Look at South Africa, they have security forces. Or look at India, they too have a police force. But in South Africa, their security force is only available for the wealthy, while in India, they’re actually corrupt police are paid off daily. You don’t want to leave your house without cash to bribe a cop. And if you don’t, you get beat.
I’d rather be in the US with their policing than have a citizens army of security, or almost any police force.
This isn't some abstract hypothetical. We have generations of police who "washed out" of training because they weren't bad enough. It's important to have an accurate diagnosis when proposing a course of treatment.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/racism...
There are millions of police, and hundreds of millions of encounters daily across a huge range of investigations and issues. boiling it down to twitter levels of context is bad and applying such broad strokes is also equally bad. Its certainly not going to encourage good ones to sign up.
I know with the way this type of stuff is being portrayed, its a no win for most police, they could quadruple the salaries overnight and some would still balk, because no matter what it a loss.
That prosecutor's job would be easier if the criminal officer's colleagues would testify against them, which goes back (again) to social mores.
Prosecutors rely on cops to get their prosecutions, and if the prosecutor is the only one who faces repercussions for charging a cop, then obviously they're going to be loathe to charge any cops.
Honestly, though, the system isn't recoverable in most regions. American police, the ideological successors to slave catchers, suffer a rot that is too deep. Many are literally white supremacist gangs. It isn't a system that can be reformed.
What are the purported good officers doing about it and why aren't they getting any results?
US police in general have a lot of issues and need to improve dramatically, but the stories about cases of bad behavior are not representative samples, even if you factor in the amount of bad behavior that goes undiscovered.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/police-officers-convicte...
I take your point, but not exactly. First, an officer that's planting evidence or attacking unarmed handcuffed civilians has been known to be a bad officer by say the other 50 officers in their department. Second, they're not caught on their first day. Third, the high profile ones are high profile because they're left on the force and continue being bad even after being caught.
So the 0.00014% of people being caught every day is _additive_ over time, this isn't a random sampling. It doesn't mean that 0.00014% of officers are bad, it means that we increase the pool of bad officers by that much every day.
That's not to say these incidents aren't indicative of systemic problems, but that's not the same as saying saying all or most police are like this. What "confirmation bias" means here is that people are looking at the exceptional cases to confirm their opinion of police as a whole, which is objectively a mistake.
Other countries also have people who threaten cops with deadly weapons, and their numbers are far far lower. Hell, suicide-by-cop is a very real and common thing here in the USA.
It's weird reading that when I was a kid I was constantly told cops are heroes because they put their lives on the line where most wouldn't or couldn't. Like I'm an untrained bumpkin, unfortunately if someone had a knife and I had a gun, I can't really think of much more than shooting them.
But somewhere along the line the standard for police dropped down to the standard for me? The untrained bumpkin?
Since pretty much every time I hear cop by suicide it's apparent, and people still say "well what would *you* do" like that's the smoking gun...
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It even extends to more casual cases, the other day there was a video of a lady mooning an officer. The thing is the lady was clearly let go before that fairly stupid act, and last I checked mooning someone doesn't imply you've suddenly become a lethal threat.. but the cop was just so out of shape that shortly after realizing they couldn't keep up with this not very fast person they ended up tasering this person on asphalt.
A fully grown adult out cold at running pace straight into asphalt because a cop is so out of shape they can't chase a person who mooned them
That's not the picture I grew up with...
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I honestly don't have a problem with that though! I don't think we have to force people to gamble their lives for others. There's a certain sense of, "if I can't do it, I can't make someone else do it".
But if that's the case then we need to drop a lot of the pretence to traditional policing cops have right now.
Like the pay and pensions are all based around the hazard, but it's safer than being a cab driver. Maybe because now fearing for your life is an out to kill people reaching for wallets.
And a lot of interactions they have with people, like speed enforcement should probably be dropped, if we're just admitting lethal force has moved up a few notches.
