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."

Comments

Great...

[Frosty Piss]

RoboCop!

Re:Great...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'd buy that for a pound sterling!

Re:Great...

[DrVomact]

Snow Crash! (A science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson; it did a good job forecasting this trend...and satirizing it.)

The Israeli military historian, Martin Van Creveld, also noted the trend toward privatization of state functions in the early nineties. (See for example, the The Transformation of War and the somewhat ponderous The Rise and Decline of the State.) As he predicted, the European-model nation-state continues to decline; as it weakens, it transfers its powers to private entities, and its sovereignty to more nebulous institutions that are not nation-states at all (such as the European Union, NATO, the UN, etc.) This in turn leads to a loss of faith in the nation-state by its citizens, until the state's government is no longer seen as legitimate. Not surprisingly, van Creveld is a fan of Snow Crash.

This has also been happening in the U.S., most prominently during the recent Iraqi Infelicity. As you may remember, the U.S. State Department outsourced its security operations to The Company Formerly Known As "Blackwater" during this time. This led to a fiasco in which a team from said organization—which was "protecting" a State Department delegation—shot up a crowd of harmless civilians with automatic weapons fire from armored vehicles, causing numerous death and mild embarrassment to the U.S. State Department. They should have been much more embarrassed, of course—official heads should have rolled—but such actions no longer have their just consequences. The U.S. Army also worked with TCFKAB and similar organizations with names like Triple Canopy, Executive Outcomes (I think that's defunct, actually), and companies smarter than TCFKAB who don't try to get business through publicizing their names. 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. In addition to outright combat, other civilian agencies pretty much have taken over the role of providing the U.S. Army's infrastructure, and the entire "re-construction" of Iraq was handled by large corporations in a most unseemly manner.

So why is everyone surprised when the Brits want to outsource a bit of policing?

Re:Great...

[KingBenny]

yea, looks like the fingermen will get their chance to try and rape princess Padme after all

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:Great...

[martin-boundary]

Here you are then, sir. BLAM. BLAM. BLAM. BLAM. BLAM. BLAM. BLAM. BLAM. Thank you for your cooperation.

Re:Great...

[DrVomact]

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.

I have to ask why you think that is important. To my mind, the important issue lies in the fact that companies like Xe exist and are contracted by the U.S. Government at all; the personal culpability of the former CEO of the Company Formerly Known As... is, to me, relatively trivial.

The proper generic name for such corporations is, by ancient usage, "mercenaries" or perhaps "mercenary contractors". The fact that modern States now once more employ mercenaries signifies a distinct decline in the State as an institution, because one of the essential characteristics of a State is that it holds a monopoly on violence. By hiring mercenaries, states essentially solve short-term problems (inability to sustain a war through conscription, direct responsibility for atrocities, etc.), but create another set of problems the extent of which is not immediately obvious. One such problem is that once the State becomes reliant on mercenaries, it is at their mercy—something Machiavelli understood quite well.

Re:Great...

[tqft]

And now Academi
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204319004577089021757803802.html

Have a nice day

Re:Great...

[arglebargle_xiv]

I'd buy that for a pound sterling!

I'll buy that for 10 Euros in a couple of years.

Actually in a couple of years a pound sterling will be about fifty Euro cents. Or perhaps 10 pfennig in New Deutschmarks.

Re:Great...

[korean.ian]

Private military contractors are not mercenaries. If they were, they would be called mercenaries. In reality they can't be used to do anything other than DEFEND things.

There are many private interests in Iraq that need protection. There are legal and logistical problems involved in defending them.

So unless you want US forces defending every company building both infrastructure and retail, then private security forces are a helpful addition.

They are literally security guards for high risk targets. THAT IS IT. They cannot legally accept anything other than security contract. They will be booted from the country if they accept anything else. So it is not only legally the only contracts they can accept, but financially the only ones which make sense.

