Yes, this is the third time in five months I’ve picked a Harper’s cover story. Can’t be helped. Especially when Jasper Craven examines the ever-expanding role of private security in the country at large—reinforcing his reporting with a six-month stint for a firm in New York City, where security guards outnumber NYPD officers by a factor of three to one. Spoiler alert: the vetting process is even worse than you think it is.
Once I came up clean, I was fingerprinted for a background check and measured for a scratchy black suit to wear while on duty. Then I was summoned to a back room overflowing with black vests, sweaters, and jackets stamped with the word security. There, a tired-looking man at a computer took my picture for an ID badge. He asked for my height, weight, and eye color, clacking out the first two categories correctly before entering my eye color as brlue and clicking Print. My security-guard license from New York State was still pending, but I was temporarily cleared to work. I looked the part and had a vague notion of what to do. It was time to protect the Big Apple and defend the thin purple line.
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