• Korean Security Journal
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• no.30
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• pp.85-115
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• 2012

The private security industry has expanded in proportion to economic developments throughout the world, largely because the existing security services provided by the government do not satisfy demands of various economic entities and people in the society for better security service. Therefore, it would not be unfair to say that security services by private sectors are decided by its quality, price, and customers' needs. A refined management system, however, is essential to assess qualification of security companies and their service quality, given the nature of public goods of security service. Despite the steady growth of private security industry in Korea, however, it has been continuously criticized that its security management system for better qualification of security guards, training, and private security companies have not been fully updated enough to guarantee good quality. This paper aims to gain insights to effective policy formation in the Korean private security industry, through reviewing the licensing system of private security guards and the Approved Contractor Scheme (hereinafter the ACS) in the UK- that has on one hand systematically regulated private security industry, but on other hand has enforced public-private cooperation by laying significant stress on autonomy of private security companies. The distinctive characteristic of the UK policy for the private security is that the Security Industry Authority (hereinafter the SIA), an independent authority, is leading development of the private security industry of the UK through specialized private security regulation and enhanced service quality. In addition, the UK is developing quality of security service with transparent financial management and recruitment of good quality security guards by adopting not only substantially specified regulations and standards, but the voluntary ACS system. Moreover, the SIA analyzes customers' demands for security service specializing the policy for private security through conducting a variety of surveys. With the analysis of the UK private security system, this paper suggests that the Korean government change from a non-specialized private security regulation system by the National Police Agency to an independently specialized private security authority like the SIA and adopt the compulsory licensing and the ACS system of the UK.