Do they feel like cops? Police culture among private security guards

Abstract

Police culture can result in several problems that can manifest themselves in various side effects, such as excessive use of force or domestic violence. Such occupational culture is formed due to the different circumstances police officers encounter in their work, e.g., constant exposure to danger, high authority, the possibility of using force, the right to autonomous decision-making, and working in a strictly hierarchical environment. As private security guards also operate in public areas and often in the public interest and have the option of enforcing measures that in some cases extend to the degree of police powers, previous research indicated that there is a possibility that a police-like occupational culture prevails among private security guards. The paper identifies the elements of police culture among private security guards through the narrative literature review. The literature search was performed according to a pre-defined strategy. We pre-determined the keywords, inclusion criteria, search methods, and bibliographic databases. The identified literature was analyzed with the descriptive and comparative methods. The results indicate that despite differences in the nature of their work, attitudes, and values between security guards and police officers, significantly more related circumstances and factors suggest similarities in occupational cultures.

Keywords

• workplace stress
• police occupational culture
• occupational culture
• private security industry
• private security officers