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Date: April 19, 2024 Fri
Time: 5:04 am
Time: 5:04 am
Results for ethics
5 results foundAuthor: Abrahamsen, Rita Title: The Ethical Challenges of Security Privatization Summary: While in the study of international relations the majority of attention toward the privatization of security has been devoted to the privatized military, commercial security companies have quietly become significant actors across the globe. In almost every country in the world, private security plays a significant and growing role in security provision. The private security industry is estimated to have a world-wide market value of over $165 billion, and growth rates of over 8%. In many countries, private security employees now outnumber their public counterparts, often by considerable amounts. This growth has been accompanied by the evolution of commercial security companies with extensive resources and geographic reach. Intriguingly, the largest of these firms are based in Europe. The world’s largest private security company, Group4Securicor (G4S), is one of the UK’s 100 largest corporations by capitalization, and the largest employer listed on the London Stock Exchange. With operations in 115 countries, it employs over half a million people. Following a similar pattern of expansion, the Swedish-based Securitas has also become a significant provider of security services across Europe and beyond. The world’s second-largest PSC, Securitas has implemented more than 60 acquisitions over the past two decades, employs more than 240,000 people in thirty-seven countries, and now has 12% of the global outsourced security market. The company’s total sales in 2007 amounted to approximately $6.9 billion, with an organic sales growth of 5%. The third largest PSC in the world, the Spanish company Prosegur, also mirrors the trend. Founded in 1976, the firm employs more than 75,000 people, and has extensive operations in Europe and Central and South America. The increasing role of private security challenges some of modern society’s most fundamental political assumptions. The idea that security is a quintessentially public good is at the heart of modern conceptions of sovereignty, so much so that an increasing monopoly of public force was long seen as a mark of movement toward modernity. The stunning growth of private security over the past three decades thus challenges deeply held political beliefs, including the assumption that modernity and development are marked (or even defined) by the increasing monopolization of security in the hands of the state, and that this process provides the stable benchmark for ethical evaluation. This Working Paper seeks to explore some of the ethical and political implications of the ‘rebirth’ of private security, focusing particularly on its transnational dimensions. We do so in a different manner from many treatments of security privatization in International Relations. First, we do not concentrate on the private military. Developments in this arena have received a great deal of attention, ranging from debates about whether it is a legitimate form of activity, or a simply a form of modern mercenarism, to questions about its relationship to military ethics and the just war tradition. While these are important debates, we focus here on the less analyzed but more pervasive forms of security transformation at work in the realm of commercial security. It is in this domain that private security is having some of its most extensive effects – effects that require empirical scrutiny and that raise ethical issues often quite different from those posed by military privatization. Second, our analytic standpoint differs from many existing treatments in that in the bulk of this paper we propose to treat the ethical less as a category of purely moral assessment or abstract philosophic reflection, and more as a domain of social power. The ethical implications of security privatization cannot be considered in isolation from the social conditions that have given rise to its rebirth. These social structures condition the terms of ethical debate. By locating ethical questions in context of social shifts and transformations in state structures, we will be in a better position to provide ethical appraisal and political judgement. Details: Oslo: International Peace Research Institute, 2009. 33p. Source: Internet Resource: INEX Project, INEX D.3.2.; Accessed May 10, 2011 at: Year: 2009 Country: International URL: Shelf Number: 121703 Keywords: EthicsPrivate SecurityPrivatization |
Author: van Buuren, Jelle Title: A Report on the Ethical Issues Raised by the Increasing Role of Private Security Professionals in Security Analysis and Provision Summary: Private security is on the rise. Although difficulties emerge in exactly estimating the precise amount of private security in the total range of security, the available figures all point into the same direction. Private security has moved lately to a more central stage in science, after years of academic neglect. Traditionally, private security was symbolized by the Private Eye as reflected in American movies: a cynical, though male, breaking laws and norms while holding a bottle of whisky in one hand and a blonde femme fatale in the other hand. However, this Hollywood image of private investigators seems to be outdated. Private security nowadays covers a conglomerate of companies active in all possible fields of security. In this literature review, we will look into the dimension, size and functions of private security as reflected in the academic forum. Further, we will look into scientific discussions concerning