Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mmintl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!mcnc!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Rent-a-Cop
Message-ID: <883@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Dec-85 17:08:52 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.883
Posted: Thu Dec 12 17:08:52 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 16-Dec-85 19:21:22 EST
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 45

[Not food]

It has been suggested by various libertarians, on the net and elsewhere, that
it would be desirable to eliminate governmental police forces, in favor of
private law enforcement.  I will here set forth what I think the most likely
result of such a development would be.

Consider what this new industry would be like.  It would be a new business,
in which the use of guns and other instruments of power is at a premium.  It
would also be a business whose domination is a source of considerable power
in itself.  In short, it would be an ideal target for organized crime.

I am quite sure that organized crime would take over the private police
business in many areas.  I suspect it would come to dominate it overall,
although some areas might manage to remain free of it.

Nor would it be easy to undo the damage.  Even after public police forces are
re-established (which would not be easy when the Mob controls the existing
forces), they will have to recruit most of their members from the disbanded
private forces.  This will give organized crime a much bigger foothold in
those departments than it has now; and that kind of foothold is notoriously
hard to dislodge.

Why should organized crime be more effective at taking over private police
than public police?  Because they have more ways to accomplish it.  The only
method available for taking over a public police force is infiltration.
With private police, one can also set up competing organizations.  Also,
when police forces are run for profit motives, the temptation to resort
to extortion is strong; even those which are not taken over by the Mob are
likely to become centers of organized crime.

Some may object that the manpower for the new industry would come primarily
from existing police forces, which would tend to counter this sort of result.
(This is the inverse of one of my arguments above.)  The key word here is
"tend"; this would slow down these developments, but not prevent them.  That
delay might make the eventual result all the worse; by the time it became
obvious that the experiment had failed, private law enforcement would be
well established, and the traditions of service in our police forces would
be long forgotten.

It is not out of the question that the final result of such an experiment
would be the takeover of government by organized crime.

Frank Adams                           ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108