Company police
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Company police , also called Private Police, are police officers who work for a private company rather than a government agency.
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[edit] United States
These exist in most states in the United States. If they have attended the basic law enforcement officer's training academy in the state in which they work, they may be granted arrest or detention authority as long as it does not violate state law. Their jurisdiction is sometimes limited to the property which they have been hired to protect, however most Company Police officers work in a part-time capacity to supplement the salaries they earn as full-time city police officers, thereby granting them city-wide jurisdiction if the property they are employed on is located within their respective city. In the majority of the states in the U.S., actively-employed state-certified peace officers, regardless of the capacity in which they are employed (private, public, company, security, campus, etc.), have the ability to pursue and apprehend someone suspected of committing a felony outside of their normal jurisdiction.
There are generally two types of Company Police:
- "in-house" or "proprietary" (i.e. employed by the same company or organization they protect, such as a mall, theme park, or casino); formerly often called works police or security police in the United Kingdom
- "contract," working for a private security company which protects many locations and or multiple businesses.
- Note: in North Carolina, personnel of Private Police are called Special Police
[edit] United Kingdom
The term was formerly used in the United Kingdom for in-house security guards at factories and plants.[citation needed] Despite the name, these men did not have police powers. The term is now obsolete.[citation needed] It is (and always has been) illegal for police officers to work part-time as security guards in the United Kingdom.[citation needed]
