Rich neighborhoods hiring private security as cities lay off cops

[xchrom]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/05/rich-neighborhoods-hiring-private-security-as-cities-lay-off-cops/

On the streets of Oakland, budget cuts have made the beat cop a rare breed, and some of the city’s wealthy neighborhoods have turned to unarmed security guards to take their place.

After people in Oakland’s wealthy enclaves like Oakmore or Piedmont Pines head to work, security companies take over, cruising the quiet streets to ward off burglars looking to take advantage of unattended homes.

“With less law enforcement on the streets and more home crime or perception of home crime, people are wanting something to replace that need,” says Chris de Guzman, chief operating officer of First Alarm, a company that provides security to about 100 homes in Oakland. “That’s why they’re calling us and bringing companies like us aboard to provide that deterrent.”

Long known for patrolling shopping malls and gated communities, private security firms are beginning to spread into city streets. While private security has long been contracted by homeowners associations and commercial districts, the trend of groups of neighbors pooling money to contract private security for their streets is something new.

[Scuba]

1. Laws are for those who can afford them.

Welcome to America, circa 2013.

[RKP5637]

7. Excellent! I might add one modification ...

"Laws are for those who can afford them." And those that can afford to protect themselves from irresponsible laws.

[patricia92243]

2. Who pays them? n/t

[xchrom]

3. the neighbors. nt

[RKP5637]

4. Generally it's the residents, often via the HOA. n/t

[UBEEDelusional]

5. This would not be possiable without the 99% participating

I understand people need jobs but one does not have to take such a job.

Think as those who do work to protect the 1% a Kapos or Vichy French and en enemy of the 99%.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

13. Now there's a really stupid and disgusting attitude.

Are you really saying that preventing burglaries is wrong?

There's absolutely nothing immoral about employing or working for private security firms.

The problem is not that some areas *do* have legal protection, but that other areas don't. If people *need* private security firms, something has gone wrong, but preventing them using them will make things worse, not better.

[Occulus]

17. No, it's exactly the wrong response and people shouldn't work for them.

Remember: these same people are the ones who refuse the notion that their taxes should have to pay for your police. They feel the same way about fire departments and schools.

LET THEIR HOMES BE THIEVED.

LET THEIR NEIGHBORHOODS BURN TO ASHES.

LET THEIR KIDS END UP DUMB AS ROCKS.

That is what they would have for you. Why give them by private transaction what they would deny you via the commons?

We should allow these schmucks to suffer the consequences of their actions. What we're doing only serves to strengthen their abortion of a worldview that taxes are bad and a thing from which they need relief.

They do not need relief from taxation. WE need relief FROM THEM.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

19. Of course, none of what you say has a shred of evidence behind it. NT.

[Occulus]

21. Water is dry and the sun is a frozen ball of ice?

These things require no evidence. They are facially true.

Or did you forget exactly how those things are paid for in the first place?

[UBEEDelusional]

22. BS and you know it

The 1% have been going after the commons for decades.

You are and will be nothing but a peasant to them, you are expendable to them as long as people are willing to provide the services of the commons to them privately for a price.

[mulsh]

23. Oakmore and Piedmont Pines are not exactly bastions of 1%'ers. They're solidly

middle class neighborhoods, as are Montclair and the Glenview, my current neighborhood.

OPD no longer responds to most burglaries anywhere in Oakland. The best most neighborhoods can hope for is random patrols cares cruising through. You're lucky if you get a cop to show up and take a statement a day or two after something happens.

About the only positive thing that is happening because of this is that people in all neighborhoods are getting to know their neighbors better.

[UBEEDelusional]

6. Dupe

Last edited Sat Apr 6, 2013, 09:32 AM - Edit history (1)

[marmar]

8. k/r

[tularetom]

9. If ever a post deserved the "What could possibly go wrong" response...

So much potential for disaster.

[Newest Reality]

10. Ah,

another form of sequester.

As things get worse "out here", the privileged will continue to retreat "in there" creating an even more obvious reflection of the club that we have never belonged to and don't belong to now.

Meanwhile, as long as we continue to project our "beliefs" onto the system in a way that obscures its underlying function and implied authority to do what it does, being "out there" is the name of the game and there are various degrees of said.

Sometimes, even when you are intelligent, informed and even socially altruistic, that, in itself, becomes a set of blinders that help to enable the injustice and inequality that the owners of the system require and demand.

There are boatloads of untaxed funds out there and many tax scofflaws amongst us. Those revenues alone, (if pursued and with penalties) could render the austerity being imposed on the least of us, unnecessary. In fact, we could be enjoying a time of great prosperity.

Don't bank on it.

[malaise]

11. It's called privatizing the role of government

It's dangerous shit and what's more people paid taxes for the police.

[MissB]

12. Our neighborhood has one.

We aren't a gated community. We don't have an HOA. The security patrol has been here forever.

We're on the edge of the city, but outside the city limits. Our local responding police is the county sheriff. It's a big county. Response times are at least a half hour for a true emergency, and much longer for a non-injury accident or ordinary property crime.

The security patrol is here all the time. They are the first to respond.

I personally don't pay for them. I don't have anything worth stealing, and my dog does a fine job of defending the house. The former owner did hire them, but she was quite elderly.

[denverbill]

14. Let me guess. Poor wages, no benefits, part-time employees.

I wonder how long before the private security guards start casing the houses they are supposed to be guarding?

[theaocp]

15. Beat me to it.

These rich folk think they're safe this way? Ain't gonna be long.

[denverbill]

16. And if they happen to catch a guard snooping around a house,

he can just say he thought he saw a burglar.

[Bluenorthwest]

18. This has been going on for years and years

It is not something new, I guess the author just now heard about it. I share the author's view of the practice, but it is as old as I am, at least.

[datasuspect]

20. i wonder how much it costs to get in teh security guard bidness?

startup costs, licensing/professional regulation fees, time, marketing, vehicles, payroll . . .