Security company

A Private Security Company is a for-profit enterprise, sometimes a corporation or a limited liability partnership, which provides armed and unarmed security services and expertise to private and public clients. Private security companies are defined by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as companies primarily engaged in providing guard and patrol services, such as bodyguard, guard dog, and parking security services. Examples of services provided by these companies include the prevention of unauthorized activity or entry, traffic regulation, access control, and fire and theft prevention and detection. These services can be broadly described as the protection of personnel and/or assets. Other security services such as roving patrol, bodyguard, and guard dog services are also included, but are a very small portion of the industry. The private security industry is rapidly growing, currently being a $100 billion a year industry, with projected growth to $200 billion by 2010

General terms

Employees of private security companies are generally referred to either as "security guards" or "security officers", depending on the laws of the state or country they operate in. Security companies themselves are sometimes referred to as "security contractors", but this is not common due to confusion with private military contractors, who operate under a different auspice.

Controversy and Criticism

It was revealed in April 2007 that 25% of the UK's aid budget in Iraq has gone to private security firms, diverting money that would otherwise have been spent on humanitarian causes.

In October 2006 the British charity War on Want published a report, Corporate Mercenaries, highlighting industry abuses around the world. The report examines the explosion of the private security company industry since the conflict in Iraq, and discusses human rights abuses by private military companies’ personnel, such as torture, rape, humiliation and using dogs to terrify prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, as well as earlier involvement in rape and prostitution rings in Bosnia.

In April 2007 the Washington Post reviewed an incident where American private security personnel shot at civilian cars on a Baghdad street. The article, focusing on these Triple Canopy, Inc. employees, "provides a rare look inside the world of private security contractors, the hired guns who fight a parallel and largely hidden war in Iraq. The contractors face the same dangers as the military, but many come to the war for big money, and they operate outside most of the laws that govern American forces."

In the UK there are growing calls to regulate the private security industry, and an Early day motion has gathered nearly 100 signatures.

External Links

• The spy who billed me, a blog critical of the industry
• War on Want