[Leonard D Neubache]

I came across this at the SecondCityCop blog.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2016/09/09/c...e-patrols/

Quote:

A Chicago man, fed up and frustrated with what he says is the rising crime in his neighborhood, takes matters into his own pocketbook — shelling out thousands to pay for private street security.

A few other threads have given me pause to think that a dedicated neighbourhood security thread is not unwarranted.

The story above represents what I suspect will be the future for most lower-middle class neighbourhoods in the West. Despite people feeling the pinch in their pockets these days, the truth is that there's still a lot of disposable income floating around and when crime climbs a lot of people are going to start prioritising safety over going on a holiday once a year or buying a bigger television.

This creates an opportunity for the formation of small scale security organisations that would have several benefits over larger ones.

• They're not lucrative targets for flippant law suits.
• They're not burdened by politically driven SOPs and kid-glove mandates.
• They present too small a target for professional protesters to bother with.
• Their employees can be sourced locally to ensure they have skin in the game.
• Keeping certain issues in-house is much easier.
  

While the individual in the article above has footed most of the cost himself, it's not unreasonable to imagine that a small group of like minded citizens could do the same and distribute the cost a little more thinly. Another benefit is that it would be very difficult for local, state or federal government to interfere with the arrangement. Not only would it bleed them on a political level but it's really outside of their sphere of influence.

In any case, I would like for this thread to be open for discussing this or any other measure which can be used to harden a community against the criminal element both now and in what are surely harder times to come.

[SamuelBRoberts]

"They're not lucrative targets for flippant law suits."

Why do you feel this way? It seems like a security organization like this would be sued into oblivion by the perp's family if they ever had to shoot someone. no matter how good their reason was.

[The Beast1]

I'd be all for this if i can stop paying taxes in for or an over bloated police force.

I don't think this is the future however. Once we got a non PC politician in office it will have a trickle down effect. This type of standing down won't happen.

Law and order is a very effective political platform. I'd love to see someone try and brand BLM as a terrorist organization.

[Phoenix]

I'm guessing as soon as he does this, the cops will start showing up in his area much more often.

As they say, "say you're being burgled, the cops will show up in 3 hours; say you were being burgled and you've shot him, they'll show up in 3 minutes".

[ivansirko]

This is typical to see in 2nd and 3rd world nations. If you see this more often in the US the future looks bleak.

[dispenser]

(09-12-2016 03:55 AM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  

"They're not lucrative targets for flippant law suits."

Why do you feel this way? It seems like a security organization like this would be sued into oblivion by the perp's family if they ever had to shoot someone. no matter how good their reason was.

Wouldn't they be able to limit the amount of capital up for grabs with a corporate entity?

[Peregrine]

(09-12-2016 06:21 AM)dispenser Wrote:  

(09-12-2016 03:55 AM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  

"They're not lucrative targets for flippant law suits."

Why do you feel this way? It seems like a security organization like this would be sued into oblivion by the perp's family if they ever had to shoot someone. no matter how good their reason was.

Wouldn't they be able to limit the amount of capital up for grabs with a corporate entity?

A sufficiently motivated (read: politically motivated) judge can pierce the corporate veil. It would be more legislating from the bench. The justice system in America is dead.

[Leonard D Neubache]

Regarding being the target for a law suit. A small company has less assets. Even ambulance chasers wouldn't bother if their costs would barely be covered, much less leave anything for the perp.

Keep assets minimal and you wont be worth their time. Subsidise your guard's gear so they own it themselves. Rent the vehicles. Rent your shop front centre of operations.

Besides. The job of a guard is not to go around shooting people. Their risk factors are far lower than a cop. As a cop is to a doberman a security guard is to a small barking dog. It raises the alarm for the doberman (or the owner) to arrive and in that sense still makes life extremely difficult for the would-be-criminal.

[Leonard D Neubache]

(09-12-2016 06:01 AM)ivansirko Wrote:  

This is typical to see in 2nd and 3rd world nations. If you see this more often in the US the future looks bleak.

While Trump might spark a cultural revolution it wont immediately lead to a financial revolution. There's too much debt, and if Trump cuts off the parasites from their welfare spigots then you're also going to see a massive spike in property crime.

[Caractacus Potts]

Fernando "Ferfal" Aguirre touched on this in his book "The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving The Economic Collapse". The book is based on his first hand experience of the 2001 economic collapse in Argentina.

He said that there were very few jobs available but the one you would most often see posted was someone looking for a security guard. He said it really wasn't worth it for what was paid unless you could get into an executive/VIP bodyguard gig.

Two good business ideas he recommended were private security firms for high end neighborhoods. Retired military or LEO did a lot of it. (Think Blackwater and Triple Canopy).

A second business I hadn't thought about that he brought up was transportation. After the collapse in Argentina the city's buses did not always run and like much of Central and South America thieves and bandits often targeted the passengers on the buses. From the book:

"What they did was offer another alternative: Combis. These are minibuses that transport commuting passengers to the Capital district for a small fee. You can stop them on the street, just like a cab, but they only stop if they have seats left.

For five bucks per passenger this mini bus takes people from suburbia to downtown where people work, everyday. Pay another five bucks and they drive you back to the suburbs at the end of the day.

