On a Tuesday afternoon in late December, a uniformed National Guard soldier stood outside a Poplar Avenue shopping center, rifle slung across his chest, scanning the parking lot with the same watchfulness you might expect at a forward operating base in a conflict zone. Across the street, a private security guard in a navy polo sat in a marked sedan, doing essentially the same job he had been doing for the past three years: watching the lot, checking in with store managers, calling police if something went sideways.
Two people performing overlapping functions. One backed by the full weight of the federal government. The other employed by a private firm billing the shopping center a few thousand dollars a month.
This scene, playing out across Memphis since the Memphis Safe Task Force launched in late 2025, captures a question that has been gnawing at private security operators throughout the city: does a massive federal and military law enforcement presence help their business, hurt it, or fundamentally change what the industry becomes after?
The Scale of the Operation
The Memphis Safe Task Force is not a modest inter-agency cooperation agreement. It is one of the largest domestic law enforcement surges in recent American history. Nearly 400 National Guard members patrol Memphis streets daily. More than thirteen federal agencies (the FBI, ATF, DEA, U.S. Marshals Service, Homeland Security Investigations, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, and others) have embedded agents alongside Memphis Police Department officers.
The results, at least by the numbers MPD has released, are significant. Violent crime dropped roughly 28 percent in 2025. For the first time since 2019, the city recorded fewer than 200 homicides. MPD Chief CJ Davis, announcing the department’s “Sustain the Gain” strategy for 2026, was direct about the achievement. “These reductions did not happen by chance,” she said.
Federal prosecutors are feeling the weight too. Court cases stemming from task force arrests have been described by officials as “exploding,” with the Western District of Tennessee handling a surge in firearms, drug trafficking, and violent crime prosecutions.
On January 5, ABC24 reported that the Trump administration claimed credit for the crime reduction, tying it to the federal resources funneled into the city. Whatever the politics, the operational reality is undeniable: Memphis has more armed law enforcement personnel per square mile than at any point in its modern history.
The Private Security Paradox
For companies like Phelps Security, which has operated in Memphis since 1960, or Imperial Security, founded in 1968, the task force creates a paradox that defies simple analysis.
On one hand, the sheer visibility of armed soldiers and federal agents patrolling commercial corridors might suggest that private security is less necessary. If the government is already providing what amounts to free security coverage, why would a business owner continue paying a private firm?
But several operators interviewed for this article say the opposite is happening. Demand for private security services has not dropped. In some segments, it has increased.
The reasoning is straightforward. The National Guard and federal agents are focused on violent crime: drug trafficking networks, illegal firearms, homicides, armed robberies. They are not responding to shoplifting calls. They are not monitoring employee access points at distribution centers. They are not walking the hallways of apartment complexes at 2 a.m. checking for unauthorized entry. They are not providing executive protection for visiting corporate officers or managing crowd control at private events.
“The task force does what it does, and we do what we do,” one Memphis-area security company owner said, requesting anonymity because he did not want to appear critical of the federal effort. “Our clients aren’t calling us because they’re worried about carjackings. They’re calling us because they need someone at their loading dock from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.”
Where the Lines Blur
The distinction is not always clean, however. National Guard troops in camouflage have been standing patrol outside stores and restaurants, a function that, until recently, fell squarely within the private security domain. When a fast-food restaurant on Elvis Presley Boulevard has a soldier outside its door, the franchise owner has less reason to contract a private guard for the same shift.
This overlap is most acute in retail and hospitality. Property managers who previously hired private security to deter loitering, panhandling, or minor property crimes near their businesses now benefit from a military presence that accomplishes the same goal at no direct cost to them.
For national firms with Memphis operations (Allied Universal, Securitas, GardaWorld), the impact is diluted across their massive portfolios. Memphis is one market among hundreds. A slight softening in retail security contracts here barely registers on a quarterly earnings call.
But for locally rooted firms, Memphis is the entire business. Phelps Security and Imperial Security have built decades-long relationships with Memphis property owners, businesses, and institutions. If even a fraction of their retail and commercial clients decide that the task force provides sufficient deterrence, the revenue impact is felt immediately.
The Demand Shift
What security operators are observing, though, is less a decline in overall demand than a shift in what clients want.
Before the task force, a significant portion of private security work in Memphis was reactive and visible: uniformed guards standing in lobbies, patrolling parking lots, and serving as a general deterrent. That work still exists, but the task force has absorbed some of it, particularly in high-crime corridors where Guard patrols are concentrated.
The growth areas are more specialized. Access control for corporate campuses. Alarm response and verification services. Mobile patrol routes covering multiple properties in a single shift. Background investigation and employee screening for companies concerned about insider threats. Security consulting, helping businesses assess vulnerabilities and design layered protection strategies rather than simply posting a guard at the front door.
“The companies that are going to thrive through this are the ones that were already moving toward technology and consulting,” said a former MPD officer who now works in the private sector. “If your whole business model is one guy in a chair watching a door, you’ve got a problem. Not because of the task force specifically, but because that model was already dying.”
The Withdrawal Question
Perhaps the most consequential question for the private security industry is one that no one can answer yet: what happens when the National Guard leaves?
Military deployments to domestic law enforcement operations are, by their nature, temporary. The Guard members currently patrolling Memphis streets have day jobs, families, and units that will eventually need them elsewhere. Federal agency details rotate. Political priorities shift. The Memphis Safe Task Force, however successful, will not last forever.
When those nearly 400 Guard members and the associated federal agents eventually draw down, Memphis will face a gap. The city’s crime reduction gains were achieved, in part, through a level of law enforcement saturation that MPD cannot sustain on its own. The department has struggled with recruitment and retention for years, a challenge shared by police agencies nationwide.
This is where private security companies see their long-term opportunity. When the federal surge ends, businesses and property owners who grew accustomed to a heightened security presence will look for alternatives. Private firms that have used this period to invest in technology, train personnel, and build deeper client relationships will be positioned to fill the void.
“We’re treating this like a runway,” said one security company executive. “The task force bought the city time. We’re using that time to get better at what we do so that when they leave, we’re ready.”
Regulatory and Licensing Implications
The task force has also renewed conversations about security guard licensing and regulation in Tennessee. The state’s Private Protective Services division, operating under the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, oversees guard licensing. But the standards for private security personnel (training hours, background check requirements, use-of-force policies) exist on a different plane from the military and federal agents now sharing their operating environment.
Some industry leaders have argued that the task force’s presence raises public expectations for what a “security professional” should look like. When residents see trained military personnel providing security, the gap between that standard and a minimally trained private guard becomes more visible.
Whether this leads to legislative changes is uncertain. But the conversation is happening, and firms that proactively raise their training and vetting standards may find themselves with a competitive advantage as the market evolves.
What Comes Next
The Memphis Safe Task Force has not destroyed the private security market. It has pressured it, reshaped it, and forced operators to confront questions about their value proposition that were easier to ignore when they were the only game in town.
For established firms like Phelps and Imperial, the path forward likely involves deepening specialization, moving further into consulting, technology integration, and high-value contract work that the military and federal agents were never designed to provide. For national players like Allied Universal and Securitas, Memphis becomes a case study in how to operate alongside a government security surge without losing market share.
The city’s private security industry is not facing an existential crisis. It is facing an identity shift. The firms that recognize the difference, and adapt accordingly, will emerge from the task force era stronger than they entered it. The ones that do not will find themselves competing with free.
And in a market where nearly 400 soldiers are already doing the job for nothing, competing with free is a fight no one wins.