And maybe they need to have attachments with them for certain calls. If someone is showing signs of mental instability, someone experienced with dealing with that vs applying lethal force should be directly involved.
[0] https://www.jiujitsutimes.com/marietta-police-department-imp...
Why do you think I said I'd be forced to shoot? Because even without training common sense tells you "not allowing the attacker to close enough distance with you to use the knife" is a pretty good course of action
By your logic the moment a person calls 911, the people who are supposed to help, the person has been sentenced to death. Think about that for a second.
1. The cops will arrive
2. "avoid knife getting close to me"
3. Less than lethal is not reliable, hell even lethal force isn't instant, I feared for my life, they're shot very dead.
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It's not an easy problem, but how is that ok? There's not many ways to fix it other than trying something other than lethal force.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mzPj_IaMzY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G06mi2hVg8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgdhxLPJBgQ
Like the stuff in those videos is not easy, I'm not trying to pretend I could do it, or most people could. It requires cops being able to put the most efficient response for self-preservation behind trying to save someone, which again, I'm not saying we require of anyone...
But let's call a spade a spade at that point. That's not the concept of policing I see paraded. That's not the "thin blue line", it sounds more like a cell of civilians that are deployed to bad situations where they then "apply self-defense"...
> Like the stuff in those videos is not easy, I'm not trying to pretend I could do it, or most people could.
I'm not a police officer because I'm not brave enough. I'd fear for my life, and I shoot. So instead of putting myself in a profession that should ideally require more of me, I don't.
Not rocket science.
If the people who were police were better able to keep cool instead of jumping to shoot people in the face in fear... all that would be left would be the criminally insane?
And somehow we'd have less controlled application of protocol?
What the hell are you talking about?
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Police would finally fit the shoes they claim they're walking in: https://youtu.be/HPRmzpGyycY
There really would be a line that separates them from the "rest of us", and anti-police sentiment would be a hell of a lot weaker. I mean, how often do we have national anti-firefighter sentiment? Maybe when police use them to mow down humans?
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If being a police officer is just about carrying a gun and looking out for number one, all we're looking for is people who don't hesitate to pull a trigger.
Just realize, lowering the bar to "willing to shoot to protect self the moment anything threatens me" is a hell of a lot lower than "willing to put other's lives at similar value to mine, even if it risks my own".
Ironically the lower bar sounds like how attract to the "criminally insane/psychopathic unfazed by the utilization of violence"... to become police.
Some might see that as a downside when selecting who you want providing your security.
Instead of comlaining about private security forces, why not fix policing in this country so that it actually makes people feel safer?
The state can’t bring criminal charges if the violation was due to performing work for the state.
It’s legal to sue government agents as private citizens for violation of rights.
It wasn't necessarily decided by elected representatives, most of these protections have be put in place by courts and are based purely on legal precedent rather than legislation.
> It’s legal to sue government agents as private citizens for violation of rights.
It is legal to sue anyone for anything. The standards of proof required to win such a lawsuit make it generally ineffective at rectifing most cases where rights are violated.
They do it to have someome to attack the others, someone under their control. They have zero incentive to prevent private security from planting evidence on others.
Gangs in fact did not ended up to be fair non corrupt equivalent of police either.
And in case you are the one calling, you don't need private security as much as private mental health professional. Because that knowledge and exlerience of mental health crisis comes with being mental health professional - not with security.
If private security shoots someone having a mental health crisis, they have far fewer legal protections to help them avoid consequences. This is precisely the point I have been making.
The current situation is not good, but I have hope that in the past year we've hit a turning point where we'll actually start seeing some improvements (they will be slow and incomplete improvements, but they will be progress in the right direction).
Privatized police, on the other hand, is about as dystopian as it gets.
If I could cancel the "contract" with my local law enforcement agencies, I would have done that a long, long time ago.
Not for the purposes of the law, nor their employment. The state has much more power in how to bring them into line than it does for private citizens (it just chooses not to use that power in the US).