Using companies like Blackwater/Xe is cost efficient over a short-term period (as was demonstrated by using Executive Outcomes in Angola/Sierra Leone). Over a long-term, it is much more efficient to use the US (insert nation) army forces.

Re:Great...

[shutdown -p now]

Private military contractors are not mercenaries. If they were, they would be called mercenaries. In reality they can't be used to do anything other than DEFEND things.

When you ATTACK other countries, it stands to reason that your logistical lines are exposed and need DEFENDING - hiring mercenaries for that purpose lets you bring other troops elsewhere.

Besides, we can always place semantic games with words. As far as Soviet Union was concerned, what it was doing in Afghanistan back in 80s was defending the "legitimate government" of the country - at its explicit request! - from Islamist insurgency. Times change, and today, US troops defend the "legitimate government" from Islamist insurgency...

Fascism

[BasilBrush]

And so Britain sinks further into Fascism.

Re:Fascism

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Unfortunately, no matter how often 'privatization' enthusiasts ignore the issue or assert the contrary, 'privatization' tends to end up meaning an outcome that combines the least delightful aspects of state intrusion and ill-controlled corporate power...

'Privatization' almost never means "The state is going to abandon function X and leave people to figure it out on their own initiative." It means "The state is going to retain function X, and function X will continue to be taxpayer funded; but the execution of function X will be delegated to FooDyne LLC. who will now have access to the public purse and some measure of state power."

This isn't 100% certain to go badly; but it doesn't reduce the state's role(it just moves some of the state's role 'off the books' and into opaque contractual lumps, rather than those much-demonized public sector employees) and it tends to feed a class of contracting corporations that become essentially obligate parasites of the government, ever more efficient at landing juicy contracts, if not necessarily actually delivering on them...

Re:Fascism

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Given the incredible enthusiasm with which the US has largely rolled over and wagged its tail in response to the steady expansion of police power and militarization to battle the drugs menace, I strongly suspect that the capability of the population to kill mercenaries would translate into virtually no action whatsoever. The few exceptions would then be characterized as extremists and dealt with(small arms are common, the sort of stuff you'd need to stop armored vehicles, less so...)

Arguably, placing one's faith in guns as an antidote to policing is like expecting the widespread availability of strong cryptographic algorithms to protect internet privacy: Architecturally it might be within the realm of the plausible; but it's behaviorally absurd.

Re:Fascism

[Canazza]

I'm so glad Scotland controls it's own Law budget.
One more reason to vote for independence though.

Re:Fascism

[Dr_Barnowl]

The best argument against privately run jail is the potential for collusion of the company that runs them with judges. If your contract says you'll be paid for each incarcerated prisoner, you have an incentive to bribe judges to impose custodial sentences.

Re:Fascism

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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

Re:Fascism

[hoggoth]

Give me a break, Internet Tough Guy.

A hillbilly with a .22 won't even see the SWAT team coming in their armored personnel carrier in the middle of the night with night-vision goggles, air-support from helicopters, flash-bang grenades, and heavy weapons. They'll hit him with a dozen tasers until they see the .22 then they'll fill him full of holes and drop a joint on him to validate their enthusiastic response.

In the rare case they get reprimanded by the police's lawyers if there is a lawsuit from his now destitute wife, they will pick a scapegoat who will get a week's leave with pay.

Re:Fascism

[catchblue22]

And so Britain sinks further into Fascism.

Take an honest look at what has happened in the US/UK since the early 1980's. We have seen a steady erosion of democratic state involvement in the economy, and a massive migration of money away from the control of the state and into the hands of a few very well monied private interests. When those monied interests successfully cause your taxes to be lowered, what has really happened is that the money that you would have paid in taxes now remains in private hands. In effect, instead of you paying taxes to build roads, you pay your money to the private interests in exchange for some other service. In other words, your lower tax rates result in an increase in wealth and power for the organizations that sell you goods.

