Protection, without the racket.

Just in case you're tempted to believe that Will Grigg is all "cry the dystopia" with no recognition of workable alternatives, note here his recent report on the actions of one Dale Brown.  Brown may be deserving of some sort of brass balls bravery award for publicly offering a protection service in direct contrast to the protection racket that most of us have to deal with.

"How would things be different,” muses Dale Brown of the Detroit-based Threat Management Center, “if police officers were given financial rewards and commendations for resolving dangerous situations peacefully, rather than for using force in situations where it’s neither justified nor effective?”

Brown’s approach to public safety is “precisely the opposite of what police are trained and expected to do,” says the 44-year-old entrepreneur. The TMC eschews the “prosecutorial philosophy of applied violence” and the officer safety uber alles mindset that characterize government law enforcement agencies. This is because his very successful private security company has an entirely different mission – the protection of persons and property, rather than enforcing the will of the political class. Those contrasting approaches are displayed to great advantage in proto-dystopian Detroit.

All in all, a pretty impressive response to the problem.  Is it perfect?  Of course not, but we shouldn't make the same mistake we so often see and decry in the statists, demanding demonstrable utopian perfection even to consider a possible alternative, while tolerating and defending nearly any atrocity in the status quo.  Brown's idea doesn't have to be perfect, it simply has to be better--and really, that's not such a high bar to get over.  I might personally bristle at the idea of a "good person file", notwithstanding its (very clever) psychological utility as described in one of Brown's anecdotes, but then I must remind myself of the far more important consideration here:  the whole system is opt-in.  Voluntary.  You can walk away if you don't like it.  (No wonder it's got officialdom in such a tizzy.)

Hopefully Mr. Brown continues to have the success he's had so far.  And that more and more people notice.