Police officials run their own security businesses. Former cops and soldiers, fired for committing crimes, join the burgeoning ranks of clandestine security outfits. Private security agents work with army officers behind death squads. As homicide rates increase, the privatization makes it increasingly difficult to distinguish whether the perpetrators are police, private guards or common criminals. Blurring the categories disguises how the killing keeps poor people in their place.
Governments walk a perilous line.
To shape the violence in the interests of the elite, governments maintain ties to private security. Yet, to disguise the class nature of the social control, they publicly distance themselves from private forces and mask the violence. In the process, internal security begins to spin out of control, not unlike what Paul Verhoeven depicted in his 1987 film Robocop . Governments cede sovereignty to corporations. Since then, by most accounts, the rate has kept rising.