How about privatizing the police? (armchair idea thread)

The idea goes like this

The facilities and most of the equipment are still owned by the state, but the police officers who use these facilities to patrol the community come from a private security company. Every 5 years or so the locals of the community vote on whether or not they would like to extend their contract with their current company, or whether they would like to start a contract with a completely different company. The police department remains consistently the same, but the community gets to decide if the company/officers occupying their department has done a sufficient job protecting and serving their community

Disclaimer, this is a complete armchair idea on my part, which may or may not be grounded in reality. I am open to hearing any specific criticisms you might have of this idea. Or if you like the idea, let me know your thoughts, and if there are any adjustments to the idea that you believe would work better

 

Make them a for profit enterprise and hold onto you hats. We will all be criminals within a decade .

 

That sounds like it might be a fair idea, at least in part.

Trouble is, I shudder to think we could have Erik Prince and Black Water providing 'police' services.

 

If we cannot trust government to produce the most basic protection for our citizens, it really doesn't create a lot of comfort that government would produce any service that would be valuable to the people. The Elite started buying private security for protective services because they could afford it. Folks like Lori Lightfoot use the Chicago PD as her private security force, at the expense of her own citizens.

Democrats tell us police aren't there to protect you. You should trust them.

 

Do you think such a company would be able to secure liability insurance?

 

That’s what we did before. And it failed. Utterly because as it turns out, police are not interested in upholding the law but instead their bottom line. They’ll totally let criminals go if it means they make a profit.

 

I think as police forces fail to protect communities that you will see communities turning to this. I explained this to a law enforcement friend who was working from the standpoint that if police refused to operate due to excessive restrictions that we would be unpoliced, he wasn't very happy with my point, but I think it's valid. If police refuse to do their job we are under no obligation to continue to provide them that job. I've read, and I couldn't find it easily, that there are already more private police in American than public police.

I'd like to see some communities try this, and then all of us can see how well it worked, or didn't work. In the interim, after watching City Councils restrain police and allow rioters to set up "no go zones" and take over neighborhoods, I find that I favor making the Chief of Police an elected position, like the County Sheriff, and so similarly, exercising power directly derived from The People rather than through the city council. This might be a good interium step while your idea is given further consideration.

Part of my support for your idea is my opposition to police immunity and I do not think that private police would be covered by this judicial doctrine.

 

This is an interesting idea to consider. My initial reaction, at your thread's title, honestly, was what is TCassa89 thinking? Experience with Blackwell's private security soldiers, in Afghanistan & Iraq, should be taken as a very poor omen. For that matter, there are the private companies who contract for our National Intelligence agencies (Homeland Security, etc.), who Edward Snowden showed us, were being given far too much access to our personal data, for private citizens, than that with which most were comfortable. In your plan, we would be giving civilian employees the understood right, to put themselves into situations in which their use of force, including deadly force could, and would, be required; we would be handing out licenses to kill, without having any control (or at least less control) over who got them. Would you advocate for the granting of "qualified immunity," to the private police force, as police are currently given?

Not that our police academies are currently, all meeting the task, but the model you suggest, would leave training completely up to the private company, which has an incentive to keep it's training costs, contained. So my first suggestion, would be that these private police be required to pass government- overseen testing, before they be allowed on the streets.

As I read your explanation, though, I did see the logic behind it. There would be a greater financial incentive, on the company executives, at least, to make an effort to not hurt suspects, any more than completely necessary (in theory, anyway). A private firm would need be results- driven, not comfortable with the idea that they are the only game in town, with staff feeling somewhat immune to discipline, or heightened expectations (as would be the cliche impression, long held, about U.S. Postal Service employees). In practice, though, we might well fall into the same community division as now exists, in which, for many, whatever cops feel they "have to do," is fine by some, while others are inured to the idea of police discrimination, and so are always at the ready, to denounce them.

I predict that this dynamic, would present a great challenge, to making this transition. Specifically, firms would want to take over, in areas of lower crime (and more affluence), where costs would be lower, and methods less likely to be questioned, but shun low- income, high crime areas. This would result in a two-tiered, law enforcement infrastructure. And in this paradigm, it could be expected that the public police force would find it even more difficult than at present, to get recruits, so the quality of this force would decline, with government officials having no choice but to scrape the bottom of the barrel. So the argument, on that score, would mirror the debate over using federal funds, to support private schools (the "vouchers," controversy).

 

Big disconnect between private cops and the legal system. Be difficult to maintain the legal authority of police if they were "contract labor".

I'd rather see clear rules for cops- and much tougher rules on criminals at all levels. Right now, we have a sort of criminal training kind of justice in some cities. Shoplifter gets away with it repeatedly- no one stops them. They join gangs of friends, and make a business out of it. Then bigger things seems easy pickings, next thing you know it carjacking to drugs to murder.

Being a cop is a job where many days are relatively uneventful- then, all hell breaks loose. Not unlike soldiers in combat zones.
Rent-a-cops are not likely to hang around for the tough parts.

 

@TCassa89

I'm just adding/acknowledging, regarding my "bottom of the barrel" argument, that one could try to make the case that, if private companies could get the job done more efficiently, i.e., with fewer police, that there would hypothetically be a larger pool of candidates, for the public forces that remained, in high crime areas, provided they were willing to work in those areas.

