With Little Faith in Mexican Police, Private Firms Rise to Protect Those Who Can Pay The Associated Press
go to original November 27, 2014

Private security escorts working with the Lucena Group, a global security solutions company, synchronize their watches while waiting for the arrival of an executive client near the international airport in Mexico City. (Dario Lopez-Mills/AP)

MEXICO CITY - Distrust of police has made private security big business in Latin America, where a majority of public security forces are deemed incompetent, corrupt, or both. In the world's most dangerous region, an army of nearly 4 million private security agents make up an industry growing 9 percent a year and projected to reach about $30 billion by 2016. That's more than the economies of Paraguay or El Salvador.

International Private Security alone has doubled its employee ranks to 4,000 over the last five years. Across the region, private guards outnumber public officers beyond the global average of 2-to-1. In Brazil, it's 4-to-1; in Guatemala, 5-to-1; and in Honduras, it's close to 7-to-1.

"The private sector should be a complement (to the police)," said Boris Saavedra, a national security professor at the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies in Washington. "But in some countries, they're not the complement: They are the main actor."

While private security is growing worldwide, Latin America is the region where the boom directly relates to rising rates of homicide, kidnapping and extortion. Plagued by drug cartels and violent gangs, Latin America has surpassed Africa to claim the world's highest murder rate.

Read the whole story at Fox Business

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