Slashdot Mirror
Sick of Your Local Police Force? Crowdfund Your Own
Nerval's Lobster writes "A subset of Oakland, California residents have decided to crowd-fund a set of private security patrols, via a trio of campaigns on a crowdfunding Website named Crowdtilt. The three patrols, if adequately funded, will cover Lower Rockridge North/West, Lower Rockridge South/West, and Lower Rockridge 'including part of the Uplands.' Each campaign has a different (Facebook verified, apparently) sponsor, and wants between $20,000 and $25,000 to make the dream of private patrols a reality. Unlike Kickstarter, the Crowdtilt campaigns don't feature fabulous prizes for contributing; gifting $100, for example, won't entitle you to 'One (1) free "accidental" shooting of your choice.' That aside, dozens of residents have contributed cash to the loosely allied projects. 'What occurred last week at the Casual Carpool has ignited our neighborhood to act,' reads one of the campaign descriptions, referring to the broad-daylight stickup of commuters waiting in a carpool line on Oakland's Hudson Street. 'While the city and the police are doing what they can, we feel it's time for us as a community to begin exploring a wide range of ideas and taking some action on our own.' All three crowdfunding pages want to hire VMA Security Group for a four-month trial period through February 2014, possibly followed by a continuing contract if everything works out. That security company already patrols the Rockridge commercial district during the holiday season, and protects a number of Oakland businesses and households. While the VMA Security Group's officers are certified to carry firearms, one of the crowdfunding pages plans to ask any of them assigned to the neighborhood to remain unarmed 'unless they feel they cannot accomplish their duties otherwise.' Upscale neighborhoods pay for private security all the time, of course. The question is whether crowdfunding — better known for financing things such as games and indie movies, at this point — could catch on as a way of funding residential projects."
Where do you find unamed people? I doubt very small babies would make good security folks.
HOAs spunk loads of money on them, and they're effectively useless with no powers and don't get involved with anything remotely law related. All they do is call the real police, the ones that we are already paying for with our property taxes.
Nuf said !!
If people cannot do this on their own and government is supposed to be the answer, then why does this condition exist?
If they were to convince me to donate, I'd have to know that I was indemnified against any blowback from their actions. It sound's ripe for enforcement scandal. All in all I think I'd rather contribute more to the local police and work to get them up to scratch if they are lacking in some way.
Nullius in verba
Sounds like a beautiful idea, but these poor people are being placed in a position where they are forced to pay for ineffective police (at gunpoint no less) while volunteering to pay for their own police who will be held accountable for their action AND inaction.
I wonder of the private cops work for Bitcon?
Time Bomber the Book coming soon.
If only there were some mechanism where a large portion of the population could give some money to people to provide law enforcement services to a community before the Internet was invented.
You are funding the security industrial complex, Their will go out and shoot kids for fun
this is how police forces were initially created in this country anyway.
While the VMA Security Group's officers are certified to carry firearms, one of the crowdfunding pages plans to ask any of them assigned to the neighborhood to remain unnamed 'unless they feel they cannot accomplish their duties otherwise.'
You can not violate my constitutional right to be named.
It's called "Taxes".
Rockridge? I saw this movie, it involves an incompetent, corrupt governor, and a black sheriff. I also suspect it will end with a giant pie fight in the Warner Brothers studio commissary.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
This would never fly in America... oh wait.
This is the explicit purpose of taxes. When the majority of people say that society would benefit from everyone chipping in to a cause. What is this world coming to when people resort to a website called "Crowdtilt" as a replacement for government?
Sounds like a protection racket to me.
Are They calling it Oakland Community Police?
Does RoboCop work for them?
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
While the VMA Security Group’s officers are certified to carry firearms, one of the crowdfunding pages plans to ask any of them assigned to the neighborhood to remain unnamed “unless they feel they cannot accomplish their duties otherwise.”
Give the crooks more people to shoot at.
When being a grammar pedant, it's important to be correct. You are not. (keep scrolling, it's the second definition, a transitive verb).
Wut?
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
A well formed militia?
Think about it, vote down as many levies as you like for the city as a whole, doesn't matter one bit so long as you and your neighbors have armed thugs patrolling your neighborhood.
What's the point of this? The local culture isn't going to be changed, and your going to have the same culture clash with the new police department as the old. Cops enforce the law? Residents get pissed about getting arrested. Cops don't enforce the law? Residents get pissed about crime.
This says nothing of the fact that the "new" police would have to work with the "old" police on a daily basis. This is a neighborhood where snitches are murdered and the murder is celebrated. How on earth is a new police department going to fix this?
