Parapolice are law enforcement officersorintelligence agents considered "beyond", "ancillary" or "subsidiary" to the regular police force. The term has been used in criminology to refer to private security with an explicit relationship to public police forces.[1][2]
Parapolice organizations are generally considered legally sanctioned bodies acting either beyond or in addition to the duties and responsibilities normally attributed to the public or state police. Parapolice organizations, therefore, can include all private security companies, auxiliaryoradjunct police services, or other legal albeit politically motivated intimidation squads acting either at the behest or with the acquiescence of government and/or power elites.[3]
The term seems to have developed slightly different normative meanings in northern versus southern and developing nations. In northern, democratic nations, parapolicing has acquired a critical connotation largely attached to an aggressive form of private security provision. Canadian sociologist, George Rigakos defines the New Parapolice as any "security company that explicitly attempts to bridge the gap between public and private police" constituting a "vanguard" force in emerging "risk markets".[4] For Rigakos, the parapolice are a type of assertive private law enforcement and surveillance organization "that pushes the envelope" on what is legally permissible concerning citizens’ powers of arrest and trespass enforcement.[5][6]
In southern, developing, and divided societies, parapolice have become synonymous with politically motivated intimidation squads. In some countries, like China, the parapolice are a state-organized policing agency charged with enforcing by-laws and other commercial regulations. They have been accused of intimidating and harassing unlicensed vendors, engaging in running street battles with local residents and environmentalists and even beating to death a man for taking images of a clash between villagers and the parapolice.[7] In Brazil, Amnesty International has criticized the role of the parapolice, locally known as "milicia", for abduction, intimidation, torture and "wielding political power by guaranteeing, through intimidation, votes for certain state deputies".[8] In Venezuela, parapolice have been blamed for the ‘social cleansing’ of poor men in the state of Portuguesa. The People’s Ombudsman reports that the parapolice are responsible for the killing of 402 people between 2001 and 2004.[9][not specific enough to verify] In Latin America, in particular, parapolice are synonymous with paramilitary vigilantism and political death squads.[10]
The term 'parapolice' has acquired a measure of currency among some criminologists and is one that connotes a relationship as well as a distinction between private security and public police. The word 'parapolice' was first deployed in legislation that attempted to define penalties for neighbourhood watch group members who falsely identified as police officers and was thus specifically portrayed as illicit. More recently, sociologists and criminologists ... have made use of the expression in ways that do not treat it as an inherently illegal practice.
Para-police bodies exist more or less in the absence of any appropriate legal basis, are closely linked to the police, and in practice wield some of their powers.
