Summit Participants and Activities. Law enforcement and private security are two fields with similar goals but different ap- proaches and spheres of influence. “Public law enforcement” includes local, state, and tribal police departments; sheriffs’ departments; and federal agencies such as the Fed- eral Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Drug Enforce- ment Administration, Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Marshals Service, and many others. According to the DOJ Bureau of Justice Sta- tistics, in 2000 there were 17,784 state and local law enforcement agencies in the United States, employing 708,000 full-time sworn officers. In addition, there were 88,500 fed- eral law enforcement officers, bringing the public total to about 797,000 public law en- forcement officers. “Private security” consists of corporate security departments, guard companies, alarm companies, armored car businesses, investigative firms, security equipment manu- facturers, and others. A security practitioner could be an experienced director of security at a major multinational corporation, a manager of contract security officers at a client site, a skilled computer crime investigator, an armed protector at a nuclear power plant, or an entry-level guard at a retail store. Some practitioners hold professional, exam-based certi- fications, possess advanced degrees, and are required to meet state or local standards. Studies on private security suggest there may be as many as 90,000 private security or- ganizations employing roughly 2 million security officers and other practitioners in the United States. More than 140 executive-level participants attended the summit, which was held January 26-27, 2004, in Arlington, Virginia. They represented local, state, federal, and other law enforcement agencies; security departments of major corporations; security product and service providers; professional organizations in the law enforcement and private security fields; universities; and federal agencies. Participants were assigned to working groups, which met for over six hours during the summit. Each group worked on one of the fol- lowing topics: building partnerships; model partnerships; operational partnerships; re- search and evaluation; perceptions, standards, certification, and regulation; and future trends.
