Gyroscopic Investing

http://bretigne.typepad.com/on_the_bank ... shame.html

For those who care about the problem of police violence and abuse, this may be the most important story of the decade. Maybe longer. Last week, Tom Woods interviewed Dale Brown, founder of the Detroit Threat Management Center. In case you don't have time to listen to the entire 39-minute interview, here are some highlights.

Essentially, the DTMC has done what libertarians like Murray Rothbard and David Friedman have long been saying could be done: They have turned the provision of public safety into a profitable business model, and they have done it in some of the worst neighborhoods in the country. The results have been incredible: According to Brown, crime has dropped dramatically in the areas where they work, and all without the loss of life to their staff or anyone else.
[...]

Brown stresses that his methods minimize violence.

"When we first started, we were very gun intensive. This, I thought was the best approach. I was a soldier... I'm going to use superior violence of action to change human behavior... What I found out would work better was cameras."

"...my ultra-violent viewpoint was wrong... a gun was not the answer in those situations."

"Believe it or not, violent criminals hate video cameras because it takes away anonymity, and proves that they're the ones doing something... I slowly changed out, over many years, from guns to cameras. A broke camera was more effective at getting rid of drug-dealing gangs than actual guns."

[...]

The methods he uses are diametrically opposed to those used by the police:

"Think about everything you think about in terms of law enforcement and we do the exact opposite. So a police officer thinks you're a threat, so what they do is pull you over. If we think you're a threat, what we do is we pull up to you and talk to you. If a police officer thinks you're a threat, what they do is stay back away from you and pull out their gun. What we do is get so close you can't get pull out your gun. A police officer believes you're a threat so they begin to talk to you in an autocratic, aggressive fashion. What we do is build a psychological bridge to explain to you that there is no need, there's no option for violence, there's no opportunity, and there's nothing to gain. So you must leave now, and I'm letting you leave. My staff is letting you leave. You can simply go."

"Now this works in any situation where the human being is attempting to achieve something. Now when it's psychological, meaning the person is not thinking well, they're on drugs or they're in pain... we're able to read their body language ahead of time, and know that they're about to draw their weapon... ...we're able to take them into custody and take them down without injuring them and without letting them pull out their gun."

"Again, we're in Detroit. This is not theory. This is what we do. This is why none of my staff members are dead."

[...]
Brown says his methods are "a completely new paradigm in public safety - and it works, and I can prove it."