Also, the educational system has been fundamentally altered in the past few decades. University degrees in fields that are concerned with the general public interest have largely disappeared, replaced by degrees that are glorified exercises in job training. The broad liberal arts education that was the foundation of the development of our democratic institutions has been made an expensive and disappearing luxury. Education that causes a person to question, to think, to understand our history and culture doesn't exist in a meaningful way in our civilization any more. If you want political power today, you seek your training in administration, in business methods, instead of in philosophy, history and other humanities. Money is the lingua franca, the ultimate justification for all activities. Education itself is now treated as an economic good, something to improve the GDP instead of a good in and of itself. Greed and selfishness, once generally thought of as negative characteristics are now glorified in our money based brave new world.

Do not rebut my arguments by stating for example that "arts students don't get jobs", or that "you cannot afford to spend money on a degree that doesn't pay". I am fully aware of this reality. I ask you to step back outside these statements, to look at the changes of the last 30 years in terms of the health of our civilization, morally and ethically. Is the wide stratification of wealth that has developed recently a good thing for society? Must it be this way? And are the above mentioned developments a symptom of a gradual slide into what might be recognized as fascism?

Re:Fascism

[jamstar7]

I don't know of any government function that was privatized that actually saves the government any money. From what I've seen, they privatize, and the people doing the work get replaced by a bunch of semitrained minimum wagers while the corporation keeps negociating for ever higher priced contracts. It happened with the Post Office, it's happening in the prisons, it happened to Medicare.

Back in the day, Medicare payments came out of my income taxes. Then, they set aside a new specific Medicare tax. Then under Bush II, Medicare went private. Now they withhold Medicare premiums from peoples' Social Security checks to pay for private health insurance tarted up to look like Medicare. Back in the day, Medicare's paperwork costs were 2% of every healthcare dollar, while private insurance ran up to 30%. Then they passed HIPPA, the Healthcare Information Portability and Privacy Act, to bring private insurance paperwork practices in line with Medicare and make the data easily transported between the systems. Now that Medicare is private, healthcare costs are soaring, nobody gives a shit about the 'portability' portion of HIPPA, they just fine and/or sue about any percieved breach of the 'privacy' aspects of the act. Paperwork costs under the 'new' Medicare are climbing through the roof and will soon reach that 30% mark. And this is progress?

So now Britain has private police. Do they have private prisons like they do here in the US? How soon until the court system there goes private as well?

Re:Fascism

[catchblue22]

You act like money didn't control everything from the beginning.

That's how it's been since the very introduction of money and an economic system based around the collection of as much as money possible, and will be until it's eventual abolition.

I disagree. The ancient Greeks invented what we know as money, money as a universal medium of exchange. At the same time however, the ancient Greeks developed a culture that expressed deep ambivalence about greed and money and its influence on people. In the myth of Erysikhthon, the king is cursed with insatiable hunger that causes him to consume everything around him. In the end, he ends up consuming his own flesh. The myth of Midas is also an obvious example. In Sophocles' writings, money "creates friends, honours, tyranny, and physical beauty"; money is said to "destroy cities, drive men from their homes, transform good men into evil-doers, and to cause men to know every type of impiety". And yet it was also obvious to the ancient Greeks that money increased their standard of living.

There is a difference between a society that worships money and its accumulation, versus a society that remains wary of money but that also uses it as a means to improve material well being. In the last 30 to 40 years, we have clearly moved from the latter and towards the former. Just because we use money doesn't mean we must worship it.

Re:Fascism

[Mr. Slippery]

A hillbilly with a .22 won't even see the SWAT team coming in their armored personnel carrier in the middle of the night with night-vision goggles, air-support from helicopters, flash-bang grenades, and heavy weapons.

Ruby Ridge.

Waco.

If nutcases like this can make a respectable (in combative terms) stand against federal paramilitary law enforcement, it's not unthinkable that sane citizens might do even better.

