In most countries the State does not proactively support private security. In many countries it does not even require the State buys regulated services, and even when it does it faces allegations it will often prioritise price over quality. While it is possible to point to specific areas where there are good practices there is no concerted effort made to harness the benefits of security. There are no official high-level meaningful strategies for example; most often collaboration is left to chance. How accurate is this? Why anyway is the state seemingly reluctant to engage private security, or is it more that the security sector make itself difficult to deal with?

- What should the state do in maximising the benefits of private security?
- Should it be a crime for companies not to prevent crime (say economic crimes)?
- How can the barriers to effective collaboration of ‘policing’ efforts be best achieved?

Panellists
Professor Mark Button, Director of Centre for Counter Fraud Studies at University of Portsmouth (UK)
Richard Franken, Director at Franken Security Solutions (Netherlands)
Pieter Leloup, Postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University, Faculty of Law and Criminology (Belgium)
Adrian Moore, Operations Director UK & Europe at Allied Universal (UK)

A video and summary of this session is available here: https://www.theospas.com/2020/07/24/what-is-the-role-of-the-state-in-supporting-the-private-security-sector-an-active-supporter-or-neutral-independence/

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