It would be a militia if they did it themselves, this is simply hiring mercenaries to do their work for them.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
More great legal advice from slashdot? Are we going to have a bunch of investment advice soon?
Sent from my TARDIS
I'd be willing to bet that many, if not most, of those funding this have backed reduced taxes and the subsequent reduction of the police force.
Leave Oakland.
I don't care how attached I may feel to a location, the safety of my family is my number one priority.
What you are seeing here is the birth of a government. First it's law enforcement, paid for by voluntary contributions. Then maybe some additional services - upgraded fire or rescue. Then it gets big enough that someone has to start working full time to manage it. If everyone decides (as often happens) that the people organizing this shouldn't be profiting, they all agree to take turns. Of course, this becomes cumbersome and they really find they need more continuity so the community chooses 3-4 people who will manage it, and they change those people every couple of years to each person doesn't get burned out. Then after a couple years the revenue starts flagging, and they realize that they're going to have to reimburse the organizers, and have to find a way to make sure everyone is contributing. So they form a local organization which includes everyone getting services and they agree on a way to split the costs equitably so everyone gets a bill. Most places choose the split by land area or value. Soon enough they realize that with everybody paying, they can get better garbage service, and maybe even reform the schools if everyone kicks in a little more.
And then one street decides that they aren't really getting enough service, so they take up a collection for a private security firm to supplement the (now official) police...
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
This Slashdot story reminded me of an awful Christian Slater movie, "Kuffs" which used the San Francisco Patrol Special Police as its plot device. As it turns out, that organization is real (couldn't Google it in 1992 when the movie came out).
This sounds a lot like what they want in Oakland.
so we can be our own police and defend ourselves and our families.
we need to promote more decentralization.
if you are unwilling or unable to defend yourself with a weapon, then it makes sense for you and those like you to pitch in for hired private security.
If I threw a rock hard enough, I would have hit the Uplands. That neighborhood is CRAZY. Trick or treating there as a kid was a good way to work off the calories from all the candy, as you had to go up so many steps the sugar was a wash. Many of the homes there have coats of arms over the doors. They are wealthy, wealthy, wealthy. I've seen houses in my old neighborhood which is a ghetto in comparison selling for well over $1M, so these places are easily in the tens of millions.
Of course they're getting private security. The Oakland police are so busy that if you're reporting a crime that is not CURRENTLY IN PROGRESS, they'll mail you a report form. You never even see an officer if your car or house is broken into.
Meanwhile, half a mile away, on Telegraph Ave, Berkeley has about the highest concentration of mentally ill homeless people in the nation, perhaps outside of Manhattan. But heaven forbid someone gets their big screen TV stolen.
The CB App. What's your 20?
You know, it would make a good movie for the security company to have staged the original stickup in order to convince everyone just how much they need a security company . . .
Was anyone expecting this? I mean it's not like it's Florida...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
This is how policing and fire fighting started to begin with. Neighbors would band together and volunteer to patrol the streets to prevent crime. Some rural areas still use an emergency siren to summon the area's volunteer fire fighting force; first one to the station drives the truck.
At some point we decided we wanted a dedicated force so we banded together and started paying the police and fire fighters as professionals. But they were still our neighbors and friends and part of the community.
When our communities became too large for everyone to know one another and our local management organization, the government, became too large to care we ended up in the situation we have today of us and them. There are people who really believe the government "gives" us protection in the form of police officers and fire fighters. Those who believe this forget that we banded together to create those institutions to serve us and save us the trouble of having to volunteer ourselves.
Once the government became a foundational institution we just assumed that "they" had the responsibility to protect "us", we accepted that unions were formed to negotiate with "us" and we assume that we're prohibited from protecting ourselves.
The professionalization of the police and fire fighting organizations are what allowed huge parts of the population to justify their abdication of personal responsibility.
I can't argue against that professionalization because of the efficiencies it should deliver. I can, however, argue that community policing is sorely needed in many parts of this country. Any profession, unionized or not, is going to fight against competition.
We need to remind "them" that we didn't give them a monopoly on protecting us and we certainly didn't abdicate our own right of self protection and preservation.
I can't help but think of the Zimmerman case. Not that I want to start into that horrendous argument, but isn't this how Zimmerman saw himself? Regardless of whether you think Martin was in the wrong or Zimmerman, there are a hell of a lot more questions than there would have been with the average cop.
Merriam-Webster is not an English dictionary. It's a random mish-mash of colonial argot.
Electronic toilet paper.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
One solution would to stamp out every man, woman and child a Sten gun. Unit Cost was ~$10 in 1942. So little under $150 today assuming the inflation calculator I found was correct and we experienced no change in production capabilities.
