Not defending the practice, but at least in North America, it’s relatively common for cops to get hired to work security by private companies. It’s usually called Paid Duty and those are the cops you see who seem to be working security guard like details at retail shops and sports games etc. They are still technically working for the police department in that situation though I believe.
Yup, that’s why I wanted to make it very clear that I was not defending the practice. Seems inherently ripe for abuse. It often seems like it allows rich people to pretend like crime isn’t an issue in their isolated bubbles rather than be forced to address it on a societal scale.
Though at the same time, if people are going to throw a massive event, you often do need to have extra police at least on standby, and I can see the logic of saying “well then that event organizer should be the one paying for it, rather than the general taxpayer”… that’s still pretty radically different from a random Gucci store hiring a cop to patrol their bags with a gun though, and I don’t even know if those two types of things would even fall under the same programs.
@masterspace yeah I can see that. It’s basically taking people who were trained at public expense (and who are supposed to uphold public interests) and then having them selectively police in the private sector (and private interests) in exchange for that sector subsidising their salaries.
Has it been associated with police homicides at all, do you know?
Not defending the practice, but at least in North America, it’s relatively common for cops to get hired to work security by private companies. It’s usually called Paid Duty and those are the cops you see who seem to be working security guard like details at retail shops and sports games etc. They are still technically working for the police department in that situation though I believe.
@masterspace yikes that sounds like all kinds of conflict of interest.
It also sounds like an extreme form of policing for the rich only.
Yup, that’s why I wanted to make it very clear that I was not defending the practice. Seems inherently ripe for abuse. It often seems like it allows rich people to pretend like crime isn’t an issue in their isolated bubbles rather than be forced to address it on a societal scale.
Though at the same time, if people are going to throw a massive event, you often do need to have extra police at least on standby, and I can see the logic of saying “well then that event organizer should be the one paying for it, rather than the general taxpayer”… that’s still pretty radically different from a random Gucci store hiring a cop to patrol their bags with a gun though, and I don’t even know if those two types of things would even fall under the same programs.
@masterspace yeah I can see that. It’s basically taking people who were trained at public expense (and who are supposed to uphold public interests) and then having them selectively police in the private sector (and private interests) in exchange for that sector subsidising their salaries.
Has it been associated with police homicides at all, do you know?