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 Blog: A Week Later, Oakland Ends Plan to Hire Private Security CompanyWritten by James Spencer |
| April 23, 2009 |
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Just a day after writing in this blog that the Oakland City Council made the decision to hire a private security firm, the city had ended those plans. The reason: The founder and two other executives of the security firm, International Services Inc, were charged with fraud. According to the Wall Street Journal follow-up, founder Ousama Karawia and two vice presidents were accused last week of defrauding the state to a tune of more than $9 million in workers compensation. The City Council still plans on hiring a private security group, according to the article. Ignacio De La Fuente, a city council member in support of the armed guards, told writer Bobby White of the Wall Street Journals that, “There is still a very serious need for security in some of our more crime-plagued areas.” Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums believes that law enforcement should be left up to trained police officers. Some of our readers agree with Dellums and weighed in on the comment board below. Tell us what you think. From Monday:With public safety on the line, you'd rather rely on a trained police officer more along the lines of Die Hard than Mall Cop. But with increasingly shrinking budgets, cities throughout California have to choose what they can afford. In Oakland, the City Council made the decision to hire a private security agency to patrol districts rather than hirer more expensive, trained police officers. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Oakland Police Department does not agree with the City Council’s decision. "People want to go with armed guards because they believe it's cheaper, but they lack adequate training [and] background checks," spokesman Jeff Thomason told the Wall Street Journal. "Oakland police are better prepared for this city's streets than a few security guards." Unfortunately, the idea of “not putting a price on public safety” is a cliché, not a reality. In cities throughout California, there is increasing pressure to deal with public safety issues. There’s also less and less money to deal with the issue.Many cities are finding ways to get creative. The police union in the city of Sacramento reached a deal last month to concede a five percent cost of living pay raise to protect the jobs of 67 police officers. Stockton made similar concessions to save jobs. In Santa Cruz, $219,000 of $2.3 million will go towards paying two police officers for one year. Other cities are simply making cuts. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said on Monday that cutbacks could even hit the long-protected Los Angeles police and fire departments. PublicCEO recently featured an in-depth piece on controlling crime in the face of budget cuts. General thinking would conclude that the less money a city gives to its police department, the less effective that crime-fighting department will be. But Dr. Christine Gardiner of the Department of Criminology, Law and Society at University of California, Irvine disagrees. “There are so many factors that affect both the economy and crime, that you can’t get a causal link,” Gardiner said. “It’s a lot more complex than that. “Crime rate is not a function of one particular thing, and the number of police per resident or population is not really related to the incidence of crime – there are neighborhood, area factors that go into it." Trackback(0)
Comments (4)
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written by Scott Morrison, April 23, 2009
I know many security officers, who are utmost proffesionals. There are many security agencies that provide highly trained security personnel to provide specialized protection for many private and or publicly owned property. However, security officers are not and never have been trained for protecting Public entities in such a way as proposed by the Oakland City Council. Patrolling and responding to calls for service in the public realm must be left up to sworn officers, as they have the only real authority to act upon crimes committed and or not committed in their presence, not to mention the training to handle such. Security officers have no arrest mandates and therefore are not compelled to act upon ANY violation of law. For example: Sworn Peace Officers must act upon Domestic Violence and must arrest suspects at respective scenes. What will the untrained security officer do? What CAN a security officer do? Well I will tell you: They are not compelled by law to do anything and are not required to make any arrests what so ever. An arrest made by a security officer is a "Citizens Arrest." For the most part a uniformed security officer has only the duty to "Observe and Report." (report to law enforcement that is...) So what good is it to spend funding on security officers that do not have the training nor the authority to protect the public in the public. Who will take on the liability for a false arrest? Will Oakland be indemnified for mistakes or even criminal acts committed by contracted officers? I don't think so! Even if so, you will get what you pay for and you will pay for it I'm sure!!
As a career cop, I see this as a huge blunder on the part of Oakland City Council and a slap to the citizens and OPD police officers. Do the right thing Oakland and recend this action.
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written by Susan Lundquist, April 22, 2009
Why are agencies reluctant to use their recently retired officers as part timers? Rather than hire strangers with questionable values and attributes, honorably retired officers could be hired at rates comparable to those paid to a security agency.
Retired Police Officers and Deputy Sheriffs in our area have historically been hired by one of the local Counties, as part time Investigators: usually for the District Attorney's Office or the Public Defender's Office. With all of the recent shortfalls and subsequent cutbacks the majority have been laid off. Many of these former officers would be a viable alternative to hiring guard services. These POST certified veterans already know the territory and the reporting requirements, have years of training and experience and could be brought up to speed quickly. Many are in better physical shape now than when they retired. If Administrators were reluctant to put retired officers back on the front line, they could be used to take cold paper, conduct follow-up investigations, or simply relieve younger officers for reassignment to field positions.
... written by Francoise Rue, April 22, 2009
I haven't had to deal with many private "security" guards but my one experience was enough to jade me for life. My previous employer thought it was prudent to hire 24-hour security guards after receiving a few threats to the organization. These people were a joke! One older woman came in the office reeking of pot. The smell was so bad it gave everyone in the office a headache. As if that wasn't bad enough, we came back the next morning to realize she had "hot boxed" our bathroom. Her replacement wasn't much better, we found him asleep in the conference room a few days later. If this is any indication of how serious these people take their jobs, 1 trained and dedicated Police Officer will be worth infinitely more to the people of Oakland than 4 (or more) "security" guards.
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What needs to happen here in the State of California is that there needs to be another level of licensing based on the ability and training so that those with the additional training receive a different licensing to those who have just basic and I do mean basic training.
One of our firm requirements for those who carry a weapon is that they must have law enforcement training and actual experience, not just the 16 hours of training as required by the State of California.