Name names, addresses, shoot videos, publish, present,
put to shame. Fight back, for god's sake.
In short, make it personal. Angst sometimes is a great
emotion to change things for the better in a (local) society.
Donate to your local police force instead.
This is what the nazi's started doing with the SS Early On. This is actually awesome, because then there's a chance the private security force of the people will outnumber the army at some point - as it did in germany early on in hitler's days - and I couldn't be happier. A modern hitler, albeit a good force instead of evil, would be the best this for this country to get behind. A george washington, thomas jefferson, john madison fanatic.
If only we could buy our own patent officers.
And lobbyists.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
If government police were benefiting so much from an increase in crime, why the hell would we even be discussing supplanting them? Oh, and how naive, on a mass scale you really think private police wouldn't eventually be afforded similar protections - more to the fucking point, you really think it hasn't already happened across much of the country? Ever hear of Blackwater and Katrina? And when was the last time you switched cell companies for a small city let alone an entire police force? Why has violent crime been in a statistical free fall for the last thirty years? Seriously, fuck you and your sincerely misguided FAR right privatize everything "free market" anarchy-inspired bullshit. I bet you are just loving the shutdown, aren't ya? Getting off to it every night on freerepublic while mothers are unable to feed their children, court cases and drug trails get delayed, etc. Drinking that damn tea mixed with the blood of the innocent while stroking your cock to Hanity. But fuck these government dependent types, right? They're poor, which must mean they're lazy, which of course means they - and their children too - deserve what they get.
Upscale neighborhoods pay for private security all the time, of course.
That's usually a sign of their disdain for the public at large or that one is in a Third World country.
The question is whether crowdfunding—better known for financing things such as games and indie movies, at this point—could catch on as a way of funding residential projects."
Privatizing law enforcement has the same issue with privatizing prisons - worse quality with more incentive to prosecute.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
n/t
The question is whether crowdfundingâ"better known for financing things such as games and indie movies, at this pointâ"could catch on as a way of funding residential projects.
Beyond a certain size, which is variable, you need taxes instead of voluntary donations. Because some people are just leeches on the system.
Yes, I'm looking at you so-called libertarians, randroids, and anarchists that want all the bennies of living in a civilized society but think that paying for it is bad.
--
BMO
Muphrey's lay motherfucker.
And "taxes" are always sold as "good roads, police, fire, and schools". Only about 10% of your taxes go for roads, police, fire.. and another %15 for schools.
The rest goes for stuff like "healthcare, welfare, pensions, and interest on debt." Nobody ever sells you a "tax increase for more welfare", and when folks see that 75% of the spending goes for stuff they (didn't think) they bargained for, it makes it a tough sell when politicians clamor for more taxes.
That is why many taxes now are not "for something",but rather to "tax someone else". That is an easier to sell proposition in the current environment. (Assuming said taxes even need the explicit consent of the voter.)
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
When I was a graduate student at University of Chicago, the University's private police force was the third largest police force in Illinois, after the cities of Chicago and Springfield. That may still be the case. The University police patrolled the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago in which the University is situated. Hyde Park is surrounded on three sides by high-crime neighborhoods, and on the east by a park along the shore of Lake Michigan, but it was safe to walk the streets of Hyde Park at all hours of the day or night. University police patrol cars could constantly be seen cruising slowly up and down every street. In those days before cell phones were popular, you could walk up any street almost without ever taking your hand off an emergency call box. When I first visited Hyde Park for my interview, I remember being told the exact boundaries of where it was safe to walk. That included things like "make sure to walk only along the south side of 47th Street, never along the north side of the street."
I don't have the ability to "speak with my wallet" when I am dissatisfied that the money being taken from me is being misused. These departments have plenty of money they just have VERY different priorities for various reasons. For large metro areas they waste tons of money on vice and swat and other special units. Actually in these forces the patrolling people actually want is considered grunt work no one wants to do.
The professionalization of the police and fire fighting organizations are what allowed huge parts of the population to justify their abdication of personal responsibility.
There are some youtube clips out there of a small-town rural commercial fire department, one of two or three in the area. They're apparently infamous, and people in the area have been trying to get the state fire marshal to shut them down because they're so incompetent.
They don't have SCBA units. Their fire trucks break down enroute and on-scene. They fight fires with what appear to be slightly better than garden hoses. They appear to be a mom/pop/teenage-sons operation. There's one clip in particular of them trying to knock down a small fire. They finally call one of the other companies - well after the house has become fully engulfed and is a complete loss and might as well be left to burn - and the other company knocks it down in a few minutes.