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

"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

Re:Fascism

[dbet]

I agree with your analysis, but would further point out that culturally, western capitalist democracies hold the idea that if everyone looks out for themselves, the greater good will be achieved. It's in the interest of your neighbor, for example, for you personally to be as greedy as possible. Now, I'm not anti-capitalism but as long as this idea is considered unarguable, we're at a stumbling block.

Re:Fascism

[AmiMoJo]

We have seen a steady erosion of democratic state involvement in the economy, and a massive migration of money away from the control of the state and into the hands of a few very well monied private interests.

While I agree that is what has happened I think you are perhaps reading a bit too much into the reasoning. The basic Conservative philosophy is that any service provided by the government is a lost business opportunity. Someone could be making money out of society's need for road maintenance, healthcare or policing. Since the Tory party is funded by wealthy people who want to provide these services for a profit they naturally serve them by privatising them and then claiming to have got the tax burden down, which is false economy for most people since they just pay (more) for the services directly.

University degrees in fields that are concerned with the general public interest have largely disappeared, replaced by degrees that are glorified exercises in job training.

Those courses have not gone away, and if anything are a bit more popular now. What has changed is that instead of I ask you to step back outside these statements, to look at the changes of the last 30 years in terms of the health of our civilization, morally and ethically.

We have improved a huge amount in that time, I can't imagine why you think otherwise. Racism has become unacceptable, the influence of the Church has declined, our ethics have continued to evolve to the point where we can offer proper sexual health care to young women... In fact there were statistics out only last week showing that teenage pregnancy was at the lowest level since the 60s. There is no moral decline.

Re:Fascism

[catchblue22]

The State has dramatically increased its spending for decades, gobbling up the advances in the private sector... and for what? Most of it has gone to waste feeding the political power structure, buying votes with destructive social welfare programs, crony capitalism corporate subsidies, and making war.

Your chart gives a list of debt to GDP ratios for the US government. I would argue that the growing debt to GDP ratio over the last few years does not necessarily indicate a massive surge in government spending, but instead a massive decrease in tax revenues. I would speculate that that decrease is in large part due to a massive decrease in tax rates on the most wealthy. As anecdotal evidence, I give Warren Buffet's statements that he pays 17% income tax while the tax rate on his secretary is 35%. As further evidence, I remind you that the US income tax rate on individuals from 1942 to 1963 for money earned over $200000 was 92%. This was in fact a time of economic prosperity. I would also argue that the economic decline of the US has accelerated since the enacting of neo-conservative/neo-liberal economic policies since the 1980's. Even the Democrats followed these policies under Clinton.

You mention the problem of crony capitalist subsidies. Well I'll agree with that, with the caveat that many or most of those subsidies come in the form of differential tax breaks, where large corporations end up paying little or no tax. I think that falls in with the picture I am painting of an increasingly regressive taxation system. The costs of making war are an example of the government acting more for the private interest, in taking money from the broad population and giving it to a narrow group of individual organizations.

I believe that the current system of government in the US is profoundly corrupt, and I suspect you agree. The system has been captured by the most wealthy and powerful, and they use it to their own private ends. They cause the government to enact legislation that serves largely their own ends, and not the Public Good (SOPA for example). Where we digress from you I suspect is that I believe the Middle Class should be, must be the dominant economic and political influence in the nation. I believe that we must do everything we can to support the well being of the Middle Class, including enacting truly progressive income tax rates, and using tax revenues from the wealthy to build public work projects that support the Public Good. I believe that if you give the most wealthy too much economic and political power, that they will not use that power for the good of society, but instead for the good of themselves. That includes the removal of their money from the nation to other countries who will help to enrich them even more. They will use their money and power to further corrupt the government away from acting for the Public Good.

You obviously misunderstand the relationship between tax policy, economic growth, and tax revenues. You've bought the line that increased tax percentage means higher tax receivables. You don't understand that high taxes destroy economic growth, drive businesses overseas and end up lowering tax revenues.

