Four years ago in the fall of 2014, media reports about the horrendous abuse of refugees by private guards in an accomondation in the German city of Burbach shocked the national public. Yesterday, the criminal trial against 32 persons involved in the scandal started and the Deutsche Welle interviewed Helge Staff, on private security guards in German refugee shelters, the role of regulation and the recent reforms in German private security law. All of these topics feature prominently in his dissertation project “The Political Economy of Private Security”. The full interview in German can be read here.