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, legal, authority, security and/or police:
“No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“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)
“In colonial America, the father was the primary parent. . . . Over the past two hundred years, each generation of fathers has had less authority than the last. . . . Masculinity ceased to be defined in terms of domestic involvement, skills at fathering and husbanding, but began to be defined in terms of making money. Men had to leave home to work. They stopped doing all the things they used to do.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
—U.S. Constitution, Second Amendment.
“I’ve met a lot of murderers in my day, but Dr. Garth, whatever he is, is the first man I’ve ever met who was polite to me and still made the chills run up and down my back.”
—Robert D. Andrews. Nick Grindé. Police detective, Before I Hang, describing his meeting with Dr. Garth (1940)