The legal position on forceful action taken by private security staff in entertainment establishments

Abstract

Over the past decade, Malta has witnessed a great increase in the economic significance of the nightlife industry; a sector which contributes greatly to Malta’s touristic-dependent economy. This ever-growing industry has flourished greatly locally which simultaneously resulted in a greater need for crowd control and law enforcement personnel. Due to the alcohol-fuelled atmosphere in entertainment establishments like clubs and discotheques, heated and violent arguments amongst patrons and security staff guarding the premises in question become much more frequent. These repeated occurrences lead to many individuals losing faith in the enforcement of law and order. The scope of this term paper is to serve as a bed for more in-depth research as it is the first of its kind in Malta dealing with the notion of the private security domain. Unfortunately, due to the limited word count allowed, some areas could not be dealt with in further detail. Therefore, the end to be achieved by this research consists in providing a general overview of the process that needs to be undertaken for someone to become a legally operative private guard, the legal position that is currently had in Malta regarding these professionals and the remit of their powers, as well as some of the problems that are encountered locally and suggestions on how they are to be tackled. A comparative analysis is also carried out between Malta and England with regard to the private security industry. This helps to identify how the two jurisdictions handle this department and whether Malta can adopt any measures taken by the English authorities to better equip it to cater for the future demands of this industry.