Symptomatic of something worse

This is an issue that is probably of some concern to a growing number people today. Personally I am reluctant to call it scary so far, but annoying certainly. It will be scary when some of them start carrying guns, which is likely just a matter of time.

I live in the downtown peninsula and walk everywhere, and I am increasingly aware of these “security” people visible in more and more places – often where it seems completely unnecessary. (And yes, I too have been ushered out of a library a few minutes after closing time.)

Perhaps we should also ask what this says about people’s choice of employment. Why are they choosing to do these jobs? Are some of them for example medical doctors or lawyers from other nations shut out by our Canadian professional associations? I am inclined to see it as part of larger problem with our corporatist society – just another manifestation of the processes by which an increasing number of people are being marginalized.

When someone in a uniform is being paid to discourage the presence of a homeless person perhaps we should understand that they are both the victims of systemic marginalization.

Actually the increase in

Actually the increase in security isn't about intimidation or a desire to suppress freedom, it's primarily about the increasing problem of homelessness, and mentally ill addicts on the street, particularly when they beg aggressively and resort to theft to get by, and to feed their addictions.

It is a huge problem. The public libraries, especially the main branch downtown, have a huge problem dealing with the homeless and addicts. I walk through the library every day, and the number of mentally ill homeless that hangout in the atrium for warmth and to dig through the trash has been increasing steadily over the years. Many of them are quite aggressive.

Unfortunately, the general response has been for businesses to hire security rather than advocate for positive long term change, addiction treatment, affordable housing and mental health treatment.

A lot of security guards are poorly trained, and some, but only a tiny minority are thugs. The thugs generally don't last long as catching an assault charge isn't that difficult. The vast majority of security guards are normal people trying to do an extremely difficult and in many cases dangerous job. A good friend of mine used to work security in Gastown, and he lost track of the number of times he had to go to St. Paul's to be checked for puncture wounds after having been attacked by mentally ill addicts. The stress of possibly acquiring a serious disease due to work definitely takes a stressful toll. Most security guards do their best to avoid starting any kind of fight to avoid exactly that danger, not to mention the possibility of the individual being armed.

Sadly, security guards are just a response to the crime and aggressive behaviour of a particular subset of those society has decided to neglect. The problem unfortunately is getting worse.

I spent some time as a security guard when going to university

Good point ChrisB

The pay was the shits but the long quiet nights often gave me a chance to catch up on extra reading.

Most of the people I knew in the biz were just going through the motions - my friends and I wouldn't have been physical with anyone to save our souls...as a matter of fact, when I was doing Friday night duty at a nightclub and trouble started I phoned the cops, got rid of my hat and headed for the back door.

Security guards, for the most part, aren't gonna risk their 'real' career by doing anything heroic or foolish for minimum wage.

I suppose there are exceptions - but I don't think there are many of them. Most of these guys and gals have a second job because their first one doesn't pay well enough...

East Van residents under heavy surveillance

Its true you feel it as the police cars drive up and down the main drag all day long you can't help but not with police eyeing everyone walking on the street as they cruse the neighborhood day in and day out. How does it feel to be under surveillance because of your postal code not good I assure you as it is just another measure this government has taken against its residents to future dehuminize them while using excessive force, police force. Again the security guards are a warm welcome compared to VPD who like this government is seen more as a bully than someone out to protect the best interests of the general public.

Engagement vs. marginalization

The issue I was alluding to is why, given all that our species has achieved in developing arts, sciences and technology, is there not ample room for everyone to be engaged and productive citizens? The increasing marginalization, which inevitably results in more crime, is related to the corporatist agenda of balkanization – dividing society into as many competing factions as possible (often with formal barriers to entry) and thereby, among other things, artificially inflating the price of all services.

The percentage of people whose incomes keep pace with the inflation is steadily decreasing. Whether that is apparent or not depends largely on where one lives or spends time. Most of Vancouver’s downtown core is now the precinct of people who are somewhere between comfortably wealthy and fabulously rich. Their wealth is very visible. But you don’t have to look hard to see the evidence that the wealth is concentrated in relatively few hands. Wealthy people demand lots of services. Who provides those services? Where and how do they live? No one should be forced to work more than 40 hours a week just to pay the bills.

This state of affairs does not have to be. The solutions ought to be apparent, but for now control remains in the hands of those with a vested interest in the status quo. If however we can start to build a public consensus about what is fundamentally wrong then we may be able to wrestle control from the elite interests. The concept is engagement. Engaged citizens will have no need for an army of watchers.

it all depends upon whose ox is seen to be gored.

The arguments that are used by the relatively privileged and up to protect their "rights" from being lessened by the underprivileged are the same as those advanced by the anti second-hand-smoke crowd.

The moralistic arguments of the former are no less flawed than those of the latter.

The fact is that both the "Right" and the "Left" are perfectly willing to lay the heavy hand of Government upon their versions of perceived sinners.

Elitists are elitists - regardless of stripe.

Security: just something else to buy?

That is the message I am getting. Just like clean water, fresh air, a social Net, etc. Scary indeed.

A little dose of reality...please.

The security guard job is not 'high paid' meaning that quite often the 'guard' may be either working two jobs (both part-time) or having to work 'shifts' at different locations for the same security company. So was this guard being unpleasant or just bored or was he looking at catching hell for being late to his next assignment? Or being fired for being late to his next job?

All because you were irresponsible with your time in the library?

Guess what?

This action is the job of the security guard. Especially in such a place as the library, if you do not like this complain to the mandarins in the apex of the librarian pyramid...not to the poor pion at the bottom.

As some others have posted here, there are a number of strange things that folks do in the library...how is the security guard to know which one you are?

Armed ticket-takers

Indeed, the situation is scary and absurd. What other city has armed ticket-takers on its public transit? Do other places regularly have security guards at church doors? Yet, at the same time, there is open warfare on the streets. I sure feel safe.

2 solitudes

Maybe it is our increasingly corporatized world, maybe it is our post 911 world but I get a very strong impression that we are acquiring the social values of the third world. (I refuse to use the phrase developing world as some places that I have been to are developing, others are just wallowing) The comments about wealth in the downtown core are true, however, the downtown also is home to the poorest people in Canada. In much of the world these two groups would be separated by heavily armed guards. Canada, as a fairly egalitarian society, has never had this social environment where there is extreme wealth and extreme poverty side by side. I fear that we, in Vancouver, through our tacit acceptance of homelessness as a fact of life, are in the Vanguard of creating a society of two solitudes, rich and poor. (Having grown up in Canada and frequently travelling to Europe and to developing countries I know that homelessness and desperation not a fact of life but is rather a choice that we, as a society, make by setting the lowest bar of our safety net too low)

Police Union "Up In Arms"

Specifically, tasers...

I disagree with the notion that the police have the responsibility for public safety.

In the long run, if there is one, humans will have to become less aggressive and sociopathic; less hungry and ill.

In the meantime, yes, we have police. But they cannot and should not be everywhere, even if they wanted to be. We have to protect ourselves too.

In a way, businesses that hire security guards are expressing this principle.

I agree that their presence is an indicator of lowered quality of life, but not because security guards are threats. It is because they are babysitters, and we are their babies.

It's an appalling thought, in part because I think it might be a bit valid.

Does society encourage us to be strong individuals? I cannot remember school ever having done so. School only taught us to be compliant. To be civil (a good lesson), and, if treated poorly, that only the righteous high authority can protect us (not a good lesson).

We teach school kids how to put on condoms. Surely it is at least equally responsible for society to preach situational awareness and the rudiments of self-defence.

Bad Service

What you experience as negative or hostile is really just bad service, probably caused because the security guard is poorly paid, poorly training, and probably has very limited experience.

When the cashier at a convince store is rude to you, you recognize that he is probably just unmotivated and unhappy in his dead-end job. You might be annoyed but you dont get paranoid about a global conspiracy.

Security guards are at the same level in the service industry. The training they get is sometimes no more than "stand here and check peoples tickets" or whatever. So why do you have such high expectations from them?

More Rent-A-Cops coming

If you managed a store or a building downtown with a garage, and some have thefts by junkies daily, you'd hire private security too. Your victims would demand it and are willing to pay for it because it's cheaper than constantly having vehicles repaired, loosing stock and alienating customers that are victims of junkie crime.