What matters is that people are voting with their wallets.
People need a solution to rampant crime. Take for example SA, where private security forces are widespread.
The degree of deleriction of duty by public servants has been tremendous in the last 2 years. The NYC Major recently was on the record stating that "there is no security problem in NYC" meanwhile official City hall communication channels have implemented a buddy system where city hall employees can home in groups [1]
If public servants can't provide security for people, there should not be a surprise that the private servicers would emerge.
[1]https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-city-hall-employee...
I don't think we want to use as a model a place where police services are only available to the wealthy.
Someone who is looking at the full situation would realize that hiring private security does not cause the homeless population to suddenly evaporate. An outsider might start to get the impression that the fundamental right of the upper-middle class is the right not to be reminded that people in poverty exist.
In addition, it's not like these people don't have sympathy for the plight of the poor: they voted to spend vast sums on tax money trying to fix the root cause of the problem. It's not their fault that these efforts are failing.
You're looking at the most obvious symptom - people with no home - and saying "well if we just treated that symptom with all this money there would be no problem." But the root cause is an order of magnitude larger than that.
Has that solved crime in SA?
But for all of the highly visible things wrong with certain police forces, they do at least theoretically have carefully considered constraints and a duty to the public rather than just their subscribers.
There are already more private security officers than government police officers in the US today. This isn't new. They have co-existed for many decades.
Officers are under scrutiny. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes (not often enough for me) when that scrutiny fails changes happen.
What is the oversight process, and the public input on that oversight, for Citizen?
Your example is an argument specifically for not letting go of that scrutiny, and significantly increasing that scrutiny. It, to some, is an argument of why existing state sponsored efforts at law enforcement simply need to be rebooted entirely - because they operate with scrutiny more akin to a private corporation already.
Government police have qualified immunity and are not subject to market oversight. As you might expect, this fundamental lack of accountability results in abuses, particularly of minorities, historically and presently.
I’m much less concerned about the Starbucks security guards becoming a gang. Unlike government police, as soon as they start bashing gay people or colored people, I can stop supporting them.
Given the moral bankruptcy of America’s police force (note: force, not every officer), I could certainly see someone preferring private security handle their interests over the police.
If crime were less prevalent and the police more trusted, such a service wouldn’t have a niche to exist in.
I don’t like this slide into vigilante justice. But fighting the symptoms of the underlying problem is the wrong approach.
When the law decides it is not interested in protecting the citizens you bet this is going to happen.
My block has been invaded by the drug dealers as of last summer. Not 1. Not 2. But between a dozen and two dozen at a time. They are selling drugs openly on a street so brazen that the people who live here have to walk through the drug deals being done on a sidewalk to get to their apartments. Apartments with rents ranging from $1900 to $6000 a month. Cops don't do anything because the city management frowns upon it. We had five shootings over the past 12 months. If there was a way for us to pay for our own thugs to ensure the drug dealers moved to a different block $200-$500/mo per apartment I'm absolutely sure everyone who lives around here would sign up for it.
We, people who live on this block, want them gone from this block.
Point is, if the state is not providing these services, then the demand will make it profitable for someone to fill the role.
The implication here is that police officers stay within the bounds of the law, and yet a cursory google search will reveal that (at least in the US and Canada) the police are entirely corrupt forces of legally-sanctioned mob violence who flout the law at will without fear of repercussions or consequences.
If there's a high-blood pressure situation and whether I call 911 or if I were to start using Citizen, I have about the same level of confidence that extralegal brutality will occur.
What would you think happens if you abuse this service to call security on your poor neighbors? They keep showing up? I don't think so. I do think the neighborhood watch could take it personally.
Security force is a perfectly respectable and responsible job, and many ex-police and ex-military use their skill set to get into this field.
If officers always showed up, and always showed up on time, then you would not need private citizens. Rule of law is for the government to control. Citizens just want their parents to feel safe, and be able to call security to drive through their street, when they suspect gang/drug activity.
