Back in 2021 when I was writing a story about big tech data centers popping up all over America, I ran across a company called G4S. I ran across this company because it was being sued alongside some tech companies for some terrible things that happened to its security guard workers in Washington State. I started looking into G4S and lo and behold, it had just been acquired by Allied Universal, which was . . . the THIRD BIGGEST employer in North America. I could not wrap my brain around how a security company could be the third-biggest company in North America, so I started looking into it. This culminated with INSECURE, a three-part series I just finished, the last piece of which pubbed today:
Part One: Private Security Guards Are Replacing Police Across America
Part Two: In The World of Private Security, There Aren't Many Rules or Regulations
Part Three: The Problems Inside North America's Largest Security Firm—And Third-Biggest Employer
Andre Boyer patrols gas stations and hotels in Philly with an AR-15 and bull pump shotgun
This took a really long time to report, in part because I had many other assignments and I kept doing a little bit of reporting on this and then getting pulled to something else. I found some invaluable employees of Allied Universal through Facebook, who had some fairly bananas stories that I could not publish because I couldn’t independently verify them. I also spent time with Andre Boyer, who has been patrolling gas stations of North Philly with a bullpump shotgun and a AR-15.
I’d encourage you to read the stories, but the gist is that since the death of George Floyd, police departments have had a lot of trouble recruiting and retaining officers—they’re down about 7% since 2019. There’s also been a narrative about rising crime (crime is up from 2019 but not to the levels that a Fox News projects), which has motivated businesses and families to hire private security guards. There’s not a whole lot of regulation around what they can do—Andre Boyer tasered a woman who he said was acting belligerent and then got arrested for doing so—and most clients aren’t willing to pay much for security. So we have a situation where big companies like Allied are recruiting people in the same way that a McDonald’s or Walmart does, and then putting them in dangerous situations.
This security guard was hired by parents at Temple University to patrol off campus housing after a carjacking and murder
This has come up in the news lately—one of the people killed in the Allen Premium Outlets shooting was a guard employed by Allied Universal. The security guard who fatally shot a trans man in a San Francisco Walgreens was an Allied contractor, as was the security guard at a NY Walgreens who was arrested for beating up a suspected shoplifter. (There’s probably another story to be done about WTF is going on at Walgreens, which said “maybe we cried too much” about shoplifting and exaggerating crime levels but also seems to have some sort of weird aggro culture going on with its guards.)
I’m a little surprised that there haven’t been more stories on the security industry, especially since Allied is the third-biggest employer after Walmart and Amazon. I’d expect more to come, or at least hope there will be more, since this is an opaque industry that should be coming under as much scrutiny as the police. I think the rise of the security industry goes hand in hand with the boom in the gun industry in America; as more people have access to guns, more people want to be protected from those guns—from people with guns. It seems like we are entering a vicious cycle that can only end with us becoming a place like Israel where it’s not unusual to see guns everywhere, except with worse violence.
Here are the stories again:
Part One: Private Security Guards Are Replacing Police Across America
Part Two: In The World of Private Security, There Aren't Many Rules or Regulations
Part Three: The Problems Inside North America's Largest Security Firm—And Third-Biggest Employer
Veronica Rin had to step in and break up a fight at Temple after an Allied guard didn’t intervene
I am going to start ending these Substacks with a recommendation for a book to fall asleep to. This may sound like a bad recommendation, if I fall asleep to it, doesn’t that mean it’s bad? But no, I like to listen to something interesting if I nod off to sleep, and if it is too boring or the narrator is bad (or British for some reason), or if it is too gory or gruesome, I can’t fall asleep. I like history/biographies about interesting people, stories about cities or places that I might not have already known.
Today’s recommendation is Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage to the Antartic by Alfred Lansing. This is one of those books, like Boys in the Boat, that my brother probably told me to read years ago and I ignored him because it seemed boring and there were only male characters. (Sorry brother.) But I finally downloaded it from the library and whoosh did this guy have a good story. Basically, Shackleton and his crew head to Antarctica on a wooden ship in 1914, get hemmed in by ice, their ship gets crushed, and they have to survive on icebergs for two years. (Their ship gets crushed near the beginning so I am not spoiling anything.) Come for the tales of eating seals, stay for the description of three explorers sledding down a thousand foot peak to avoid freezing to death.
Really loved this piece in TIMES. Had no idea that Allied Universal became America's third largest employer after Amazon and Walmart with its acquisition of G4S.
I saw and read your article in a print version of the TIMES mag that gets sent to my school.
Hello Alana, I'm so glad you are covering this. It's an absolutely critical field about which most people know nothing, yet private security is being cast as the savior for dealing with rising crime and civic unrest...a recipe for catastrophe that doesn't address root causes, or problems within security itself.
Here is a Substack post I wrote about my own experience as a licensed security officer. What seems especially important is the unethical under-investment in training: https://razmason.substack.com/p/money-and-violence