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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."
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
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.
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?
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?
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.
In my neighborhood, we had the cops who just sat around with radar guns all day while home invasion robberies were fairly common. We fired the police force we were using from a neighboring city and replaced them with the county sheriff. They quit with all the traffic nonsense and immediately got to work stopping crime! I am also very happy with the results.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
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.