Society under siege: Private security, urban life and governmentality

Abstract

Past thirty years' internal (partially forced) migration from eastern Turkey, rising socio-economic inequalities and uneven urbanization have brought the issue of public security up on the agenda, resulting in a generalised agreement within society on the (media-led) idea that security should be provided in a more effective manner. As in many services hitherto provided by the state, 'privatisation' has also in this case appeared as a quick solution for this search for effectiveness, giving rise to a service sector, the size of which has reached $300 million in less than a decade, and where more than 300.000 people are employed in approximately 1500 companies. This article describes how the sector has been shaped, and proposes to critically asses what it has implied in terms of various issues. Research shows that the growth of private security is not accompanied by a decrease in crime rates, and that it does not help the state decrease security costs. Although its contribution to employment opportunities seems prominent, job security is very low and working conditions in the sector are anything but soft. The privatisation of security does bring little then, when compared to its promises. On the other hand, its influence on the re-organization of urban spaces and the reproduction of social segregation is not.negligible. It urges people to actively reorganize their environment through police activity, effectively turning almost everyone into potential criminals, and re-producing social divisions between the ones who hold enough economic capital to buy private security, and others whose security has to be entrusted to the Police Department. Finally it is misleading to deduce that the privatisation of security implies a retreat by the State, neither from its monopoly over the right to use force, nor its role of governing society. Research proves that both formal and informal relationships with public law enforcement agencies keep the private security sector under the shadow of State power, and the individualisation of 'risk management' is rather a sign that a different and intricate network of central political apparatus and (supposedly) private experts continue to govern our lives, under the veil of a marketing language emphasizing private enterprise and consumer choice.The proposed article draws upon a fieldwork conducted between 1 January 2007 and 31 October 2008. As part of the fieldwork, interviews were carried out with professionals of the private security industry in Istanbul (company owners, directors, counsellors, security guards, trainers), and individual and institutional buyers of security services; and related legislation and media coverage were analysed.