Alas, I cannot afford a security guard any more than I can afford a private driver, hence a part-time app-based security guard (or driver). It doesn't replace the police, and is accountable to the law and police; it just a tool to solve a problem.
If there are crimes happening which require armed intervention, that is exactly a reason for having a professional security force. If the police does not show for such a crime, but you need to rely on security force, well good luck to you, and glad you have a backup on dial.
A security force is also going to cooperate with the police and perform surveillance. Not like they pull up in an armored van and exit with weapons drawn, because a neighbor called them for an illegal lemonade stand.
I don't think the killing of Ahmaud Arbery was by a neighborhood watch. Professionals would probably not have let it come that far. Same with Trayvon Martin: if a professional force had responded calmly, he may have been alive. So if a neighborhood watch is necessary (either for the feeling of protection or actual crime fighting) then a professional force would seem a lot better.
You get gangs. That's how gangs form. Organized crime, almost everywhere, has its roots in this kind of "local security" of an underserved disadvantaged population. People who can't rely on the police for order end up under the thumb of whoever can provide stability.
Now, OK, sure. I get that you're thinking that somehow this startup has found a growth hack to disrupt this millenia-old industry and do it better than the Mafia. Well... maybe. Or maybe it's just another gang.
Private security is mostly an extremely boring, mundane job and they are extremely worried about liability, very risk averse.
This is different than private military contractors.
Funny thing though. With this Citizen nonsense? They might be on mine instead. Bet that makes you sleep better at night knowing those woke hippies might hire "private security" of their own, right?
How about this: let's all get together and decide democratically on how to, I dunno, enforce our laws in a universally acceptable way? We can then hire a bunch of these "law enforcers" together such that they aren't beholden to any part of society, and come up with means to make them accountable to all of us, with like rules and stuff that we can, I guess, amend as we go along. Deal?
I am curious as to why you believe that this scenario isn't exactly what would happen. Because I think eventually this is... exactly what would happen.
It hasn't devolved into pulling up in an armored van and exiting with weapons drawn yet. Why would yet another company among thousands (millions?) entering the field change that?
If I do imagine this would happen, assume it would be true, then just to be clear: I do not agree with armed interventions to shut down these illegal lemonade stands, and I wished the marketing in the leaked e-mails would have made it clear, that armed interventions of all crime, is what this service is meant for.
I want my family to feel safe. It is my responsibility to do everything in my capacity as a law-abiding citizen to ensure their safety.
This sort of thing happens a lot in Latin America though. One situation sort of like what you're describing is Columbia in the 90s. The cartels throughly corrupted the government, so vigilante groups like Los Pepes[1] formed to attack the cartels, though they may have mostly just been fronts for other cartels. Los Pepes alumni went to form AUC, which was the semi-government endorsed death squad in Columbia at the time and became its own narcotrafficking syndicate over time[2]. AUC was eventually shut down and the leaders arrested for atrocities.
The main left-wing guerrilla movement (FARC) also eventually shut down its military activities[3]. The huge economic disaster of Venezuela right next door might have weakened the appeal of left-wing revolution. I've heard that Columbia is a pretty nice place to visit these days where in the 90s it was one of the most dangerous countries on earth.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Pepes
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Self-Defense_Forces_of_...
[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Armed_Forces_of_...
This seems written from the perspective of someone who has just come back from a six month vacation during which they had no access to news.
> I've heard that Columbia is a pretty nice place to visit these days
There is literally a country-wide revolt taking place in Colombia (correct spelling) at the moment, with some of the worst police violence the country has experienced in years.
Private citizens are not under the same legal scrutiny officers are - evidence obtained in violation of the constitution cannot be admitted in court if an officer is the one that does it. But if a private citizens does it can be acceptable.
If people want rule of law, and not rule of force, then they should become officers not 'security force'. But I have a feeling that the reason they want to be 'securoty force' is to avoid the responsibility.