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Private Security Forces

• This act forbids any organisation, or person, other than the Police or government security forces (such as New Zealand Security Intelligence Service) to be responsible for providing policing to the people of New Zealand.
• People of New Zealand cannot be arrested, charged, put on trial or imprisoned by security forces other than the Police or government security forces.
  Comment
  Who are the government security forces? Is it just SIS, or does it also include/is it exactly the armed forces? If it does include these other organisations are they required to operate under the same rules as the police with respect to the rights of the arrested?
• The Government of New Zealand cannot liberalise, privatise or out-source the Police.
  Comment
  However, for the purposes of solving cases in a timely manner, the police should be able to outsource functions as required [allowing a resident to hire in a police approved crime scene investigator for example]; This may also be true in cases of riot control, where private security - under direct supervision of police - could supplement police members already present. Should a given employed contractor/organisation prove to be a problem, they can be stripped of their outsourced authority.
• Private security organisations can provide security to private areas such as shopping centres, factories, building sites etc. However, they provide security only to organisations licensed by the Police.
  Comment
  This section contains no provision for private security forces operating in a residential neighbourhood, where said neighbourhood has hired such forces for protection. In turn, why should "only organisations" be able to be licensed by the police to hire such protection? Surely a private individual/group should be able to hire private security forces for their own protection?
• As an exception to the above, private individuals including private security employees may, if they see a crime actually in progress but no police are present, act in lieu of the Police and exercise full Police powers - such as making a citizen's arrest and holding them in a secure area - until the Police can be summoned to relieve them.
  Comment
  It would also be necessary to extend to such forces the full protection of the law, in regards to coming to the defence of another individual - which may, or may not, result in injury to the attacker.

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