Civil law is concerned and deals with the relationship between individuals and relates to civil rather than criminal wrongs with the aim of compensating the suing party for such wrongs (Gibson, Rigby, Ryan & Tamsitt, 2001, p28.1). A civil action is generally brought by the party who has been injured or otherwise suffered some form of loss as the result of a wrong which only directly affected him (e.g. trespassing into private property). When a civil law is broken, legal action is brought by an individual against another for some form of legal remedy, e.g. damages. In civil suits, the party initiating legal proceedings is referred to as the plaintiff and the party being sued is called the defendant. For a plaintiff to successfully seek …show more content…

For the prosecution to successfully convict the defendant, it needs to prove the case beyond any reasonable doubt (Dowler & Miles, 2001, p.33).

Criminal liability is most often used against private security personnel in cases of assault, battery, manslaughter, and murder (Fisher & Green, 1992, p 150). Some of the ways security personnel may defend themselves in a court of law is to argue that they were entitled to use force in self defence or that they had made a reasonable mistake which would neglect criminal intent. Security personnel may also be held liable for failing to perform the job they were employed to do. For example if a security officer working in an organisation were to witness someone getting robbed at knife point and does nothing to assist the victim, he or she would be deemed, under the eyes of the court, as to be criminally liable for failure to perform a security officer's duties. Therefore it is the task of the management of the security department in the organisation to educate its personnel on their roles and responsibilities as security personnel. These education programmes should also include educating them on their criminal liability. Another example of security personnel breaching criminal law is with reference to the Surveillance Device Act 1998, Section5 under the Western Australian Consolidated Acts; A Security Manager suspects that employees of the manufacturing department