Resolved: The police should be privatized

Running short on time here, as per usual, so I’ll toss out my general objections and log more time and sourcing next round. Ayn Rand was the libertarian queen but objected to the privatization of gov’t especially with respect to the legal application of force. We’ve already seen what this looks like throughout human history, competing groups that use force shares problems that mafia families or drug warlords inflict on a society. .1. Private police would be more efficient at what exactly? We see a lot of abuse currently since police has an incentive to make money in many cases, good stuff, but not when you’re at the other end of the gun. We have laws that allow seizure of property acquired illegally such as a drug dealers property. Private prisons make their money imprisoning addicts for the most part rather than spending that money on treatment or any kind of rehabilitation. A profit motive with respect to the application of force is not a great idea.2. “Individuals and businesses would hire firms, much like security guards now, to protect their property. ”You’re basically describing a major problem with private police. Each company has motivation to ‘enforce the law’ in their favor. It’s in their favor to harass competing businesses or take a liberal license with regulations to force competition out. We already have lobbyists for that. Competing firms and people hiring ‘police’ is like like a mafia protection racket. Dividing and organizing police to support competing goals with guns and tasers is a major conflict of interest.3. “Violent crimes would take priority. ”Currently crimes that earn money for police take priority. Violent crimes are often only important for PR and privatization would only make this worse. “All men are created equal, here’s the church, there’s the steeple. ” I. e. rich lives with popular ideas take priority. The money is in the victimless crimes like drugs prostitution and gambling. To make money you can simply seize funds that are earned ‘illegally’, pull over drivers going 11 miles over the speed limit, plant drugs when you just know the guy is guilty (and likely has cash on hand. )4. “They would be focused exclusively on the safety and satisfaction of their customers. ”From my perspective it’s baffling that this would be a good thing. Police with customers in control just empowers wealthy people and businesses. I’d hate to see what a poor man’s police would look like given the current common abuses of the law in low income areas.5. There is no reason to think that a private police would reduce violence. Violence, frankly, gets shite done. If my police firm can’t rough up my personal enemies or box out my competition with threats I’ll hire another firm that can. If my firm can’t keep the violence out of the news I’d here a firm that would be more discreet. -Police, or the legal application of force, is an issue unlike any other. With the gov’t having a monopoly on force we’ve often been able to keep the application of the law impartial. Privatization would make police completely biased toward whoever’s paying the bills. Being a fan of a smaller government law enforcement is still the last thing I’d consider support for privatization. I’d start with private regulation firms but I’ll write up a separate debate for that.