George Rigakos
The Commodification of Policing: Field-notes from Canada
This paper is an overview of recent developments in Canadian public and private policing. In the late 1960s, the total number of private security employees overtook the total of sworn public police officers in Canada. Today, conservative estimates suggest that there are at least twice as many private security officers as public police. While the sheer number of private security personnel has important implications for the way Canadians routinely govern themselves; the legitimacy of the state; and the potential development of increased social stratification, I want to consider this development in the context of broader political and economic changes have impacted public and private policing service provision in Canada. I will organize this discussion into three broad themes: (1) the rise of parapolicing; (2) neoliberal restructuring and regionalization; and (3) mass private property and the development of Business Improvement Areas. The first theme deals with the development of high-risk private security that routinely engages in the policing of high crime social housing developments and is often engaged in complicated investigations, routine bannings, and thousands of arrests. The second theme deals with the perceived fiscal crisis of the state and its impact on public policing. Neoliberal thinking has infused the public police transforming police-citizen relations into police-client relations as public police services are now actively engaged in competitvely selling security to regional municipalities. Finally, the third theme addresses how the rise of Business Improvement Areas in Canada has impacted public policing. I discuss the interesting case of the Downtown Yonge BIA where the Toronto Police Service has been directly contracted to provide paid duty foot patrol services.
George S. Rigakos is Assistant Professor of Law at Carleton University. He has published on public and private policing; policing and social theory; policing domestic violence; risk (especially as it intersects with race, class and gender); and critical criminological theory. His most recent projects include: an analysis of the policing of night-clubs; an examination of the political economy of Greek policing (with Georgios Papanicolau); a theoretical reconceptualization of risk, probability and "towers"; a new typology of policing as human activity; and an analysis of the San Romanoway community revitalization project in the Jane-Finch area of Toronto, funded by the Law Commission of Canada and the National Crime Prevention Centre. The previous year, he was named the first-ever Virtual Scholar in Residence for the Law Commission of Canada - investigating the relationships between public and private policing. As a graduate student, Rigakos dissertation: The New Parapolice: Risk Markets and Commodified Social Control was nominated for a university-wide thesis award and was subsequently published in 2002 by the University of Toronto Press. Most recent publications: The New Parapolice: Risk Markets and Commodified Social Control. University of Toronto Press, 2002; "Policing the Nightclub: Surveillance, Consumption and Social Order in a Risk Market". In: Canadian Review of Policing Research. 1: pp. 54-60.
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