The WSJ today carried an article about municipalities that are hiring security guards to do police work.
Hiring private guards is less expensive than hiring new officers. Oakland - facing a record $80 million budget shortfall - spends about 65% of its budget for police and fire services, including about $250,000 annually, including benefits and salary on each police officer. In contrast, for about $200,000 a year the city can contract to hire four private guards to patrol the troubled East Oakland district where four on-duty police officers were killed in March. And the company, not the city, is reponsible for insurance for the guards.
UPDATE: The WSJ reports today that the Oakland contract was cancelled because of a fraud investigation of the owners of the security firm. So much for outsourcing.
2 comments:
Just another reason why one should seriously consider carrying one's own protection with them.
If every able bodied citizen who was well-trained in the use of firearms, had an unblemished record, and was otherwise competent carried a weapon, and if the general culture approved of and encouraged this sort of citizen responsibility, we probably would not need so many police and/or security guards in the first place. The problem is that government claims a monopoly on defending its citizens on a day-to-day basis. And that posture of government is aided and abetted by old media and the totalitarian tendencies of political parties.
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