Voluntary Police Cut Down on Violence

I'll be honest, that as much as I love anarchism as a principle for organization (if it can even be called that), I don't think that it could be adopted overnight. Before I say too much about why that is let me first point to how markets provide for statist failures.

To find this evidence, we have to look around the world for absentee government. I know Somalia makes an extreme case, but I'm going to focus attention closer to home (for U.S. folk anyway). Detroit has suffered exactly the kind of bankruptcy that happens when government promises delivery of welfare and then promptly runs out revenue it expected to garnish from an industry now in collapse. Of course, the adjustment is painful, like that experienced by an obese whale suddenly switching to a low calorie diet.

With the mass evacuation of the city, property tax revenue is down. So Detroit's city government faces bankruptcy and has been forced to practice austerity by cutting back on services such as police and fire departments. Even 911 service operates only during business hours. Oh, do I hear cries that those services are necessary for a functioning society? What would we do without Big Brother to provide them for us? Will somebody *please* think of the children?

Well, number 2 pencils important for schoolchildren to learn writing. Yet I, Pencil doesn't report of any government that plans for the manufacture, shipping, stocking, distribution, and allocation of pencils. Fortunately so, because planned economies lack price information and consequently don't work very well. Instead complex things like pencils and computers just end up being "magically" provided by the underpants gnomes of the free market. Maybe that can be the case also for services such as police and fire fighting?

Indeed, according to Robert Taylor at policymic.com, that's exactly the case!

Dale Brown and his organization, the Threat Management Center (TMC), have helped fill in the void left by the corrupt and incompetent city government. Brown started TMC in 1995 as a way to help his fellow Detroit citizens in the midst of a rise in home invasions and murders. While attempting to assist law enforcement, he found little but uninterested officers more concerned with extracting revenue through traffic tickets and terrorizing private homes with SWAT raids than protecting person and property.

In an interview with Copblock.org, Brown explains how and why his private, free market policing organization has been so successful. The key to effective protection and security is love, says Brown, not weapons, violence, or law. It sounds a bit corny, yes, but the results speak for themselves. -- This is What Budget Cuts Have Done to Detroit ... And It's Freaking Awesome

You read that right! and he explains more in the interview. Police protection can be provided on a voluntary basis. With all the recently abandoned buildings Detroit might have become a hotbed of crime and catastrophe. However, Dale saw opportunity and embraced it. His success proves that police don't have to have a "crack skulls" attitude to keep crime at bay.

Almost 20 years later and Detroit's financial mess even more apparent, TMC now has a client base of about 1,000 private residences and over 500 businesses. Thanks to TMC's efficiency and profitability, they are also able to provide free or incredibly low-cost services to the poor as well.

The reasons TMC has been so successful is because they take the complete opposite approach that government agencies, in this case law enforcement, do. Brown's philosophy is that he would rather hire people who see violence as a last resort, and the handful of Detroit police officers who actually worked with Brown in the earlier years and have an interest in genuine protection now work for TMC. While governments threaten their citizens with compulsion, fines, and jail if they don't hand over their money, TMC's funding is voluntary and subject to the profit-loss test; if Brown doesn't provide the services his customers want, he goes out of business.
 -- This is What Budget Cuts Have Done to Detroit ... And It's Freaking Awesome

So it's really just that simple. Government fails and the market steps in to provide. Doesn't seem to matter what the service is. I don't see that TMC is re-organizing itself to become the mob insurance program that it's replacing. Dale is more interested in satisfying customers than he is in extracting their wealth through intimidation. The market mechanism keeps his peace-enforcement organization in check.

This means that Brown is not interested in no-knock para-military SWAT raids, "officer safety" as the highest priority, bloated union pensions, or harassing people for what they have in their bloodstream. TMC works with its customers on the prevention of crime as well rather than showing up after the fact to take notes like historians.

The heroic Brown and TMC are a great example of how the market and civil society can and do provide services traditionally associated with the state far better, cheaper and more in tune to people's wants and needs. I have always believed policing, protection and security are far too important to be run by the state — especially in age of militarized Stormtroopers — and Brown is helping show why.
 -- This is What Budget Cuts Have Done to Detroit ... And It's Freaking Awesome

Did you catch the radical difference between the attitude and behavior of police officers that comes as a result of the different funding model? State-supplied enforcement encroaches on liberties, focuses on prosecuting victim-less crimes and permits unwarranted harassment  While the market-supplied officers help out when you call for them and otherwise try to stay out of your way. The don't treat the people as sheep. They aren't resented by the public they serve.

Police protection isn't so radically different from other goods and services that it requires government. Freedom permits emergent and spontaneous order. Let go of the state and embrace anarchism! Do it before you fall as far as Detroit!