Note: this article seems to be the result of a pretty limited investigation. They interviewed a few private security guards in Portland and they're presenting themselves in their best light. But...
Note: this article seems to be the result of a pretty limited investigation. They interviewed a few private security guards in Portland and they're presenting themselves in their best light. But it does sound like things are changing? From the article:
In response to this complex reality [Portland police not responding as much], security firms such as Echelon have developed the “outreach model.” Firms that use the outreach model partner with nonprofits instead of the police. In fact, they provide some of the same services as non-profits—and sometimes even some of the services of government agencies.
Stone, a former police officer and Marine veteran who served two deployments in Iraq, founded Echelon in 2019. “If you have an effective criminal-justice system, and you have effective community partners that are assisting towards long-term community transformation, then, yes, traditional security models—the security model of observe and report—works,” he says. “But when you have a breakdown in societal connectivity, you lose the ability to operate out of that business model. So we had to come up with something unique and different.”
Stone looked abroad for inspiration, particularly to Ethiopia, where he used to live. He studied how NGOs like USAID operate in regions that are experiencing famine, an influx of refugees, and ethnic violence. Stone sees parallels between the two situations: “Portland is suffering from an urban refugee crisis. We have thousands of displaced houseless persons. A lot of them are not from Portland. A lot of them come here because they’ve been displaced from their respective states.”
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The guards develop relationships with the homeless, hoping to help them get their life back on track. “We become friends with people. Then once we have that leverage within that relationship, we say, ‘Hey, look, your life is really fucked up. You’re being forced to sleep with people for fucking drugs. I can help you out. I can get you into a shelter right now,’” he says. Stone says his staff is helping an average of 16 people per week move from a tent to a shelter.
Echelon’s outreach model has proved profitable. The firm has 150 employees in Oregon, Washington, California, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, and Colorado. Stone compares his work to the mission he performed in Iraq. “It’s nation-building, but it’s inside the United States. We are reestablishing our societal norms, and we’re doing it by helping people transition in their life.”
Northwest Enforcement is another private-security firm that has adopted the outreach model. Chad Withrow, a former Marine who started his company in 2000, describes how his private-security firm partners with homeless shelters. “My staff is trained by the largest shelter in Portland to do direct intake services for people on the streets and to shelters.” They can do the intake on their phones while standing at the person’s tent.
These local relationships pay dividends. Leif Spencer, who works at Echelon, says, “When I first got down here, you had to jump through so many hoops to get somebody into anywhere. I said, ‘I’m going to build relationships with everyone in the community, so I can bypass all the red tape and I can just call them directly.’ Now we have direct relationships with hospitals, with rehab facilities, with shelters. So things are running a lot smoother.”
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Stone says security firms have strong incentives to follow the law. “If a security company does something egregious, they’re going to be forced out of the market, because no one’s going to hire them. They’re going to get sued.” Stone also says security guards’ limited legal powers mean they are very unlikely to engage in violence. “Security guards can’t go out and start pulling people over and, say, ‘Hey, I'm going to search your car now.’ They can’t detain people. And every security guard knows this. And so the likelihood that you’re going to escalate someone as a security guard is, I would say, 90 percent less than the average police officer working the average shift in America.”
Note: this article seems to be the result of a pretty limited investigation. They interviewed a few private security guards in Portland and they're presenting themselves in their best light. But it does sound like things are changing? From the article:
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