Private-sector policing: How private detectives step in where police fear to tread

Private-sector policing

A burglar with 105 previous convictions has been sentenced to prison after being detained and prosecuted not by the police but by a private investigation company, TM Eye. The store manager in the targeted business, Marks and Spencer in London, UK, had called law enforcement after identifying the burglar using CCTV footage; when London's Metropolitan Police declined to investigate, the manager turned to the private sector, leading to a successful conviction.

No prolific police officers for prolific criminals

As the police withdraw from policing — that is, the government withdraws from its most basic role and responsibility, that of protecting the citizenry — a space has opened up for private policing forces, such as TM Eye, which claims to have made over 2,000 arrests of shoplifters, assisted in 800 prosecutions, and recovered almost $600,000 in stolen funds.

It is noteworthy that TM Eye's department dedicated to retail crime is called the “Prolific Crimes Team.” The criminals they pursue are not random shoplifters, kids who ran out of cash for a Hershey bar and popped it into their pocket before sneaking away. They are repeat offenders, the scourge of stores across the world, who are responsible for massive losses for retailers.

TM Eye “liaises” with police, which is obligatory when it comes to detaining criminals. But they also gather evidence, obtain witness statements, compile video footage, recover stolen goods, and detain criminals. Police, by their own admission, are understaffed for dealing with crimes against people and property and simply can't keep up with the numbers of shoplifters. Instead, they are focused on far more serious incidents, such as following up “hate crime" allegations or arresting people who broke lockdown regulations during the “pandemic” or committed “possession crimes.”

Corrupted judgment?

The police are not alone in cracking down on crimes without direct victims while de-emphasizing crimes with such victims. Sometimes district attorneys refuse to prosecute or pursue only minimal charges for dangerous criminals. Judges, too, can step in and ensure that even repeat criminals get off with a relatively lenient penalty which can be as little as community service with no time served behind bars at all.

But the media, too, must accept its share of responsibility for downplaying or even excusing crime, as this headline from the UK's Daily Mail illustrates:

Undoubtedly, the cost of living has risen in recent years. Nonetheless, people aren't actually collapsing of starvation. Although their suffering is real, people in earlier generations certainly experienced more challenging times, including those who lived through the Great Depression, without seeing (and certainly not condoning) anywhere near the level of theft seen today. Interestingly, even ChatGPT doesn't excuse shoplifting even when a person genuinely needs the food to survive. 

Presumably, ChatGPT's programmers recognize some basic adherence to moral law is necessary if society is not to entirely fragment.

Are private militias to be the future of policing?

Despite ChatGPT's outlook, society may indeed be fragmenting as few are those who are willing to step into the breach and do something about rampant crime (unless they are paid to do so).

It's the stuff of movies, unless you live somewhere like South Africa:

Only for Big Business?

Marks and Spencer is a large, established chain of stores with the ability to absorb the costs of employing private detectives to detain (and ultimately deter) criminals. Small stores have no such ability and they are being driven from the marketplace due not only to crime, but also hyper-regulation, competition from online stores, and onerous DEI mandates.

The costs are not merely economic. If things continue this way, with the public losing faith in the will and ability of police to maintain public order, one can envision a future of private guard forces (militias) increasingly taking the law into their own hands, aided and abetted by the police themselves as they effectively delegate their responsibilities (for which they are paid) to the private sector. After all, TM Eye was founded by a former chief detective of Scotland Yard.