Safety in Numbers
I’ve been in security since 1985, and I recognize many of the industry’s shortcomings described in Jasper Craven’s report [“The Thin Purple Line,” September]. Training leaves a lot to be desired. In my first licensing class, our instructor was a police officer with a trove of wisdom on street situations, safety, and taking pride in one’s appearance and demeanor. As he said (and as Craven notes), authority has a lot to do with image projection. He was later replaced with another officer who slugged in and said to us, “Look, you know this is BS, I know it’s BS, but you gotta do it, so . . . ”
New York City security sounds particularly chaotic, and Craven’s article suffers from a narrow focus on it. I live in St. Louis, where security officers must complete orientation and training approved and administered by the local police, with a mandated yearly refresher course. No one is permitted to carry a gun without passing a background check, drug check, and police-supervised firearms class with a six-month requalification. The vast majority of security sites are unarmed.
When I worked security in Boston in the Eighties, things were much looser. There was a plethora of security agencies, many of whose procedures were deficient. Much as Craven may deplore the emergence of large agencies that have taken over their competitors, companies like Allied Universal absorbed many of these fly-by-night outfits, requiring at least a modicum of training where there had been less. (Full disclosure: I’ve worked for Allied for more than ten years.)
Steven Clark
St. Louis
I began my twenty-year career in security as a captain in the Chicago suburbs, where I supervised two hundred guards across twenty-four accounts. I applaud Craven’s willingness to go the distance and serve as a security officer, as well as the depth of his research. But he overlooks the fact that security jobs are increasingly hard to fill and are being supplemented in many places by lower-cost robots. He also misses that the industry is driven largely by insurance requirements, and that armed guards cost more per hour than unarmed ones. When you see one “in full tack” at your local grocery store, it’s not because they are posturing. Hundreds of security officers are shot on the job every year. Just last year, Christian LaCour, an unarmed Allied officer stationed at an outlet mall in Texas, was killed while trying to protect customers from a mass shooter.
Francis Hamit
Sherman Oaks, Calif.
Jasper Craven responds:
I appreciate Steven Clark’s illuminating perspective as a veteran guard with experience outside the Big Apple. But I maintain the view that New York is the best setting in which to explore contemporary security. It is the epicenter of the industry, employing the most guards in the country, and its market mirrors national trends. Clark’s own history in Boston and St. Louis echoes the dynamics in New York, where a burgeoning and quasi-lawless industry in the Seventies and Eighties was reformed in only the most basic and cosmetic ways. And while megafirms like Allied may impose certain improvements upon the firms they acquire, my piece highlights a case in which Allied bought a high-functioning firm and seemingly disassembled its stringent training and oversight structures.
There are many examples of guards stepping up to protect the public in crisis scenarios, and I thank Francis Hamit for highlighting the bravery and sacrifice of Christian LaCour. The lesson of his death, however, is not that we need to hire more armed guards across the country, but that we must address the structural issues that fuel mass violence. In the meantime, Allied and other security firms must move beyond mere rhetoric in hailing their fallen employees and make tangible efforts to improve training, to arm and armor guards in the rare circumstances in which such precautions are required, and to provide pay and benefits commensurate with the role’s inherent risks. Openings will become easier to fill only if the industry demonstrates respect to those protecting the thin purple line.
Caste in the Same Mold
While the influence of the Hindutva lobby is increasing in U.S. politics, as described by Andrew Cockburn [Letter from Washington, October], there is also a sprawling network of active anti-Hindutva organizations in the United States. Some of them, including Hindus for Human Rights, organize within the Hindu fold, while various Ambedkarite and Dalit groups, such as Ambedkar King Study Circle, draw upon India’s long history of anti-Brahmanic politics, dating back to Buddhism and more recently represented by B. R. Ambedkar, the Dalit leader and father of the Indian Constitution. Still others organize regional South Asian solidarity to heal the deep wounds of Partition. Uniting these forces in India and abroad through a common vision of a democratic, secular, and egalitarian India is key to combating Hindutva’s malign hold.
In his account of Hindutva, Cockburn fails to mention the Bharatiya Janata Party’s predecessor, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which was founded in 1951. But it’s worth noting that support for Hindutva today remains limited in India, with its core base situated within the upper castes, which constitute less than 30 percent of the country’s population. The ability of Modi’s BJP to persuade Muslims, Adivasis, and middle, lower, and Dalit castes to vote for it is weak and inconsistent. Modi’s impressive parliamentary majorities in 2014 and 2019 were based on no more than 25 and 30 percent of the total electorate (voting and nonvoting), thanks to the distortionary effects of the first-past-the-post electoral system. The ability of the opposition INDIA Alliance to consolidate much of the anti-Hindutva vote in 2024 denied the BJP its majority.
Radhika Desai
Professor of Political Studies, University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Sentimental Education
As a late-in-life college professor at a public institution, I’ve had to confront the question of what exactly it is that my colleagues and I deliver to our students. College promises, in theory, a chance to join the “meritocracy.” I wish Erik Baker had mentioned in his article [“What Are You Going to Do with That?,” Revision, September] that “meritocracy” was initially used as a sarcastic term, when the acceptance of an aristocracy was on the wane and the generationally wealthy set up universities to send their heirs to, in order to substantiate their “merit” for continued control of the levers of power. The liberal-arts degree designed for them was a finishing school never intended to provide “employable” skills.
Dean Bell
Associate Professor of Practice in Screenwriting, SUNY Purchase
Brooklyn, N.Y.