It's more expensive than the ordinary bus but it's faster, safer, you travel seated, it doesn't smell like urine, it has working AC, and it still costs half of the price of the fuel you'd need to do that trip with your own car."

He was making one dollar per hour working in a call center at the time and he was an educated middle-class guy. So you can see that ten dollars per day round trip was quite a bit of money at that time in Argentina.

[ivansirko]

(09-12-2016 07:50 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

(09-12-2016 06:01 AM)ivansirko Wrote:  

This is typical to see in 2nd and 3rd world nations. If you see this more often in the US the future looks bleak.

While Trump might spark a cultural revolution it wont immediately lead to a financial revolution. There's too much debt, and if Trump cuts off the parasites from their welfare spigots then you're also going to see a massive spike in property crime.

It may be cheaper to arm one's self while in public instead.

[dicknixon72]

Think I've seen this before...

[El Chinito loco]

What would prevent a wealthy criminal from purchasing his own "security" company or that of existing services and using it to control a piece of the city as his own personal fiefdom?

If I were a cashed up drug lord this is precisely the sort of thing i'd invest in or at least start up my own rival company. A whole professional militia ready to be bought and also getting the neighborhood to pay me personal "protection" money for my men to watch over them?

Sign me up.

[Leonard D Neubache]

(09-12-2016 07:58 AM)ivansirko Wrote:  

(09-12-2016 07:50 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

(09-12-2016 06:01 AM)ivansirko Wrote:  

This is typical to see in 2nd and 3rd world nations. If you see this more often in the US the future looks bleak.

While Trump might spark a cultural revolution it wont immediately lead to a financial revolution. There's too much debt, and if Trump cuts off the parasites from their welfare spigots then you're also going to see a massive spike in property crime.

It may be cheaper to arm one's self while in public instead.

This is more of a response to property crime and preventing the continued presence of scumbags than anything else. Outside of the ghettos assaults and murders are mercifully rare, but drug dealers, prostitutes and thieves can drag a neighbourhood down pretty quickly.

[Chevalier De Seingalt]

The Garden District in New Orleans has already been doing this for years. The Garden District is a very wealthy neighborhood of giant old mansions, but like in all of New Orleans the dividing line between rich and ghetto can be just a single block.

They have their own private security guards patrolling the streets 24 hours a day in SUVs. Usually (always?) the "security guards" are actually off duty police. Hiring actual police officers is a pretty smart move for getting backup help from the official police, and avoiding any conflicts between the two.

It's a sad state of affairs for society at large, but I agree with OP that this will probably become more common if current trends continue and we become more and more divided, economically and otherwise.

[spokepoker]

[Captainstabbin]

There comes a point when it's just cheaper and less hassle to move. When I lived in Vegas, I dated a girl (a student) who lived hood-adjacent. I never understood why she wouldn't just move 7 minutes away and be virtually crime-free.

[El Chinito loco]

(09-12-2016 01:48 PM)Captainstabbin Wrote:  

There comes a point when it's just cheaper and less hassle to move. When I lived in Vegas, I dated a girl (a student) who lived hood-adjacent. I never understood why she wouldn't just move 7 minutes away and be virtually crime-free.

Some people adjust to the ghetto lifestyle and enjoy living in squalor amongst people who they think they identify with. Sometimes it's just out of ignorance and sheer laziness.

It becomes comforting in some way for people who adapt to this mentality. It's a piece of shit but they like it because they perceive it as "their" piece of shit when it's really part of what's keeping them down to begin with.

[AboveAverageJoe]

Hipsters love moving to "hood-adjacent" neighborhoods if you haven't noticed. It also gives them quicker acess to drugs while simultaneously establishing their "street cred".

[dark_g]

(09-12-2016 09:40 AM)Chevalier De Seingalt Wrote:  

The Garden District in New Orleans has already been doing this for years. The Garden District is a very wealthy neighborhood of giant old mansions, but like in all of New Orleans the dividing line between rich and ghetto can be just a single block.

They have their own private security guards patrolling the streets 24 hours a day in SUVs. Usually (always?) the "security guards" are actually off duty police. Hiring actual police officers is a pretty smart move for getting backup help from the official police, and avoiding any conflicts between the two...

All you're doing here is paying the cops OT to work on their days off. There is no difference in the quality of law enforcement because it's done by the same people. The training is the same, the ring of corruption(if there is a corruption issue) is the same, The sensitivity towards the community is the same, I could go on and on.

[RIslander]

This is common practice in Latin American cities. Go hang out in Lima's Barranco or Miraflores districts. Private cops everywhere.

[MMX2010]

Leonard, people don't only sue for money. They sue to destroy their opponents financially, for political reasons.

[Easy_C]

(09-12-2016 06:01 AM)ivansirko Wrote:  

This is typical to see in 2nd and 3rd world nations. If you see this more often in the US the future looks bleak.

This. It means that people no longer trust the government to provide basic services and once rule of law goes so does most of the rest of the economy.

[Rhyme or Reason]

My concern would be how good are they at it? What is the case as to why they'd have more loyalty and sufficient training to protect the neighborhood? Are they not more susceptible to being bought off? To what degree are these mercenaries effective? From what I understand, mercs make terrible soldiers.

[Ghost Tiger]

Police unions would fight this tooth and nail.