week 9 pre class

I think the readings this week hit home for me as a veteran of military service as well as a family member of a police officer. I cannot avoid a sort of immediate emotional response to privatizing something that is the backbone of much of my life. Certainly we saw the drawbacks of privatized military forces operating such a Blackwater. They were allowed to accept risks and were not accountable to anyone. Ultimately they ended up hurting our military effort through reprisals as the result of their abuse. conversely we can look at what is going on today within the police departments with unnecessary deaths and copious videos of police brutality. We know that cops are under trained and under payed for the dangerous work they do.  It is no secret that the private sector generally advances faster and has more resources available than the government sector. Certainly privatized security contractors have significantly more training as well as better resources than most of our military or even our police Officers. Private security firms provide customers with extensive video surveillance and high end technology. So this leads me to be concerned over further disadvantaging impoverished groups. 

If countries increasingly privatize policing and basically create a scenario where each community is responsible for choosing government or private, won't this lead to poor communities receiving inferior support? 

I think they way that Africa has managed to combine private and government into one command can help solve the issue of unity of command and ensuring that everyone received equal services. 

Rita Abramson and Michael C. Williams, “Security beyond the State: Global Security Assemblages in International Politics,” International Political Sociology 3:1 (2009).