‘Industry no threat to national security’
The CEO of private security sector association dismisses such a claim as nonsense
POLICE Minister Nathi Mthethwa is not the only one with doubts about South Africa’s R50-billion a year private security industry.
Mthethwa stirred up a hornet’s nest when he tried to push through legislation to tighten the regulation of the industry, which he has suggested could be a threat to national security. It has been put on hold for now, but the CEO of the Security Industry Alliance, Steve Conradie, says he is not happy because he knows it will be back. “We just don’t know what it will look like,” he says.
But there is a groundswell of grumbling from people who hire
They employ more staff and officers than the South African police
private security companies such as ADT, 24/7 and Chubb, wondering whether the service they get justifies the amount they pay every month.
This is justifiable scepticism: research reveals that their money buys them little more than an illusion of protection.
The private security industry has more officers (more than one million unregistered people, alongside 500 000 registered and active staff) than the South African police force. But it has done little to combat insecurity, according to research done by Julie Bodnar for the Southern African Bishops Conference parliamentary liaison office. “Security companies sell the fear of crime and underperformance of the police and so customers continue to pay in spite of inadequate service,” she says.
Community safety specialist Barbara Holtmann says it is easy money from a captive market. The irony is that the more the industry fails its clients, the more those clients end up paying.
When clients get attacked, the security companies use it as an excuse to flog more products and services.
“What’s happened over the years is that people have just escalated the amount of security that they have. The companies will offer you CCTV, or they’ll offer you guarding services, or patrol services. It’s just one thing after another. All you end up doing is paying more.”
Holtmann believes it is time to ask whether this approach is helping. “Criminals are not deterred. They’ve simply become more aggressive, more organised, better armed and just don’t give a damn, quite frankly,” she says.
Rudolph Zinn, a former detective turned University of South Africa academic, wrote a book called Home Invasion based on interviews with convicted armed robbers, which underscores Holtmann’s view.
Zinn found that criminals regarded private security companies with contempt. Alarms were no deterrent because they knew exactly how long it took the armed response companies to respond.
Holtmann believes all the security companies have done is displace crime, either to a different place or a different mode. And indeed, police statistics show that, as the number of private security companies have grown, criminals have become more aggressive.
The number of burglaries (breaking into an empty house) has fallen, but the number of armed robberies (attacking people in their homes) has gone up.
“You’re more likely to have a breach in security when you’re at home now than when you are not,” says Holtmann. “That is what security companies have done.
“People spend more and more money on these companies because it makes them feel more secure. The reality is very different. The security companies deliver some kind of a placebo that works some of the time, but whether it works because they’re there is a long argument. Unfortunately, it is now standard that everybody who can afford it spends a fortune on private security.”
Holtmann says it is easy mon- ey for security companies. “We make it much too easy for them. We’re undemanding of them.”
The proliferation of private security companies has not changed behaviour, nor has it diminished the risk of being attacked, she believes.
She points out the fact that the recidivism rate of convicted offenders is between 70% and 90%.
“So prison is not a deterrence. Our criminal population does not operate on the basis of deterrence. So we need to understand that despite everything we spend on private security, there is no return on that spend. It is not an investment. We’re not stopping people from committing offences; we’re not reducing our risks as a society.”
Although the current model is not working, the private security industry keeps banging away at it very profitably because it can afford to. There are no consequences for failure.
“If I promise my client that I am going to deliver something, then I come along and say, sorry, I didn’t deliver because it got difficult, I don’t get paid. And certainly my client doesn’t say, well, that didn’t work so give me more. Why do we behave like that with security companies?
“We should be asking security companies to be more creative in their response instead of constantly intensifying the re- sponse. We pay huge amounts of money for their so-called expertise. They need to demonstrate it.”
Jenny Irish-Qhobosheane, who has done extensive research into the industry over the years and is now a senior official involved with policy in the police ministry, says by the time private security companies respond to house alarms the crisis is over.
She says the degree of criminality in the industry itself is “very high” and sometimes covered up by security companies to avoid liability.
“When an employee commits a crime that they find out about, instead of charging that person they dismiss him for other reasons and he then lands back with some other private security company,” she says.
A feature of the private security industry is its almost symbiotic relationship with the insurance industry. She believes this should be more closely researched.
“Insurance companies insist you use a private security company, but there is no empirical evidence that, because you have an armed response company, your house is less likely to be hit.”
Conradie, 54, whose Security Industry Alliance — which he helped to launch in 2003 — represents most of the biggest private security companies, started as an electrical engineer before developing “a huge passion” for the security industry.
He says it is “complete nonsense” to suggest that the private security industry is a threat to national security. The ratio of private security officers to police is similar in other coun-
Criminals have simply become more organised and more aggressive
tries, including Australia and the US, he says.
Conradie rejects Irish-Qhobosheane’s argument about the number of crooks in the private security industry, saying that criminality is restricted to unregistered, “fly-by-night” companies that use untrained guards picked off the street.
These companies are thriving because they undercut the legal competition, he says.
All the sins blamed on the industry, including inadequate vetting and the exploitation of guards, are committed by these rogue companies, he says.
Conradie makes the point that the government itself has contributed to the problem by employing these unregistered private security companies.
Several years ago, a tender was issued by KwaZulu-Natal’s provincial government in which only 10% of the total price went to two compliant companies, whereas the rest went to unregistered, noncompliant flyby-nighters.
Conradie says that if consumers are not getting what they pay for from private security companies, they have only themselves to blame.