Civil Liability and Private Police - Essay Example

urities to safeguard their concerns, there could be wanton licensing requirements which facilitate the release of certificates to prospective private security officers without ensuring that they are fully equipped and competent in enforcing the required rules of court on erring civilians. With the evolution of private security in the United States, the impact of their actions on civilians sometimes breaches the legal jurisdictions. It is in this regards that this paper is written to present relevant issues encompassing civil liability and private police and to determine how pressing issues can be addressed and resolved.

According to Hill & Hill (2005), civil liability is defined as the “potential responsibility for payment of damages or other court-enforcement in a lawsuit, as distinguished from criminal liability, which means open to punishment for a crime”. This concept is linked to private security due to the following rationale as averred by Moore (1987: 134): “private security personnel are not considered law officers or peace officers and are, therefore, not bound by the same rules and regulations that apply to public office.

(Ziff, 1967: 608) This means the private law officer is not bound by the constitutional restrictions of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments (Braun, 1971: 555)”. This means that more and more security officers become qualified and certified to take actions against employees who have violated some policies and procedures of the organizations of which they all are part of. However, in conjunction with these, there are also increasing instances of unrestricted unreasonable and excessive actions by private security officers against employees which are supported by the employers.

As such, “without the Constitutional protections which would be available if the act were committed by a public police officer, the only recourse for a private individual against reckless and wanton conduct on the part of security personnel is a civil