery, citing a benefit-cost ratio of 1.71. In contrast, Schnelle et al. (1979)
found silent alarms to be economically inefficient, citing a benefit-cost ratio
of 0.36. This variation in the economic efficiency of target hardening
measures may be driven by differences in (1) study design, (2) differences
in the implementation of the measures (noting that the measures themselves
can be different, e.g. not all silent alarms are the same) and (3) unobserved
contextual variation.
Only one economic study involving target removal was identified. In a
sample of 2280 homes in Kirkholt, Rochdale (UK), Forrester et al. (1990)
found that the removal of coin meters in fuel stations to reduce robbery
yielded a return of approximately GBP 5 for every GBP 1 invested, a
benefit-cost ratio of 5.04. With regard to property marking (using warning
signs on building and/or labels on individual items of property), Laycock
(1986) conducts an analysis on 2234 homes and report a benefit-cost ratio
of 0.78, suggesting this method of reducing property crime is economically
inefficient. This result, however, is only from one study, and further
research is required to confirm this finding.
A substantial body of research has been undertaken on the efficiency of
electronic monitoring of offenders. Table 44.2 illustrates a large variation in
the costs of electronic monitoring, depending predominantly on the type of
monitoring technology employed—programmes using RFID technology are
generally less costly than GPS programmes. The cost of the latter also
varies depending on whether passive or active monitoring is used. Note,
however, variation in the costs of electronic monitoring needs to be
interpreted with caution, as the cost of an electronic monitoring programme
includes different components (e.g. equipment and staffing), some of which
are included in some studies and excluded in others. It should also be noted
that active offender tracking requires more resources, particularly in regard
to staffing, making it more expensive than passive systems (Belur et al.
2020). For example, a cost-benefit analysis found that high-risk sex
offenders monitored by GPS in California cost an average of USD 4600 per
year more than other high-risk sex offenders supervised on intensive
caseloads, concluding that GPS monitoring was not cost-effective (Omori
and Turner 2015). Similarly, Gies et al. (2013) conclude that the financial
cost of electronic monitoring tends to be higher than the cost of traditional
parole or community supervision. However, when compared against the
cost of incarceration, the economic evidence suggests electronic monitoring
can be a cost-effective alternative (Armstrong et al. 2011; Bales et al. 2010;
Omori and Turner 2015). For example, in his evaluation of a juvenile
electronic monitoring demonstration project in three New York counties,
Harig (2001) estimates savings of USD 215.36 per offender per day
compared to out-of-home institutional placement.
For intervention techniques that have been subject to more than one
cost-benefit analysis, Table 44.3 presents the mean and standard deviation
of the benefit-cost ratios across all studies. All three interventional
techniques reported in Table 44.3 have mean benefit-cost ratios greater than
1, suggesting, on average, the techniques are economically efficient.
Natural surveillance produces the highest ratio, with a mean of 5.81,
implying the benefits of natural surveillance are almost six times greater
than the costs.
Table 44.3 Comparison of the effectiveness of different types of interventions

Interventions Target Natural Formal

hardening surveillance surveillance
Number of observations 9 2 5
Mean benefit-cost ratio (standard 2.05 (0.91) 5.81 (0.54) 1.31 (0.71)
deviation)

It can be implied from this review that while electronic monitoring may
be cost saving compared to imprisonment, authorities may need to consider
the financial implications of putting offenders on electronic monitoring
rather than traditional supervision or parole. The decision to adopt
electronic monitoring or not may also depend on the primary objective of
the authorities. If the intervention aims to reduce re-offending while being
monitored, then the true cost implications include the costs of crimes
committed while they are on the programme, or indeed costs saved if
electronic monitoring is found to prevent re-offending in the short, medium
or long term. If the primary objective is implementing a financially feasible
and cost-effective measure, there is limited evidence of effectiveness of
electronic monitoring approaches over reasonable alternative strategies.
As noted by Belur et al. (2020), the economic argument for electronic
monitoring in most studies focuses on comparing it against imprisonment
and other offender management techniques. Findings indicated that
although electronic monitoring was cheaper than prison, it was more
expensive than parole, and some types of electronic monitoring (continuous
monitoring with GPS) were more expensive than others (static monitoring
with RFID).

Improving the Economic Evidence

Our preliminary review of literature suggests that economic evidence to
support decisions around investment in security and crime prevention is
limited. To overcome this limitation, we suggest that any analyses
undertaken are underpinned by the EMMIE framework developed by
Johnson et al. (2015). The framework seeks to assist practitioners and
decision-makers in assessing the probity, coverage and utility of evidence.
Within the framework, evidence is rated against five dimensions: (E) Effect
—which reveals the impact of the intervention/s on security- or crime-
related outcomes; (M) Mechanisms—which explains the causal
mechanisms through which the intervention can affect the pre-defined
outcomes; (M) Moderators—which refers to the contexts in which the
intervention is likely (or unlikely) to work; (I) Implementation—which
focuses on the challenges in the implementation of the intervention and the
essential factors required for replication; and (E) Economics—which
reflects the economic costs (and benefits) of the intervention. The EMMIE
rating scale ranges from 0 to 4 (0—no information, 1—limited quality, 2—
moderate quality, 3—strong quality and 4—very strong quality).
 In regard to the economic component, Johnson et al. (2015) suggest the
below rating criteria:
1.
Only direct or explicit costs (and/or benefits) estimated.
2.
Direct and indirect and implicit costs (and/or benefits) estimated.
3.
Marginal or total or opportunity costs/benefits estimated.
4.
Marginal or total or opportunity costs/benefits by bearer (or recipient)
estimated.
It is telling that none of the studies in this review meet the criteria for
very strong quality of economic analysis, and most of the studies do not
analyse the costs and benefits by bearer or recipient. Nonetheless, several
studies are of strong quality according to this rating scale (see for instance,
Bowers et al. (2004), Kay et al. (2002)).
By improving the economic evidence and employing the EMMIE
framework decision-makers will be better placed to (1) set priorities and
plans (e.g., best rate of return for any given budget or to determine an
optimal programme budget), (2) identify the best way of achieving strategic
objectives or goals, (3) assist in the development of cost-effective designs
and strategies, (4) inform users as to which policy can be implemented at
the lowest cost, (5) provide an analysis of returns on investment and (6)
document the decision process.
In summary, the economic evidence we have uncovered across the
various crime prevention categories highlights that considerably more effort
and, of course, funding is required. In the light of the small economic
evidence base, more effort is required to improve the data and consider the
full opportunity costs associated with intangible or non-market goods.
Finally, as highlighted by Manning et al. (2016), as well as aspiring to
achieve these goals we should aim to extend and adapt other economic
techniques (e.g. frontier techniques such as stochastic frontier analysis and
data envelopment analysis) to supplement the CBA method.

Recommended Readings
The chapter titled “Economics” in the Handbook of Crime Science by
Manning (2019) provides a small insight into the role economists’ play in
developing practical solutions to crime and examining the efficiency or
marginal costs and benefits of policy alternatives or prevention efforts. The
chapter provides a detailed discussion of some of the key theories that
underpin much of the work undertaken by economists in this area and a
discussion of a few areas in which economists make significant
contributions with respect to (1) modern econometric and other applied
analytical methods (such as cost-benefit analysis) and (2) detailed
knowledge of both licit and illicit markets (e.g. drug markets).
“Economists’ contribution to the study of crime and the criminal justice
system” by Bushway and Reuter (2008) provides a detailed discussion of
three areas in which economists have contributed with regard to theoretical
development, empirical evidence and policy development. The areas they
consider in detail are the development of theory, the integration and use of
specialised techniques, and substantive areas of expertise in which
economists have unique knowledge that provides new insights into the
nature of crime and how markets can influence criminal events.
Economic Analysis and Efficiency in Policing, Criminal Justice and
Crime Reduction: What Works? By Manning et al. (2016) explains what
economic analysis is, why it is important and the forms it can take. Costs
are important in all forms of economic analysis although their collection
tends to be partial and inadequate in capturing key information. A practical
guide to the collection is therefore also provided. The book will be of great
interest to students in economics and advanced students in policing and
crime reduction as well as to analysts and decision-makers in policing and
crime reduction.
“The economics of private security expenditure: The influence of
perceptions of crime” by Manning and Fleming (2017) provides an
interdisciplinary, accessible economic model for understanding choices by
individuals, as well as demonstrates the application of self-reported life
satisfaction data to the issue of property crime. This paper was selected as it
represents an empirical study undertaken by two economists that is easily
accessible by the non-economist. The authors find that (1) individuals’
perceptions of crime in their local area are far greater than actual levels of
crime, (2) the gap between perceived and real crime is widening and (3)
real crime rates detract more from an individual’s self-reported life
satisfaction than perceived rates of crime. However, perceived rates of
crime have an adverse impact on life satisfaction beyond those associated
with real crime. Together, these results suggest that societal welfare could
be significantly enhanced by reducing individual’s perceptions of crime,
irrespective of any changes in the real crime rate.

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Footnotes
1 Further discussion of non-market valuation is outside the scope of this chapter. For those seeking a
comprehensive review of non-market valuation theory, techniques and applications, see Freeman et
al. (2014).
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_45

45. Business Resilience to Crime: The

Harms of Crime, Security and Crime
Tolerance
Matt Hopkins1
(1) School of Criminology, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

Matt Hopkins
Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
The author develops a novel methodological approach to measure the harms
of crime against businesses. He bases his work upon the analysis of data
from over 8000 businesses in what has hitherto been a much-neglected area.
His work serves to highlight the important role of security in building
resilience to crime and the need to better understand the linkages between
business tolerance to crime harms, security and resilience.

Introduction: Commercial Victimisation, Harms

and Resilience to Crime
There is a growing body of international literature on commercial
victimisation, particularly focusing on the retail sector (Beck 2018; Ceccato
and Armitage 2018; Bamfield 2012), but little research has considered:
1.
The extent of crime-related harms experienced by victims across
different business sectors
2. Business ability to recover from crime or resilience to crime events
3.
The role security might play in mitigating harm and promoting
resilience
A harms approach moves away from gauging the extent of crime via
crime counting to developing methodologies that measure actual financial,
physical or emotional effects. Sherman et al. (2016, p. 171) state that ‘a
count of all crimes has no specific meaning unless all crimes are created
equal’. Therefore, a more meaningful measure might relate to how harmful
crimes are relative to each other. This could be especially pertinent in
relation to businesses, where crimes such as shoplifting occur most
frequently but are often of low cost, while crimes such as robbery are
relatively rare but can carry significant financial costs (and human costs in
terms of injury to staff). Thus, a harms approach moves away from
considering impact as a simple measure of crime prevalence/incidence or a
count of financial costs. However, several authors note that defining
‘harms’ is problematic. As Greenfield and Paoli (2013, p. 864) assert,
several conceptual and empirical challenges for assessing harm have to be
considered. These include infinitude (the infeasibility of creating an
exhaustive list of harms), causality (the temporal and behavioural distance
between conduct and consequences), standardisation (how measures might
be standardised), quantification (how measures might be quantified) and
incommensurability (the weight that might be attributed to measures).
Sherman et al. (2016, p. 178) argue that a harms approach can give
‘greater clarity for evidence based policies … targeting, testing and tracking
resource allocation’. They developed a model known as the Cambridge
Harm Index, which calculates harms through multiplying events recorded in
UK crime surveys by the starting points for offender sentences for each
crime type. Their analysis found that robbery contributed to 2%, and rape
less than 1%, of the UK crime count in 2002–2003, but when the harms
weighting was applied, the contribution was 26% and 15% respectively.
Although the development of harms models applicable to the commercial
sector is rare, Heeks et al. (2018) gauged the total cost of crime to business
using estimates from Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS) data. They
estimated the costs in anticipation of crime (defensive
expenditure/insurance),1 as a consequence (property stolen and
physical/physical harms)2 and costs in response to crime (such as police
costs/criminal justice system (CJS) costs) across seven business sectors.3
However, the exercise was limited as there was little analysis of the
variation in crime costs experienced across these business sectors or any
observation of the characteristics of businesses that sustain high costs from
crime.
Harms might also be considered in relation to resilience. The study of
resilience is in its infancy (see Dutton and Greene 2010; Walklate et al.
2014; Green and Pemberton 2018), but it is commonly defined as the ability
to cope with adversity (Green and Pemberton 2018) or to absorb changes
(Walklate et al. 2014). Martin (2019) refers to passive and active resilience
in the context of organisations. Passive resilience is defined as when
organisations can ‘absorb shocks and return to their previous state’ (Martin
2019, p. 77). Active resilience is when ‘organisations learn and develop
stronger defences’ (Martin 2019, p. 76). Writers such as Taleb (2012) refer
to this process as ‘anti-fragility’. Green and Pemberton (2018) argue that
victims may make a conscious choice to minimise the impact of
victimisation, though this may be affected by what is referred to as the level
of resistance—the capacity or resources to exercise control over resilience.
In this sense the real impact of crime is not just the harms, but a balance
between harms and having the capability to be resilient. This suggests that,
in relation to commercial victimisation, responses to crime might be better
framed as ‘level of active resilience’ (and might include actions that are part
of the resilience process—such as crime reporting and security
purchase/consumption) and ‘resilience capacity’ (whether businesses have
the resources and infrastructure to exercise control over resilience).
Therefore, analysis of active resilience and resilience capacity across
businesses (and how they relate to harms of crimes) would lead to a better
understanding of responses to crime and which businesses are most
resilient.
This chapter develops exploratory analysis around harms and resilience
to crime and is framed around two assertions. First, in-depth analysis of
harms will reveal which businesses are most adversely affected by crime.
Second, in-depth understanding of business resilience to crime will identify
what is needed to mitigate harms and prevent future crimes. The chapter is
structured around the following sections:
1.
Methodology: Data and the Operationalisation of Concepts
2.
Findings: Harms and Resilience
3.
Conclusions: Implications for Security and Future Research