Police state

Security guards are low wage cops. The police union would prefer that all those security guards were well paid officers. Police protect the status quo which includes the war on drugs. The war on drugs drives the drug markets that fuel the majority of street "crime" (alternative job market) and homelessness.
Glad I live in the sticks because if I had to live in Vancouver I would have to live in the downtown east side. I simply would not have the money to live anywhere else.

it seems to me that the only

it seems to me that the only people that would mind having more security cameras would be those who have something to hide. if they prevent some crime and help solve others are they not a reasonable infringement of your privacy rights?

It's Simple Simon

If the gov't declares your favourite political party illegal, do you really want a camera trained on you when you go to attend an organizing meeting?

Civil Liberties. Most of us would like to keep them.

Surveillance cameras don't

Surveillance cameras don't reduce crime. Why waste money on them? Simonfraser people who advocate for increased surveillance must have something to gain from it, why else would they want to waste tax money on something useless? Do you have business interests that would be helped by getting tax money spent on surveillance?

That money would be far better spent on harm reduction strategies that actually do reduce crime. Not by lining the pockets of business people pedaling fear.

'Surveillance cameras don't

'Surveillance cameras don't reduce crime.' nonsense. of course they do, as long as their presence is obvious. they also help in the investigation of crimes. will you also deny that? do civil liberties not include the freedom to feel safe and secure in public?

Cameras couldn't save Lee Matasi

I'd feel safer and more secure with a cop on the beat over a cop watching monitors in a building miles away. One can identify the criminal (providing (s)he doesn't take the radical step of wearing a brimmed hat!)... the other can step in and protect me and prevent crime by being in the vicinity.

Surveillance cameras may be efficient, but they're not particularly effective (at crime prevention).

The police need to stop watching tv, stop being ensconced in steel boxes on wheels, and get out in the community if they want to be effective.

Requirement of the 'state'

simonfraser, your commentator is right, that the state is not responsible for civil liberties...we collectively are.

the more 'we' collectively permit continued 'uncivil' behaviours in public spaces then the more they will occur.

reasonable folks will not want to frequent those 'uncivil' places any more -> case in point the Granville Mall...supposedly an entertainment district, now basically filled with drugged up ruffians from 10 pm to closing. Not a place that I would take visitors for 'entertainment' unless they were recently returned from Baghdad or the Gaza strip.

What is at issue here, for Frank (whom cannot understand that it is our collective tax dollars that are 'supposed' to be paying for the collective policing functions), is that as the returns to violence are decreasing on the BIG scale such as nation to nation; the returns to violence on the small scale are increasing. This will make such things as kidnapping and extortion more commonplace. This is already happening in the periphery of the nations (such as in Afghanistan and Iraq) and at the very bottom levels of our own society (street level enforcers and constant petty theft).

The natural response will be to turn to the provision of security as a private good. This security was what the nanny states claimed to be providing, but cannot do any longer -> at least not cost effectively.

This means that the continued expansion and growth opportunites for private security will only expand, due to a general malaise within the society for accepting such uncivil behaviors.

What's wrong with cameras?

I'm not going to argue that they aren't effective.

What bothers me, and I think a lot of people, Simonfraser, is that perfect surveillance is potentially too effective. It takes away the option of acting right, not out of a certainty of punishment, but simply because we as individuals know that being good feels better than being evil.

Excessive external enforcement guarantees the atrophy of true morality. Some people are sick, but not everyone must be in iron lungs.

perfect surveillance? we're

perfect surveillance? we're talking about unhidden cameras in high crime areas like the granville mall, the skytrain stations, and the dtes etc.. couple it with more cops on the streets and we have a safer city. been to new york lately? it's clean and safe and undoubtedly teeming with the most positive energy i've ever experienced in a city. although the charter guarantees our privacy rights it also guarantees security of person, and most canadians are willing to accept more cameras if they are clearly pronounced.

If we have more cops on the

If we have more cops on the street, we don't need the cameras.

This is pretty basic stuff really. Not sure why it needs to be repeated ad nauseum .

