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The privatization of policing

compactmag.com

11–20 of 236 posts

Re: The privatization of policing

#12
> People who voted to defund the police are now paying for private security. Multnomah County, where downtown Portland is located, is bluer than blue. Joe Biden won there by more than 79 percent of the votes in 2020. And these people want their private security to come with guns.

Leaving aside the quibble about whether anyone literally voted to “defund the police,” I do find this phenomenon interesting. Our “progressive” private school recently hired a former Detroit cop to patrol the campus with a gun. Super nice guy. But gun control is for the proletariat apparently.

Re: The privatization of policing

#13
"Emma Freire is a senior writer for World magazine" which promises - on its masthead image - the following: "Sound journalism, grounded in facts and Biblical truth"

The Federalist, American Conservative, Former Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.

Alrighty then.

Re: The privatization of policing

#14

> 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…

And, unsurprisingly, people calling to defund the police thought about how things would be if we stopped sending thugs with military-grade arms into our communities and calling them police. Also, unsurprisingly, no one who claimed those folks were wrong bothered listening to them.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/06/us/what-is-defund-police-trnd...

Re: The privatization of policing

#15
Somewhat surprisingly, this seems to be basically a pro 'defund the police' argument in the end.

> “If you have an effective criminal-justice system, and you have effective community partners that are assisting towards long-term community transformation, then, yes, traditional security models—the security model of observe and report—works,” he says. “But when you have a breakdown in societal connectivity, you lose the ability to operate out of that business model. So we had to come up with something unique and different.”

And what they came up with is something with probably better outcomes (in terms of reducing violence) than law enforcement.

Of course, there is no guarantee that private security will remain "social service-y".

Re: The privatization of policing

#16
post #8

First, 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 forc…

> 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.

I mean this with all sincerity and zero snark: I barely recognize today's America in this story. There's a dynamic with both LEO & Privatization and it isn't leading to bulk mistreatment of vulnerable people. This lack of mistreatment is almost startling in how unfamiliar it feels.

Re: The privatization of policing

#17

There'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…

It’s interesting that Portland is seeing record homicides because it’s far more gentrified than ever. Portland had only 54 homicides in 1993, when crime was much higher nationally, and Portland specifically was much seedier. Last couple of years are close to double the 1993 peak, but population growth since then is only 50%.

Re: The privatization of policing

#18

Somewhat surprisingly, this seems to be basically a pro 'defund the police' argument in the end. > “If you have an effective criminal-justice system, and you have effective community partners that are assisting towards long-term community transformation, then, yes, traditional security models—the security model of observe and report—works,” he says. “But when you have a breakdown in societal connectivity, you lose th…

>Of course, there is no guarantee that private security will remain "social service-y".

I think it's bound to happen. Money creeps in, the police officers are too expensive to maintain. They get replaced by blender drones.

Luckily, all media will be privatized and anyone reporting might end up in a blender drone accident.

Re: The privatization of policing

#19
>Hiring private security on a large scale is novel in America.

No, it is not. Colleges and universities have been doing it for many decades.

"Seventy-five percent of campus law-enforcement agencies have armed officers, according to a Bureau of Justice Statistics survey. Nine in 10 public campuses had “sworn” officers, meaning those who can carry a gun, have arrest power, and wear a badge; four in 10 private campuses did."[0]

TFA is focused primarily on policing related to homeless persons, while I'm pretty sure with most campuses in urban settings, they are focused more broadly on hard-core crime (murder, rape, armed robbery, gang-related activity).

[0]https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/04/univer...

Re: The privatization of policing

#20

As 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…

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