English metropolitian area consider private police forces.

[Bob Hubbard]

Revealed: government plans for police privatisation West Midlands and Surrey police offer £1.5bn contract under which private firms may investigate crime and detain suspects



Private companies could take responsibility for investigating crimes, patrolling neighbourhoods and even detaining suspects under a radical privatisation plan being put forward by two of the largest police forces in the country.
West Midlands and Surrey have invited bids from G4S and other major security companies on behalf of all forces across England and Wales to take over the delivery of a wide range of services previously carried out by the police.
The contract is the largest on police privatisation so far, with a potential value of £1.5bn over seven years, rising to a possible £3.5bn depending on how many other forces get involved.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/02/police-privatisation-security-firms-crime



With the hope to stave off the usual comments, I Googled "West Midlands", which Wikipedia indicates is in England.
The location is also given as UK, but since that designation often brings on the "You haven't a clue" comments, I have avoided using that designation, just in case this location in the middle of the island happens to be a previously unknown to us American's part of France or the Klingon homeworld that's only known to the actual inhabitants, military intelligence and a small dog named Collin from Dunning on the World.


Having hopefully gotten the regular disagreement over location names out of the way, and hoping that the Guardian is a reputable source this week, what's the chance we can discuss the actual idea here of police privatization and the thoughts behind it?

 

[Sukerkin]

You are cruising for a bruising, Cap'n :lol:. West Midlands is the region of England from whence I hail, so you can stick your snide comments where the sun don't shine .

It's not hard to get geography correct if you can be bothered to try - it's not like it's not been explained before, nor is it beyond the wit of man to understand. For example, Surrey is another world compared to the West Midlands .

Nonetheless, we in the civilised world shall excuse colonial ignorance of such matters as we can't really expect them to know any better, what with their being drunk with their own superiority and self-importance {double }.

Casual insults now out of the way, on to the meat of the problem. If this gets the go-ahead from Teflon Dave then we are well on the way to the erosion of any respect for the agencies of law enforcement in this country. As I've said before on many occasions, I have a lot of praise for the manner in which our police do their job and to see that 'capital' thrown away with some rent-a-cop-substitution penny-saving drive makes me pretty hot under the collar.

Private Police and private prisons are an idea that has such flawed underpinnings I cannot conceive how any rational minded person would be in favour of them. The police force under the auspices of the government is, at least theoretically, a partner in our entire concept of policing by consent. We, the subjects of the Crown, vote for the government of our choice and accede to that government having the power to police the nation, for the general safety of all, with officers paid from the public purse. In essence they are our police, trusted to do their duty with our consent. 'Private' policing is just asking for trouble both in terms of refusal to comply and abuse of authority.

Tears will come from this if it goes ahead.

 

[Sukerkin]

By the way, noting the title of the thread, it was news to me that the West Midlands is a metropolitan region, so I learned something today (which is a good thing as I aim to do that every day if I can).

 

[Big Don]

West Midlands? What is due East? Central Midlands, i.e., Mid Midlands?

 

[jks9199]

West Midlands? What is due East? Central Midlands, i.e., Mid Midlands?

It's in England, therefore it's probably something like North BottomSouthlands...

Seriously -- this is in some ways, a retreat back to the old ways, where guard forces were bought & paid for, and thief-takers worked on commission. That doesn't mean it's necessarily a good idea... It'll feed the idea of you get the justice you can pay for. I could see using contracted guard forces to supplement the sworn/appointed police, doing things like response to alarms, some patrol, traffic control, even taking some types of reports so that you can leave the "real" police free to do investigations and other things that only they can do. Kind of along the lines that LPNs and hospital techs can free up RNs and doctors in a medical setting. But don't have the private guys doing investigations...

 

[Sukerkin]

Don, due east of the West Midlands is the East Midlands ... we seem to have mislaid the Mid-Midlands somewhere :lol:.

 

[Tez3]

It seems to be a variation of something we already have, the PCSOs, only the cost doesn't come out of the police budget directly but from a central fund. I'm sure the PCSOs are a well meaning bunch but really they are more of a waste of time than anything else. They have very limited 'powers' so can't actually do anything useful, they do manage to walk around looking quite arrogant though with their very short training time I doubt they have much to be arrogant about. I was watching one of those undercover bosses programmes the other day where a council boss went out with some of them, he found them completely random in how they dealt with situations, it seemed to depend ont he mood of the PCSO whether he dealt harshly with someone who was illegally trading or whether he let someone off with a warning.


On the subject of the newpsper it was reported in, I'd keep it away from Bilcihak, it's a known hotbed of 'reds' lol. It is centre left but is considered a reputable one in terms of news, certainly not a tabloid/red top.

The Midlands have long been known as the 'engine' of the UK I think you could say. For Lord of the Ring fans look up 'Mercia', as the area used to be called.

 

[Jenna]

When Giuliani was mayor he sanctioned NYPD's Paid Detail Unit which is utilised by Wall St and wider NY corporate customers in which officers are employed privately and but yet still are NOT indemnified privately by the companies that hire them.

 

[Senjojutsu]

There is a huge political football in Massachusetts over the usage of "paid police details" versus using flagmen as done with much more frequency in the other forty-nine states.

http://www.thesunchronicle.com/articles/2011/09/25/news/10220990.txt

Years of chronic abuse has led some overburdened, cynical taxpayers to say protection rackets are just not necessarily the privy of organized crime gangs.

%-}

 

[Tez3]

There is a huge political football in Massachusetts over the usage of "paid police details" versus using flagmen as done with much more frequency in the other forty-nine states.

http://www.thesunchronicle.com/articles/2011/09/25/news/10220990.txt

Years of chronic abuse has led some overburdened, cynical taxpayers to say protection rackets are just not necessarily the privy of organized crime gangs.

%-}

I imagine that organised ganges however would at least be efficient if illegal, here the PCSOs and the security firms would be seriously useless, as shown by how many prisoners they lose when doing the escorting to courts etc,

 

[ballen0351]

Im not sure how you maintain an unbias police force when they need to answer to a corp. Rather then the people. When the bottom line becomes more important then fair and equal policing you would see more officers in the better areas that have more money to pay for the service then you would in the poor areas.

 

[Xue Sheng]

West Midlands? What is due East? Central Midlands, i.e., Mid Midlands?

Speaking as a ignorant colonial who is drunk on his own superiority and self-importance I think what Don is trying to say isn't calling it West Midlands kind of like calling it Just Left of Center

 

[Xue Sheng]

When Giuliani was mayor he sanctioned NYPD's Paid Detail Unit which is utilised by Wall St and wider NY corporate customers in which officers are employed privately and but yet still are NOT indemnified privately by the companies that hire them.

NYS has law enforcement titles on its books that have police authority but arenot full police officers. They need to be trained much like a Police officerbut they only have authority on the property for which they have been hired toprotect. Step off that property they become a civilian I believe the actualtitle is "Security Officer" However this is not to be confused withmany who are called security officers. However in NYS any one preforming asecurity function is required to go through training and certification. Howeverit is not as extensive as one who NYS considers as security office r and it isfar from the training of a police officer. Nor does the certification mean they have a clue as to what they are doing. It only really means they have had to go through a background check.