Nothing stops you (legally) from helping your neighbor if their house catches on fire, and yes, the US firefighting community is extremely stubborn. That doesn't mean that overall a government-run fire department is a bad thing. The alternative is pretty terrifying.
Also, volunteer departments? They do great things with very little...and I romanticized living in a small town and helping out. Then I read the statistics for injuries and deaths in volunteer vs. professional departments, and said "pass."
Please help metamoderate.
Over 90% of the violent crime in those areas of Oakland involve African Americans. It is inevitable that this policing effort will be called racist.
Video Music Awards security, proudly protecting you from rappers and musicians since 1984.
one day the crowdfunded police force will fight the "lawful" local police force and the crowdfunded police force and their donors will be labelled "errorists"
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
This is the explicit purpose of taxes. When the majority of people say that society would benefit from everyone chipping in to a cause. What is this world coming to when people resort to a website called "Crowdtilt" as a replacement for government?
This was entirely predictable when we allowed people to give money to a charity in lieu paying their taxes. IMHO, donations to charities shouldn't be tax-deductable.
Instead, we have rich people donating to NPOs for bullshit causes like Saving The Show Horsies (where their kids just coincidentally get instruction and riding time), there's a booster organization for their private school, etc. Hell, in my town, there was a swim and tennis club that was an NPO. It's absurd.
Then we have people in towns where the local (insert religious flavor here) school looks like a palace because people are donating up to the limits and the church isn't paying a dime in taxes...and the town library, public school, etc. are crumbling.
Please help metamoderate.
This is just another case of the haves who are able to "contribute" or donate to a security zone vs the public funding of police. I'm sure all of the people who contribute are vehemently against increased "taxes", yet those taxes are the very thing that support public services like police. They are in essence paying a selective tax (supporting private security). Those areas too poor to hire their own private security will continue to decline. This is no different than the rich sending their children to private schools, hiring security and personal physicians then refusing to pay any form of taxes. As we continue down this path, the middle class will dissolve and we'll be left with children begging in the streets and the era of Dickens or a world like Mr Potter in "A wonderful life" will the reality for everyone.
It's called taxation
Protecting yourself.
Rich people hiring poorer people to keep even poorer people out of their sight. No way that can go wrong.
I bet they'll still have to pay taxes to support the Dane, er, I mean the official Police Department.
What do you think police officers are? Where do you think police receive their authority? Some strange woman in a lake passing out badges?
ALL authority derives from the inherent natural right to live and defend one's self. Essentially, the issue comes about that humans are both passionate and fallable. So we have a tendency to make mistakes. And if you make such a mistake while meting out justic, it rather sucks.
So we ceded, for the benefit of our communal living states, that right to a collective authority. At first it was essentially sheriffs/constables/justices of the peace/elders/etc. These would judiciously decide a matter, and make a determination of guilt and a fair reparation.
As society grew, this authority needed to be further delegated and expanded. Hence more constables, and then eventually our modernized police force hired by a community at large to render service. In which regards, the actions of Oakland residents are in fact, no different than in the past.
Oakland residents could even choose to allow enforcement authority to be granted. They could go so far and even decide they want to succeed from Oakland and become their own independent community. I am sure Oakland would object. Perhaps send their unionized police force to enact thuggery on the independent community of OakSapling. In which case the community could acquiescence, or raise up arms in its unified defense.
But the truth is, vigilantism in and of itself is the purest form and right of law enforcement. Every other form, derives its authority from a collection of the individual's rights to vigilante justice or more simply put, individual justice..
Because the TSA gave them all grants and spent $40 billion equipping police departments with APCs and machine guns so that they could be utilized during martial law.
Where do you live? and are you sure?
I'd really be surprised if any small city didn't have one at this point.
Soon people will realize "Oh wait a second! Our government is just a middle man for our tax distribution to all our national services!"... and then off it goes.
can tell these security guards what to do, so keep that in mind.
Because in some places, citizens have begun to do just that. Lay down their own pavement to fill potholes.
Did this make anyone else think of the Burbclaves in Snow Crash? For this to work properly, these guys would have actual police powers (or be open to massive liability suits that police officers are shielded from as a matter of course). The only way to do this is to set up autonomous city-states a la Burbclave franchises. This should turn out well...
I see no possible way this can go wrong.
When you were going to respond, but someone already said and did it better...good reply above.
With police you pay and still get nothing. At least with pay police, if you pay, and get nothing, you can stop paying.
Starting cop makes $70k on OPD. That's *starting*. A master sergeant with 6 years in the Army makes $35k getting his butt shot off in Afghanistan.
