Some Officers of Their Own

Jesse Walker | November 10, 2009

The citizens of a housing estate in Darlington, U.K., try a private solution to crime:

For longer than they can remember, the law-abiding residents of Skerne Park have been plagued by teenage thugs....Now the residents are hitting back by employing a 'private police force'.

They are paying £3.50 a week each for patrolling teams of wardens equipped with head cameras and wearing high-visibility uniform.

They will react to calls as well as monitoring the estate by car. So far more than 300 residents have backed the scheme.

The patrols, which will begin on Monday, were devised by former boxer 'Fearless' Francis Jones, 28....Mr Jones and his wardens have no powers of arrest, but he said: 'I'm looking to deal with problems not by getting people's backs up, but by defusing the situation.

'We hope the service will give our clients more confidence by increasing their safety, even if it is just a case of walking them to the shops.'

Comments

|11.10.09 @ 10:07AM|#

Shall we start a betting pool for what date they'll be ordered to cease & desist?

|11.10.09 @ 10:14AM|#

Mr Jones and his wardens have no powers of arrest,

WTF? Is there no such thing as a citizen's arrest in the UK?

-jcr

CaptainSmartass|11.10.09 @ 10:48AM|#

They have some. Either the original reporter is ignorant of them, or they were stressing that the wardens are not a private police force.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen's_arrest#United_Kingdom

Jesse Walker|11.10.09 @ 10:55AM|#

The reporter may have misstated British law. But I think the point is that the protection company's model isn't based on arresting offenders but on "defusing the situation."

|11.10.09 @ 10:26AM|#

Vigilantes!

Silentz|11.10.09 @ 10:45AM|#

Stop! Or I'll say 'Stop!' again!

|11.10.09 @ 10:50AM|#

Okay, I'll play the part of the liberal dumbass.

But what about the poor people that can't afford private security?

|11.10.09 @ 10:59AM|#

I'll play the leftist dumbass.

I see the middle class (or perhaps working class traitors who have had their minds colonized by bourgeois values) is organizing to suppress subalterns (the so-called "thugs") who fail to toe the line of the white patriarchal hegemony.

mad the swine|11.10.09 @ 11:02AM|#

Yeah. Speaking from a United States standpoint, I can't really imagine how private security guards could be more corrupt than the current crop of cops. The problem is that the neighborhoods most in need of this sort of policing are the least likely to be able to afford it.

Voton|11.10.09 @ 1:18PM|#

Less than six bucks a week? Even I can afford that.

squarooticus|11.10.09 @ 11:19AM|#

Awesome.

|11.10.09 @ 11:39AM|#

Kind of reminds me of Hot Fuzz.

|11.10.09 @ 12:10PM|#

I believe a more appropriate movie reference would be Kuffs.

|11.10.09 @ 12:44PM|#

We must stop them! They might discover that they don't need the government! Society will collapse! Hooliganism!

|11.10.09 @ 3:58PM|#

But will they have to supply their own doorknobs?