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This is exactly how gangs and mob enforcement happens. Organization of people whom are more than willing to create their own physical enforcement outside of the

This is exactly how gangs and mob enforcement happens. Organization of people whom are more than willing to create their own physical enforcement outside of the restrictions of the law go out and "protect" for money. And then organize to become both the perpetrator and the defender. 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.

irrational 5y ago
I can’t believe you are writing this not in jest. Just a week or two ago we saw a video of an officer planting evidence in broad daylight. He was caught because of the video, how many officers have not been caught? What about yesterday when the police office ran up and kicked a handcuffed man in the head? Was that the rule of law or the rule of force?
- Angostura 5y ago
  How much better do you think vigilante forces would be?
  - IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
    I dont think it matters. 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-employees-offered-subway-buddies-as-mayor-tries-to-calm-safety-concerns/3044688/ https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-city-hall-employee...
    - gowld 5y ago
      That's not what happening here. The money is for the "true crime" entertainment and the fun of being part of a mob, not crime reduction. That's obvious from the substance and tone of the content published in the app.
    - kibwen 5y ago
      Law enforcement does not solve the sort of low-level citizen-brigade crime that this app would address, it only treats the symptoms. The cause is people driven to desperation; put money into social programs to address the root of their desperation.
      - courtf 5y ago
        Prevention is cheaper and results in a friendlier environment for everyone. The proliferation of expensive, reactive solutions that tend to aggravate the very problem they're ostensibly working on is great for shareholders though. Public health is boring by comparison, and no one gets rich when it works.
      - 323454 5y ago
        This is a false dichotomy, but what's worse is that social programs are already heavily funded in all the major West coast cities. For example, LA spends over half a billion dollars (yes, billion with a B) on services for the homeless every year, to very little effect. It's not irrational for someone (even someone who advocates for those very programs and services) to look at the full situation and conclude that the best available option is to just throw in the towel and hire private security.
        kibwen 5y ago
        > look at the full situation and conclude that the best available option is to just throw in the towel and hire private security 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.
- joemi 5y ago
  What makes you think a private force will be under more scrutiny?
  - Cyberdog 5y ago
    Because they will be more directly accountable to their "clients," for one. I cannot fire a "real" cop whose behavior I do not approve of.
    - wearywanderer 5y ago
      You seem to be presuming that you will be the one these mercenaries are working for. When mercenaries I hired beat the crap out of you, how will you fire them?
      - ebuchanan 5y ago
        If you hire mercenaries to beat the crap out of someone, both you and the mercenaries will go to jail. 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.
        wearywanderer 5y ago
        What are you going to do, hire your own mercenaries to arrest me and mine? Or do you now recognize the value in real police?
        sershe 5y ago
        I don't think the author ever claimed there's no value in real police. It actually, ironically, matches the recent left-wing demands to defund. Let the police with their armored cars and helicopters handle real crime, like when your mercenaries beat up my mercenaries. Let the mercenaries handle the small stuff :)
- avs733 5y ago
  the problem is that it is not in jest. It is accurate and reviews both how weak societal oversight of police is and how important it is. 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.
- ben_w 5y ago
  Rule of force. 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.
- creatorbytes 5y ago
  This is partly confirmation bias. Millions of officers, we’re gonna have bad ones. Obviously we need to improve, but to think that officers who have at least some amount of vetting are going to do worse than a security force is utter denial of the human condition. 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.
  - MengerSponge 5y ago
    Yes, we're gonna have bad officers. What happens next? Are they shunned? Forced out of the profession? 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-white-supremacy-american-policing-1167304/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/racism...
    - croutonwagon 5y ago
      It is.. But at the same time, its a completely decentralized system and there are MANY that do a very good job at washing out the bad ones. There are plenty that deserve criticism, and even federal investigation/intervention. But by and large the system works. 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.
    - wearywanderer 5y ago
      Shunning is crap. Instead of resorting to such dark-age extralegal tactics, how about we get some prosecutors who do their damn jobs and prosecute criminal police? Unfortunately prosecutors are generally elected and many people don't want to admit the root of the problem is with the electorate who choose to elect and re-elect prosecutors who don't want to do their jobs.
- jl2718 5y ago
  I don’t follow these things at all, but it seems we may be in a bit of a bad romance with authority figures. These total strangers act in perfectly predictable ways given the positions we’ve handed them, and we call it betrayal.
- kelnos 5y ago
  Yes, and just imagine how bad the situation will be when the police is privatized and accountable only to their shareholders. 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.
  - Cyberdog 5y ago
    Private security forces are accountable to their customers before their shareholders. If I don't like how my private security company is behaving, I can cancel my contract and switch to another company. When enough contracts are cancelled, then these hypothetical shareholders get involved. If I could cancel the "contract" with my local law enforcement agencies, I would have done that a long, long time ago.
  - rapjr9 5y ago
