"Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times."
–Gustave Flaubert
Watch the nightly news on any particular uneventful day and you come away with the same dismal information: We are in trouble. The economy is in shambles, parents are killing their own children, war continues, presidential candidates are making their usual campaign promises that will never materialize, and gas prices are causing most of us to choose between money spent on food or driving to work. Fiscally, government agencies are fighting a losing battle too. For police agencies, budgets are cut and open positions remain unfilled (or worse, layoffs) while calls for service climb and demands increase. Fundamentally, I would argue, American policing methodology needs to change due to a multitude of reasons, and should be responsive to our national conditions. Our world is much different today then how it has been, and we are never going back to the way it used to be.
Historical Policing Partnership: The Pinkertons
It has been done before, and with great success. In 1850, the North-Western Policing Agency (NWPA) was founded by famed private detective Allan Pinkerton, who at the time was the Chicago Police Department's first detective. Eventually, the NWPA evolved into the well known "Pinkerton National Detective Agency," which augmented the Chicago Police with hunting down thieves and burglars within their assigned sectors of the young, but bustling city. World history tells us that this is not the first time a private entity has protected the general public, but in terms of American law enforcement history it is significant. Enter the time period of the Civil War, and Pinkerton Private Detectives were, in 1861, protecting then-President Abraham Lincoln as an early form of the "secret service," while simultaneously tasked with performing certain military intelligence functions against the Confederate Army of the South.
Security and Law Enforcement: Modern Team Policing
Today, the City of Oakland, California finds itself in the unique position of experimenting, over an 18-month period, how to infuse the services of the city police force with officers from a contract security firm. According to Laura Spadanuta, whose report titled "Patrols Gone Private" for Security Management Magazine, this measure is out of desperation due to "a police shortage and high crime rates" affecting the city. Legally, city council provided for the pilot program to draw on public tax monies to pay for the armed security officers. The officers have a defined mission in that they focus their foot patrols to "commercial corridors", and they will closely coordinate their activities with the city police.
However, there are some concerns. First, having armed security officers is actually more of a problem to the private contractor, due to liability and insurance underwriting, than to local government. Secondly, the security officers will not be specially empowered to have arrest authority, since, in the words of Chief Paul Johnson, California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services, "..the definition of a security officer under California law is two words: observe and report." Finally, and probably most significant, the city contract will be negotiated to insulate the municipality from liability exposure that instead will be absorbed by the private firms, because public law enforcement officers have qualified immunity under federal law where as private security does not.
After the trial period, the experiment will be thoroughly reviewed to measure effectiveness, and the prevailing thought today is that the initiative will become an alternative policing model for other cash strapped communities across the nation.
Measuring Change: Will It Work?
Yes. It has been done before. Should these public/private partnerships continue where commercial establishments, gated communities or special interest or activity groups start assuming increasingly more responsibility for their unique protection needs? From my position as an educator, trainer and former professional law enforcement officer the answer is undoubtedly, "Yes." Reason? We have no other choice. There are simply too many competing primary interests to our limited resources within our governmental budgets at any level. Society needs to assume a greater role in protecting itself, an idea that is nothing new, just forgotten. Peel's principles are as relevant today as they were 179 years ago when first penned by Sir Robert himself.