I'm leaving out combat pay for the vet; but I'm also leaving out benefits for the cop. No getting around it--these guys are overpaid. Oakland is not unique here. It's really, Really, REALLY bad with all the PEUs in California.
The way to fix Oakland is obvious: Flood the area between 580 and 880 with cops. Clean out gangland with vets fresh from the field who are actually walking beats in the 'hood. You could pay them 20% more than what they make in the military, and still afford one helluva police force.
It'll never happen because the union-Democrat machine is a defacto one-party government in many cities, and much of California. Corruption, through and through.
When anybody tries to pull back a bit, they get hammered. San Jose tries to balance its budget, and the rats in blue are fleeing the ship.
You can't half-ass this issue. You have to break the union, and break it hard. The Spirit of Wisconsin needs to come to California. It can't come too soon for me..
In the Philippines, guards are hired everywhere, and I mean everywhere. They cost no more than $3/day and they will guard your shop or whatever you tell them to guard with a gun, possibly a shotgun or automatic rifle. People normally don't mess with these folks, particularly when they are in malls, at every store and so on... Of course, you can't do the same in the US because paying a guard $3/day is unrealistic with high minimum wage laws (they still survive just fine over there btw). At first, you might find yourself a little out of place and a little weirded out that guards walk around with shotguns but it gets the message across. Don't try to harm anyone within this store.
However, because they get paid like $3/day they are easily bribed just like the cops and that's where the problems begin. I heard stories where rape cases are easily bribed with a few hundred US dollars. Bribing over there is very common, even I have done it to get papers processed faster. The general rule of thumb is 3x their daily salary and they will be fine doing whatever you ask them to do whether it's a guard or an office clerk.
So there are two things to take note here. Guards with big guns work well at deterring crime. Guards with big guns that don't get paid well are easily bribed.
with the Black Panther Party?
It's folly to believe that a relatively small group of people, be it Federal, State or locally funded/permitted can really do anything to curb crime against individuals. Sure, the fact that they are even used is somewhat of a deterent, but they don't really protect anyone. It's like the locked door/window scenario, it only discourages good people from doing bad things. Bad people don't have those qualms. Every citizen should be charged with the responsibility of protecting themselves, their family, their property and those same of those around them. The police can do what they have always done and investigate AFTER the fact.... paperwork.
THE WHITE, GODFEARING CITIZENS OF ROCK RIDGE wish to express our extreme displeasure with your choice of sheriff. Please remove him immediately! The fact that you have sent him here just goes to prove that you are the leading asshole in the state!
Cyberpunk happened.
Every citizen should be charged with the responsibility of protecting themselves, their family, their property and those same of those around them.
And if they are not capable of doing this? I would say that most people do as much as they can along these lines. But there will always be some who are basically helpless and cannot protect themselves.
... It worked in Blazing Saddles.
I read about where this ends up going in Snow Crash. The land was carved up into privately owned and gated enclaves that had their own security. Looks like that may be where we are headed? It also reminds me of some of the stuff predicted in "The Sovereign Individual".
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
I am glad to see such voluntary systems re-emerge. The theory that some services like protection of rights has to be provided by a government monopoly is wrong.
Not only can such service be provided and funded voluntarily (as this crowdfunding example), but I'd expect the results to be better. Private guards don't have incentives to escalate and threaten like cops, since this kind of treatment is liable to be expensive in the long-run and that means they'd lose to competition which provides a better service at a lower cost. They also have more incentives towards prevention and generally what their customers care about.
If I recall correctly another historical example of such system (private protection system for neighborhoods) is the San Francisco Patrol Special Police. Merchants have incentives to keep the streets safe and civil (no police harassment) to attract customers.
For those interested in the question of how such a system of private and voluntary services could scale to many agencies and without a government monopoly sitting on top, see Bob Murphy's essay "Chaos Theory" which offers an insightful analysis. For example, would protection firms start fighting each others? (Hint: unlikely)
These comments are mine; I do not speak for my employer.
Is it possible that, by allocating private funds from citizens with personal wealth and property they want to protect against theft by less well-off members of the community, new jobs will be created, eventually reducing unemployment among lower-income families, thereby alleviating one of the precursors to street crime?
If the crime rate falls, insurance premiums should follow.
OK. I'll stop now.
There has been similar experiments in some tough neighborhoods in France. Some security providers such as GPIS are hired to patrol and prevent violence. They don't carry guns, but I'm not sure about nightsticks.
I'm curious to see how well it's been working.
Here's a translated article on the topic.
Also, there is an interesting TED talk by Gary Slutkin which talks about experiments in solving violence problems with peaceful interventions (interrupters, mediators). If it works, this could be a valuable effort to crowdsource for some neighborhoods.