Introduction.

• Author: Rigakos, George S.

This special issue of the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice is the direct product of an international conference on policing and security sponsored by the Law Commission of Canada (LCC) in February 2003. (1) The editors were asked by the LCC to assist in planning sessions and inviting speakers to participate in what has surely become an important watershed in the development of our understanding of the relations between public and private policing in Canada. Members of police boards and services, police unions, and civilian oversight organizations; private security executives; academics; politicians; and policy makers from around the world contributed to a lively and fruitful debate about the future of security provision in both Canada and other nations. Since the conference in Montreal, many of the trends identified by participants and long deliberated by policing researchers have continued to accelerate--business improvement associations hire private security personnel to police public streets, police organizations compete with one another for municipal contracts, private security and forensic firms continue to play a crucial role in high-level investigations, and "high policing" (Brodeur 1983) or "parapolicing" (Rigakos 2002) among private security companies has continued to proliferate. In the wake of security concerns in the post-September 11 world, the interrelationship between private actors and public security organizations has become an even more important area of concern. Private security contractors currently work alongside the US military and the Iraqi interim government, such that even international security has been increasingly "contracted out." (2) Domestically, the LCC is preparing a report to Parliament that has been deeply influenced by discussions throughout its consultative process. Among its many recommendations, the LCC is arguing for minimum training standards, an oversight mechanism, and more transparency for the wide gamut of private security operators and personnel across the country.

This concern has been echoed by a coroner's inquest into the death of Patrick Shand and a private member's bill (Bill 88) in Ontario that seeks to make similar changes. Other provinces, such as Nova Scotia, are also entertaining legislative initiatives that would govern not only the training and licensing of contract security personnel but also the wide constellation of actors, ranging from locksmiths to bouncers and in-house agents and investigators, who are also part of the private security industry. Canadian policy makers seem to be awakening to the realization that security provision in this country has been radically altered in the past three decades.

The contributions to this special issue provide an important snapshot of the empirical, political, and policy implications of the continuing "blurring" (Shearing and Stenning 1987) and proliferation of private and public policing in Canada. They also show that this blurring of boundaries is more or less perceptible depending on the field of policing that is under scrutiny. Despite Ericson and Haggerty's characterization of the police as "knowledge workers" (1997), the study of intelligence is an underdeveloped topic in policing, and researchers are only now beginning to articulate its main concepts. Assessments of the relative contributions of the private sector in intelligence policing are still rare. Current research focuses mainly, if not exclusively, on public police or national security organizations and their various components (see Ratcliffe 2004). The field of security intelligence bulges with competing public organizations (15 in the United States; their number is still undetermined in Canada)--now increasingly joined by innumerable private agencies--creating a formidable task for police researchers. This tendency is borne out by the first two articles in this collection, which address various aspects of public criminal and security intelligence. The two complement each other, as theory and practice. Seldom addressed elsewhere, criminal and security intelligence was an important topic at the LCC's conference.

The first article, by Jean-Paul Brodeur, tries to spell out fundamentals in the theory of criminal and security intelligence. Brodeur starts from the premise that producing intelligence is not an academic exercise dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake but a pragmatic endeavour addressed to public policy makers. He then applies various concepts borrowed from linguistics and information theory to articulate a framework for the collection and use of intelligence. In concluding his article, Brodeur acknowledges that the increasing use of technology in intelligence will result in the increasing prominence of the private sector. Frederic Lemieux's article dovetails with Brodeur's in that it is wholly committed to an analysis of the pragmatics of criminal intelligence, as opposed to theoretical fundamentals. Lemieux first demystifies intelligence by discussing four examples of situations in which it was found to be seriously inadequate. He then moves on to draw a profile that would define the elements constituting the competence of a police intelligence officer. This profile is striking in its demand for the most basic skills (e.g., writing skills). Lemieux's article is based on a seminar with police intelligence officers and reflects their needs as they expressed them.

Moving to the other main area of concern for the conference, Scott Burbidge's piece outlines the myriad problems involved in the successful licensing, contracting, and oversight of the private security industry in Canada. He reviews a number of recent developments in...