[rxsid]

Only if the people in that area respect authority.

Unarmed security is a different kind of authority, but authority non the less.

This option would fail miserably in most large cities where a high percentage do not respect authority of most kinds. Example, how do they treat the authority of teachers within the setting of a classroom?

The only way it works is if the people respect authority.

The people who don't, will run over anyone in their way.

[Reno89519]

...and armed or unarmed? What good is an unarmed rent-a-cop or a real cop? Personally, we need full constitutional carry so we are not dependent on either. Cops have no obligation to respond and rent-a-cops are monitors at best, likely under instructions to not respond. Useless. And if you left your defense to them, you’ll be dead and they will probably muck up the crime scene around your dead body so that the real cops and investigators won’t be able to find your killer.

[A strike]

You are a civilian. end of story

[crusher2013]

Being a security guard only works because the guard can call 911 like everyone else.

The 911 call represents as many police officers as necessary to handle the situation, including SWAT teams.

What happens when you dial 911 and no one answers? You’re on your own.

[exnavy]

The potential for corruption is huge. Most of us just ignore screwity gaurds.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

That’s not what’s going to happen when these cities shut down their police departments.

Policing will be taken over by leftist political organizations, calling themselves “Community led” and supported. Imagine getting arrested by a Black Panther member or the ACLU.

[SauronOfMordor]

What police have, which private security doesn’t, is the right to use force to obtain compliance, combined with a high degree of immunity from PERSONAL lawsuits regarding use of force.

[Tallguy]

It would work right up to the point where one of these security guards uses deadly-force in a questionable situation. Then the mooing heard of leftists will begin demanding “professional police departments” to stem the tide of bloodshed.

[eastexsteve]

I once knew a security guard in the North Houston area who wished he was a cop. He had a bad habit of continually approaching people while in his uniform, and telling them how they were breaking the law. Because of this, he was also a regular customer at the local emergency room. I remember one summer he visited them twice.

[eastexsteve]

You have to be able to use deadly force if need be. It always comes to this. Back in the day, the Pilgrim Dry Cleaners chain in Houston tried everything to keep it’s 24-hr locations from being constantly robbed. They even went the unarmed security guard route. But, only when they started putting armed private guards with shotguns in their stores did the holdups finally stop. Even at that, they had to bury a few bad guys before they eventually got their point across.

[trebb]

For most areas where it might be effective, it probably isn’t needed...it’s the inner cities and ghetto areas that require most of the police force.

[MrRelevant]

That’s because you are convenient as opposed to calling police and making reports. You are the first line of defense. Once you are the only line of defense I’d bet things change quickly.

[sphinx]

Several different mental experiments are in order. Once upon a time, in the mid-19th through early 20th centuries, the front line of policing in major cities in the U.S. and northern Europe was the local constable on foot patrol. Beat cops were not highly trained. Nor were they well paid. But there were a lot of them, in enough numbers that an officer who needed assistance could blow his whistle and his fellow officers would come running. That means that several would be within earshot at any time; they probably met up regularly and chatted at the corners where their beats intersected. It was an honorable blue collar job, and guys who were good at it and showed initiative could move up, but a lot of them were just neighborhood guys who knew everybody, often got to know and mentor the kids who were spending too much time on the streets, and dispensed some informal street justice that kept minor matters out of court. There were some bad applies but most of them were ok. Then we professionalized the police, paid them a lot more, and put most of them in cars where they become an alien presence.

Private security guards are analogous to the old beat cops, without any formal police power. In large part, the private security industry emerged to fill the niche left when police officers retreated into the cars. The private security guards are tied to a specific employer, not the neighborhood, but I would imagine, depending on the layout of the area, that there can often be a real spillover effect due simply to having eyes on the street. Neighborhood watch patrols do the same thing, but private security guards work through the wee hours, long after the neighborhood volunteers have gone home.

I would be interested in an experiment in community policing that brought back elements of the old system. Having beat cops that frequently circle your block and who are within whistle call of each other translates into lots of bodies. That gets prohibitively expensive unless pay is very low. If pay is low, training standards, public expectations and legal liabilities must be adjusted accordingly. The whole system would have to shift gears. But in theory, a lot of shoeleather neighborhood cops on the street backed up by much smaller, more highly trained and highly mobile response teams might be worth exploring.

[VTenigma]

A security guard acting as the police is the police. At that point it’s just semantics.

[Saltmeat]

Who is going to make arrests, do the investigations, risk their lives, work lousy hours, and do everything that policeman do for the pay that they get. One sheriff once told me that his biggest problem was hiring someone smart enough to do the job and dumb enough to do for the pay he could offer.

[Cincinnatus.45-70]

Security guards may be all that is needed for a polite society filled with polite people, which parts of Canada still are. However, what about that 10%, even in Canada?

Security guards can get some of the job done in a society where everyone knows they can call the police for a forceful response. Once there are no police, unarmed security guards will be killed by hoodlums like fat rabbits.

[Georgia Girl 2]

No offense but the difference between a security guard and the police is thiiiiiiiiiiiis big. If you want to police the town the academy awaits you.

[faucetman]

You can’t be series.

[discostu]

The fact that security guards like you exist shows that the police already don’t do that police work.