Security in Private Ownership?

A Brief Study about the Outsourcing and Privatisation of Security Services in South Africa

Abstract

The movements ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘Defund Police’ provoked debates that were disputed in the late 1980s and early 1990s: ”Should we choose privatisation or outsourcing of the Police?” Nowadays, the distrust in police in the USA by the movements mentioned above have been disseminating the idea of dissolution of armed forces.

The trend of NPM reforms, neoliberal measures from the United Kingdom, became popular in the post-apartheid South Africa: Cape Town had its security services partially privatised and outsourced, and this measure was then applied nationwide. This led to the birth of PSIRA and led to the foundation of modern private security companies.

However, the expectations were high about reducing crime, increasing professionalism, and providing solutions to the social issue of crimes committed by young people, and in long-term could the solutions that had been applied did not make Cape Town safe. This study is an effort to verify the Weberian statement according to which the police and security-related fields should be controlled by the state.