    I see this news as a loss of faith in the police. If the police are not trusted or not helping or making things worse then of course people will form their own gangs for protection. Citizen is trying to profit off that. Businesses and rich people do this all the time, this sounds like a service for less wealthy people of the same nature. It could help tame the police if independent observers with the power to intervene and wearing body cameras streaming to a remote server show up at incidents. In fact some people may specifically want protection from the police in situations where they think the police may react badly (e.g., trying to get help for someone with mental health problems). Goons for rent would be a bad way to implement this service. Observers and defenders and negotiators and de-escalators for hire would make more sense and have less liability for the company offering the service. This is the basic idea behind lawyers, you can not trust government to watch out for your interests so you hire an advocate to represent you and protect you. In fact, temporary legal representation during a sudden crisis is another service Citizen could offer. Calling a lawyer to be present during a crisis is something anyone can already do if they can afford it. Privatized police already exist (campus police, corporate police, security guards, even military mercenaries who do policing work). Hiring an observer/witness for cheap seems like a great new business model!
- deugo 5y ago
  I agree about these violent lawless police forces, but those crime victims are not exactly innocent either. Most (violent) crime is done out of sheer desperation, and the root cause of this desperation can often be traced back to the (predominantly white) upper-middle class, flaunting their riches, and becoming increasingly hard targets, isolating themselves from the "unwashed masses" in their ivory towers.
  - ummonk 5y ago
    Everyone is a victim of crimes, not just upper-middle-class white folks. In fact, the UMC folks are the ones who can afford to just write off the losses caused by property crimes, and are less susceptible to fall victim to the worst crimes, like murder.
  - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
    Is there some background information you're referring to? Assault makes up the vast majority of violent crimes, so it's hard to see what it could mean for them to be done "out of sheer desperation". I can see how a desperate person might feel shoplifting or burglary are their only choice to survive, but how could they expect to benefit from punching random people?
- azernik 5y ago
  When private citizens are allowed to do it (see e.g. Stand Your Ground states, Trayvon Martin, &c) it's also bad. Only without body cams, without even the possibility of institutional reform.
  - eikenberry 5y ago
    Cops are private citizens.
    - azernik 5y ago
      Not when they're on the clock. 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).
      - madhadron 5y ago
        Not when they're off the clock either, interestingly. An off duty officer still obeys the reasonable officer standard for use of force rather than the reasonable person standard.
na85 5y ago
>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. 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.
deugo 5y ago
The neighborhood watch is often staffed by amateurs. Security forces are trained professionals. If a neighborhood watch is necessary, then an on-demand security force seems better. 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.
- whydoyoucare 5y ago
  I agree with your opinion. I consider "Citizen" filling a usefull role of protection for those who can afford it. As/when they start becoming problematic, we will figure out how to deal with it. Until then, we have to go by the service they claim to offer in good faith. 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.
  - gowld 5y ago
    This comment applies perfectly aptly to Jim Crow.
    - whydoyoucare 5y ago
      Rather than hit-and-run, it may be useful to propose an alternative, so I can examine my position and correct if necessary. Thanks.
- aaron-santos 5y ago
  Citizen shareholders should see a massive opportunity in a "Protect" product offering which cuts down on neighbors spuriously using the service against other customers. The addition of protection money to the revenue stream would benefit them greatly.
yunesj 5y ago
> Private citizens are not under the same legal scrutiny officers are 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.
- barbecue_sauce 5y ago
  But what about when entire municipal police forces are privatized?
  - Seattle3503 5y ago
    Sounds like we successfully defunded the police.
  - yunesj 5y ago
    Then, after a short while, we’d probably have little violent crime, police misconduct, and wasteful spending.
- gowld 5y ago
  When they come to bash your head in, it doesn't help if you "stop supporting them" .
  - kibwen 5y ago
    As your skull is stoved in, you smile to yourself, euphoric in the knowledge that the market will eventually reach an equilbrium.
  - eikenberry 5y ago
    Is being able to do something is better than being able to do nothing? You're saying it isn't.
narrator 5y ago
I doubt that will ever happen in America. America is way too organized and professional of a government to ever let things get that out of hand. 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Pepes [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Self-Defense_Forces_of_Colombia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Self-Defense_Forces_of_... [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Armed_Forces_of_Colombia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Armed_Forces_of_...
- eric_h 5y ago
  My dad did some consulting work in Colombia in the 90s and he was provided with armed drivers and they took different routes between the plant and the hotel every day.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- subpixel 5y ago
  > I doubt that will ever happen in America. America is way too organized and professional of a government to ever let things get that out of hand. 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.
notyourday 5y ago
> This is exactly how gangs and mob enforcement happens. Organization of people whom are more than willing to create their own physical enforcement outside of the restrictions of the law go out and "protect" for money. And then organize to become both the perpetrator and the defender. 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.
- gowld 5y ago
  "moved to a different block" is your solution?
  - notyourday 5y ago
    We do not care to solve it as a general problem. The city employs NYPD for that, at least in theory. We, people who live on this block, want them gone from this block.
ummonk 5y ago
Private citizens don't have qualified immunity though.
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> they should become officers not 'security force’ 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.
mc32 5y ago
When these things start happening (Pinkerton) it's because there is a need that isn't being met by the state. This tells me the state is not providing the type of policing the populace wants.
- dom2 5y ago
  The state should not be providing union busting enforcement.
  - mc32 5y ago
    Sure, but they did more than that supplementing law enforcement where it was deficient like providing "secret service" to Lincoln, pursuing "Western" outlaws, like the ones robing banks and trains, etc. Before the FBI came into existence it had some of that role because the state was not providing it. Arguably, with the strikers and such, the state was absent from the dispute when it should have been there mediating. Point is, if the state is not providing these services, then the demand will make it profitable for someone to fill the role.