I understand the theories referred to above quite well actually, possibly better than you do. I just don't agree them. I believe that the economic theories espoused by for example the Chicago School of Economics are deeply logically flawed, starting from their most basic assumptions. The "Efficient Market Hypothesis" is at the core of modern economics. It implies that market actors are rational, an assumption that has been deeply shaken after the recent housing and stock market crash. If the core assumption of a neoliberal economics is only true sometimes, how probable is the truth of its predictions and conclusions?

Re:Fascism

[Grishnakh]

Regular citizens with guns was how the USA liberated itself from British tyranny.

However, the problem these days is that the portion of the American population that's well-armed is also the same portion of the population that's in favor (judging by how it votes) of steady expansion of police power and militarization. The gun-owning Americans of today are not the same kind of people as the gun-owning Americans of the 1770s.

Well maybe you can cancel the contract?

[icebike]

The story lists the tasks that might be taken over by private companies:

The breathtaking list of policing activities up for grabs includes investigating crimes, detaining suspects, developing cases, responding to and investigating incidents, supporting victims and witnesses, managing high-risk individuals, patrolling neighbourhoods, managing intelligence, managing engagement with the public, as well as more traditional back-office functions, such as managing forensics, providing legal services, managing the vehicle fleet, finance and human resources

That seems like pretty much the entire job description short of actual Arrest. (The Detaining Suspects bit may mean running the jail, or arrest, its unclear).

The good side of this is you might have more luck suing a corporation than the constabulary. (No clue about UK law here, just a guess). And when the public becomes unsatisfied its much easier for city government to cancel the contract and find a new firm. The new guys will probably be on their best behavior for a few months at least.

Its not unheard of to find private police forces employed by some jurisdictions in the US. And its not unheard of the have entire companies fired. An incident in a Seattle transit hub eventually lead to fines and term termination of their contract.

Re:Well maybe you can cancel the contract?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The actors in the story you linked to weren't really a 'private police force'. The various flavors of security guards and rentacops lack police powers(I think they might have certain extra capabilities in some states, and the more serious ones have a certain amount of de-facto presence) and crop up in places that either can't get real cops(ie. the notorious 'mall cop' of legend) or that are trying to save money(as in the linked story, where Seattle would appear to have been trying to save money by using rentacops rather than transit police).

The American rentacops are not exactly a respected institution, given that they draw their members substantially from cop wannabes and their mission mostly ends up being hassling people who are perceived as bad for business; but they are largely powerless compared to real cops.

The closer American analog might be the various private prison contractors, which isn't an encouraging parallel...

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.

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:WARNING! SOULSKILL POSTED THIS ARTICLE!

[BasilBrush]

"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.

And also other police duties such as investigation of crime. In what way is this NOT privatisation of the police? This is exactly the way that privatisation that are contrary to the will of the people are done. Piecemeal.

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

Anything is legal if the government pass a law to make it legal. Unlike the USA, Britain doesn't have a written constitution to limit what legislators may do.

Re:WARNING! SOULSKILL POSTED THIS ARTICLE!

[M1FCJ]

And not only that, the main bidder will be G4S, which has already killed an innocent man unlawfully and so far managed to get away with it with all parties being released under bail. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/jimmy-mubenga). Worse, his death has not changed any policies and more killings are bound to happen.

And the Tories want to give more power to these clowns.

Re:WARNING! SOULSKILL POSTED THIS ARTICLE!

[Chrisq]

In the USA, it requires a significant number of states to agree to the amendment (don't know how many).

I don't know about the UK, but in Sweden, a change to our "constitution" (Grundlag) only requires two successive governments, with an election in between, to approve the change..

In the UK they can just change it. Want to change the house of Lords ... just pass a bill. Want to change to fixed term elections ... just a bill. Want to abolish elections altogether because we all love "mein Führer" ... well our supposed safeguard is that the monarch will refuse consent to the bill ... but promise them a few more powers and who knows.

