In a growing trend that we've seen throughout California and other parts of the country in response to growing county and municipal budget shortfalls, the City Council of Foley, Minnesota voted unanimously last night to contract a private security firm to enforce city ordinances and deal with general city nuisances. The deal takes effect on January 1, 2012 and will save the city approximately $200,000 over the year.
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We believe this trend speaks volumes to the continual emergence of the private security industry, specifically with efforts over the last 10 years to raise the professionalism of the industry through higher screening and training standards. What do you think though. What are the concerns with supplementing services that have traditionally been conducted by local law enforcement agencies?
Let us know your thoughts!
There are two main roads going through a growing town of 2600 people. Let's try to make the best of what we admit to be a bad situation. I would WANT the guards to be able to make traffic / terry stops, particularly in occasions where there was a clear implication on safety or public order--denying them the ability to be proactive only gives the few troublemakers too long of a leash, and kind of defeats the whole idea of manned protection to begin with, adds to their frustration and affects the rest of their job performance. If I had to manage this account, I would look for a bunch of freshly retired MPs to staff it, and get them sworn in before a judge.
Posted by: Scott | October 28, 2011 at 02:51 AM