According to the Housing Authority, the guards have fulfilled their mission well, with certain crimes dropping by as much as 60 percent in some communities. The Authority has renewed the firm's contracts through 2000. But less than a year into the contract, the police have emerged as PPS's most vocal critics, accusing the firm of hiring convicted criminals, using excessive force against residents and supplying uniforms too similar to the cops' traditional blue. George Stasko told the San Francisco Chronicle in July. They are out there doing what they shouldn't be doing.
Residents are divided.
While some applaud the private security force's vigilance, others criticize it for excessive force and potential violations. of civil rights. PPS, originally touted as the solution to the projects' crime problem, is now the target of a federal civil rights probe, a criminal investigation, a licensing review by the state's security oversight bureau and several civil lawsuits seeking damages for beatings, threats and other alleged brutal tactics. While PPS has publicly denied most of the charges, the sheer depth of the firm's legal quagmire indicates that bringing private security into the public sector, in this case at least, may be causing more problems than it solves. While security guards still ornament the entrances to supermarkets and office buildings, they have also begun to patrol train stations, airports, government buildings, jails and prisons, even entire communities. While few security guards possess arrest powers, some now have the right to make trespass arrests, issue traffic citations or access confidential information.