The project assesses the criminal challenges facing the security regulatory sector, how the sector police those risks and the past and future effectiveness of the Security Industry Authority (SIA) in meeting the variety of challenges.

Criminology has shifted its crime control focus to ‘plural policing’ and to the network of control bodies beyond the police. The growth of the night-time economy, terrorism risks as well as businesses located in normally un-surveilled areas has generated a need for private security who are not working for criminally owned security companies, and the SIA was given statutory responsibility for authorising staff from club ‘bouncers’ to private
guards.

As more and more functions of the state are being privatised and police resources are cut via austerity policing, the challenges facing this sector have grown, and there are additional areas such as private detective work in the corporate and cybersecurity space who might also be thought about as possible areas capable of SIA regulation.

The research design will be primarily interview and data driven, with access to SIA and industry staff being facilitated, and interviews with industry actors.