Really despite them teaching us that we have an unwritten constitution the truth is we haven't got a constitution, and we are always potentially one election away from losing democracy.

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.

Re:Of course, prior to mid 1800s

[TFAFalcon]

Well in some ways it might be good to return to that kind of an arrangement for a few days each year. Just long enough to lynch the outgoing politicians on the day after elections. Now that would be a pretty good motivator to stop pissing voters off.

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:Of course, prior to mid 1800s

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

No crime except witchcraft.

Re:Of course, prior to mid 1800s

[rrohbeck]

I see several trends of going backwards in the world. That makes sense given that the energy supply cannot sustain societal complexity any more. Can't cross the Atlantic at supersonic speed, can't go to the moon any more... I think we've already seen Peak Civilization.

Re:Of course, prior to mid 1800s

[BasilBrush]

If that a question? Yes, burning at the stake was worse.

Though I agree the current laws to punish people for consuming herbal products are not so dissimilar from punishing women as "witches" because they made herbal remedies.

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:Sad

[bmsleight]

Yep - it sad when the Tory party can even do Tory-stuff. Their are something where is it more efficient to do a group purchasing (i.e. The Government), then the waste of Tendering.

As a left-winger is sad. I always apply the Thatcher test - was it even crazy enough for her to do ?
Privatising the Post office - Nope
Privatising the Police - Nope
Privatising the NHS - Nope

Re:Sad

[DaveGod]

Discworld readers, yes it is Peel that Night Watch pays a heavy homage to.

Allready Happend

[mjwalshe]

From whats coming out of the Leveson Inquiry I think Murdoch thought he already brought the MET :-(

A Bit of Fry and Laurie: Prescient

[Tommy Bologna]

This must be a rerun ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6CkltzGAxY

Look at the positive side

[houghi]

Instead of catching small time thieves, they could go after the bankers.

One can dream

Re:Look at the positive side

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Instead of catching small time thieves, they could go after the bankers.

One can dream

Odds are that they'd be a direct subsidiary of the same shadowy holding company that the finance company you'd want investigated is. And I'm sure that their commitment to the enforcement of the law would trump concern for shareholder value.

Re:Look at the positive side

[Nidi62]

Instead of catching small time thieves, they could go after the bankers.

One can dream

Who do you think would own the private police forces?

makes it easier to F*up the chain of evidence or b

[Joe_Dragon]

makes it easier to F*up the chain of evidence or brake the law in investigating the courts may throughout evidence or the full case.

Now what if on of there rent a cops in the act of detaining and interviewing suspects keeps them from attorney under the thinking that we are not real cops and so you don't have the right to one.

Or

a very guilty rapist is set free as this private companies did not comply with the Rules of evidence. Lets say they dumped parts of forensics on a contractor and they used a subcontractor who did not have the right certifications.

This a is a very bad place to be playing the blame the contractors game.

It is a huge problem.

[khasim]

Because you will have TWICE the ability to obscure any abuses.

Was it the government oversight bureau that was responsible? (no)

Was it the private company that was responsible? (no)

Because the company will have been found to have been acting on guidelines from the government that were written with incorrect input from the company that was based upon a faulty understanding of the government's requirements. Systemic errors were found that will be addressed at the next board meeting with the government regulators.

Meanwhile, the company hires lobbyists to ensure that no matter who is voted in they will still be dependent upon the "campaign contributions" of the company.

Re:It is a huge problem.

[Capt. Skinny]

In the US, public agencies -- like police departments -- are often immune from liability in civil cases. If the UK is the same, privatization could open up the potential for abuses to actually be punished.

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:It is a huge problem.

[rtb61]

It's called pyramid contracting http://labor.net.au/news/1113193724_8739.html. What happens quite simply is company A puts in the lowest bid knowing full well they will never pay out one cent in liabilities, they do this by subcontracting to company B. Company B then arranges all the labour contracts through subsidiary company C. Company C now contracts out upon an individual basis to each and every company that represents each individual employee who must take full liability for all the actions of the individual employees company.