Methodology: Data and the Operationalisation of

Concepts
To explore harms and resilience in relation to business, three main data
sources were used:
1.
Commercial Victimisation Survey data from 2017 and 2018: Data
relating to businesses’ experiences of crime and their use of security
were obtained from the two most recent sweeps of the CVS (see Home
Office 2018, 2019). The CVS covers England and Wales; data are
collected from business premises through telephone interviews. CVS
data are based on a random probability sample design, stratified by
business sector (using standard industrial classification (SIC) codes)
and number of employees (see IPSOS MORI 2019). This method
ensures a representative sample of businesses. The CVS collects data
on a number of variables including details of the business (SIC code,
number of employees, turnover); victimisation experience (over a 12-
month period); the financial cost of crime events and the security
measures implemented on the premises (including costs of these
measures). The data for this study are based on surveys with 8019
business premises including 3038 in the wholesale/retail sector, 964
arts/entertainment, 2021 agricultural, 1006 accommodation/food and
990 manufacturing.
2. Estimates of the costs of physical and emotional harms, and lost
outputs due to crime: Using estimates from CVS data, Heeks et al.
(2018) estimated the costs of crime to businesses. These estimates
include measures of direct costs of crime that go beyond the measures
in the CVS. The cost estimates outlined by Heeks et al. (2018) include
direct costs of crime (value of property stolen/damaged), physical and
emotional harm to victims (based on estimates of reduction in quality
 ( q y

of life due to physical and emotional harm) and lost outputs including
lost productivity due to time off work and reduced productivity while at
work.
3.
Sentencing council estimates of sentence lengths: Following
Sherman et al. (2016), estimates of crime seriousness were drawn from
sentencing council guidance on sentencing tariffs (see Sentencing
Council 2020).
Below, the methodology for calculating harms and resilience is outlined
in detail.

Developing Harms Measures

For the purpose of this study the focus is on the direct costs of crime to
businesses rather than wider society. Harms are calculated using five
measures:
1.
The direct financial costs of crime [CVS data]: These are direct
losses across crime types as recorded in CVS data 2017 and 2018. The
median value of crime is used due to the skewedness of data and the
number of outliers across crime types.4
2.
Emotional costs of crime: These are applied using the measures
outlined by Heeks et al. (2018). Where possible, estimates are used that
were developed in relation to businesses. However, there are some
crime categories where values are not available for businesses (assaults
with and without injury, fraud by employees/fraud by others and
cybercrime). In these cases, the values for crimes against individuals
are used as a proxy measure.5
3.
Physical impact of crime: Physical injury costs are applied to robbery
and assaults with injury. The measure for physical injury costs relating
to commercial robbery is applied from Heeks et al. (2018). As there is
no estimate for the costs of physical injury relating to assaults in
commercial establishments, the estimates for violence with injury
against individuals is used as a proxy measure.
4. Lost productivity due to crime: Lost productivity measures are taken
f H k t l (2018) Ag i th i t g i h
 from Heeks et al. (2018). Again, there are some crime categories where
values are not available for businesses (assaults with and without

injury, fraud by employees/fraud by others and cybercrime). In these

cases, the values for crimes against individuals are used as a proxy
measure.
5.
Likely offender sentence: Estimates of likely offender sentence are
made from Sentencing Council guidelines (Sentencing Council 2020).
In their model of crime harms, Sherman et al. (2016) use the starting
point of sentences to estimate crime seriousness. Here, the mid-point of
any potential sentence is used as it is likely to give a more robust
measure of the scale of seriousness.
Table 45.1 presents an overview of each measure as applied across
crime types. All measures have values expressed in British pounds sterling
(£), except likely sentence, which is expressed in days. The extent of harm
is determined by multiplying the number of crimes experienced at a
business premises by the relevant harms indicator. Therefore, if a business
experienced a robbery, the overall crime harm cost would be £6557 (the
total of direct, emotional, physical injury and lost productivity costs) and
4015 sentencing days.
Table 45.1 Measures of crime harms to business

Direct costs of Emotional Physical Lost productivity Likely

loss (median) (£) costs (£) injury costs to business (£) sentence
(£) (days)
Burglary 500 510 380 913
(entry)
Criminal 250 60 30 15
damage
Theft of 8000 360 190 1095
vehicle
Theft from 400 100 80 1095
vehicle
Robbery 137 4080 90 2250 4015
Assaults 0 2810 670 0
(other)
 Direct costs of Emotional Physical Lost productivity Likely
loss (median) (£) costs (£) injury costs to business (£) sentence
(£) (days)
Assaults 0 8060 180 2060 547
(injury)
Theft by 80 0 0 90
customer
Theft by 200 0 0 90
employee
Fraud by 200 200 60 1460
employee
Fraud other 815 200 60 1460
Cyber/online 500 150 50 906

Developing Security and Resilience Measures

For the purpose of this study, resilience is explored through the lens of
security. The data were drawn from the CVS data set, and three primary
aspects of security were analysed:
1. Engagement in crime prevention/security: The aim was to
understand what type, and how many, security devices a business had
in place. As the CVS asks businesses about 56 potential security
measures, these were coded into typologies based on what the security
devices aim to achieve. This produced ten groupings:
Physical protection of business perimeter: Fencing, anti-climb paint,
gates, barriers, hedges
Physical protection of buildings: Bars, shutters, barriers, fencing or
gates
Burglar alarm: Standard visible burglar alarm fixed on the premises
Entry systems and alarms: Door alarms, intercom entry, panic
button, access systems
People and dogs: Security guards or dogs inside or outside of the
business
Visual surveillance: CCTV systems inside or outside of the business,
fake cameras or sensors
Stock protection: Stock tags, property marking, merchandise alerts,
signs to warn protection offenders
Vehicle protection measures: Alarms, trackers on vehicles
 Staff checks: Whether security checks are run on new staff
Crime prevention networks: Whether the business is involved in
crime prevention networks/partnerships
2.
Likely efficacy of security: While businesses may have security in
place, an indication of its value in terms of resilience to crime is to
understand the security’s effectiveness. Following Tseloni et al. (2017),
the efficacy of security was calculated by developing an odds ratio of
the likelihood of victimisation for specific crime types the security
device was intended to prevent for businesses with the security device
versus those without the security device. For example, the efficacy of
burglar alarms would be calculated by comparing the likelihood of a
business experiencing a burglary if an alarm was in place versus the
likelihood if an alarm was not in place.
3.
Financial capacity to engage in crime prevention/security: Three
measures were developed to assess the financial capacity of businesses
to engage in security. First, the financial cost of crime harms as a
proportion of business turnover.7 Second, the amount a business spent
on security per year as a proportion of turnover, and third, the amount
spent on security per year as a proportion of the total cost of crime
harms.

Findings
This section outlines the findings. First, the harms of crime are considered,
then resilience to crime.

Harms of Crime to Businesses

Table 45.2 compares indicators of the harms of crime against business. The
five columns (moving from left to right) each present a measure of harm
and the proportion of harm relative to each crime. This allows for the
relative weight of each crime type across each harms measure to be
identified. For example, it shows that burglary makes up 0.8% of all crimes
against businesses, but contributes 26.2% of direct costs, 0.9% of emotional
harms costs, 1.8% of lost productivity and 2.2% of sentencing days.
Table 45.2 Harms contribution (%) per crime type

Crime type Total % of Direct Phys/emotion Lost productivity Sentence

(number of all crimes costs harms costs indicator of
incidents) (median) seriousness
(days)
Burglary (entry) 0.8 26.2 0.9 1.8 2.2
(n = 1790)
Criminal damage 2.3 15.2 0.3 0.4 0.1
(n = 4920)
Theft of vehicle 0.1 16.2 0.1 0.0 0.2
(n = 142)
Theft from vehicle 0.2 2.7 0.0 0.1 0.7
(n = 446)
Robbery 4.8 0.7 43.2 62.1 55.3
(n = 10,324)
Assaults (other) 8.6 0.0 52.1 33.1 0.0
(n = 18,642)
Assaults (injury) 0.1 0.0 0.9 0.6 0.1
(n = 109)
Theft (customer) 76.3 14.1 0.0 0.0 19.6
(n = 163,167)
Theft (employee) 1.0 3.6 0.0 0.0 0.3
(n = 2204)
Fraud (employee) 0.5 4.1 0.2 0.2 2.0
(n = 1038)
Fraud other 4.7 13.5 2.0 1.6 19.4
(n = 9980)
Cyber (n = 1391) 0.7 3.6 0.2 0.2 0.2
Total (n = 213,973) 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Base: Direct costs—CVS data 2017 and 2018: 8019 businesses [unweighted
data]

In line with Sherman et al. (2016), the analysis illustrates that counting
crimes or using direct costs as measures might be misleading in terms
identifying the true extent of crime costs and who might be affected. A
count of crime events shows that more than three in four crimes against the
commercial sector were thefts by customers (shoplifting), but this crime
type generates only 14.1% of direct costs. This is unsurprising as many
studies have reported a high number of often low-cost incidents of customer
theft—especially in the retail sector (see Home Office 2018, 2019). On the
other hand burglary accounts for less than 1% of crime against the sample,
but it was the crime type that generated the highest proportion of direct
costs (over 25%). When harms measures including physical/emotional
costs, lost productivity and sentencing are added, a different picture
emerges of the crime types that generate the most significant harms. While
robbery and assaults (without injury) comprise just over 13% of crimes (and
less than 1% of direct costs), over 90% of emotional and physical costs
relate to these crime types. They also account for 95% of lost outputs.
Unsurprisingly, the measure of sentencing points to robbery as the most
serious crime faced by businesses in the sample.
Table 45.2 summarises the harms contribution for each crime type
across the sample. However, questions remain about the actual financial
cost of such harms to businesses and how they differ across business types.
These questions are addressed in Table 45.3, where the direct costs of crime
are outlined, and Table 45.4, where emotional and physical costs, and the
costs of lost outputs, are presented.
Table 45.3 Direct crime costs (£) across business sectors by crime type (based on median values)