Red Ken hasn't got a problem

"We are under surveillance all the time," he said, pointing out that cops grab video from private closed-circuit cameras when crimes are committed.

As for privacy concerns, he said, "You've already given that away when you buy a car and register it and put a license plate on the back, which is basically putting your name on the back of the car."

Livingstone agreed that Londoners feel safer because of the cameras, saying he couldn't recall a single letter of complaint.

According to the latest studies, Britain has a staggering 4.2million CCTV cameras - one for every 14 people in the country - and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily.

The mayor called his visit a "busman's holiday." He rode a double-decker bus with Livingstone, viewed a hybrid taxi and visited a police control room, where he saw the original "Ring of Steel" in action.

City of London Police Superintendent Alex Robertson said the surveillance system to monitor every vehicle that enters the square-mile financial district - known as the City of London - was pioneered to combat IRA terrorism.

As a demonstration, he displayed a screen image of the car Bloomberg arrived in. "I'm the handsome one in the back," Bloomberg quipped.

Noting that London has a camera in every bus and subway car, Bloomberg said, "We are way behind and we really do have to catch up."

Watching the Watchers

Again, as in most everything else a good question to ask is "who benefits"? Who benefits from the perfect surveillance of Big Brother?

Since a number of the commenters here seem to have no problem with giving up the freedom of not being watched, and find no problem being imprisoned by a watching eye that follows us everywhere..... that would, in effect, allow the state into the bedrooms of its citizens....soooo if we're going to get all gung-ho about constant surveillance, let's put the camera at a slightly different angle for a change. Here's a few suggestions to consider:

Film inside the courtroom regarding cases of public concern: The BC Rail Corruption trial would be a good idea and a good start. So everyone has access to important information about what is happening to public assets in this province.

Film all meetings regarding our ferry system, especially management, financial committee meetings, safety meetings, policy and board of directors meetings.

The same should hold true for all of our health authorities....

and for all ministries in government and.... for all members of government. Every meeting must be filmed for public view, especially those regarding public assets, public lands, public resources and finance.

Every person in an authoritative position inside government should be constantly filmed inside their office, and outside if relative, all phone calls monitored...and all transcripts and film made available for public scrutiny.

All foreign trips by government officials filmed, their every movement. Especially who they are having dinner with in private.

Every meeting for the 2010 Olympics should be filmed. All board of directors meetings and all finance meetings. Every office of every director, or official should be constantly filmed and made available for public view upon request.

Film inside the management and editorial offices of our media. For public view. Then we could find out who is making the decisions of what is news.... and what is not.

Hey, aren't police states fun?

It's all about who's on the receiving end of the policing and the watching, isn't it?

Who gets to constantly hide behind closed doors .....and who gets to be constantly watched.

And on and on.....you get the picture.

For a change let's watch the people who believe they are above being watched.

Almost forgot....Hawaii should always be filmed....just because when it comes to BC politics and cabinet holidays what happens in Hawaii should never stay in Hawaii.

.... 'cause "enquiring eyes" want to know.....and that should be reason enough .... it's basically the old goose and gander argument.... with an Orwellian twist.

What a sneaky slimy controlling world the watchers and those that benefit from the watching have created - just writing this makes me want to take a shower.

Help inform those most likely targeted (and yerself)

It is nice to see that many of the comments here are charitable to all and are not really targeting any one group of people--in the end it is a complicated, far-reaching, and multi-faceted issue.

As an alternative teacher in the DTES (to mainly adults) I have been using this information (below) to help inform not only my students (many of whom are local residents), but also many people in the area (including security guards).

Check out this site: http://www.securityandyou.ca/

You'd be surprised how many people are mis-informed or unaware of both their rights and the duties and obligations of security guards (or the police, for that matter). Many of the security guards I talked to actually took the pamphlet I printed off because they didn't know some of the by-laws (I don't want to sound like I walk around with these things in my pocket, but, lately especially, we see alot of incidents involving the homeless and marginalised around where I work). When I asked them about the fact that their employer's website stated that they were "trained" they just kind of gigled and compared it to the videos the Starbuck's staff are subjected too.

No matter what your position on the people in the DTES, business owners, etc, informing people accurately never hurts. It's not about picking sides afterall...

Cheers