Private Police to Reduce Costs and Make Cities Safer
When a municipal agency threatens to cut services if benefits are reduced or pay raises aren't forthcoming, cities and citizens should do what too many consider unthinkable: call the agency's bluff. According to Independent Institute Senior Fellow Bruce L. Benson<http://www.independent.org/aboutus/person_detail.asp?id=523>, they may find a better, cheaper alternative from the private sector.
Consider Oakland, Calif., which is grappling with a $30 million budget deficit. When the city asked that police officers help by contributing to their own pensions, as is done in San Francisco and Los Angeles, the police union said no--not without a guarantee of no layoffs for three years. The city council responded to that rejection by taking steps to replace some police officers with private security workers to patrol high-crime areas.
"Four private patrolmen will cost the city about $200,000 a year--a fifth of what four city policy officers would cost," writes Benson. It's a small, but important step forward." Using the same personnel to make arrests and to respond to auto accidents is a costly waste of manpower and is uncommon in the private sector, Benson argues.
"Cities Can't Give In to Protection Racket,"<http://independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2847> by Bruce L. Benson (Investors Business Daily, 8/16/10)
To Serve and Protection: Privatization and Community in Criminal Justice<http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=21>, by Bruce L. Benson
Thank you for the post, Mike. This is such an obvious response to the inner city safety challenges! I will forward the links to Ann Grogan. We need to help increase the contributions of the San Francisco Special Patrol.
Marcy
I don't know if this is such a good idea. If these private police are subject to some oversight and bound to obey the Constitution, it might work. But the whole Bush Regime gave us an unhealthy taste of private prisons and police forces. The government's pigs are bad enough, but Blackwater and companies like them are even worse. Remember how they handled Hurricane Katrina? Battering down doors, confiscating private firearms, beating up and gunning down people--- or how they made an armed demonstration in DC to back up the Bailout?
That's what I'd really fear the most---corporate police and armies.
The same thing has happened by privatizing prisons and jails. That's been a major reason behind our skyrocketing incarceration rates. The government has no financial incentive to lock people up; private jails do. And the abuses of power have been atrocious in places like Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and elsewhere where it is widely implemented.
Eric, you are attacking my pet project! Will not do! Even if I were not in favor of the Police Specials, only a San Francisco Charter amendment would disband them, since they have been in the Charter since the old days.
Unlike City police officers, they serve at the behest of the businesses and individuals that hire them, and pay them. Therefore, unlike City police officers, if they do not deliver a service the neighborhood likes, they are summarily un-hired by the neighborhood itself.
The Patrol Specials are not privatized; they are private. They are not hired by any government agency, as is the case of private prisons and private war contractors.
I certainly share your concern about the unholy alliance of corporations and police. But the folks that hire the Police Specials are small businesses and individuals, because the Specials concentrate on serving specific neighborhoods.
BTW, the privatization of prisons may have contributed to some increase in the prison population; since perhaps the corporate drive for profit is more intense than the bureaucrats' need to guarantee their employment and their pensions. However, larger contributors to the increase have been "three-strikes," mandatory sentencing, and imprisonment for possession of drugs. Some also include the "crack epidemic" which supposedly disrupted family structures that provided guidance to the young. Some might even throw in the declining quality of schools, which rendered poor students ill prepared to earn a proper living.
I am all for turning just about all government services into private services, paid for by users of the services, not by taxpayers.
Marcy
Hi Marcy;
I'm not 100% opposed to the idea of private policing, but I think there needs to be a role for government too: mainly in 'policing the police': setting qualifications, investigating constitutional abuses, and generally providing some oversight. Another fear I would have is that 'not performing a service a neighborhood likes' can cut both ways. Imagine a neighborhood dominated by right-wing evangelical religious fanatics or racist bigots---imagine the 'laws' those people would want enforced!
Eric,
The way I frame the issue is that if we're talking about something that not only should governments not be doing, but that *nobody* should be doing (e.g. incarcerating people for drug use), then we should in no way support this function being contracted out or turned over to private companies, because private enterprise generally gets things done more efficiently, and we don't *want* oppression to be efficient. Until such time as it can be eliminated, it is in our interests to keep oppression as *inefficient* as possible!
Where we should be promoting a greater role for private enterprise and non-government organizations is with regard to functions that shouldn't be performed by government, but that are not bad things in and of themselves and quite the contrary are generally desirable -- e.g. providing health care, building housing, running schools, maintaining parks, funding the arts, etc.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
Starchild;
I totally agree. I really don't think the government has many other legitmate functions than setting minimum standards and enforcing them. That was an excellent point, though, about the efficiency of private enterprise over government---look how efficiently Blackwater handled Hurricane Katrina---after the local cops ran away! It was efficient alright---but a blot on America's already dismal human rights' record.