Crime type (number where direct costs Business sector

given)
W/Retail Acc/F Agriculture Arts/Ents Manu
Burglary (entry) (n = 760) 126 96 101 145 73
Criminal damage (n = 187) 160 133 144 276 53
Theft of vehicle (n = 97) 121 16 261 58 170
Theft from vehicle (n = 188) 28 2 25 15 25
Robbery (n = 94) 451 24 4 9 3
Assaults (injury) (NA) 0 0 0 0 0
Assaults (other) (NA) 0 0 0 0 0
Theft by customer (n = 373) 4229 117 10 54 15
Theft by employee (n = 124) 69 191 5 10 20
Fraud by employee (n = 88) 32 30 3 74 3
Fraud other (n = 184) 2453 288 19 293 71
Cyber (n = 301) 98 14 55 95 180
Total (£) 7768 911 627 1031 613
Base: Direct costs—CVS data 2017 and 2018: 8019 businesses [unweighted
data]
Table 45.4 Total average costs (£) of crime harms and lost productivity across business sectors by
crime type and per business

Average cost of emotional and physical Average cost of lost productivity

harms per business (£) per business (£)
Crime type W/R Acc/F Ag Arts Man W/R Acc/F Ag Arts Man
Burglary 135 77 106 134 70 101 55 79 100 52
(entry)
Criminal 34 31 37 52 18 17 15 19 26 9
damage
Theft of 6 <1 16 3 14 <1 <1 1 <1 <1
vehicle
Theft from 9 <1 6 3 5 7 <1 5 3 4
vehicle
Robbery 13,160 997 120 227 117 7100 537 65 122 64
Assaults 10,903 5638 468 7109 470 2600 1344 111 1695 112
(injury)
Assaults 182 147 29 83 67 45 37 7 21 17
(other)
Theft 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
customer
Theft 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
employee
Fraud 33 46 1 142 4 10 14 <1 43 1
employee
Fraud other 663 88 6 91 19 198 26 2 27 6
Cyber 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 25,124 7026 788 7845 782 10,079 2032 289 2037 264

Base: Direct costs—CVS data 2017 and 2018: 8019 businesses [unweighted
data]

Table 45.3 shows that the average direct crime cost per business is
highest in the wholesale/retail sector (£7768)—with the highest average
generated through customer theft (£4229) and fraud other (£2453). The high
costs of these two crime types in wholesale/retail not only make the average
direct costs in that sector significantly higher than any other sector, but
these costs also eclipse any other individual crime costs. The highest
average direct costs for other crime types were in other sectors: burglary
and criminal damage in the arts sector (£145 and £276 respectively), theft
of vehicle (agriculture: £261), theft by employee (accommodation/food:
£191), fraud by employee (arts: £74) and cybercrime (manufacturing:
£180).
A business in the wholesale/retail sector is likely to suffer the highest
direct financial losses due to crime; the same is true for emotional/physical
costs of crime and lost productivity (Table 45.4). Taking account of these
harms dramatically amplifies the impact of crime on the wholesale/retail,
accommodation/food and arts/entertainment sectors. While the average
direct financial loss to crime for a retailer is £7768, emotional and physical
costs result in a further £25,124 and lost productivity £10,079 per business
per year. The effect of accounting for harms and lost productivity is equally
dramatic in the accommodation/food and arts/entertainment sectors where
emotional/physical harms add £7026 and £7845 to the costs per business
respectively. For each of these sectors lost productivity adds around £2000
to the costs per business.
It is evident that the significant increases in costs observed in the
wholesale/retail, accommodation/food and arts/entertainment sectors by
accounting for harms and lost productivity are caused by the greater
numbers of crimes that result in injury to staff, emotional harms and
interruption to business opening (such as robbery and assaults). It is also
evident that fraud (other) is also a crime type that generates significant
emotional costs and lost productivity in the wholesale/retail sector.8 From a
policy and industry perspective, it would be useful to understand which
specific types of businesses (rather than which sectors) experience the most
severe harms of crime. This is done below, where a logistic regression
model is developed to identify the characteristics of businesses where
harms are most felt.
To do this, it was necessary to create an independent variable: business
with high harms. This was done by calibrating the four harms indicators
through calculating Z scores for each (direct crime costs, harms cost, lost
productivity, sentencing).9 These scores were then added and divided by
four to create a composite indicator of harms for each of the 8019 business
in the sample. The businesses were coded into two groups—those with a
harms score above the mean and those whose score was below the mean. A
total of 8% (n = 643) businesses were coded into the high-harms group.
This group experienced 89% of crimes, 40% of direct crime costs, 95% of
emotional/physical costs and 95% of lost productivity.
Eleven independent variables (coded as 1 = Yes: 0 = No) were
developed from the dataset10:
1.
If the business conducts online sales
2.
If the business has been trading for less than one year
3.
If it is a retail unit
4.
If the business has an ‘off’ licence
5.
If the business has ‘on’ licence
6.
If it is located in a town centre
7.
If more than 25 staff work at the premises
8.
If the business reported any organised crime11 (OC) activity in the
previous 12 months
9.
If it is located in an urban area
10.
If it is located in the top 30% of most deprived locations (based on
Indices of Multiple Deprivation)
11.
If turnover is above £250,000 per annum

The output for the model is presented in Table 45.5.12 The regression
coefficient indicates the direction and explanatory power of each variable,
with the odds ratio giving the likelihood of a factor being present in a high-
harms business. The model identifies nine factors that are statistically
significant and likely to be present in high-harms businesses. The three
most likely are proximity to organised crime (high-harms businesses that
are 11 times more likely to have reported a crime was linked to organised
crime), being a retail unit/shop (five times more likely) and employing over
25 staff (nearly five times more likely).
Table 45.5 Regression model: characteristics of high-harms businesses (the three factors most likely
to be present are shaded)

Predictor (explanatory variables) Regression coefficient Odds ratio Statistical significance

Online sales 0.362 1.436 0.001
Trading less than one year −0.415 0.661 0.388
Retail unit 1.612 5.014 0.000
Has on licence 0.659 1.933 0.001
Has off licence 0.328 1.388 0.248
Located in town centre 0.375 1.455 0.001
Over 25 employees 1.376 3.958 0.000
Proximity to OC 2.400 11.018 0.000
Located in urban area 0.689 1.991 0.000
Located in deprived area 0.421 1.524 0.000
Turnover above £250,000 0.581 1.789 0.000

Sample base: 8019 business. Dependent variable is high-harms group = 643

businesses. Block 1 significance = 0.000: Nagelkerke R Square = 0.427

Security, Harms and Resilience to Crime

The analysis identified 643 business with above-average harms scores. The
regression model also identifies some of the factors that might make these
businesses vulnerable to crime. The analysis raises questions about the
resilience of high-harms businesses to crime. This is considered below in
relation to three measures:
1.
Engagement with crime prevention and security
2.
Likely efficacy of security
3.
Capacity of the business to engage in crime prevention
 Figure 45.1 outlines engagement in crime prevention. This is done by
comparing the proportion of high- and low-harms businesses with each of
the ten types of security in place.13 It illustrates that high-harms businesses
were more likely to have seven of the ten security types installed on their
premises than low-harms businesses. The largest disparities were in relation
to security guards (42% versus 18%), staff checks (36% versus 13%) and
burglar alarms (86% versus 63%).

Fig. 45.1 Business engagement with crime prevention and security: high-harms compared to low-
harms businesses. (Base sample: 4429 business asked security questions)

Next, the financial capacity to purchase security was assessed. Table

45.6 shows that high-harms businesses spend more on security than low-
harms businesses (£10,104 per annum compared to £1530).14 This is
represented in the higher proportion of turnover the high-harms business
spend on security (0.89% compared to 0.18%). It is interesting to note,
however, that while crime harms equate to 7.6% of turnover for high-harms
businesses (compared to 0.48% for the low-harms group), security
investment equates to around 16% of these costs as compared to 200% for
the low-harms businesses. Although security investment in low-harms
businesses is double the costs of harms sustained through crime, it needs to
be remembered that this figure is produced by the fact that low-harms
business only sustain relatively low costs. Therefore, fairly modest
investments in security across many of those businesses would quickly see
security spending outpace the costs of crime harms.
Table 45.6 Financial outlay on security: high-harms compared to low-harms businesses

Average Average Security spend Cost of crime Security spend

turnover per security spend as a % of all harms as a % of as a % of all
business (£) per business (£) turnover all turnover harms costs
High 17,035,041 10,104 0.89 7.6 15.8
harms
Low 6,056,812 1530 0.18 0.48 200.3
harms

Base sample 8019: 643 high harms/7376 low harms

The evidence begins to raise some questions about the potential value of
security spending for the high-harms businesses. For every £2.80 of
turnover in the high-harms business there is £1 in the low-harms businesses,
though the high-harms businesses are spending £6.6 on security per annum
for every £1 spent in the low-harms businesses and their security spend as a
% of all turnover outpaces that of the low-harms group by 4.9 to 1. In
return, the proportion of turnover relating to crime harms is nearly 16 times
higher for the high-harms businesses. Thus, the evidence suggests that high-
harms businesses engage in crime prevention as much (if not more) than
low-harms businesses. Indeed, this is further demonstrated by the fact that
high-harms businesses had a higher average number of security devices in
place (nine compared to five).15 Of course, a key question in relation to
resilience to crime associates with the efficacy of security. Some authors
have used the Security Impact Assessment Tool (SIAT) methodology
(developed by Farrell et al. 2011) to devise security protection factor (SPF)
scores for security measures through a two-step process. First, an odds ratio
of the likelihood of experiencing (for example) a burglary if a business has
a burglar alarm in place is calculated compared to the wider business
population. Second, the SPF is then calculated by dividing this odds ratio
by the odds of experiencing a burglary if no security was in place. This
quantifies the potential security protection factor the alarm offers.
In Table 45.7 we begin by presenting an analysis of the odds ratios for a
number of security provisions and crime types across the whole sample of
businesses (both high and low harms). The crime types selected for analysis
are those that generated the highest direct costs to businesses (burglary
entry), the highest number of crime events (customer theft),
emotional/physical harms (robbery/assault), sentencing seriousness
(robbery) or lost productivity for businesses (robbery/assault). The odds
ratios are presented for the likelihood of a crime event occurring where a
security device is in place that might be expected to impact on that crime
type (e.g. a burglar alarm in relation to burglary). The findings reveal five
instances where security might offer some protection (denoted by the
shaded cells). Businesses with stock measures in place were less likely to be
victims of customer theft and robbery, and those with visual surveillance
were less likely to be victims of robbery and assaults.
Table 45.7 Security efficacy: odds ratios of victimisation for businesses with security in place
compared to those without (shaded squares indicate possible security protection)

Crime type (% victims)

Security measures (number with Burg (entry) Customer theft Robbery Assault
measures) (10.5%) (15%) (5%) (11%)
Odds ratio of victimisation
Stock measures (n = 1897) 0.425a 0.374a
Entry protection (n = 680) 1.34a 1.6a 1.68a
Visual surveillance (n = 1170) 1.04 0.887 0.590a 0.819a
Security guards (n = 891) 1.31a 2.04a 2.99a 2.40a
Crime networks (n = 737) 1.6a 1.76a 2.01a 2.10a
Staff checks (n = 1211) 3.24a 3.99a 3.99a
Physical premises protection 1.4
(n = 3680)
Physical perimeter protection 1.4*
(n = 1065)
Burglar alarm (n = 2847) 1.1

