Private surveillance in public spaces: A new mode of policing and surveillance in Sweden

Abstract

This article examines how the deployment of private security officers to patrol public spaces, and their use of body-worn cameras (BWCs), has become possible in Sweden where public video surveillance was long considered unthinkable and where the protection of privacy remains strong. We ask how the expansion of private security officers into public spaces can be understood, and how the use of BWCs by these officers has affected the nature and scope of public space surveillance. Based on interviews with private security officers and key stakeholders, as well as policy documents, we use the concept of function creep to explain how such new uses evolve over time, and we draw on the theory of the normalisation of the exceptional to understand why it has taken place. We refine the normalisation theory by arguing that the ‘normalisation of perceived threats’ can be driven by a series of criminal events, political responses, and dominant public discourses – rather than by a single exceptional event, as Flyghed originally proposed. In doing so, we contribute to the theoretical development of the normalisation of the exceptional and offer an empirically grounded analysis of how the implementation of BWCs in the private security industry, alongside the expansion of private security officers in public spaces, constitutes a new mode of policing and surveillance in Sweden. Our study thereby adds to the growing body of critical scholarship on BWCs.