A market approach to the production of safety: state officers, security firms and private policing in contemporary Argentina

LORENC VALCARCE, FEDERICO

New York

Congreso; International Studies Association Annual Convention: ?Exploring the past, anticipating the future?; 2009

International Studies Association

In recent years, private security markets have grown up all over the world. In Argentina, like in other countries, this growth has been first operated by the movement of personnel from public police and military forces to private security firms. These former officers organized security companies by transferring their expert knowledge and using their social networks in their new profession as managers in the private sector. But police and military know-how should now be recycled in order to suit specific demands addressed by consumers. In these new conditions, interaction between experts and customers gave birth to a new approach to the production of safety: private security services are primarily concerned by order maintenance, loss prevention and service provision, rather than crime control. State authorities take part a posteriori to regulate the industry and the markets, mainly to control the use of firearms ant the exercise of violence in order to enforce law and protect the rights of the public. This new configuration of policing is explored by directive interviews with private security managers and their clients and by the scrutiny of qualitative data from security companies.