Base sample 4429

aStatistically significant 0.05 level
 In terms of security protection factor scores for devices whose impact is
observed in Table 45.7, it can be seen that businesses with:
1.
Stock measures are five times less likely to be victims of customer theft
(2.008/0.425) and seven times less likely to be victims of robbery
(2.566/0.374)
2.
Visual surveillance are 2.8 times less likely to be victims of robbery
(1.659/0.590) and 1.4 times less likely to be victims of assault
(1.195/0.819)
Some of the findings in Table 45.7 raise interesting questions about
security and crime victimisation. For example, businesses with security
guards in place, who conducted staff checks and were part of crime
prevention networks, had greater risks of being victims of customer theft,
robbery and assault. It would be naïve to think that the presence of security
could prevent all crime incidents in business environments, but the data
point to a situation where many businesses have security in place but are
still regularly victimised. Of course, many businesses are large spaces that
are hard to fully protect and, in order to sell products and services, require
high numbers of customers to pass through who might also be motivated
offenders. This makes it difficult to properly evaluate the efficacy of
security in business. Also, previous research has noted that sometimes
higher crime risks can be observed where security is present. For example.
Tilley et al. (2014) noted that households with burglar alarms have a higher
risk of burglary. However, they also noted that often combinations of
security (rather than single measures) have protective effects.
The analysis does raise questions about the level of protection security
offers to businesses and the protection security offers to the highest harms
businesses. This is considered in Table 45.8, where crime prevalence rates
across four crime types are compared across three groups of businesses:
1.
High-harms business with the security device (HW)
2.
High-harms business without the security device (HWO)
3.
Low-harms businesses without the security device (LHW)
Table 45.8 Prevalence of crime: businesses in harms group with security mechanisms in place
compared to those without (shaded squares indicate possible protection)

Burg (entry) Customer theft Robbery Assault

(Prev = 10.5%) (Prev = 15%) (Prev = 5%) (Prev = 11%)
HW HWO LWO HW HWO LWO HW HWO LWO HW HWO LWO
Stock 52 84a 12 33 48a 1
measures
Entry 25 31 9 77 77 10 41 46 1 72 75 6
protection
Visual 33 28 9 72 78 10 37 46 1 66 76 6
surveillance
Security 28 31 9 87 69 10 45 47 1 74 74 6
guards
Crime 29 29 8 78 77 9 48 44 1 75 73 5
networks
Staff checks 83 65 9 45 47 1 78 66 5
Premises 30 30 7
protection
Perimeter 34 27 8
protection
Burglar 28 36 9
alarm

Base sample 4429: 4083 low-harms and 346 high-harms businesses

aStatistically significant

Prevalence rates are presented rather than odds ratios, as this shows the
rates of crime experienced by businesses in the high-harms group. The
analysis illustrates that (1) security may offer limited protection when the
high-harms group is compared to the low-harms group and (2) there are
some clear implications for the way we might think about security in the
contexts of businesses. The data show that the prevalence rates of these
comparisons are only statistically significant in relation to the effect of
stock measures on customer theft and robbery. This suggests that where
stock measures are in place in high-harms businesses, the risk of customer
theft is reduced by 8 times (1.6/0.200) and robbery by 2.8 times
(1.488/0.514).
Conclusions: Implications for Security and Future
Research
This chapter illustrates that rethinking how the impacts of crimes on
businesses are measured and understood by academics and policymakers
might be beneficial. While studies of commercial victimisation have
typically measured the direct costs of crime events or shrinkage, a more
holistic harms approach may offer better insights into the costs of crime to
businesses. Although questions might be raised over some of the harms
measures used in this study (which is an area for development and
refinement), the approach has clear potential. First, it reveals the heavy
burden of some crimes—such as assault and robbery—which result in high
lost productivity costs and can have significant physical/emotional impacts
on staff. Second, the approach allows for high-harms groups to be
identified, which can guide prevention measures.
The study analysed harms through the lens of resilience. This concept is
not precisely defined, and few studies have attempted to operationalise it.
Dutton and Greene (2010) refer to resilience as the building up of protective
factors; in relation to businesses, such protective factors could relate to
security provision. Therefore, three areas were measured: engagement in
security, financial outlay on security and efficacy of security. The analysis
found that high-harms businesses were just as likely to engage and invest in
security as low-harms businesses. Of course, some care has to be taken in
relation to how the findings are interpreted as the exact reasons why
businesses purchased security (such as whether it was direct response to
crime victimisation or for another reason) and when security was purchased
is unknown. However, there was little evidence that security offered such
businesses much protection against crime. This is a cause for concern,
although there are a number of plausible hypotheses to why these patterns
are observed:
1.
Target suitability: It is possible that high-harms businesses are such
attractive targets for crime that security is circumvented or is
insufficient to deter motivated offenders.
2. The suitable target (the business) is too big to protect: Evidence from
several studies (Hopkins and Gill 2017; Hopkins 2019) shows that
larger businesses (in terms of the number of employees) have high
 larger businesses (in terms of the number of employees) have high
crime prevalence and incidence rates. The analysis shows that high-
harms businesses are more likely to employ over 25 people. Thus, these
premises may be too big for security devices to protect them from all
crimes.
3.
There are too many motivated offenders: Some previous research
illustrates that high-risk businesses tend to be in deprived locations
(Hopkins 2016), which may have a high number of potential offenders
in the locality. The current study identifies an association between
deprivation and harms, and that high-harms businesses tend to be in
areas where organised crime might also be present. This suggests some
businesses may come into contact with too many motivated offenders
to mitigate all crime risks.
4.
There are too many opportunities: Some businesses—such as retail—
offer so many opportunities for crime (a wide range of products) and
contexts in which potential conflict can occur between staff and
customers (leading to threats and assaults) that it is impossible to
prevent all occurrences of crime.
5.
Security does work, but only in some contexts: Evidence in this chapter
suggests that, in some contexts, security does offer protection for
business (such as visual surveillance for assaults). However, this might
reduce incidence rates of crime but not prevalence rates.
6.
Poor security targeting: Businesses may feel under pressure to do
something about previous crime events (or potential future risk) but
might implement security that does not protect against the specific
crimes that they then eventually become victims of.
7.
Poor security management: Security may be implemented but not
adequately monitored or maintained.
8.
Data collection timing: Security is implemented after crime events, but
the events are still recorded in surveys such as the CVS. This gives the
impression that security had no impact on crime rates.
9. Misleading data: It is possible, though unlikely, that high-harms
businesses are better at crime recall and reporting than low-harms
 bus esses a e bette at c e eca a d epo t g t a ow a s
businesses. This could cause misleading data to be recorded in surveys
such as the CVS.
A key challenge for further research is to better capture the types and
extent of harms business experience as a result of crime and to assess the
true impact of those crimes. The harms approach of Sherman et al. (2016),
and the cost measures suggested by Heeks et al. (2018), encourages more
accurate counting and better measurement of harms. This is no doubt
necessary, but it must be remembered that ‘business’ is a broad concept that
encompasses everything from small shops to multinational companies.
Thus, harms are experienced in different ways. This might be better
reflected in future research which could take account of the potential of
crime harms on business profitability, future trading prospects, desire to
move location or other less tangible aspects of crime harms such as staff
morale/staff turnover where violent crime and threats might be regular
occurrences.
Of course, harms are closely tied to the notion of resilience. Although
resilience is difficult to operationalise, it is a concept that future research
needs to explore in more depth. While some authors note that resilience can
be about ‘coping’ and make reference to ‘coping’ styles (Dutton and Greene
2010), this chapter has viewed resilience largely through the lens of security
protection. While the high-harms businesses in this sample engaged in
security (and thus active resilience), it is debatable whether that act of
resilience increased future protection against crime. This has two important
implications for security. First, it suggests that many businesses might
implement security because they feel the need to do something. Second, this
form of active resilience then may do little to protect businesses against
crime.
However, while resilience to crime is important within the business
environment, scholars might also want to consider business tolerance to
crime harms. In the Covid 19 world, businesses are going to be under even
more pressure to reduce losses, including those generated by crime. This
study suggests many businesses are willing to tolerate some crime
loss/harms when profitability or productivity are not too affected (if it forms
part of a successful sales strategy). While Martin (2019) notes that
resilience can be about building stronger defences, an understanding of
‘crime tolerance’ would consider the level of crime harms a business can
withstand before (a) stronger defences need to be built and (b) crime harms
start to impact business viability. The findings in this chapter suggest that
many high-harms businesses are high turnover premises that might
(theoretically) have high tolerance to crime harms. For these businesses,
crime might be a regular occurrence that does not infringe too much on
their ability to trade, and the relative failure of security protection may not
be a major problem as they can absorb the costs of crime (otherwise, for
profit reasons, they would take action). However, as the world changes,
fewer businesses are likely to be in this position. Therefore, the utility of
any harms model rests in better understanding where crime harms put
pressure on crime tolerance and to what extent those businesses are then
able to build active resilience. The test for security will be whether it can
offer the protection businesses will need.

Recommended Readings
Commercial victimisation has not been a significant area of academic focus.
However, a number of texts exist on retail crime such as Ceccato and
Armitage’s (2018) edited collection Retail Crime: International Evidence
and Prevention, which includes a number of useful chapters. Another
useful, though somewhat dated source is Bamfield’s (2012) Shopping and
Crime; scholars may also want to look at the work of Adrian Beck, who has
authored several texts including The Rise of Self-Checkout in Retailing
(2018). For those interested in commercial victimisation generally, the
Home Office publishes ‘Findings from the Commercial Victimisation
Survey’, which presents annual rates of crimes against a range of business
sectors in England and Wales (see Home Office 2018, 2019). Although little
academic research covers non-retail business sectors, Hopkins and Gill
provide a useful overview in The Handbook of Crime Prevention (Tilley
and Sidebottom 2017). While few published studies have considered the
impact of security on businesses, an engaging overview of risk
amplification is provided by Beck (2016), ‘Amplifying Risk in Retail
Stores’. For those interested in harms indexing, possibly the best starting
place is Sherman et al.’s (2016) ‘The Cambridge Crime Harm Index:
Measuring Total Harm from Crime Based on Sentencing Guidelines’ as
published in Policing Vol 10, Issue 3.
References
Bamfield, J. A. N. (2012) Shopping and Crime, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
[Crossref]

Beck, A. (2016) Amplifying risk in retail stores: The evidence to date on making shop thieves think
twice. ECR Community Shrinkage and On-Shelf Availability Group. https://ecr-shrink-group.com/
medias/research/Amplifying_Risk_in_Retail_Stores_Report.pdf [Accessed 25th November 2019].

Beck, A. (2018) The rise of Self-checkout in retailing. Leicester: Erudite Publishing.

Ceccato, V. & Armitage, R. (2018) Retail crime: International evidence and prevention. Palgrave
Macmillan Series in Crime Prevention and Security Management.

Cross, C. (2019) “You’re not alone”: the use of peer support groups for fraud victims, Journal of
Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 29:5, 672–691, https://doi.org/10.1080/10911359.2019.
1590279.
[Crossref]

Dutton, A. & Greene, R. (2010) Resilience & crime victimization. Journal of Traumatic Stress,
23(2), 215–222. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.20510.
[Crossref]

Farrell, G., Tseloni, A. & Tilley, N. (2011) The effectiveness of vehicle security devices and their
role in the crime drop. Criminology & Criminal Justice: An International Journal 13(1), 21–35.
https://doi.org/10.1177/2F1748895810392190
[Crossref]

Green, S. & Pemberton, A. (2018) The Impact of Crime Victimisation, Harms and Resilience. In
Walklate, S. The Handbook of Victims & Victimology. Oxon: Routledge. 77–103.

Greenfield, V., & Paoli, L. (2013). A Framework to Assess the Harms of Crimes. The British Journal
of Criminology, 53(5), 864–885 https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azt018.
[Crossref]

IPSOS MORI (2019) Commercial Victimisation Survey Technical Report (January 2019) https://
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/828770/
commercial-victimisation-survey-technical-report-2018.pdf [Accessed 29 April 2020].

Heeks, M., Reed, S., Tafsiri, M. & Prince, S. (2018) The Social and Economic Costs of Crime;
(second edition). Research report 99. London: Home Office. https://www.gov.uk/government/
publications/the-economic-and-social-costs-of-crime [Accessed 12th November 2019].

Home Office (2018) Crime against business: Headline findings from the 2017 Commercial
Victimisation Survey. London: Home Office. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/crime-
against-businesses-findings-from-the-2017-commercial-victimisation-survey [Accessed 15 October
2020].

