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According
to many observers, especially those on the right, America is moving towards
socialism. While that may, in fact, be true at the national level, locally
speaking, things seem to be moving in the opposite direction.
Current
economic realities have a lot to do with it. With income, sales, and property
taxes under pressure, state and local governments are being forced to cut
back or eliminate many of the essential services they have traditionally been
responsible for. That means more and more communities have little choice but
to arrange for nonpublic operators to pick up the slack or risk having their
cities, towns, and villages fall completely apart.
In Postcard from Detroit, Time
magazine highlights the growing use of privately-contracted security services
in one of the most economically ravaged regions of the country.
Shortly
before noon on a recent Monday, T.J. Cooper sat in his red pickup, showing
off his digital camera. He clicked through pictures he had taken a few weeks
earlier of a man driving a truck full of radiators stolen from a vacant home
here in Indian Village, one of Detroit's last middle-class neighborhoods. No
one, Cooper notes wryly, likes having his picture taken. "They try to
hide their face. Or break your camera. Or," he says, driving up a
tree-lined street, "break you." Minutes later, Cooper passes the
same man, in the same truck, apparently scoping out another house.
Cooper,
29, is a private-security detective, one of many who patrol once prosperous
enclaves like Palmer Woods, Boston-Edison and Indian Village. With the city's
police force cut more than 25%, private security appears to be one of
Detroit's few growth industries. Local precincts are overwhelmed with
shootings and other violent crime, leaving companies that supply home
protection with long customer waiting lists. "People put a premium on
security when unemployment and crime go up," says Larry Dusing, founder
of Dusing Security & Surveillance, which has expanded into three
neighborhoods. (See pictures of Detroit's beautiful,
horrible decline.)
Crime
weighs heavily on the minds of Detroit's middle class, although it's an issue
few residents want to discuss. In some neighborhoods, armed guards stand
watch outside houses of worship; in September a pastor shot a man trying to
rob his church. In others, street barricades have been set up to help deter
potential thieves.
A
short, plump Michigan native, Cooper worked in store security before joining
Dusing about eight years ago. Now he manages Dusing's patrols, driving around
Indian Village in his truck with an orange light bar on the top. He wears a
black baseball cap reading security and a bulletproof vest but travels
unarmed, partly for liability reasons. He keeps his camera, equipped with a
massive telephoto lens, near his lap.
An
Indian Village security guard's job is much like that of any cop on the beat.
That afternoon Cooper investigated a report of suspicious activity from one
of the neighborhood's few markets. (The suspects, sitting in a brown minivan,
turned out to be selling state-issued cards used to buy food.) He continued his
patrol, eyeing the men walking up and down the street. "If you notice a
guy stopping and staring" at a house, Cooper says, "he's obviously
up to no good." Especially suspicious are people who walk up to homes
and stuff flyers into doors. Sometimes they are testing to see whether a door
is unlocked or are casing the property for valuables. "A lot of times
we'll see the same car come back three or four times in a single shift."
(See
more on TIME's Detroit blog.)
The
community of Indian Village hired Dusing in 2003, after a rash of property
crimes. An estimated 15% of the neighborhood's homes are foreclosed, a result
of the national real estate crisis, which has hit Detroit particularly hard.
Vacant homes are an open invitation to burglars and vandals. Neighbors
install motion sensors and curtains in them and maintain the lawns to make
the properties appear occupied.
Members
of the Historic Indian Village Association, a local residents' group, share the
cost of private security — about $30 per household each month.
Association president Doug Way, 42, moved to Detroit with his wife seven
years ago and fell in love with Indian Village's 19th century manors, built
for the city's emerging industrial barons. Footing the bill for private
security is almost like paying an extra tax, he acknowledges, but it's worth
the cost. The median sale price of homes in Detroit has plunged from $59,700
in August 2005 to $8,000 just two months ago. "You could argue that one
reason the homes are less expensive in the city is the level of services
isn't as high," he says. "If there's some way we can make this a
better place to live, these homes will actually be worth a lot more in the
long term."
Michael
J. Panzner
Editor, Financialarmageddon.com
Also
by Michael J. Panzner
Michael J. Panzner is a
25-year veteran of the global stock, bond, and currency markets and the
author of Financial Armageddon: Protecting Your Future from Four Impending
Catastrophes, published by Kaplan Publishing.
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