explanations for the rise in private security, the functions of private security, the relationship with the state, the relationship between public and private security and the possible societal and political ramifications of private security. After examining the scientific knowledge on the organizational and personal values dominant in the private security sector, we will look at the possible ethical dilemmas embedded in the rise in private security. We will end with some conclusions regarding the current scientific knowledge on private security and possible avenues for further exploration of the ethical challenges to private security. Throughout this literature review we will understand private security companies as ‘commercial enterprises using public or private funds to engage in tasks where the principal component is a security of regulatory function'. Details: Oslo: International Peace Research Institute, 2009. 72p. Source: Internet Resource: INEX Project; Report D.3.3.: Accessed May 10, 2011 at: www.inexproject.eu Year: 2009 Country: International URL: Shelf Number: 121704 Keywords: EthicsPrivate SecurityPrivatization |
Author: Schell-Busey, Natalie Marie Title: The Deterrent Effects of Ethics Codes for Corporate Crime: A Meta-Analysis Summary: The current financial crisis, brought on in part by the risky and unethical behaviors of investment banks, has drawn attention to corporate crime, particularly on the issue of how to prevent it. Over the last thirty years, codes of conduct have been a cornerstone of corporate crime prevention policies, and consequently are now widespread, especially among large companies. However, the empirical literature is mixed on the effectiveness of codes, leaving them open to critics who charge that codes can be costly to implement, ineffective, and even criminogenic. In this dissertation I use meta-analysis to examine the evidence regarding the preventative effects of ethics codes for corporate crime. The results show that codes and elements of their support system, like enforcement and top management support, have a positive, significant effect on ethical-decision making and behavior. Based on these results, I propose an integrated approach toward self-regulation founded on Braithwaite's (2002) enforcement pyramid, which specifies that regulation should primarily be built around persuasion with sanctions reserved for situations where a stronger deterrent is needed. Details: College Park, MD: University of Maryland, 2009. 164p. Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed May 15, 2014 at: http://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/1903/9289/1/SchellBusey_umd_0117E_10313.pdf Year: 2009 Country: United States URL: http://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/1903/9289/1/SchellBusey_umd_0117E_10313.pdf Shelf Number: 132364 Keywords: Corporate CrimeEthicsFinancial CrimesWhite Collar CrimeWhite Collar Offenses |
Author: Harcourt, Bernard E. Title: The '73 Graft: Punishment, Political Economy, and the Genealogy of Morals Summary: In this essay, I explore the place of a genealogy of morals within the context of a history of political economy. More specifically, I investigate the types of moralization - of criminals and delinquents, of the disorderly, but also of political economic systems, of workers and managers, of rules and rule-breaking - that are necessary and integral to making a population accept new styles of political and economic governance, especially the punitive institutions that accompany modern political economies in the contemporary period. The marriage of political economy and a genealogy of morals: this essay explores how the moralization of certain groups of people has been necessary to render tolerable the great American paradox of laissez-faire and mass incarceration. How, in effect, practices of moralization are necessary to make tolerable the intolerable. Details: New York: Columbia Law School, 2015. 19p. Source: Internet Resource: Columbia Public Law Research Paper No. 14-485 : Accessed October 26, 2015 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2673062 Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2673062 Shelf Number: 137054 Keywords: EthicsFoucaultMoralsPunishment |
Author: Castelluccia, Claude Title: Understanding Algorithmic Decision-Making: Opportunities and Challenges Summary: The expected benefits of Algorithmic Decision Systems (ADS) may be offset by the variety of risks for individuals (discrimination, unfair practices, loss of autonomy, etc.), the economy (unfair practices, limited access to markets, etc.) and society as a whole (manipulation, threat to democracy, etc.). We present existing options to reduce the risks related to ADS and explain their limitations. We sketch some recommendations to overcome these limitations to be able to benefit from the tremendous possibilities of ADS while limiting the risks related to their use. Beyond providing an up-to-date and systematic review of the situation, the report gives a precise definition of a number of key terms and an analysis of their differences. The main focus of the report is the technical aspects of ADS. However, other legal, ethical and social dimensions are considered to broaden the discussion. Details: Brussels, Belgium: European Parliamentary Research Service, 2019. 104p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 3, 2019 at: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?reference=EPRS_STU(2019)624261 Year: 2019 Country: Europe URL: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2019/624261/EPRS_STU(2019)624261_EN.pdf Shelf Number: 158114 Keywords: Algorithmic Decision Discrimination Ethics |