Home Office (2019) Crime against business: Headline findings from the 2018 Commercial
Victimisation Survey: London, Home Office. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/crime-
against-businesses-findings-from-the-2018-commercial-victimisation-survey [Accessed 15 October
2020].
Hopkins, M. (2016) Business, victimisation and victimology: Reflections on contemporary patterns
of commercial victimisation and the concept of businesses as ‘ideal victims’. International Review of
Victimology 22(2), 161–179.

Hopkins, M. & Gill, M. (2017) ‘Business, crime and crime prevention: emerging debates and future
challenges’. In Tilley, N. & Sidebottom, A. (eds.) Handbook of Crime Prevention and Community
Safety (2nd ed). London: Routledge. 373–394.

Hopkins, M. (2019) ‘Business face higher rates of Victimisation than Households or individuals’. In
Treadwell, J. & Lynes, A., 50 Facts everyone should know about crime and punishment in Britain.
Bristol: Polity Press. 41–43.

Martin, P. (2019) The Rules of Security: Staying safe in a Risky World: Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

Sentencing Council (2020) Sentencing Guidelines for use in Crown Court https://www.
sentencingcouncil.org.uk/crown-court/ [accessed 15 October 2020].

Sherman, L., Neyroud, P. & Neyroud, E. (2016) The Cambridge Crime Harm Index: Measuring Total
Harm from Crime Based on Sentencing Guidelines. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice,
10(3), 171–183. https://doi.org/10.1093/police/paw003.
[Crossref]

Taleb, N. (2012). Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder. New York: Random House.

Tilley, N. & Sidebottom, A. (eds.) (2017). Handbook of Crime Prevention and Community Safety
(2nd ed). London: Routledge.

Tilley, N. J., Thompson, R., Farrell, G., Grove, L., & Tseloni, A. (2014). Do Burglar Alarms Increase
Burglary Risk? A Counterintuitive Finding and Possible Explanations. Crime Prevention &
Community Safety: An International Journal.17: 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1057/cpcs.2014.17.

Tseloni, A., Thompson, R., Grove, L., et al. (2 more authors) (2017). The effectiveness of burglary
security devices. Security Journal, 30(2), 646–664. ISSN 0955-1662.

Walklate, S., McGarry, R., & Mythen, G. (2014). Searching for Resilience: A Conceptual
Excavation’. Armed Forces & Society, 40(3), 408–427. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X12465419.
[Crossref]

Footnotes
1 This includes crime detection and prevention costs (such as security). It also includes the cost of
insurance administration.

2 This includes emotional costs of crime, lost outputs and health service costs.
3 These sectors include wholesale/retail; agriculture, forestry and fishing; construction;
accommodation/food; arts, entertainment and recreation; manufacturing and transport/ storage.

4 Using median values produces lower direct costs than those observed in Heeks et al. (2018).

5 For assaults, violence with and without injury is used; for fraud by employee and by other, the
fraud measure is used; for cybercrime, the cybercrime measure is used.

6 The range of cyber-enabled or genuine cybercrimes makes it difficult to identify a sentence length.
As a high number of online thefts were recorded in the data, a proxy measure using theft offences has
been used.

7 A better measure of financial capacity would be by considering ‘cost of crime harms’ and ‘security
spend’ as a proportion of profit. However, a measure of profit was not available in the data.

8 The harms of fraud—both financially and on victims are becoming a growing focus of research—
see Cross (2019).

9 Z scores calculate the position of an observation relative to the rest of its distribution. It
returns values of −1 to 1 for a distribution. They can be used to identify how high above or
below a mean value a business is.

10 These variables were correlated beforehand to check for multicollinearity.

11 Organised crime is defined in the survey as ‘Serious crime planned, coordinated and conducted
by people working together on a continuing basis. Their motivation is often, but not always, financial
gain’.

12 The Nagelkerke R Square is a measure of the proportion of variance the independent variables
explain.
13 The CVS only asked 50% of respondents about security provisions, meaning the sample in this
section is 4429 businesses

14 One of the limitations with the CVS data is that it is unclear whether spending on security took
place after victimisation or before. Therefore, it cannot be said with certainty whether security
spending is proactive or reactive.

15 This figure is calculated out of the total of 56 measures asked about in the CVS.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gill (ed.), The Handbook of Security
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_46

46. Thinking About the Benefits of

Security, and the Barriers to Recognising
Them
Martin Gill1
(1) Perpetuity Research, Tunbridge Wells, UK

Martin Gill
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
The author outlines the wide range of benefits of good security practice
which are rarely systematically highlighted and yet need to be understood to
be assessed in the context of the very serious dangers that evolve from bad
security. He notes that the security sector has been poor at putting its case,
and its fragmented nature and its lack of a single or representative voice
have complicated this. Yet there is much to be gained by harnessing good
security and reducing the risk of bad security although governments have
shown little interest in this. Gill argues that this is a massive wasted
opportunity and the losers include the general public.

In their different ways all the chapters in this book support the point that
when based on good principles and when operationally competent, security
is an essential good. This is true not just for those who pay for it, but
crucially, and this point is often missed, for others too. It is also true that
when it is based on an unethical or unprincipled premises and/or is poorly
executed, security can fail to protect targets or assets and can have a serious
adverse impact on people’s human rights (Moss 2009, 2011). As a result,
security is an important concept and that is why getting security right
matters so much.
This chapter starts by documenting the benefits of good security—
private, corporate and other types too—and showing how they are far
greater than the obvious ones, the ones that are most talked about. It is
strange, but somewhat characteristic of much work undertaken on private
security that these benefits are rarely discussed, let alone highlighted.
Despite pockets of good work, the security sector itself has not been good at
promoting itself. In the second part of the chapter the reasons why these
benefits have not been systematically harnessed are discussed, and it moves
on to consider why there has been no effective national coordinated strategy
to maximise the work for the public good. The third part draws attention to
the implicit dangers of praising the good work of security without
recognising its limitations. Given that the recent pandemic presented an
opportunity to showcase its value to a range of stakeholders, the final part
of the chapter briefly examines its performance by reporting on a study of
the views of security professionals on their work during the pandemic.

Understanding the Benefits

When security was widely defined as principally focussed on protecting
assets (including by me) it missed an opportunity. Taking an organisation as
an example, the leading assets, people and finance, typically have separate
departments to represent them (Human Resources and Finance
respectively), so security is marginalised and could be viewed as merely
dealing with the left overs, and the less important aspects of organisational
life. Another writer on security has tackled this same thing, that security has
not been perceived in its best light, focussing on its very definition:

If we begin by looking at the etymology of the word ‘security’, for

example, we find that a negative interpretation of the concept is
limited at least. The Dutch word for security [veiligheid] is
etymologically closely linked to the word velich in Old German and
felig in Old Frisian, words that have connotations with what is now
called ‘trust’, ‘being beloved’ and ‘friendliness’. (see, Schuilenburg
et al. 2014;14)
 Forbes-Mewett (2018; and see chapter in this Handbook) has provided
an excellent documentation of the different interpretations of security and
outlines the various ways in which it has been misinterpreted. I argued in
the previous edition of this Handbook that a preoccupation with defining
security in terms of the protection of assets had undersold its potential.
Updating that point, how much better placed might security be if we
defined it more accurately, say in these terms:

Security when practiced well is fundamental to protecting

individuals, organisations, communities and countries from danger;
it has been shown via research to be crucial in reducing risk and
saving lives. Within organisations it serves an essential function
with multiple purposes, primarily it: identifies major risks and is a
focal point for managing them; it facilitates operations, including
and especially in the most testing environments where it is the
mainstay of building and maintaining resilience; it prioritises
protecting people and other assets while supporting organisational
goals; it is a focal point for expertise in responding to danger and in
a crisis; it provides a check on practices to ensure they are legal and
ethical; in this role it recognises and promotes the personal
freedoms of individuals and protects the organisation’s brand and its
reputation. Security provides a coordinating function, marshalling
relevant internal and external resources to provide a holistic
response always guided by organisational objectives. In the
commercial sector, security personnel help companies make profits
and reduce loss, and in all sectors good security provides a value
adding service.