irrational 5y ago

I can’t believe you are writing this not in jest. Just a week or two ago we saw a video of an officer planting evidence in broad daylight. He was caught because of the video, how many officers have not been caught? What about yesterday when the police office ran up and kicked a handcuffed man in the head? Was that the rule of law or the rule of force?

Angostura 5y ago
How much better do you think vigilante forces would be?
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
  I dont think it matters. 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-employees-offered-subway-buddies-as-mayor-tries-to-calm-safety-concerns/3044688/ https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-city-hall-employee...
  - gowld 5y ago
    That's not what happening here. The money is for the "true crime" entertainment and the fun of being part of a mob, not crime reduction. That's obvious from the substance and tone of the content published in the app.
  - kibwen 5y ago
    Law enforcement does not solve the sort of low-level citizen-brigade crime that this app would address, it only treats the symptoms. The cause is people driven to desperation; put money into social programs to address the root of their desperation.
    - courtf 5y ago
      Prevention is cheaper and results in a friendlier environment for everyone. The proliferation of expensive, reactive solutions that tend to aggravate the very problem they're ostensibly working on is great for shareholders though. Public health is boring by comparison, and no one gets rich when it works.
    - 323454 5y ago
      This is a false dichotomy, but what's worse is that social programs are already heavily funded in all the major West coast cities. For example, LA spends over half a billion dollars (yes, billion with a B) on services for the homeless every year, to very little effect. It's not irrational for someone (even someone who advocates for those very programs and services) to look at the full situation and conclude that the best available option is to just throw in the towel and hire private security.
      - kibwen 5y ago
        > look at the full situation and conclude that the best available option is to just throw in the towel and hire private security 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.
joemi 5y ago
What makes you think a private force will be under more scrutiny?
- Cyberdog 5y ago
  Because they will be more directly accountable to their "clients," for one. I cannot fire a "real" cop whose behavior I do not approve of.
  - wearywanderer 5y ago
    You seem to be presuming that you will be the one these mercenaries are working for. When mercenaries I hired beat the crap out of you, how will you fire them?
    - ebuchanan 5y ago
      If you hire mercenaries to beat the crap out of someone, both you and the mercenaries will go to jail. 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.
      - wearywanderer 5y ago
        What are you going to do, hire your own mercenaries to arrest me and mine? Or do you now recognize the value in real police?
        sershe 5y ago
        I don't think the author ever claimed there's no value in real police. It actually, ironically, matches the recent left-wing demands to defund. Let the police with their armored cars and helicopters handle real crime, like when your mercenaries beat up my mercenaries. Let the mercenaries handle the small stuff :)
avs733 5y ago
the problem is that it is not in jest. It is accurate and reviews both how weak societal oversight of police is and how important it is. 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.
ben_w 5y ago
Rule of force. 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.
creatorbytes 5y ago
This is partly confirmation bias. Millions of officers, we’re gonna have bad ones. Obviously we need to improve, but to think that officers who have at least some amount of vetting are going to do worse than a security force is utter denial of the human condition. 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.
- MengerSponge 5y ago
  Yes, we're gonna have bad officers. What happens next? Are they shunned? Forced out of the profession? 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-white-supremacy-american-policing-1167304/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/racism...
  - croutonwagon 5y ago
    It is.. But at the same time, its a completely decentralized system and there are MANY that do a very good job at washing out the bad ones. There are plenty that deserve criticism, and even federal investigation/intervention. But by and large the system works. 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.
