The Police Act is clear. The state must provide the police service society needs. It is a fundamental principle that the state should have a monopoly on violence. Internally in Norway, it is the police who manage and exercise this monopoly on violence. The police’s use of physical force is therefore authorized by law. So, they have a legal basis for being able to exercise physical force. Without such legal authority, the use of physical force is punishable. Private companies that run security and control activities have experienced enormous growth in recent decades. At the beginning of the 1980s, there were approximately 3,000 security guards in Norway. In 2017, there were as many as 12,500 security guards. In comparison, there were under 10,000 police officers in 2017. There are thus far more security guards than police officers in Norway today. Now the government will give this private security force the right to arrest. There will be a dilution of the state’s monopoly on violence. The starting point today is that guards have no different authority to use physical force than any other person. The Security Service Act is also clear. Guards are not allowed to use physical force beyond what every ordinary citizen has access to. In principle, a security guard therefore has no greater authority to use physical force than you and me. The reason is fundamental: employees of private companies should not be placed above ordinary citizens. Neither security guards nor other citizens can use physical force against others, with the exception of some special situations such as emergency guardians, emergency legal situations or where the conditions for civil arrest are met. Common to all of these is that the use of force must not be more intrusive than necessary, assessed against the purpose. There is one important exception to the general rule that only the police are allowed to use physical force. The Commercial Transport Act and the Railway Act give “the transport company’s inspectors” the right to use physical force in connection with ticket checks. The Supreme Court has ruled that only permanent employees of the transport company have this right, not hired security guards. The reasoning from the Supreme Court was that hired guards can be thought of as acting as a “hired fee police”, – served by imposing as many fines as possible. The detention must therefore take place under the supervision of a permanent employee of the transport company to avoid unnecessary use of force. There are a number of examples from the courts where security guards have gone too far in their use of power. The government’s proposal is a gradual dilution of the police’s exclusive right to exercise police authority. Detaining a passenger is very much the same as an arrest. It is a very strong intervention that must be used with great caution and under strict requirements for the procedure. When the provisions in the Railways Act and the Professional Transport Act were introduced, the central question was whether anyone other than the police should have the authority to use physical force against people. A very narrow limit was then set for the use of such physical force. The government will now further extend the authority for the use of physical force to also include hired security companies. In the previous consultation round, the Norwegian Police Federation stated that giving the transport company’s employees the right to detain people was a strong erosion of the legislation. An arrest places great demands on the person carrying out the task, both physically and mentally. The Norwegian Police Federation then believed that this was a serious problem in principle, and that the change was a possible erosion of the principle that only the police can make an arrest. The government’s proposal, with a consultation deadline of 21 October, entails a further expansion of the circle that can make arrests. A gradual expansion of the circle that can use physical force is problematic and should not happen without thorough debate and careful consideration. Particular care should be taken in justifying the expansion with purely practical and financial considerations. This erosion can spill over into the rest of the security industry. In a few years there may be security guards sorting the queues outside popular nightclubs and restaurants who will require police authority. Perhaps hired security guards in connection with cultural and sports events or center security guards as well. This extension must therefore be carefully considered. We must ensure that this does not become the start of a gradual erosion of the police authority and the creation of private police forces, as we see in a number of other countries. See from the archives:
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Beware of the Power of the Watchers – Utterance