Such a definition moves towards presenting security at its best in a way

that maximises its potential for good and minimises its drift towards being
bad, very bad. Aligning the aims of security with the broader aims of the
well-intentioned organisation has much to commend it. At least some of
these points have been used to advocate a more expansive role for security
under the umbrella term Enterprise Security Risk Management (ESRM)
(Allen and Loyear 2018) which has been seen as key in aligning security
risks to the aims of the wider organisation. After all, just as all employees
are a potential security weakness so too they are an ally in good security,
and while every organisational process can create a security weakness so
too it can be (and usually is) a friend of good security practice. This is why
security approaches should always be linked to organisational ones.
Indeed, most organisations share with the public generally and the
police specifically the same view of security. After all what is bad for law
enforcement is bad for business too. A secure transport system is at least as
important for transport providers as it is for the public and the police
(Ceccato and Armitage 2018); a lack of crime incidents in a shopping mall
is as important for the managers/owners/security team of the shopping mall
as it is for the public and the police (Bamfield 2012; Beck 2009).
The benefits derived from good security are often glossed over and
rarely highlighted (but see, UNODC 2014), yet in one study this author
undertook with colleagues (Gill et al. 2015) many emerged, and it is worth
dwelling on these here. Some are more widely recognised, for example,
security helps protect a wide variety of tangible and intangible assets; it
helps prevent victimisation and revictimisation, and/or reduces its
consequences, including protection against someone being killed or injured
(physically and emotionally); it helps protect the organisation’s reputation
which is a major item on the Balance Sheet in the business world (Dube
2009; Ponemon Institute LLC 2011); it is a key component of Corporate
Social Responsibility (McGuire et al. 1988), and generating a positive
working culture and trusting environment (Gill and Crane 2015; Tzafrir
2005; Young 2006) itself is linked directly to a more efficient and profitable
company; and it facilitates a quicker response to an incident once it has
occurred. Effective business continuity can be crucial to an organisation’s
very survival. These benefits are the mainstay of books about the benefits of
security, but they are not the only ones. Precisely because good security
contributes to a profitable business, it contributes to a healthy economy; if
businesses are less profitable they will pay less taxes and offer lower wages
and employ less people. In a different way some organisations fold because
of an inability to manage a security incident (Bearings Bank is one high-
profile example). Some have argued that the costs of security are
outweighed by the benefits that are generated.1
Good security can be a competitive factor affecting customer choice in a
variety of fields including banking (Rosmaini et al. 2013), where to live and
which house to buy (Armitage 2013; Beck 2012), which shopping channels
to use (Ha 2004) to name but a few. Security creates competitive advantage
in other ways (see the chapter by Tilley and Farrell in this Handbook). For
example, it can enable organisations to operate in troublesome areas that
might otherwise be too dangerous, thereby facilitating the opportunity for
operations to take place when without security there they may not have
done so. Covid-19 illustrated this (see Mawby in this Handbook). Security
officers could be seen managing queues of shoppers, ensuring social
distance requirements were maintained, taking part in cordons, managing
quarantine requirements, counting people in and out of buildings (including
factories and supermarkets) and helping in assessing visitors’ health, for
example, by testing temperatures. Security personnel have been key to
ensuring that organisations were able to operate, protecting supply chains
and facilitating essential services. Good security helps people be and feel
safer, and this is an important contributor to wellbeing at work (just think
how much feeling unsafe would contribute to workplace dissatisfaction)
(Gonzalez et al. 2012: Renata et al. 2012).
It is instructive to dwell on the knock-on consequences of all these
benefits. Think of all the places that are protected by private security (and
non-police personnel) in hospitals, universities, stores, shopping malls,
parks, streets, museums, galleries, leisure facilities, sports stadia and
organisational settings that would otherwise most often not be ‘policed’,
and certainly not by specialists devoted to that purpose. And in these locales
security personnel focus on preventing crime, protecting people (in some
cases saving lives by offering medical or pastoral care; see, Loader and
White 2018). They attend scenes to deal with incidents, mostly successfully
(otherwise why would organisations continue to pay for them?) and only
call the police when that is needed, typically providing them with insights
including intelligence/evidence to make their visit more worthwhile.
A whole range of security personnel, working for private security
companies or in security departments of private (and public/third sector)
organisations (Hopkins and Gill 2017; Lippert and Walby 2014), undertake
a diverse range of duties that help to police and protect (Tilley 2018). In
some organisations security personnel not only investigate incidents but
also prepare cases to a standard that minimises the work of the police,
enabling more speedy and efficient pursuit of justice. The security
technology sector is also supportive. The alarms it manufactures, installs
and monitors help prevent crime, and in the best cases it only passes on to
the police those activations which have been verified as being ‘genuine’
(see, Brookes, this Handbook). To take another example, Meerts (2019, and
see the chapter in this Handbook) has discussed the different types of
investigation services available including private investigation firms, in-
house security departments, forensic accountants and forensic legal
investigators that respond to a diverse range of offences that would not
otherwise be tackled.
There are benefits to having good security that extend beyond its
immediate environment, referred to as a ‘diffusion of benefits’ (for
discussion, see Johnson et al. 2012). A locale (an organisation, a housing
estate, a community) may develop a reputation for being good at security,
and as a consequence offenders stay away from it but, and this is the key
point, not just that locale but nearby places too because potential offenders
cannot be sure how far the good security stretches. In a different way
security measures often have other benefits, for example, CCTV
(sometimes referred to as Video Surveillance) can detect offenders, but it
can also be part of a system to identify shopping habits and behaviour,
which are used for marketing purposes (see chapter by Beck in this
Handbook).
Much of the expertise for tackling key offences, some that threatens
national security via attacks on national infrastructures, such as cybercrime,
is located in security departments across the public, private and third
sectors. In fact, cybercrime is but one example where the role of the police
has been seen to be comparatively minor (Wall 2013) compared to non-
police personnel, although police expertise is growing. This is an area
where the overlap between good security and good business is highlighted.
For example, a study by Gill and Howell (2016) has revealed that more than
eight in ten (81%) of a survey of security specialists believed an alert
workforce was the best defence against cybercrime, and nearly as many
(79%) felt physical security was crucial to tackling cybercrime. Moreover,
internal security expertise can be used to create security awareness for staff
outside work.
One well-known writer and broadcaster on crime prevention has argued
that: ‘security is not a sticking plaster that hides a wound. It’s a
vaccination’.2 In other words it solves a problem by taking away a cause,
namely opportunity; if the opportunity to commit crime is restricted, crime
is likely to be reduced. The subject area of reducing opportunities is a
significant one, and the principles are underpinned by a strong body of
research evidence (see, Brewer et al. 2019; Felson and Clarke 1998).
Security specialists who responded to a survey and took part in one-to-
one interviews (see Gill and Howell, 2017a) provided interesting insights
on the ways in which the work of the security sector generated broader
public benefits. Answers included:
Security surveys of premises can include an understanding of crime in
the surrounding area facilitating collaboration with communities on
shared crime prevention goals.
Private measures, such as CCTV or security officers, help to identify,
build up information on and apprehend offenders who are wanted for
other offences sometimes serious ones.
Where crime in the workplace is tackled effectively, it sets an example,
which individuals may replicate in other contexts. Staff acquire security
skills and knowledge at work that have broader benefits outside work.
Security officers are sometimes trained to undertake specialist tasks at
work, such as anti-terror awareness, which can be available for the police
to use, especially in emergencies (Sarre et al. 2011). Some respondents
pointed to security officers being the ‘eyes and ears’ of the police.
Private security suppliers generate new ideas and technologies that
enhance all security.
One survey respondent said that his corporate security team provided free
advice to charities and small businesses.
More often private security undertakes work that would not be provided
by the police because it would be too resource intensive. It often does so
at no or little direct cost to the public purse.
Managing incidents so that police response is not necessary.
Managing incidents so that police involvement is optimised.
Helping when searches of areas are required.
Providing additional resources such as dogs, scanning detection and
forensic services (that extends what is available to state services).
Providing guarding services (in one example at crime scenes to release
officers for other duties).
Generating and sharing intelligence (that otherwise would not be
available).
Co-ordinating intelligence and other types of information to show trends,
to predict vulnerabilities.
 Providing real-time information on offences.
Reducing the risk of the company losing money and staff and others
being victimised.
Employing former police officers so that their expertise is not lost.
This is not a definitive list, but it is illustrative. Perhaps the most
significant thing is that these benefits are rarely articulated and yet are
crucial to rendering people, organisations, communities and countries freer
from danger.

The Challenge of a National Strategy

While it is impossible—and let’s take the UK as an example—to police
effectively without the active engagement of the security sector,
governments have typically lacked a meaningful engagement strategy. This
represents a massive wasted opportunity and leaving this to chance results
in a waste of scarce resources. Of course, there are some good examples of
effective collaboration (Prenzler 2012), many highlighted in this book, but
still there is insufficient high-level commitment to engaging security as a
sector evidenced by the lack of an adequate overarching strategy. This is
despite the fact, as noted earlier, that public and private sector personnel
often share similar attitudes to security, and indeed many private security
sector employees were formerly with public sector agencies, most notably
law enforcement and the military.
That said, in the UK, for example, the security sector is recognised in a
variety of government outputs in specific areas of activity. It is helpful to
briefly explore three of these, principally to outline the ways in which the
important role of the security sector is recognised, albeit somewhat under
the radar.
The first is in the area of counter terrorism. The UK government
strategy commits to ‘seek a more integrated relationship with the private
sector’ (CONTEST 2018; Para 12 and 90), and in this strategy and various
documents (e.g. CONTEST 2015, 2016), it has highlighted the importance
of sharing intelligence; helping to identify threats and raising and acting on
suspicions; using leverage with the workforce to raise awareness of threats
and potential mitigating factors; participating in tackling the ‘radicalisation’
agenda; publicising the ‘run, hide, tell’ advice should an attack occur;
following and publicising advice on how to respond to bomb threats;
ensuring workplaces are safe and secure and protect people’s civil liberties;
and ensuring stakeholders are prepared should a crisis occur. This is an
important work.
Second, with tackling serious and organised crime: the updated
organised crime strategy (HM Government 2018) which was a refinement
of the limitations of the 2013 version (HM Government 2013, see also,
National Audit Office 2019) identified skill sets filled by the private sector
relating to forensics, developing new technologies, providing robust anti-
corruption strategies, sharing intelligence and more generally building
resilience within organisations. Partnership working arrangements were
promoted via the formation of the Joint Security and Resilience Centre
(JSaRC) as the operational arm of the Security and Resilience Partnership
and are supported by an alliance of UK security and resilience organisations
(RISC).
Third, with tackling financial crimes, where the contribution of police at
least in the UK is seen to be wanting (Skidmore et al. 2020). There are a
variety of ways in which the sector supports economic crime prevention
beyond the important role of developing and implementing targeted anti-
fraud strategies. This includes funding dedicated police units, supporting
industry initiatives, sharing information and knowledge about fraud,
working with the police to identify and arrest offenders, being good at
identifying and responding to the ‘insider threat’, providing technologies
and mitigation measures which are up-to-date and work effectively, keeping
the workforce alert to professional and personal risks of fraud with insights
on appropriate responses, and work effectively with initiatives designed to
detect and prevent fraud (see, National Fraud Strategic Authority 2011; City
of London Police 2016; Fighting Fraud and Corruption Locally Strategy
2020; National Police Chiefs’ Council 2020).
These illustrative lists are important. However, given the benefits, why
has there been little systematic attempt to harness them for the public good
in an overarching officially endorsed strategy? There are several reasons.
First, the security sector is a difficult beast to liaise with. As noted, it can be
defined in various ways, and on an operational level, it incorporates a wide
array of different activities which often bear little relation to each other.
Second, and related to this, the vastly different parts of the security sector
are represented by different and often competing representative
associations. This is not a criticism of the associations, competition is
inevitable and healthy too. However, one consequence is that in many
countries the sector does not speak with a single voice, and where there is a
single point of contact, it frequently lacks clout. This is true within most
countries as well as between them. Third, partnerships of any sort are a
challenge to make work well (Bullock 2014), and as Whelan and Molnar
(2019) show the very complexity of the subject matter and remit does not
make it any easier when security is considered (although see chapter by
Prenzler and Sarre in this Handbook, White 2014, 2015).
A fourth point, but also an opportunity, is that more commonly the
differences between private security and state services are accentuated
when in practice the distinctions can often be less obvious (see, White
2018). Indeed, one writer has observed they are ‘more often complementary
than adversarial’ (Stenning 2000, 326). In the security sector, as noted
above, many working in private security are former state employees, and
perhaps unsurprisingly therefore there is overlap in the thinking between
the sectors (White and Gill 2013).
A fifth issue is that it has long been recognised that it has been difficult
for the security sector to show how it adds value (Loader and White 2018).
Many of its benefits are intangible or difficult to measure (Burrill and Green
2011; Gill et al. 2007). A sixth issue is that the state often has a jaundiced
view of private security. Police officers, for example, can be sceptics at both
senior (Gill 2015) and more junior rank levels (Gill and Howell 2017b) for
all sorts of reasons including concern that its activities risk undermining
people’s human rights. This merits a comment.

Praise with Caution: A Note

There is always a danger in presenting a case for good security that one is
accused of either not recognising the inequities of private security or
underplaying the severe consequences of bad security, and there is plenty of
evidence of these (Rigakos 2002). This is a vast and important topic, a
fundamental one clearly, and although not the focus here merits a note. For
example, just as there is a diffusion of benefits so there are risks of
displacing crime including, for example, to less protected targets (Johnson
et al. 2012). And while one can point to the great work on alarms, the high
rate of false activations is a major challenge and has been for years (See
Chapter by Brookes in this Handbook). More crucially, private security
(and the private sector) can undermine the very freedoms it should protect
(see, Moss 2009, 2011): acting in the interests of those who can afford it
and thereby exploiting the vulnerable (Loader and Walker 2007; see, Pratt
2020), and for some justify the passing of draconian legislation further
undermining human rights (see, Hamilton 2019). Sometimes those charged
with protecting the vulnerable become the offenders and abusers which is
true for state actors too (Muraszkiewicz et al. 2020). No wonder then that
security has been perceived as a ‘tainted trade’ (Thumala et al. 2011) and
one that is rarely purchased for pleasure (Goold et al. 2010; Hopkins and
Fox 2013). We must not underplay the importance of these issues.
Yet, notwithstanding these important points, there are important
balances that still need to be fully explored. To take two examples. First,
Dodsworth (2019), in her exploration of the history of security, has noted
that private protection was once the preserve of those who were privileged,
but this has changed over time to become affordable by many less affluent
people. Dodsworth postulates a view, albeit one of many on this issue, that
this can be seen to represent the democratisation of security, where more of
the less affluent are able to benefit from a wider array of security measures
(see also, Prenzler and Sarre 2014; and the chapter by Prenzler and Sarre in
this Handbook). In a different way, and a second example, there have been
some interesting discussions about ways of ‘democraticising security’.
These take many forms, for example, through the use of security unions
(Button 2008), by providing funding for those who can least afford it
(Rigakos 2002) and by regulating it in a way that better and more closely
aligns security sector work with the public good, albeit the best routes to
achieving this take place on contested territory (compare Loader and White
2017, 2018; with Stiernstedt et al. 2019). This is work in progress.

