Private Security Outnumber Police 2 to 1 WHY?
PART ONE
MOBILE Ala.
By Rick McCann
BlueRAMMedia.com
March 22, 2025
Private security has its roots in biblical times and its use and growth have been well documented throughout the ages of time. It’s not a business that suddenly popped up a few years ago but rather one that started centuries ago.
Its ancient roots saw a significant rise in the 18th and 19th centuries, with the Industrial Revolution and the establishment of private security agencies like Pinkerton’s in 1850 marking a turning point.
Through the years, the use of private security has historically grown with the growth of our nation, the rise in crime, and during significant attacks against our country such as during the attacks of September 11th, 2001, when al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes, resulting in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people in coordinated attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.
Those attacks showed Americans that safety and security were not to be taken for granted nor could we depend solely on law enforcement to protect us.
Many businesses including shopping malls, schools, government facilities, courthouses, and businesses large and small set out to hardened security through the use of electronic and physical means, and many times that included hiring private security officers, some were armed while others were not.
Today, in metropolitan and rural communities alike, the use of private security can be seen almost everywhere. The bigger the city, the higher the use of private companies to secure its citizens and its assets. Private security has even been hired to fill in for prison guards and law enforcement because of manpower shortages in those professions and we’ll explore that more in Part 2.
Security companies and their officers have much more authority than most people realize, especially on private property.
While many still look at them as “guards” “wannabe cops” or someone who is just there to observe and report, the fact is, those aren’t the facts at all.
Private security personnel are agents of their client, much like a real estate agent, banker, insurance or property management company, or others who act on your behalf.
Property owners selling a house, company, or a piece of land, enter into an agreement aka contract with their “agent” which outlines the area of authority that the company has on behalf of their client.
For instance, the asking price for a house might be set at $500,000 but the seller has authorized their realtor to negotiate the selling price no lower than $475.000. The seller may have authorized the real estate agent up to $5000 for “staging the house” to make it look more appealing to buyers or allowed the realtor to make certain concessions to get the deal done.
There are many different types of agents who are given certain authority to act on behalf of their client and private security also falls within that category.
Contracted or what’s known as proprietary security employees are authorized to act in the best interest of their client or employer giving them the power to do what they think is right and what’s best in certain situations.
As of 2023, the United States had approximately 720,652 full-time law enforcement officers, a slight increase from the previous year but a substantial decrease since the “defund the police movement” that began during the George Floyd protests.
During this time, officers took early retirement or just quit the force because of the lack of support, the threats that were increasingly being made against law enforcement, the freeze or reduction of police budgets, and the total disregard for the police made it hard for officers to do their job effectively or safely.
And while the pendulum has begun to swing back to a bit more support for police and a few more dollars in some agency budgets, recruitment for many police departments has continued to suffer and that includes agencies in almost every state.
Meanwhile, during the same time, the use of private security has continued to grow at a much faster rate than in recent years. More companies and more local, state, and federal governments now hire security instead of law enforcement to patrol parks, city streets, jails, or other private and public spaces and property, because of the lack of sworn law enforcement.
Nationwide, private security outnumbers sworn law enforcement by 2 to 1 and those numbers will continue to grow at a rapid pace in the foreseeable future.
PART TWO:
Authority and limits, training and wages, technology, and the future of private security will be addressed.