So no training trigger happy thugs are given free licence to go 'individually' bankrupt without affecting the profit of the head company in the slightest.

Now that can even be further manipulated into the corporations advantage. The worst, the most egregious and violent individuals will be reserved for revenge attacks upon the enemies of the corporation (whether direct or temporarily paid to be), they will be let loose upon those enemies to kill, main and brutalise. For which they will be convicted but there are plenty more where they came from and it won't cost the corporation one cent.

Guess who ends up paying, c'mon guess who foots the bill when those individual labour companies go bankrupt on the very first civil suit, your guessed it, the people who let the contracts. Privatisation of profits equals socialisation of losses.

Get hooligans off the streets of Britian . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. . . and into private police uniforms where they belong!

Bobby Helmets, the new look for Hoodies, Next Generation.

Dim: Well. Well, well. Well, well, well, well, if it isn't little Alex. Long time no viddy, droog. How goes?
Alex: It's... it's impossible. I don't believe it.
Georgie: Evidence of the old glazzies. Nothing up their sleeves. No magic, little Alex. A job for two, who are now of job age. The police.

off load the pensions

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like every other privatization plan -- the goal is to offload the pension and health care. It won't save any money now, but it limits liability in the future. Often plans like this cost more in the present. If there were sane pension plans offered in the private sector then they couldn't do this -- but the private sector doesn't reward employees for faithful service beyond giving them two kicks in the hind quarters when they get to old (expensive) and are sacked. When private sector workers feel like fodder for businesses it's natural for them to think public sector should be too. Long ago, public sector jobs used to pay less than private sector but the benefits were better --- then somewhere when the public sector had to pick up a significant IT presence they wanted to get talent and had to pay for it. Because IT folks typically work on a short time horizon and retirement benefits didn't matter (moreover, they were sure they could do better than the market, better than the housing market etc because they are arrogant and just smart enough to be stupid) -- so public sector had to compete on salary and now they have to cut the long term benefits to fund the shift. Workers want money now at the expense of benefits later -- privatization is an easier way to that compensation configuration than changing contracts etc.
 

And in the not too distant future...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dispatch: Hello, what is the emergency?
You: Someone is breaking into my house!
Dispatch: I see. Please hold while I lookup your account.
You: What? Hurry, I think he's inside!
Dispatch: Okay, it looks like you have our Basic State protection. We can dispatch an officer within 20 minutes. If you upgrade now to our RapidResponse plan for only 10.99 a month for the first year, we can dispatch an officer immediately.
You: Yeah, whatever, just send them now!
Dispatch: I'll be glad to ma'am. May I please have your credit card number?
You: No, it's in the room with the robber.
Dispatch: I understand. I'll go ahead and send out our standard officer. You should expect one within 25 to 30 minutes. You can call back at anytime to upgrade to our RapidResponse plan. Don't forget to ask about our low crime rate discount.
You: He's got a gun!
Dispatch: Have a good day, ma'am!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Short term gain and problem for the next guy

[jamstar7]

From what I've seen, that 'cash windfall' lasts about a year, 6 quarters at most. And even when they privatize, they don't get rid of any of the bureaucrats that were in that department. Government gets bigger, tax money bleeds like severed arteries, the corporation makes money hadn over fist, and the taxpayers take it in the ass. Business as usual.

Re:Short term gain and problem for the next guy

[dbIII]

It's worse than business as usual.
You end up with bureaucrats behaving how they think private enterprise is run based on what they've seen in movies.
Also you still have government interference at the level of board appointments, which leads to really weird shit like Australia's Telstra - third rate idiots with political connections that decide a Nuclear Scientist would be good as CEO (if one can be US President they can do anything can't they?) and a "rock star" reject from Pepsi. From the two large ones I've had some insight into the fools in the middle decide they want to have some sort of financial adventure in China totally unrelated to their business and burn millions for zero gain.