This is just stunningly naive, sorry. You're imagining a bunch of noble professionals, but in practice in history when you give a bunch of people weapons and tell them to police their neighborhoods, and ESPECIALLY when you make them accountable only locally (to the people paying them, in this case) and not to society in general...
You get gangs. That's how gangs form. Organized crime, almost everywhere, has its roots in this kind of "local security" of an underserved disadvantaged population. People who can't rely on the police for order end up under the thumb of whoever can provide stability.
Now, OK, sure. I get that you're thinking that somehow this startup has found a growth hack to disrupt this millenia-old industry and do it better than the Mafia. Well... maybe. Or maybe it's just another gang.
If a gang in my street, they better be on my payroll. And I expect them to provide stability better than the Mafia ever can. But if you say my payment of a private security force directly leads to the formation of criminal gangs, and I am still in an underserved population, maybe I can better pay the Mafia, to avoid the creation of new gangs? That sounds naive.
> If a gang in my street, they better be on my payroll.
Funny thing though. With this Citizen nonsense? They might be on mine instead. Bet that makes you sleep better at night knowing those woke hippies might hire "private security" of their own, right?
How about this: let's all get together and decide democratically on how to, I dunno, enforce our laws in a universally acceptable way? We can then hire a bunch of these "law enforcers" together such that they aren't beholden to any part of society, and come up with means to make them accountable to all of us, with like rules and stuff that we can, I guess, amend as we go along. Deal?
You get gangs. That's how gangs form. Organized crime, almost everywhere, has its roots in this kind of "local security" of an underserved disadvantaged population. People who can't rely on the police for order end up under the thumb of whoever can provide stability.
Now, OK, sure. I get that you're thinking that somehow this startup has found a growth hack to disrupt this millenia-old industry and do it better than the Mafia. Well... maybe. Or maybe it's just another gang.