weblog

This article from the Detroit Free Press says that some of the remaining middle-class neighborhoods in Detroit are paying $30/mo. per household for private security patrols. And they still get hit by home invasions, car-jackings and burglaries just the same though maybe less than they'd otherwise would with only the limited coverage available from the dysfunctional and broken city of Detroit's police department.

I guess these desperate Detroiters should count their blessings; the last time I was in Brazil middle-class neighborhoods, shopping malls, and other such venues of middle-class life routinely had multiple armed guards toting automatic rifles and submachine-guns  posted at the entrances and patrolling the perimeters because the crime is so bad there. To travel around you go by private car with an armed bodyguard to avoid possible kidnappings or stick-ups. Detroit is also afflicted by a vicious violent criminal underclass, but our Second Amendment notwithstanding, ordinary people aren't allowed to have that level of security, only big-shots and politicians.