This industry includes companies that provide guards, transportation, alarms, safes, locks, closed-circuit television, access controls, data scrambling equipment, and other products and services. It also continues a longstanding practice of providing private patrols in public areas such as shopping malls, schools, and residential areas. Major concerns about the private security industry include accountability, cost-effectiveness, the potential need for regulation, and the implications of the establishment of the single European market in 1992. Future discussions of these and other issues need to rest on the recognition that a properly structured and controlled industry with appropriate safeguards for the public can be a major force for good. Appended cost analysis and 23 references.