The private security industry has expanded in proportion to economic
developments throughout the world, largely because the existing security
services provided by the government do not satisfy demands of various
economic entities and people in the society for better security service.
Therefore, it would not be unfair to say that security services by private sectors
are decided by its quality, price, and customers' needs. A refined management
system, however, is essential to assess qualification of security companies and
their service quality, given the nature of public goods of security service.
Despite the steady growth of private security industry in Korea, however, it
has been continuously criticized that its security management system for better
qualification of security guards, training, and private security companies have
not been fully updated enough to guarantee good quality.
This paper aims to gain insights to effective policy formation in the Korean
private security industry, through reviewing the licensing system of private
security guards and the Approved Contractor Scheme (hereinafter the ACS) in
the UK- that has on one hand systematically regulated private security
industry, but on other hand has enforced public-private cooperation by laying
significant stress on autonomy of private security companies. The distinctive
characteristic of the UK policy for the private security is that the Security
Industry Authority (hereinafter the SIA), an independent authority, is leading
development of the private security industry of the UK through specialized private security regulation and enhanced service quality. In addition, the UK
is developing quality of security service with transparent financial management
and recruitment of good quality security guards by adopting not only
substantially specified regulations and standards, but the voluntary ACS
system. Moreover, the SIA analyzes customers' demands for security service
specializing the policy for private security through conducting a variety of
surveys.
With the analysis of the UK private security system, this paper suggests
that the Korean government change from a non-specialized private security
regulation system by the National Police Agency to an independently
specialized private security authority like the SIA and adopt the compulsory
licensing and the ACS system of the UK.