The Privatization of Citizen Security in Latin America: From Elite Guards to Neighborhood Vigilantes

IN LATIN AMERICA, THE COMBINATION OF DEMOCRATIZATION, NEOLIBERALISM, AND record crime rates has converged to spur such a phenomenal growth in private security that private security guards now outnumber public police officers in nearly every country. Although governments and scholars alike have recognized this growth, there has been very little concerted study of its causes, patterns, and impact. In particular, the issues and conditions of citizen security in countries around the world today mask the extent to which private security has become a part of state and society. This article will develop an analytical framework to understand private security, focusing on Latin America, which has experienced growth of every kind of private security. It will first describe the extent of private security in the region, discuss its main causes, develop a typology of firms, examine three case studies, and highlight its long-term impact. The Phenomenon in Numbers Since the 1980s, the number of private security firms has grown exponentially in every region of the world, with expansion estimated at between seven and nine percent in the industrialized countries and about 11% in developing regions such as Latin America, Africa, and Asia (Frigo, 2003: 2). Every Latin American country has experienced such growth. Even in Chile and Costa Rica--the region's two safest countries--the private security sector has grown at an annual rate of about nine to 10% respectively. (1) Though this growth began in the 1980s, most Latin American firms are less than 10 years old. In the Dominican Republic, for example, 47 of the 98 firms registered in the year 2000 were formed since the mid-1990s (Diaz, 2001: 40; Mata, 2004). And while most firms have fewer than 100 employees, an estimated 320 have over 1,000 (Ibid.: 3). As Table 1 below indicates, the larger countries in the region have hundreds of thousands of private security officers, and the smaller ones have tens of thousands. Together, there are approximately 1.6 million registered employees in Latin America, with probably some two million more working informally or illegally. The constant turnover, tenuous finances, and off-the-books hiring in this sector make such statistics unreliable. High bankruptcy rates resulting from small profit margins and high-interest loans make the number of firms particularly hard to track. Since the bulk of most firms' budgets go to salary, which must be paid regularly, late payment by a major client can push them over the edge. As a result, estimates of the number of firms in many countries vary wildly. For instance, in the 1990s Guatemala had an estimated 15,000 private security officers, but by 2007 estimates ranged from 80,000 to 200,000. (2) Mexico has only 322 private security firms on the federal registry, about 3,000 private security firms in the Federal District, 6,000 in the Mexico City area, and about 1,400 more offering services in two or more states. Estimates of the number of officers range from 140,000 (Economist, January 27, 2007: 33), about 70% of whom are former state police officers, (3) to 450,000, with some 600,000 unregistered ones. Changing demands and services make the size of the industry difficult to determine and control. When the industry began, most firms provided general services, but increasing sophistication and segmentation have made them the exception. Just as client demand rose for integration--bundling a range of services--the open markets of globalization allowed a few multinational firms to capture a large share of the Latin American market, among them Securitas, Group 4 Securicor (operating in 100 countries, including 22 in Latin America and the Caribbean), Chubb, and Prosegur. In Nicaragua, Wackenhut controls 10% of the private security sector. Only a few firms in Latin America, based in Mexico and Brazil, approach the scale of these large firms. A Typology of Firms Efforts to identify and understand private security firms have fallen behind their growth due to their uncertain ownership and shady practices, but also because of the lack of agreement over what constitutes a private security enterprise. …