UK Plans Private Police Force

An anonymous reader writes "'Private companies could take responsibility for investigating crimes, patrolling neighborhoods and even detaining suspects under a radical privatization plan,' The Guardian reports. 'The contract is the largest on police privatization 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.' A worrying development in a country with an ever-increasing culture of surveillance and intrusive policing."

WARNING! SOULSKILL POSTED THIS ARTICLE!

[Gordonjcp]

As usual, Soulskill has posted yet another article pushing nonsense gleaned from a quick look at a headline.

"The UK" is not getting a private police force. Two small police forces in England are planning on contracting out patrolling some areas like city centre shopping districts to private firms.

As it turns out, it's not actually legally possible for them to do this, so it's unlikely to happen any time soon.

Of course, prior to mid 1800s

[medcalf]

Almost all law enforcement was private. Outside of a small number of elected officials and their deputies, Law was generally enforced (in the Anglosphere anyway) by citizens. Organized government controlled police forces are a relatively recent phenomenon.

Sad

[MightyMartian]

The Metropolitan Police Force was one of Sir Robert Peel's (an actual real Tory, and not just the fake post-Thatcher kind) greatest achievements, and a model for police forces the world over. It was precisely because of fragmentation that Peel went this route, producing a stunningly effective law enforcement agency.

Re:WARNING! SOULSKILL POSTED THIS ARTICLE!

[geckipede]

I live in the West Midlands of England. We already have private security firms contracted to patrol low crime areas, and that has been in place for a few years now. The plans being discussed in the article are a significant expansion of that, adding yet more police duties to those companies.

I do support the use of private security guards to wander around in places where all that is needed is a biped capable of moving while wearing a uniform. There are many places that don't need police patrols. However, I am very much opposed to going any further than that into real police activities. Investigating crimes is something that only real trained and authorised police officers should be doing. These proposals do include that.

Re:Of course, prior to mid 1800s

[BasilBrush]

Witch hunts were also common back then. Real ones, where they'd take women who'd committed no crime and burn them at the stake.

Re:It is a huge problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't, agencies working for the government almost always retain Crown Immunity, they cannot be sued, and contracts details are usually kept secret even from parliament. It's the worst possible combination. Go UK PLC!

Re:It is a huge problem.

[Mitsoid]

Private Police Forces in the US are a nightmare, I hope they don't become common in the UK and then in the US...

2 of my local colleges use "Private Police Forces" who, among other duties, also issue tickets. Unfortunately as a private business they are issuing these tickets out of the state capitol 3 hours away. If for some reason you want to challenge the ticket you have to drive 6 hours round trip just to be told the officer is not in attendance at the court, and you'll have to come back another day...

So $70 in gas round trip, twice in order to actually get to challenge the ticket... Missing 2 days of work... they force you to pay, one way or another!

------------------
Now, if the above case HAPPENED 3 hours away from my home and I had to return to the area the crime supposedly happened -- that's different. This is simply "the only reason you have to go 3 hours is because that's where the private police business is based out of"

Re:Fascism

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It isn't really 'potential' anymore: meet Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan... [forbes.com]

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Great...

[Nidi62]

Of course, TCFKAB is still in business, under another name that I can't at the moment recall, probably because that name was designed to be impossible to remember.

Blackwater was renamed Xe. However, it is important to note that the founder and CEO during the Iraq war sold off the company and is no longer involved.

Re:Fascism

[Mr. Slippery]

But I have never seen a side by side comparison of recidivism rates, abuse complaints, etc. If the privately run facilities are really so bad, then why don't the critics show some real data instead of obfuscating.

Sometimes, a minute with Google can keep you from saying dumb things.

"...In 1998, when American prisons held 1.3 million prisoners, there were only 59 inmate-on-inmate homicides. That's a rate of one murder for every 22,000 prisoners. The homicide rate in Wackenhut's New Mexico facilities in those nine months was about one for every 400 prisoners--and that's not counting the death of Ralph Garcia, Wackenhut's guard....

"A research project I directed in 1999 compared the quality of correctional services in a medium-security private prison run by CCA in Minnesota with the three medium-security prisons run by the state. We found many more operational problems in the CCA prison--from program deficiencies and unreliable methods of classifying prisoners for security purposes to high rates of staff turnover that resulted in inadequate numbers of experienced, well-trained personnel. And this was in a private prison that was not notoriously troubled--a facility that the company, in fact, considered to be exemplary." -- http://prospect.org/article/bailing-out-private-jails [prospect.org]

"First, the number of staff assigned to private facilities is approximately 15 percent lower than the number of staff assigned to public facilities (28 per 100 inmates in private facilities versus 32 per 100 inmates in public). Sec- ond, management information system (MIS) capabilities appear to be lacking in private facilities. Third, the rate of major incidents is higher at private facilities than at public facilities....

"The re- sults are similar to the original analysis with one major exception: in this comparison, the privately operated facilities have a much higher rate of inmate-on-inmate and inmate-on-staff assaults and other disturbances. These differences may be related to other factors such as reporting stan- dards or the fact that correctional facilities often experience management difficulties when they are newly opened. The CCA Youngstown facility is a good example of such difficulties (Clark, 1998). However, insufficient training for and lack of qualified staff in key positions may also be a valid explanation for these differences. This would be consistent with the claims of critics of privatization who charge that private prisons are inadequately staffed by inexperienced and poorly trained correctional officers. Coupled with a lack of programs and work assignments, higher rates of misconduct from inmates predictably occur. Nevertheless, the notion that privately operated prisons are safer or better managed than public facilities is not supported by these results." -- http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bja/181249.pdf [ncjrs.gov]