Two Big Bets On The Power Of Unarmed Security Ambassadors To Increase Safety
The First Bet: West Hollywood, California voted recently to expand its security ambassadors program, adding 30 unarmed, uniformed ambassadors to the street in an attempt to deter crime and make residents feel safer. These ambassadors cost the city significantly less per person than an armed officer—roughly 5 to 1—while serving the same “eyes on the street” function that can deter crime. And they will even help you change your flat tire.
The Second Bet: Los Angeles County announced that it will add as many as 300 unarmed, uniformed transit ambassadors to watch over the county’s trains and buses. Like in West Hollywood, these ambassadors won’t have the power to make arrests, but they can call law enforcement or the civilian mobile crisis unit for backup as needed.
Betting Odds: Unarmed Ambassadors Likely Deter Crime
I’m less likely to steal the iPhone 13 out of the back pocket of your GRLFRND jeans if I perceive that I am being watched. This is a simple idea—which, of course, means that academics found a way to make it sound nerdier and more opaque, dubbing it the “sentinel effect.” But the upside of academic interest is that there is a solid body of evidence for it. The sentinel effect is what’s doing the heavy lifting when policy wonks and police chiefs argue that putting more police on the street decreases crime. When it comes to situational opportunities to prevent crime, police play two roles—the sentinel role, which literally means that being physically present deters crime, and an apprehension role, meaning that being there enables the officer to make an arrest. Dan Nagin, a professor at Carnegie Mellon and one of the world’s foremost experts on deterrence, has posited that when it comes to crime prevention the sentinel effect—making crime less attractive—is more important than even the power of apprehension.
Does the person doing the watching need to be a police officer? Researchers, including the prominent economist John Pfaff, have argued that the sentinel effect boosts the perception that proactive policing is effective, when in reality a lot of the success demonstrated in studies is owing to the nature of the sentinel effect and not armed officers in particular. For example, Pfaff points to some research suggesting that private security patrols appear to reduce crime. But even streetlights can serve the sentinel function, by increasing the perception (and reality) that criminal activity will be visible, other research suggests. Uniformed ambassadors, too, send the signal that the person is being watched, which in Professor Nagin’s parlance, like policing, “makes crime less attractive.”
The sentinel effect is baked into the mission: “Our mission is to be a visible deterrent on the street. To try to offset any low-hanging fruit criminal activity,” Shea Gibson, who heads the West Hollywood security ambassador team, told ABC’s local news station. | When announcing the ambassador program, the the city of West Hollywood described the goal as to provide “a highly visible uniformed presence at the street level,” which means deploying the ambassadors “along major streets, alleys, city parking lots, and residential neighborhoods” | BART Deputy Chief Angela Averiett, who oversees a public transportation ambassador program in the Bay Area similar to the one being launched in Los Angeles, explained the sentinel effect that the ambassadors can have to the LA Times: “Just them being in a train may stop someone from smoking crack or from defecating in a train car…I think it really makes people kind of think twice before they do something that’s illegal or harmful to themselves or others.”
Apples to apples? Does an armed police officer with the power to arrest enhance crime prevention relative to an unarmed ambassador without the power to arrest? Maybe, but then again, maybe not. That’s why innovation (like what’s happening in West Hollywood and in the LA County Metro) is important. But, if we had to venture a guess, we’re betting that there is not a significant voltage drop on the sentinel effect when the person doing the watching is a security ambassador and not an armed officer. After all, the security ambassador’s uniform makes it clear that she is acting in an official capacity and tasked with watching over the street, trying to prevent people like me from stealing your iPhone. So, if I’m trying to swipe that phone from your back pocket, and I see an ambassador, I know that she has options—she can approach me and make a scene, causing a lot of eyes on me; she can record me or take my photo; she can call for backup if the situation warrants it. But let’s say we’re wrong and there is some voltage drop. Even if a single officer has more crime prevention effect than a single ambassador, what about the relative value of five ambassadors compared to a single armed deputy?
Dive Deeper On West Hollywood’s Security Ambassador Program:
Security ambassadors do more than serve a sentinel function. They walk you home at night, change your tire when your car breaks down, and help connect unhoused people to services. That’s not to say that armed officers don’t do some of those same things. But, again, West Hollywood is getting five security ambassadors for the cost of one armed officer—that’s five times more people who can be walked back to their hotel or apartment each night. There surely are situations where five times more isn’t worth the tradeoff. For example, it wouldn’t be ideal if an unarmed security ambassador showed up to an armed home invasion in progress. But let’s also not pretend that only armed officers can put eyes on the street, walk people home at night, or help an unhoused person get to shelter.
Residents love the security ambassadors: “They have several people covering West Hollywood so you always feel there's someone there that will have eyes on you in case something unfortunate happens," Nat Polhamus, a local business owner, told ABC’s local news station. | “The park was once a magnet for drifters and drugs and is now a thriving centerpiece to our neighborhood with children laughing, birthdays, picnics and other activities,” West Hollywood resident Emilio Castellanos told local paper Beverly Press about the security ambassadors impact at a park near his home. “[E]xpanding Block by Block to other areas of the east side will have a dramatic effect [in] the long run, hopefully as much as it has had on our park.”
“We gave our residents the foot patrols they have been wanting for years,” West Hollywood Mayor Pro Tem Sepi Shyne wrote in a tweet following the vote to expand the security ambassadors. The mayor pro tem also gave a shout out to a group of over three dozen community organizations, known as JusticeLA, noting that the group had championed the expansion of the ambassador program for months.
Here’s a two minute profile of WeHo’s security ambassadors from ABC's local news station:
