Abstract
This chapter analyses some of the challenges associated with securing mega-events and important considerations shaping how police and security actors go about their task of understanding mega-event security. First, we address some of the similarities and differences between mega-events, ranging from sporting events to political summits, and how these differences are interpreted by security actors. Second, we examine questions concerning perceived threats to mega-events, focusing specifically on the potential for conflicting conceptions of ‘security’ to shape a range of outcomes. Third, we concentrate on the complexities underpinning the operational planning and project management of large-scale logistical operations. We conclude by reflecting on the tensions that emerge in pursuit of mega-event security which, we argue, only begin to become sufficiently visible when we cast our gaze inside security operations.
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Notes
- 1.
See, for example, Fong (2010) on the Vancouver 2010 and Press Association (2011) on London 2012, for recent examples. At the time of writing, exact numbers of personnel involved in the Commonwealth Games are not available. However, according to media reports (e.g., Forbes 2018), police numbers extended to approximately 3700, defence 1900 and private security well over 5000 across four companies: MSS Security, Wilson, SecureCorp and SNP Security. Numerous concerns with private security have been reported in the media, including issues pertaining to logistics, standards and training (e.g., Wolfe 2018).
- 2.
The ISU is a multi-agency services team formed to plan and coordinate the secure operation for major events in Canada. ISUs usually comprise federal and local police and security agencies and are led by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
- 3.
The main difference between the Australian and Canadian experience here is the emphasis placed on cyber-attacks by the RCMP . While cyber security is not explicitly stated here, interviewees did express concerns about the risk of information systems being penetrated by state and non-state actors. We reflect on this later in the book.
- 4.
Australia now has five national terrorism threat levels: not expected, possible, probable, expected and certain (Australian and New Zealand Counter-Terrorism Committee 2017). The threat level has remained at ‘probable’ since the change to this system, which infers that individuals or groups possess the intent and capability to conduct a terrorist attack in Australia.
- 5.
This figure did not include staffing costs, which were provided in-kind by state police. The majority of QPS funding that was invested in physical resources (rather than human capital) included investment in a new operations centre and intelligence facilities, examined in the following chapter.
- 6.
This interviewee continued to give examples of equipment that was not purchased, particularly in relation to public order policing operations. For example, the interviewee described why they decided to borrow a water cannon from New South Wales Police instead of purchase their own: ‘We didn’t make a water cannon or buy a water cannon. I went to New South Wales and borrowed their water cannon so that is two, three million [AUD saved]. … Would I ever use a water cannon down the track? Never. I don’t think New South Wales have ever used it [after acquiring it for APEC 2007]. So it’s those decisions upfront that we made an extraordinary amount of saving and came in under budget’.
- 7.
The interviewee used the term ‘culturally accepted’ to refer to circumstances where such lessons become embedded in the underlying beliefs, values and attitudes of organisation. It is, as such, similar to the properties of ‘organisational culture ’, which one of us has written about elsewhere (Whelan 2016), and which is also a focus of Chapter 4.
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Whelan, C., Molnar, A. (2018). Analysing Mega-Event Security: Looking Inside Operations. In: Securing Mega-Events. Crime Prevention and Security Management. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59668-0_2
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