The privatization of policing
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The privatization of policing
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Re: The privatization of policing
#2We don’t need any loogie guns, thank you so very much.
Re: The privatization of policing
#3There's a lot wrong here:
1. Don't conflate business interests with the interests of the population of a city. I don't doubt there is rising demand for private armed security from the 1% of Portlanders who own businesses, that does not reflect on everyone.
2. Portland has seen rising violent crime but this is part regression to the mean (Portland is the safest city of it's size, even after the 2020 spike) and part of a larger trend (crime rose everywhere in the U.S. since 2020). The assertion that policing has broken down and the city is lawless is laughable.
Re: The privatization of policing
#4> In response to calls to “defund the police,” the city government cut $15 million from the department’s budget. [...] Portland’s homicide rate rose 207 percent from January 2019 through June 2021
> those who are unable to afford private security enjoy little protection from rising crime. Security—once a public good—is being privatized.
Every institution makes mistakes and has malicious actors. But you have to ask yourself how things would be without that institution. You can't just go "The system has problems, down with the system!".
Re: The privatization of policing
#5> In response to calls to “defund the police,” the city government cut $15 million from the department’s budget. [...] Portland’s homicide rate rose 207 percent from January 2019 through June 2021 > those who are unable to afford private security enjoy little protection from rising crime. Security—once a public good—is being privatized. Every institution makes mistakes and has malicious actors. But you have to ask yo…
As far as I can tell, that $15 million number represents a 3% cut made as part of a larger effort to balance the city's budget, not any kind of radical defund/abolish initiative.
edit: It might be closer to 6%; different articles seem to have different numbers, and it's not always clear whether the cuts are being described relative to the previous year's budget vs. the proposed budget (often a "cut" is just a smaller-than-expected increase). Either way, it's not very helpful to just cite the raw size of the cut without contextualizing it.
Re: The privatization of policing
#6[deleted]
Re: The privatization of policing
#7There's a lot wrong here: 1. Don't conflate business interests with the interests of the population of a city. I don't doubt there is rising demand for private armed security from the 1% of Portlanders who own businesses, that does not reflect on everyone. 2. Portland has seen rising violent crime but this is part regression to the mean (Portland is the safest city of it's size, even after the 2020 spike) and part of…
1. They may only be the 1% of portlanders who own businesses, but they own 100% of the businesses. The other 99% have to buy bread from somewhere, so it totally affects them. Further, it's happening because of how they voted.
2. Anyone who's ever been to Portland wouldn't or couldn't call it an average city. Even before the pandemic there were homeless people everywhere. I couldn't turn my head and not see a tent. It didn't look particularly fun either; Portland gets a lot of rain. Also the article doesn't assert that policing is broken down, they assert that the police are underfunded and take two hours to get there.
Re: The privatization of policing
#8First, I like this model of private policing. In the instance the article sites, the security force went at the heart of the problem rather than throwing someone into a cage. That’s a good thing.
Second, if you have a failure from a public institution, a private alternative is a good thing. You get more competition, which often yields better results.
Third, this isn’t very thought out, but trimming public police forces and dedicating funding and staff to more serious types of crime while allowing private police to handle petty crime could be an interesting use of resources.
Re: The privatization of policing
#9As a country we have played around with private policing (the Pinkerton detective agency) after the civil war. We decided we didn't like it.
Privatization of police is bad because only those with money get the benefits. What's this article does not talk about are the countless neighborhoods and streets that don't have security guards protecting them. The article puts security guards in a very pretty light and maybe this is true, but even so: they can only go where they're paid to go.
The whole point of socialization is to make sure that everybody gets a benefit, poor or rich.
Re: The privatization of policing
#10As a country we have played around with private policing (the Pinkerton detective agency) after the civil war. We decided we didn't like it. Privatization of police is bad because only those with money get the benefits. What's this article does not talk about are the countless neighborhoods and streets that don't have security guards protecting them. The article puts security guards in a very pretty light and maybe t…
Well, if the problem they’re addressing is largely petty crimes against businesses like shoplifting, you really only need private security in the business districts. Preventing crime in private homes seems like it’s a much harder task for either private or public security, given the coverage area required.