U.S. Cities Increasing Use Of Armed Mercenaries To Replace Police

"Some estimate that private security inside the US actually outnumber police 5-to-1."

* * *
"The United States is in the midst of the most radical privatization agenda in its history. We see this in schools, health care, prisons, and certainly with the US military/national security/intelligence apparatus.

There are almost 200,000 'private contractors' in Iraq (more than U.S. soldiers) and President Barack Obama is continuing to use mercenaries there and in Afghanistan and Israel/Palestine. At present, 70 percent of the U.S. intelligence budget is going to private companies.

This privatization trend is hardly new, but it is accelerating. While events such as the Nisour Square massacre committed in September 2007 by Blackwater operatives in Baghdad show the lethal danger of unleashing mercenary forces on foreign soil, one area with the potential for extreme abuses resulting from this privatization is in domestic law enforcement in the U.S.

Many people may not be aware of this, but since the 1980s, private security guards have outnumbered police officers.

'The more than 1 million contract security officers, and an equal number of guards estimated to work directly for U.S. corporations, dwarf the nearly 700,000 sworn law enforcement officers in the United States,' according to the Washington Post. Some estimate that private security operate inside the U.S. at a 5-to-1 ratio with police."

The article went on to discuss the situation in Oakland, CA -
"Most recently, the January execution-style killing of Oscar Grant, a 22-year old unarmed African-American man, on a Bay Area Rapid Transit train platform by a BART police officer, has sparked outrage. A decision is still pending on whether the officer in that case will be tried for murder. With activist groups already decrying the state of police/law enforcement oversight in the city, some powerful officials in Oakland want to use private armed operatives with fewer mechanisms for accountability than the police.

Why do some Oakland officials want this? On the one hand, the belief that it will bring security, but also to save money:

Hiring private guards is less expensive than hiring new officers. Oakland -- facing a record $80 million budget shortfall -- spends about 65 percent of its budget for police and fire services, including about $250,000 annually, including benefits and salary, on each police officer.

In contrast, for about $200,000 a year, the city can contract to hire four private guards to patrol the troubled East Oakland district where four on-duty police officers were killed in March. And the company, not the city, is responsible for insurance for the guards."

Towards the end the author wrote urgently, "More pressing is, who will be responsible if these guards kill an unarmed kid? What happens if they unlawfully detain people? The most urgent question now is what can the public can do to pre-emptively protect itself from unaccountable private forces?"

ORIGINAL SOURCE: Alternet.org