Legal Authority of Security Police
All security police derive their authority from two sources:
- the laws of their nation, territory and/or municipality
- the property rights of their employing or contracting agency or activity, which may be public or private or a mixture of both
These powers might include the power to detain, arrest, investigate criminal offenses, carry weapons, employ force, and/or take other actions to protect life and property beyond that of the ordinary citizen. One key distinction is between "sworn" (or bound by oath or affirmation to uphold the laws even at personal risk), and "non-sworn" or "civilian" who are ordinary employees with normal obligations to an employer.
Some security police are full-fledged peace officers with the same powers as regular police. Others have enhanced powers which are limited by law to the properties they protect, or a specified radius or distance. In some cases these powers are expanded by a Memorandum of Understanding or other legal document where other policing agencies delegate additional powers to enforce local law.
Some security police have the more limited powers of security guards in compliance with the laws of their jurisdiction.
These distinctions are of particular importance to security police and their employers.
Read more about this topic: Security Police
Famous quotes containing the words legal, authority, security and/or police:
“Hawkins: The will is not exactly in proper legal phraseology. Richard: No: my father died without the consolations of the law.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“The idea of feminine authority is so deeply embedded in the human subconscious that even after all these centuries of father-right the young child instinctively regards the mother as the supreme authority. He looks upon the father as equal with himself, equally subject to the woman’s rule. Children have to be taught to love, honor, and respect the father.”
—Elizabeth Gould Davis (b. 1910)
“If we could have any security against moods! If the profoundest prophet could be holden to his words, and the hearer who is ready to sell all and join the crusade, could have any certificate that to-morrow his prophet shall not unsay his testimony!”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Despite the hundreds of attempts, police terror and the concentration camps have proved to be more or less impossible subjects for the artist; since what happened to them was beyond the imagination, it was therefore also beyond art and all those human values on which art is traditionally based.”
—A. Alvarez (b. 1929)