The Impact of Covid-19: Did the Security Sector

Respond Well?
At the time of writing, the early Summer of 2021, the security sector is just
beginning to consider how it changed and performed during the pandemic,
against a background where there is little research evidence (but see, Gips
2021). After all, it is during a crisis that security has the potential to show
its value. Research I conducted with Charlotte Howell provides some
insights on the issue; it is based on a survey (n = 500) and 39 in-depth
interviews of global security personnel (see Gill and Howell 2021).
There was limited self-criticism for not having anticipated the crisis. For
the most part the speed with which it emerged, its unusual long-term impact
and the fact that no other professional group appeared any better prepared
seemed defence enough. Moreover, the vast majority, over eight in ten, felt
that security performed well, and close to seven in eight believed security
had performed better or much better than other functions/departments
(although contractors felt this less so). That security personnel had proved
versatile and worked flexibly in trying conditions against a changing threat
landscape (see chapter by Mawby, this volume) when most others worked
from home featured prominently in the explanations given. For example:

From UK the Board have made clear that our response has been
good … we have all had a huge thumbs up … From a global
security perspective, it has been a showcase to our global
leadership team. We are under a new board member; we have
impressed him with analysis and informed decisions. Security
manager, corporate sector

The way the industry has adapted and the way it has been trusted to
take lead roles … was a credit to the security industry. MD, security
supplier

Having impressed stakeholders, respondents to the survey noted a range

of benefits accruing from working through the pandemic. For contractors
this crucially included new clients, sometimes in new sectors, sometimes
offering new service lines. Others pointed to the opportunity to work with
new partners, other professionals/departments and sometimes at a high level
which offered exposure to decision makers (for clients and contractors):

security got exposed to a lot of higher agenda forums and meetings

they would not usually participate in so got recognition they are a
valued partner—we want your feedback and input, rather than
dictating what security should do. That was a huge step forward.
Security as a partner rather than a service. Regional security
manager, hospitality sector
 Yet this sense of progress came with caveats. Importantly the sample
made a distinction between believing on the one hand that security had
performed comparatively well, not least those designated
‘essentia workers’, and on the other hand recognising that others working in
areas such as crisis/contingency management and risk/health and safety
fared better. Moreover, the sample recognised that responding to the
pandemic had caused specific challenges. Scaling up speedily had often
been difficult, not least when set against changing government guidance
which then impeded the ability of organisations to make quick and binding
decisions about operational practices. In a different way there was
awareness that any limitations would only come to light once a semblance
of normal business returned. Certainly, some were thoughtful about how
well companies had managed staff. There was a feeling that some mental
health issues may be discovered only later, especially since those working
on the frontline had been in obvious danger and were often worried about
the risks, and some had to deal with agitated and even aggressive members
of the public:

Some officers were pelted with apples, conquers, eggs, fireworks.

Different from what they are used to. Pent up frustration. Head of
security, Security supplier

There were more structural concerns too. In sectors such as the night-
time economy, often viewed as difficult to work in, and which had
effectively shut down in the pandemic, the concern was that bonafide
companies had found new markets and would be replaced by less reputable
ones undercutting and undermining legitimate business. There was a mixed
view on recruitment opportunities moving forward; certainly, some felt that
this was going to be a problem in part because security had been seen as
dangerous work.
Key though here was the view that the pandemic would be followed by
economic hardship which posed many to ponder the implications for
security which was widely seen to be one of the first to suffer cutbacks
when organisations start economising. One MD on the supplier side noted
that clients ‘don’t want to invest to get the long-term saving, they want to
shave bits off to make an instant saving’; another noted, ‘I think the long-
term consequences are financial, there will be fewer businesses so fewer
clients’. One respondent reported how a review of pay rates found a wide
range of pay scales for frontline workers for similar services leading him to
question the morals of the low-paying companies. Some felt that security’s
positive contribution had ‘already been forgotten about’:

I don’t think people have seen the value, they are invisible, at
corporate sites mostly staff are not there and only know of their own
troubles. Suppliers’ concerns will be lost. Also, they will make
cutbacks and it will impact us. What I don’t want to see is security
staff becoming cleaners. How can you do security if you’re
cleaning? Chairman, supplier

From being an industry insider yes, well. They have turned up and
worked throughout. They have maintained the service they were due
to provide. I look upon them as doing an amazing job. Looking at
public views they may not be so sure. I just don’t know whether they
saw and appreciated what was going on. Regional security lead for
a finance company

There is one other issue that merits comment here, and that is
highlighting the factors that the sample felt distinguished those who
performed well, clients and suppliers, from those who did not. The quality
of business continuity plans in place was frequently mentioned here (see
also, Gips 2021). Some had been well developed but had focussed on, say,
terrorism or cyber rather than a pandemic, and even those that had
addressed a pandemic had not planned for it being so enduring:

Security professionals knew how to respond … It was the scale of

the incident that got us. We were always thinking about resilience …
but this was quick, it spread quick and it ignited around the world.
We knew what to do, scaling it was the challenge. Corporate
security manager, management services provider

Some felt that it was not possible for an organisation to be competent

during the pandemic if it had not been able before it. Clearly a multiple of
factors are relevant to this point. One example was the level of access to
effective technologies and the ability to deploy them well. Communicating
effectively was a priority, but only some had systems in place to facilitate
both home working and engagement with those on the frontline. The factors
identified that determined whether the response was
effective included: focussing on staff wellbeing; investing in training;
having a positive cash flow; being active in growth sectors; implementing
good Standard Operation Procedures they were able to adapt speedily to
circumstance; and enjoying supportive relationships with
colleagues/hierarchies/clients. More generally the view was summed up like
this:

Those that were stronger going in, will be stronger coming out, (it
is) down to how well the business is run. MD, Security supplier

Echoing a point above there were many who viewed the pandemic as a
new base on which to build a better security sector. But if it was to do that
there were many who highlighted the need for it to overcome an Achilles
Heel, its ability to present its case effectively to influential stakeholders:

I think we’ve got to tell our client how well we are doing and
demonstrate that. Industry wide—I don’t think we advertise our
successes anyway near well enough … Only the negative stuff that
gets advertised. Account manager, Supplier

If we do not exploit the situation by educating the wider audience on

what security has done, the future will be at risk. If we don’t
communicate the difference we made then once procurement is back
security will cut back to make up for the spend they had to make this
year. Global Security Director, Supplier

Only time will tell whether the security sector’s contribution in

responding to the international crisis will generate long-lasting benefits.
This author is doubtful. The historical scepticism from the state towards
private security companies and the private sector generally when it comes
to security has not disappeared. Nor has the difficulty of being able to speak
to important stakeholders in a coordinated way. It is not that the security
sector is meriting special praise, it is not. It is more that its potential to
position itself as a key strategic partner in public protection may have been
temporarily enhanced, but that is much less than what is needed.
Discussion
This chapter has sought to highlight the ways in which the private security
sector impacts and serves a broader public interest, where even those who
don’t pay for it directly benefit from it (see, Tilley 2018). The justifiable
and important attention that has been paid to the very real drawbacks of
private security when done badly has overshadowed the crucial role it plays
when done well. Much public space and importantly places where people
gather which realistically cannot be protected by the police is supported by
security personnel, working in departments within organisations or as
suppliers. It plays a pivotal role in the protection of the national
infrastructure; it reduces demands on state police personnel and ensures
they are only called upon when they are needed and can be supported with
information and intelligence as well as physical backup.
For these reasons and more beyond the private security sector is too
important to ignore, and it is unwise to do so, yet by and large it has been.
In the UK at least there are, as has been shown, references to the role it
plays in some strategies that are published and involve public protection,
and there are certainly pockets of excellence. However, there is no national
co-ordinating strategy to harness its full potential for the public good. This
is a wasted opportunity when public services are stretched.
This state of affairs has been allowed to happen at least in part because
the security sector is fragmented. There are multiple representative
associations and groups focussed on different security areas and
representing them in different ways: for example by activity (alarms,
consultants, detectives, guards—now typically referred to as security
officers—locks, safes, to name but a few); or by level (those on senior
managers, those on frontline workers); or by whether they are, say, clients
or suppliers. The situation is more complex than this, but the key point here
is that because the sector is fragmented it has not commonly found a way of
speaking with a united voice; it is difficult to present a representative view,
and it is difficult to consult with.
In a different way, as this chapter has sought to show, the security sector
has not been good at articulating its unique selling points, its broader
benefits. It has suffered from a historically poor image which it has
struggled to separate itself from, although the truth is, it has not tried
publicising the progress it has made anywhere near enough. Scepticism has
been fuelled by the security sector’s focus on the profit motive (which
unquestionably raises important accountability issues that have to be
recognised and managed), plus the perception by some that it seeks to
replace state services when more often its commitment is to plugging gaps,
making itself available as an additional resource, while offering specialist
expertise. Evidence on its performance during the pandemic, at least
according to security personnel, may have been good, but clearly we need
systematic evaluations to judge this accurately. Still it is doubtful its role at
the forefront of a national crisis will be harnessed for long-term
improvements. The stark truth is that the challenge of effectively
marshalling all the available resources to better protect the public remains
an elusive one. At the same time it presents an opportunity, hopefully one
towards which this book will make a small contribution.

Recommended Readings
As noted, all of the chapters in this Handbook provide insights into how
good security may be generated and harnessed. Gill et al. (2015) report
original research on the broader benefits of the security sector and Gill and
Howell (2017a) on the barriers to optimising them. Thumala et al. (2011)
and Pratt (2020) are amongst many who provide important critiques of
security and the way it is sometimes practised. The Security Journal
regularly includes articles that develops these themes.

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International Journal of Human Resource Management, 19:9 September, pp. 1600–1622.

The United Kingdom’s Strategy for Countering Terrorism CONTEST: Annual Report for 2015.
Published July 2016.

The United Kingdom’s Strategy for Countering Terrorism CONTEST: Annual Report for 2014.
Published March 2015. Cm904.

UNODC. (2014). State Regulation Concerning the Civilian Private Security Services and their
Contribution to Crime Prevention and Community Safety. Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs
and Crime.

Wall D. S. (2013) Policing Identity Crimes, Policing and Society: An International Journal of
Research and Policy, 23.4, 437–46
[Crossref]

Whelan, C. and Molnar, A. (2019) Securing Mega-Events. Basingstoke: Palgrave

White A (2018) What is the Privatization of Policing?. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice.
NOVEMBER. https://doi.org/10.1093/police/pay085.

White A (2015) The Impact of the Private Security Industry Act 2001. Security Journal, 28(4), 425–
442;
[Crossref]

White A (2014) Post-crisis Policing and Public–Private Partnerships: The Case of Lincolnshire
Police and G4S. British Journal of Criminology, 54(6), 1002–1022.

