The Production of an Instrumental Order: Private Security Guards, Customers, and the Public

This paper analyzes the production of an instrumental order in the interactions between private security guards, their clients, and the public. Private security services combine human and material elements, and are based on the intellectual principles of defining reality in the context of rational risk management. Private guards are primarily concerned with maintaining order maintenance, preventing loss, and service provision rather than controlling crime. They attach importance to communicational skills that differentiate their work from the original police-style model of private security.