But I think even this possible plus (or at least nullified negative), harkens back to my argument against the prioritizing of profit, in that, if private companies are doing the job with fewer employees, the odds are that they are understaffing, for the community needs.

 

i live amid the dismal failures of the circular a76 (privatization) era. our schools are chartered to corporations with poor results, our formerly consumer owned cooperative utilities are now for profit, our privatized garbage collector misses our block often enough that one neighbor is naming his maggots.

some services = and police and prisons are in this category, are too important to trust to for profit enterprises.

 

No, I think there's just too much potential for corruption.

Where this idea might come in handy is with the expanded roles that many communities want the police to engage in, i.e. as mediators on domestic incidence calls or dealing with citizens who are experiencing mental health issues -- the sort of things that do not require the use of deadly force. If these highly trained professionals came from the private sector, but still operated under the umbrella of a police department, it might work, but in no way would I trust a rent-a-cop to fill in for all police calls.

 

I don't see any public benefit in this idea. Perhaps if you explain what problem you are looking to address with this proposal would be helpful.

 

How would that be different to how things are at the moment in the US? The people who run police departments already should (and generally do) face democratic challenge if they're not seen as doing a good job. Those systems can certainly be imperfect (and always will be) but I'd suggest that adding a whole set of private companies in to the mix could only ever make it even more difficult.

Incidentally, looking from the outside the US, it could be argued that this kind of area already involves too much direct democracy and not enough rational and independent regulation. Police Chiefs and Sheriffs there often seem to gain or loose their jobs on the basis of political popularity rather than actual work and outcomes, much like (other) politicians.

 

for profit police, and if they are not turning enough profit, make more arrest for things they normally do not care about? like more traffic charges

 

How is that any different than what they do now?

 

If the company receives additional revenue for making arrests, issuing fines, ect, I could see how that could create a profit incentive, however that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. Another part of the reason why I believe the facilities should still be owned by the state is so the expenses of detention isn't dictated by profit incentive. The revenue from issuing fines should also go to the state, but the state itself under contract must also pay the company that is occupying their facilities for the purpose of patrolling their community. These contracts can also set a minimum standard for training and officers needed to patrol the community.

I don't see why being a private company would make the officers less capable. After all, we use private security companies to patrol our cargo ships, and for other overseas security. The heat that those guys see is far more intense than what the vast majority of local police deal with. If a private company is capable of doing that job sufficiently, then I see no reason why they can't do regular neighborhood patrol

Also, it's not like what you are describing isn't unheard of from our local police under our current system, only when this has happened under the current system, not a whole lot is done about it. If there's no federal investigation, then we typically rely on the local police to investigate themselves, and when the department itself is corrupt, changing an entire department of police isn't as simple as switching private companies would be.

The very knowledge that a company could lose their contract, and that they must compete with other companies is in my opinion a better incentive for them to keep things in order than what we have under the current system.

The company patrolling the community would be required to meet the standards of their contract, which would include the number of officers needed to patrol the community. This would in my opinion create a separation of powers that is an improvement from our current system. If the police are negligent, or do something unlawful, we do not have to rely on them to investigate themselves anymore, and if they prove to not be meeting our standards, we can replace them with another company.

I'm definitely not advocating for transferring revenue for citations to private companies, this revenue would still go to the state. The revenue that the companies would make would be based on their contract with the state.

 

Well, what you had quoted, from me, was my making an allowance for you, or anyone, to argue against the part of my original faulting of your plan, in which I'd predicted that private companies would shun poverty-ridden, high crime areas, in favor of "greener" pastures, so to speak, leaving the most intractable crime laden areas, to public police. If cops there, could opt for the private companies, and escape working in places that may feel to them, almost like a war zone, this would drain those areas of competence, even from their current, often inadequate, levels. Therefore, your reply to my caveat, telling me that the short- staffing which might, conceivably, have left a sufficiently competent pool for the public police would, in fact, not occur. IOW-- and I know you can follow this, but for the benefit of anyone who I have lost, along the way-- you are offering no counter argument whatsoever, to what had been my closing, and patently main, argument, about all the "talent," migrating to private policing companies, with the public forces being left with the lowest caliber cops, to police the most unruly, dangerous, highest crime areas. I would think this concern I expressed, would deserve at least a couple of lines of your considered opinion.

 

Look at the bright side: no one could pass a NICS check. You want gun control. Right?

 

So what happens when the "nay" voters are outnumbered and they get outed?

 

So... mercenaries.

I don't hold the same negative connotation to the term that most people do, so this isn't necessarily a criticism per se... but lets not beat around the bush- we're talking about replacing police with mercenaries.

I can't think of any reason not to try it. I don't think it'll make anything better, but there's only one way to find out for sure.

 

Actually, your assumption is totally wrong. I am staunch pro 2A, go back and read my old posts on the subject. I however consider gun ownership a responsibility along with being a right.

 

When you say responsibility, do you mean every capable person should be armed? I agree, if so

 

Define what you mean by capable as capable and responsible are not the same?

 

By capable, I mean anyone with the physical and mental ability to carry a gun in public. That doesn't mean everyone has to be the equivalent of John Rambo, though. If that 80 year old maw-maw, who walks with a cane, wants to tote a side piece and she has the physical and mental ability to do so, the by all means, she should. One of my grandmas always had a gun in her purse. It was a Colt Police Positive Special. I still have it.