White, A. and Gill, M (2013) The Transformation of Policing: From Ratios to Rationalities. British
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[Crossref]

Footnotes
1 The costs of security failure can put some companies out of business and result in the loss of lives.
For a recent report which highlights the costs of a cyber breach, see: CGI (2017) The Cyber Value
Connection: Revealing the Link Between Cyber Vulnerability and Company Value. The security
sector itself has not promoted the extent to which good security is economically beneficial.
https://www.cgi-group.co.uk/sites/default/files/files_uk/pdf/cybervalueconnection_full_report_
final_lr.pdf

2 Nick Ross, personal communication, 16 January 2017.

Index1
Numbers and Symbols
5Is framework
impact
implementation
intelligence
intervention
involvement
5Is process model
9/11 terrorist attacks
A
Abuse
Adaptation/adaptive
Advance fee fraud (AFF)
After the fact private policing
Agenda-setting
Airbus
Air Cargo Advance Screening (ACAS)
Alarm
Alley gating
Al Qaeda
Alt right
Annex 17
Annual security report (ASR)
Anti-Money Laundering (AML)
Apps
Armed robbery/robbery
Arms races
ASIS International
Assange, Julian
Assaults
Assessment
Attachment
Attention
Attractors
Australia
Aviation Security Mechanism (ASM)
B
Banks
Barriers to progression
Behavioural biometrics
Beneficial ownership
Benefits of security
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
Big data
Biodata
Bioeconomy
Biometric indicators
Biosecurity
Biotechnology
Black Lives Matter
Blue Diamond
Bodu Bala Sena (BBS)
Body Worn Cameras (BWCs)
Border Control Management Model (BCMM)
Border controls
Borderline protection
Border security
Bribery
Bribery Act
Buddhist Extreme Right
Buddy-cop films
Build environment
Burden-sharing relations
Burglar alarms
Burglars
Burglary
Burglary prevention measures
Business
and cost of security
and costs of crime
 data
email compromise fraud
and resilience to crime
and security
tolerance to crime harms
Business Alliance for Secure Commerce (BASC)
C
Cambridge Crime Harm Index
Camera surveillance
Campus crime
Campus security
Capitalism
Carbon emissions
Carbon footprint of crime
Career(s)
paths
progression
Cargo Security Task Force (CSTF)
Carrier Initiative Programme (CIP)
Car security
CCTV, see Closed Circuit Television
Centralised Command Centre (CCC)
Centralised monitoring
Certification
Chemical industry
Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation
China and biotechnology
Civilising process
Civil law
Clapham Common Vigil
Class
Clery, Jeanne
Climate change
Closed Circuit Television (CCTV)
effectiveness
perspectives
 research
surveillance
technology
Close relations
College student victimization
Commercial espionage
Commercial security
Commercial victimisation
Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS)
2017
2018
Community
Community policing forum (CPFs)
Community security function (CSF), principles
Competences
Complexity
Conjunction of Criminal Opportunity (CCO)
Connectivity
Conservation
Container Control Programme (CCP)
Container Security Initiative (CSI)
Contemporary
Context-Mechanism-Outcome (CMO)
Context
Mechanism
Outcome
Cop comedies
Cop/police films
Coronavirus Act 2020
Corporate culture
Corporate investigations
Corporate investigators
Corporate security
Corporate settlements
Corruption
Corruptor pathogen
Cost comparison analysis
Cost savings
Cost-benefit analysis (CBA)
Cost/benefit ratio (CBR)
Counter fraud culture
Counter-terrorism
COVID-19/coronavirus
COVID-19/Pandemic
COVID-19 pandemic controls
Crime-commission process
Crime control
Crime drop
Crime films
Crime futures
Crime harvest
Crime prevention (situational)
partnerships
policy
Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED)
Crimeproofing
Crime scene investigation
Crime science
Crime scripts
Crime statistics
Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW)
Criminal activities
Criminal justice
Criminal law
Criminal statistics
Criminology
CRISPR
Critical security studies (CSS)
Crowdsourcing
Culpability
Cultural
Customer counting
Customs and excise
Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT)
Cyberattack
Cyberbiosafety
Cyberbiosecurity
Cyber crime
Cyberfraud
Cyberphysical system
Cyber security (skills gap)
D
Dapper security
Darknet
forums
markets
web crawler
Data Integrity attacks
Data mining
Debut crime hypothesis
Defensible space
Deferred prosecution agreements (DPA)
Definition of security
Democraticising security
Denial of service (DoS)
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Design
Designing out Crime Officers (DOCOs)
Detection
Detector
Deterrence
Digital fingerprints
Digital transformations
Digitised passports
Dimension
Displacement
Disruption
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)
Diversity
Domino effects
Drones
Drug mules
Drug trafficking
Dual-use technology
Due diligence
Due process
E
Eavesdropping
Econometrics
Economic(s)
analysis
efficiency
espionage
model
Education
Educational institution
Effectiveness
Effect, Mediators/Mechanisms, Moderators, Implementation and
Economics (EMMIE)
Efficacy of security
Electronic monitoring
Elegant security
Elias, Norbert
Empirical scripts
Employment security
End user
Enforcement
Enforcement pyramid
England
Enterprise Security Risk Management (ESRM)
Environment
Environmental audit
Environmental criminology
Environmental impacts
Environment crime
European Border and Coast Guard Agency
European Convention on Human Rights
Evaluation
impact evaluation
outcome evaluation
process evaluation
realistic evaluation
summative evaluation
Evidence
Experience sampling
Experience, skills and qualifications
Experiential learning
Extinction Rebellion
Eye tracker
F
Face Boxing
Facial recognition
False alarm
Far Right
FATF
Fayol, Henri
Fear of crime (FOC)
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Film genre/subgenre
Financial crimes
Fishery
Fishing vessel
Five Eyes
Flags of convenience
Food security
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)
Foreign interference
Forensic accountant
Forensic intelligence
Forensic science
Foresight
Foresight studies
Forum shopping
Foucault, Michel
Fourth industrial revolution
Fracking
Fraud
detection
prevention
triangle
Frontline security
Functionalism
Future of work
G
Galvanic Skin Response
Game theory
Gender performance
Genealogy
Generation Identity
Genomic sequencing
Geometry
Ghost brokers
Global Aviation Security Action Group (GASAG)
Global catastrophic risks (GCRs)
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GIATOC)
Globalisation/Globalization
globalization 4.0
hyperglobalization
Global warming
Gnanasara, Galagoda Atte Thero
Governance
Governmentalisation of the state
Governmentality
Grading
G20 summit
Guardian
H
Harm
Harms of crime
characteristics of businesses
emotional
financial
physical
Hate motivated incidents/hate crime
Hazardous materials
Health and safety
Health security
Heart rate
High volume crime
Hindu Extreme Right
Hindu Far Right
The Homeland Security Act
Horizon-scanning
Hot products
Housing
Housing security
Human dimension
Human-oriented professional guideline
Human Right Act 1998
Human rights
Human security
I
Identity crime
Identity fraud
Ideology
Illegal
fishing
surveillance
Immigration services
Impact
Implementation
Incompetence
Industrial espionage
Informal guardianship
Informal security nodes (ISNs)
Information security
Information sharing
In-house investigation department
In-house security
Innovation
Insider risk
In-store monitoring
Insurance
aggregators
fraud
Integration
Intentional attacks
Internal crime
Internal norm violations
Internal sanctions
International
International Air Convention
International Air Transport Association (IATA)
International bribery
International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO)
International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS)
International Crime Victimisation Survey (ICVS)
International Labour Organisation (ILO)
International Maritime Organisation (IMO)
International relations
International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code
International students
Internet
Internet crime
Internet of Things (IoT)
Internet traces
Interpersonal scripts
Intrusion
Investment fraud
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
Islamist extremism
IUU fishing
J
Jurisdiction
K
Kettling
L
Labor trafficking
Land Border Initiative Programme (LBCIP)
Land border posts
Law enforcement
Lawyers
Layering
Leadership
Learning organization
Legal flexibility
Legal investigator
Legislative mapping
Liberalism
Licensing
Licensing Act
Lighting (internal and external)
Local government
Lockdown
London
Loose relations
Loss prevention
Low carbon crime
M
Ma Ba Tha
Machine learning
Malware
Management
Management and maintenance
Mandatory training
Man-in-the-middle attacks
Manned guarding, see Frontline security
Maritime security
Masculinities
Mass private property
Material security
Measurement
Mechanism
Meta-analysis
Methodological innovation
Migration
Militarization
Misconduct
Misdeeds and security framework
Mmakau
Mobile applications
Mobile phones
Moderator
Modernity
Modus operandi (research)
Money laundering
Motivation
Movement control
N
Narrative review
National health security strategy
National security
Natural resource
Near-repeat
Neoclassical economics
Neoliberalism
Nepal
Net benefit (NB)
Net present value (NPV)
The new security
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
Nonlinearities
Non-prosecution agreements (NPA)
Non-state actors (NSAs)
Non-state armed groups (NSAGs)
Nuisance alarm
O
Occupational boundaries
Offender(s)
Offender scripts
Official statistics
Online fraud
Online training and e-learning
Open-source intelligence
Opportunity Theories
Order
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
Organised crime
Orgreave
Outsourcing
Over-regulation
P
Pandemic
Pareto optimality
Partnership
Peers’ effects
Perceived insecurity
Perceptions of security
Performed script
Perpetrator
Personal data
Personal security
Personnel security
Peterloo
Physical safety
Physical security
Physical traces
Placement
Planned scripts
Planning
Police (relations with private security)
Police Crime and Sentencing Bill 2021
Police systems
Policing
Policing lockdown
Policy
Popular criminology
Population
Port Control Units (PCUs)
Port of entry
Ports of convenience
Port state
Predictive analytics
Preventative measures
Prevention
Privacy
Private investigation firm
Private investigations
Private justice
Private methods of investigation
Private military
companies
employees
growth
market structure
regulation
Private policing
Private sector
Private security
companies
employees
growth
market structure
regulation
Private security industry
growth
size
Private space
Problem Orientated Policing (POP)
Procedural scripts
Productivity paradox
Products
Profession
definition
professional association
professional body
professionalism [definition]
professionalization
professional project
Professional development
Pro-social
Protected areas
Protecting Society
Protective security
The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons,
Especially Women and Children
Psychological abuse
Public opinion
Public Order Act 1986
Public policy
Public-private partnerships
Public-private relationships
Public protest
Public space
Public View Monitors/Public Video Monitors (PVMs)
Q
Qualification framework
Qualifications
Quantitative
R
Radio Frequency Identification
Randomised control trial (RCT)
Ranger
Ransomware
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)
Realistic evaluation
Regulation
Regulatory failure
Regulatory theory
Regulatory tools
Repeat
Repetitive crimes
Replication
Research
Resident pathogen
Resilience
Resilience to crime
active resilience
passive resilience
Responsibilisation
Responsive regulation
Retailing
Rings of protection (RoP)
Risk
amplification
assessment
management
profile
Roles and responsibilities
Rolls Royce
Romance fraud
Routine activities
S
Safe cities
Safety
Safety and security
Scanning, Analysis, Response and Assessment (SARA)
Scenarios
Schemata
Schengen Agreement
Script analysis
Script elaborations
Script format
Script framework
Secrecy
Secured by Design (SBD)
Securitization
Security
associations
controls
and criminality
devices
function
industry regulation
market
measures
risk management
studies
threats
Security guard, see Security officer
Security Impact Assessment Tool (SIAT)
Security Institute
Security officer
citizen perceptions
female
functions
job satisfaction
mental health
motivations
perception
police perceptions
in popular culture
relations with police
 stress
training
working conditions
Security Protection Factor (SPF)
Sensing
Sensor
Sentencing Council
Serial crimes
Serious and organised crime
Services
Settlement agreement
Sexual victimization of college women
SFO
Shakespeare, William
Shell companies
Shopping mall
Shrinkage
Side channel attacks
Single-perspective scripts
Situational crime prevention
Smart regulation
Smart borders
Smuggling/trafficking illicit goods
Social engineering
Social network analysis
Social science
Societal benefit (SB)
Societal cost (SC)
Socio-technology
South Africa
South African Police Services (SAPS)
Sovereignty
Space
Spencer, Richard
Spoofing
Spy
Staff reassurance
Standards
State
Stimulus
Store panic alarms
Strain theory
Street committees
Street lighting
Street patrol
Submissive pathogen
Suffragettes
Surveillance
Surveillance studies
Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs)
Sustainability
Systematic review
T
Tacit knowledge
Targets/targeting
Tarrant, Brenton
Taxi associations
Taxonomy
Techniques of neutralisation
Technological solutions
Technology
Terrestrial
Terrorism
Theft
Threat
Title IX
Tourism
Tourist resorts
Trade
Trade secret
Trainers
Training
and education
 hours
Transnational organised crime
Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
Transshipment
Tribal authority
Trump, Donald
U
Uganda
UK Border Agency (UKBA)
Uncertainty
Under-regulation
Unethical behaviour
United Kingdom (UK)
United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC)
United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
United States (US)
US Biometric Visa Programme
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
US Department of Education
US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)
Utilitarianism
V
Value
Value transfers
Vector
Vehicle crime
Victim
status
stereotype
support
surveys (inadequacy of)
Victimisation
Video
Video analytics
Violence/violent crime
Voluntary training
Vulnerability
W
“Watchmen,”
Watergate
Weak signals
Welfare economics
White-collar crime
White Supremacist Extreme Right
Wildlife crime
Window and door locks
Wirathu, Ashin
Women and security
Workforce planning
World Customs Organisation (WCO)
Worry

Footnotes
1 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.