Private police

Private police are law enforcement bodies that are owned and/or controlled by non-governmental entities. These can be firms to which the government contracts out police work (e.g. the 1975-1977 Oro Valley, Arizona-Rural/Metro contract, the 1980 Reminderville, Ohio-Corporate Security contract, the 1976 Indian Springs, Florida-Guardsmark contract, and the 1976 Buffalo Creek, West Virginia-Guardsmark contract). Or, they can be officers who contract with various firms to patrol the area, as in the case of the San Francisco Patrol Specials. A specific type of private police is company police, such as the specialized railroad police. In some cases, private police are sworn in as government employees in order to ensure compliance with the law, as in the Kalamazoo, Michigan-Charles Services contract, which lasted 3 1/2 years. In Florida, Critical Intervention Services has full arrest powers within its jurisdiction.

Relationship to anarcho-capitalism

Private police figures prominently in anarcho-capitalist theory and, along with advocacy of private defense agencies, dispute resolution organizations, and private production of law, distinguishes it from minarchism. Since complete privatization of the police function (with funding, control, ownership, etc. of all police forces passing to private entities) would eliminate the ability of the state to forcibly collect taxes, arguably the only way it could work would be within the context of a society in which all other services were privatized as well. Moreover, the state would lose the ability to intervene to enforce its concept of justice; this factor also tends to make it incompatible with the the idea of a night watchman state that could take action to protect liberty.

History

In Great Britain, the police function was historically performed by private watchmen (existing from 1500 on), thief takers, and so on. The former were funded by private individuals and organizations and the latter by privately-funded rewards for catching criminals, who would then be compelled to return stolen property or pay restitution. In 1737, George II began paying some London and Middlesex watchmen with tax moneys, beginning the shift to government control. In 1750, Henry Fielding began organizing a force of quasi-professional constables. The Macdaniel affair added further impetus for a publicly-salaried police force that did not depend on rewards. Nonetheless, In 1828, there were privately financed police units in no fewer than 45 parishes within a 10-mile radius of London.

Perceived advantages

One of the alleged benefits of such arrangements is the potential for competition. If government contracts out to a private police company, then different contractors may compete to offer the lowest price, driving down costs. If individual firms and households can choose their own police company, then competition may have even greater benefits for the citizens, as contractors seek to serve various niche markets. Under that system, individual citizens, firms, homeowners associations, etc. can choose a service that they perceive as providing the right quality/price mix for them, and concentrating on the security needs that are more important to them.

There is evidence that private police can provide services more cheaply than public police. The cost of San Francisco's private patrol specials is $25-30/hour, compared to $58/hour for an off-duty police officer. [citation|year=1995|title=Readings: Paper presented at the Ninth Annual Futures Conference on Privatization in Criminal Justice: Public and Private Partnerships, University of Chicago, March 13-15|author=Office of International Criminal Justice] In Reminderville, Corporate Security outbid the Summit County Sheriff Department's offer to charge the community $180,000 per year for 45-minute response time emergency response service by offering a $90,000 contract for twice as many patrol cars and a 6-minute response time. [citation|year=1982|title=Cops, Inc.|author=Gage, Theodore J.|year=1982|publisher=Reason]

This system might also better prevent poor service and other abuses, as citizens could unilaterally fire their police company, rather than having to lobby the government to do so, an effort that many would be relatively disinclined to pursue, due to the uncertainty as to whether it would be successful. Homeowners associations and landlords would have a stronger incentive to monitor the activity of private police they hire for their neighborhood, as nearby neighborhoods with better or cheaper police services could gain a competitive advantage in attracting residents and remaining profitable. Reputation could be an additional safeguard, as companies that gain a poor reputation would likely have more difficulty attracting new customers.

The ability of people to sue private police could be another safeguard. Companies would have an incentive to carefully screen applicants and fire abusive employees, in order to avoid costly lawsuits that could cause their liability insurance premiums to rise. Public police, by contrast, are covered by sovereign immunity in many situations; and in any case, the public police lack an owner whose potential to suffer financially from lawsuits would provide a strong incentive to take action. Theoretically, the citizens as a whole might be considered the "owner" of government; but the difference is that these owners lack a means of selling their investment if their fellow owners refuse to cooperate in taking action to avoid losses; and there is less potential for hostile takeover or bankruptcy to affect a change in control, as the government can simply raise taxes (or print money, in some cases) to compensate for financial losses. There are the usual public choice issues involved that can thwart public sector reform, such as the fact that citizens realize their individual votes have little chance of affecting the outcome. As Bruce L. Benson notes, "Many people are very concerned about what the government is doing for (or to) them, but they rationally choose not to invest in information about candidates or to vote because they recognize that the costs of doing so exceed the benefits."

Another advantage cited by Benson is that private police would have a contractual responsibility to protect their customers. [cite book|title=To Serve and Protect|pages=180|author=Benson, Bruce L.] In "Warren v. District of Columbia", the court found that public police have no such responsibility. [Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d. 1 (DC Ct. of Ap. 1981] Thus, they cannot be sued if they fail to respond to calls for help, for instance.

Perceived disadvantages

Under anarcho-capitalism, taxpayers would not be forced to fund police services; these transactions would be voluntary. One argument against such a policy is that it would disadvantage the poor, who could not afford to spend much money on police. Thus, some less radical libertarians favor issuing police vouchers to each citizen, granting them a certain amount of money to hire a private police company of their choice at taxpayer expense. There are counter-argument to this stance as well, though; one is that it could hurt citizens who are forced to pay taxes to fund a certain level of police services, when they might need the money more for other products such as food or health care. For those citizens, it might be in their best interest to take a greater risk of being victimized in exchange for being able to afford other necessities. Another counter-argument is that there are many necessities besides police services that the poor often lack; for instance, shoes. Yet, many countries that provide free police services do not give away shoes for free; in those countries, everyone is expected to provide their own shoes, or to seek the assistance of charitable organizations (or individuals) to provide them with shoes. Similarly, in the absence of government sponsorship of police, philanthropists might step up to provide grants to poverty-stricken individuals and communities in need of police.

Murray Rothbard notes, "police service is "not" "free"; it is paid for by the taxpayer, and the taxpayer is very often the poor person himself. He may very well be paying more in taxes for police now than he would in fees to private, and far more efficient, police companies. Furthermore, the police companies would be tapping a mass market; with the economies of such a larger-scale market, police protection would undoubtedly be much cheaper." [cite book|title=For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto|pages=220|chapter=The Public Sector, III: Police, Law, and the Courts|isbn=0-930073-02-9] Public police, by contrast, are limited in size by the political jurisdiction; although some local public police forces already contract with national private firms for specialty services, such as maintenance of communications equipment, for which it would not be economical for them to hire a full-time government employee. [cite book|title=To Serve and Protect: Privatization and Community in Criminal Justice|pages=34|author=Benson, Bruce L.|chapter=Potential Benefits and Pitfalls of Contracting Out for Criminal Justice|year=1998|isbn=0-8147-1327-0]

ee also

*Privatization in criminal justice

References