  - wearywanderer 5y ago
    Shunning is crap. Instead of resorting to such dark-age extralegal tactics, how about we get some prosecutors who do their damn jobs and prosecute criminal police? Unfortunately prosecutors are generally elected and many people don't want to admit the root of the problem is with the electorate who choose to elect and re-elect prosecutors who don't want to do their jobs.
jl2718 5y ago
I don’t follow these things at all, but it seems we may be in a bit of a bad romance with authority figures. These total strangers act in perfectly predictable ways given the positions we’ve handed them, and we call it betrayal.
kelnos 5y ago
Yes, and just imagine how bad the situation will be when the police is privatized and accountable only to their shareholders. 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.
- Cyberdog 5y ago
  Private security forces are accountable to their customers before their shareholders. If I don't like how my private security company is behaving, I can cancel my contract and switch to another company. When enough contracts are cancelled, then these hypothetical shareholders get involved. If I could cancel the "contract" with my local law enforcement agencies, I would have done that a long, long time ago.
- rapjr9 5y ago
  I see this news as a loss of faith in the police. If the police are not trusted or not helping or making things worse then of course people will form their own gangs for protection. Citizen is trying to profit off that. Businesses and rich people do this all the time, this sounds like a service for less wealthy people of the same nature. It could help tame the police if independent observers with the power to intervene and wearing body cameras streaming to a remote server show up at incidents. In fact some people may specifically want protection from the police in situations where they think the police may react badly (e.g., trying to get help for someone with mental health problems). Goons for rent would be a bad way to implement this service. Observers and defenders and negotiators and de-escalators for hire would make more sense and have less liability for the company offering the service. This is the basic idea behind lawyers, you can not trust government to watch out for your interests so you hire an advocate to represent you and protect you. In fact, temporary legal representation during a sudden crisis is another service Citizen could offer. Calling a lawyer to be present during a crisis is something anyone can already do if they can afford it. Privatized police already exist (campus police, corporate police, security guards, even military mercenaries who do policing work). Hiring an observer/witness for cheap seems like a great new business model!
deugo 5y ago
I agree about these violent lawless police forces, but those crime victims are not exactly innocent either. Most (violent) crime is done out of sheer desperation, and the root cause of this desperation can often be traced back to the (predominantly white) upper-middle class, flaunting their riches, and becoming increasingly hard targets, isolating themselves from the "unwashed masses" in their ivory towers.
- ummonk 5y ago
  Everyone is a victim of crimes, not just upper-middle-class white folks. In fact, the UMC folks are the ones who can afford to just write off the losses caused by property crimes, and are less susceptible to fall victim to the worst crimes, like murder.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
  Is there some background information you're referring to? Assault makes up the vast majority of violent crimes, so it's hard to see what it could mean for them to be done "out of sheer desperation". I can see how a desperate person might feel shoplifting or burglary are their only choice to survive, but how could they expect to benefit from punching random people?
azernik 5y ago
When private citizens are allowed to do it (see e.g. Stand Your Ground states, Trayvon Martin, &c) it's also bad. Only without body cams, without even the possibility of institutional reform.
- eikenberry 5y ago
  Cops are private citizens.
  - azernik 5y ago
    Not when they're on the clock. 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).
    - madhadron 5y ago
      Not when they're off the clock either, interestingly. An off duty officer still obeys the reasonable officer standard for use of force rather than the reasonable person standard.

