Every time I’ve walked by the local public library lately, I’ve noticed a security guard out front. I guess that’s a permanent fixture now? What a sad commentary on the state of things here in the Bay Area, that even a freaking library needs someone menacing to stand at the entrance. Let me guess: teenagers were doing wayward things inside the library during the afternoon hours. I can’t imagine anyone would actually rob a library. Used books on the secondary market aren’t that lucrative.
The local mall not only has its own security guards, but some of the shops inside - the ones with highly prized merchandise - feature their own security detail at the entrances. (Yo dawg, I heard you like mall cops…) This is a fantastic situation for rent-a-cop businesses: look at all the jobs being created! But for the patronizing public (read: me) it’s a jarring reminder of the reasons these security people have proliferated. We’ve seen the videos: the concerted looting, and rowdy teens (respectively or not).
Target closed down its self-checkout aisle because too many folks were scanning and leaving without paying. We really cannot have nice things around here. The utter tyranny of the minority of people breaking the law, and ruining the entire experience for the rest of us.
We laugh at China for being a policed state, with cameras everywhere. Have anybody noticed the we - at least in the San Francisco Bay Area - are getting there as well? I mean, at least here it’s not government sponsored! There’s private security guards at stores (and public libraries, apparently), and there’s private security cameras outside homes, businesses, and inside public transportation. We’re are absolutely being surveilled whenever we go outside. A price worth paying for being safe?
But does it work?