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The privatization of policing

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Re: The privatization of policing

#41

Post by prottog »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #38
lifeinthevoid wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm a bit of a small-town boy, but I find it hard to understand that a lot of people choose to live in these conditions and don't move away to somewhere quieter/safer.

I think it is a hard question to answer. In a very real sense, most people do not even recognize there is an actual option to move. Yes, there are all sorts of costs associated with the moving and there is stress to be incurred as a result, but I think most people do not even entertain the idea of living anywhere else compared to where they are for numerous reasons including familial ties. And then there is the 'why…

> I think people feel safer being where they have always been ( as unsafe it may be to an audience from a statistical point of view ).

As they say: better the devil you know.

Re: The privatization of policing

#42

Post by PopAlongKid »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #30
PopAlongKid wrote: post #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…

> with most campuses in urban settings, they are focused more broadly on hard-core crime What makes you sure of that other than the base assumption that that's what police should do so that's what they are doing? Consistently across several major urban area metro police forces the police self-reportedly spend about %5 of their time on that sort of serious violent crime. I don't see why campus police would be any high…

>What makes you sure of that other than the base assumption that that's what police should do so that's what they are doing?

I know something of Chicago neighborhoods where University of Chicago and University of Illinois-Chicago have private police.

College students are essentially transients - those who live on urban campuses are typically not homeowners, not car-owners, and not in married/domestic partner/young children living situations, since they are usually going to be age 25 or younger. What other types of crimes are they going to be subject to that require police intervention, other than the ones I mentioned?

Granted, there are also faculty/staff who receive police service, but probably many fewer than there are students, and not all of them live on campus.

Re: The privatization of policing

#43

Post by duped »

It sounds like one of the big problems with police are the incentives, and private security is doing a "better" job because their incentive is to reduce the actual effects of crime and not the metrics used to measure its rate/reduction (like arrests, indictments, convictions, reports, etc).

Re: The privatization of policing

#44

Post by prottog »

flandish wrote: post #31
djha-skin wrote: post #9

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…

Thank you for this reply. It’s scary to see how many are so ready to “defund police” by “funding corporate ability to murder” (my quotes re sentiment) - which is what happened with Pinkertons, etc. If those homeless camps have drug problems - the lowest hanging fruit may seem like enabling a private police force, but the hanging fruit will be in actually helping the drug problem…

> by “funding corporate ability to murder” (my quotes re sentiment)

I don't know about the discussion, but what I'm taking away from the article is actually what policing could be if the shield of immunity that fuels the "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude is taken away.

Re: The privatization of policing

#45

Post by zuzu89 »

flandish wrote: post #31
djha-skin wrote: post #9

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…

Thank you for this reply. It’s scary to see how many are so ready to “defund police” by “funding corporate ability to murder” (my quotes re sentiment) - which is what happened with Pinkertons, etc. If those homeless camps have drug problems - the lowest hanging fruit may seem like enabling a private police force, but the hanging fruit will be in actually helping the drug problem…

> will be in actually helping the drug problem…

while this should be obvious to anyone who has seen the camps, we still get articles that claim "the obvious answer to homelessness" is just more housing. Of course we need more housing but how do cheaper rents convince addicts to change their lifestyle?

it's the conventional argument that's being brought up all the time while claiming "everyone's ignoring it".

doing some novel reporting on homelessness without leaving their homes:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/01/homeles...

Re: The privatization of policing

#46

Post by Mezzie »

lifeinthevoid wrote: post #26
kodah wrote: post #22

I just moved to Portland and I live in SouthEast (where this article is talking about). It was a shock seeing guards dressed in the same kit I wore in Afghanistan. They're not exaggerating the homeless situation here either. There's tons, and many of them are addicted to fentanyl or meth. The political situation is exactly as they described. The county and city in Portland have a weird relationship. They're both "Pro…

Maybe I'm a bit of a small-town boy, but I find it hard to understand that a lot of people choose to live in these conditions and don't move away to somewhere quieter/safer.

The tradeoffs.

I've spent time in dangerous urban areas as well as safer urban areas and rural areas. Dangerous urban areas have a combination of two things that are of major benefit to people looking to better their life situation:

1.) Being an urban area, they have the population density to support a greater number of jobs and potential career paths. Living in a small area means you have much fewer choices and your options for starting over if you fuck up are much more limited. (Or if you just don't fit in: That 'safer' middle of nowhere area might not be safer depending on who you are.)

2.) Dangerous urban areas are usually more cost accessible and the lack of policing makes it easier to be an edge case and live on the margins. As an example, the car I drove when I lived in Flint, MI was absolutely not, strictly speaking, street legal. (It was too loud + it died at stops). The cops in Flint had other shit to worry about, so I didn't get a ticket as I saved up money to fix it. That would not fly in Cambridge, MA or most of the rest of the Boston area. Likewise, in Flint who gives a fuck if my tags are expired or I don't have my mandated car insurance? Nobody does. You need some lucky breaks to get established somewhere new, and breaks of any kind are more likely when there are cracks in the system.

Re: The privatization of policing

#47

Post by detuned »

There was a notable absence of opposing views in the article so I looked up "echelon security portland" and found a lot of objectionable actions they've taken. According to this article https://www.opb.org/article/2021/12/02/part-two-police-prose... they've been unaccountable to the public, they've lied about what people do (pretending they've attacked them), they've lied about their use of force, and attacked people in tents to displace them. This is all just from the first quarter of the second part of a report so there is a lot more.

Re: The privatization of policing

#48

Post by analog31 »

colechristensen wrote: post #23
PopAlongKid wrote: post #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…

The local state university has a real police department created by state law, it’s not private security but as legitimate as any other police department. When you call 911 within certain areas, they’re who are dispatched. This is pretty common around the country for larger universities.

I live next to a Big Ten university, and the campus police are essentially a branch of the city police department, with some special capabilities such as crowd control at the revenue sports games.

Re: The privatization of policing

#49

Post by ryukafalz »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #38
lifeinthevoid wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm a bit of a small-town boy, but I find it hard to understand that a lot of people choose to live in these conditions and don't move away to somewhere quieter/safer.

I think it is a hard question to answer. In a very real sense, most people do not even recognize there is an actual option to move. Yes, there are all sorts of costs associated with the moving and there is stress to be incurred as a result, but I think most people do not even entertain the idea of living anywhere else compared to where they are for numerous reasons including familial ties. And then there is the 'why…

> for numerous reasons including familial ties

This is a big one. I don't live in the Portland area, but anytime I've considered moving any large distance away from where I am I've always rejected it because my family/friends are all in this area. As much as I might like it a lot somewhere else, I'm not willing to uproot my social ties for it.

As I see it the alternative is to stay and advocate to make things better, and while that's grueling I think it's worth it.

Re: The privatization of policing

#50

Post by AlbertCory »

> The guards turn up within minutes and apprehend the shoplifter.

Stop right there. Here's how it could go:

Guard: Wait right here, please.

S: Am I under arrest?

Guard: Please wait. What is your name?

S: So I'm free to go?

Guard: Please wait. What is your name?

S: Buh-bye.

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