na85 5y ago

>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. 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.

deugo 5y ago

The neighborhood watch is often staffed by amateurs. Security forces are trained professionals. If a neighborhood watch is necessary, then an on-demand security force seems better. 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.

whydoyoucare 5y ago
I agree with your opinion. I consider "Citizen" filling a usefull role of protection for those who can afford it. As/when they start becoming problematic, we will figure out how to deal with it. Until then, we have to go by the service they claim to offer in good faith. 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.
- gowld 5y ago
  This comment applies perfectly aptly to Jim Crow.
  - whydoyoucare 5y ago
    Rather than hit-and-run, it may be useful to propose an alternative, so I can examine my position and correct if necessary. Thanks.
aaron-santos 5y ago
Citizen shareholders should see a massive opportunity in a "Protect" product offering which cuts down on neighbors spuriously using the service against other customers. The addition of protection money to the revenue stream would benefit them greatly.

yunesj 5y ago

> Private citizens are not under the same legal scrutiny officers are 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.

barbecue_sauce 5y ago
But what about when entire municipal police forces are privatized?
- Seattle3503 5y ago
  Sounds like we successfully defunded the police.
- yunesj 5y ago
  Then, after a short while, we’d probably have little violent crime, police misconduct, and wasteful spending.
gowld 5y ago
When they come to bash your head in, it doesn't help if you "stop supporting them" .
- kibwen 5y ago
  As your skull is stoved in, you smile to yourself, euphoric in the knowledge that the market will eventually reach an equilbrium.
- eikenberry 5y ago
  Is being able to do something is better than being able to do nothing? You're saying it isn't.

narrator 5y ago

I doubt that will ever happen in America. America is way too organized and professional of a government to ever let things get that out of hand. 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Pepes [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Self-Defense_Forces_of_Colombia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Self-Defense_Forces_of_... [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Armed_Forces_of_Colombia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Armed_Forces_of_...

eric_h 5y ago
My dad did some consulting work in Colombia in the 90s and he was provided with armed drivers and they took different routes between the plant and the hotel every day.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
subpixel 5y ago
> I doubt that will ever happen in America. America is way too organized and professional of a government to ever let things get that out of hand. 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.

notyourday 5y ago

> This is exactly how gangs and mob enforcement happens. Organization of people whom are more than willing to create their own physical enforcement outside of the restrictions of the law go out and "protect" for money. And then organize to become both the perpetrator and the defender. 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.

gowld 5y ago
"moved to a different block" is your solution?
- notyourday 5y ago
  We do not care to solve it as a general problem. The city employs NYPD for that, at least in theory. We, people who live on this block, want them gone from this block.

ummonk 5y ago

Private citizens don't have qualified immunity though.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> they should become officers not 'security force’ 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.

mc32 5y ago

When these things start happening (Pinkerton) it's because there is a need that isn't being met by the state. This tells me the state is not providing the type of policing the populace wants.

dom2 5y ago
The state should not be providing union busting enforcement.
- mc32 5y ago
  Sure, but they did more than that supplementing law enforcement where it was deficient like providing "secret service" to Lincoln, pursuing "Western" outlaws, like the ones robing banks and trains, etc. Before the FBI came into existence it had some of that role because the state was not providing it. Arguably, with the strikers and such, the state was absent from the dispute when it should have been there mediating. Point is, if the state is not providing these services, then the demand will make it profitable for someone to fill the role.