On January 1, 2021, Memphis started the year still processing 2020. A pandemic. Protests. A homicide count of 332 that had shattered the previous record. The security industry was exhausted, short-staffed, and uncertain about what recovery would look like.
Twelve months later, the industry is busier than it’s been in decades. It’s also more strained, more expensive to operate, and less certain about the future than at any point most of us can remember. The year 2021 didn’t offer the security industry a recovery. It offered an acceleration that left most companies struggling to keep pace.
Here are the stories that defined the year.
The Homicide Record Nobody Wanted
Memphis will finish 2021 with roughly 340 homicides, possibly more by New Year’s Eve. That number, devastating as it is, needs context.
In 2016, Memphis hit 228 homicides and the city treated it as a crisis. Community meetings, editorial boards, emergency funding proposals. In 2020, the count reached 332 and the response was muted, partly because COVID dominated every conversation and partly because the public’s capacity for outrage had worn thin.
In 2021, the number climbed past 300 before Thanksgiving, and the reaction from most Memphis residents I’ve spoken with has been a sort of grim resignation. Not acceptance. Nobody accepts it. Just an exhausted acknowledgment that the violence has become the backdrop against which everything else happens.
The homicides concentrate in the same neighborhoods they’ve concentrated in for years: Frayser, Whitehaven, Hickory Hill, South Memphis, Orange Mound. What shifted in 2021 was the spillover. Carjackings in East Memphis. Armed robberies in Germantown. Shootings in parking lots along Poplar Avenue that five years ago would have been unthinkable at those locations.
This geographic spread changed the private security market in a way that pure numbers didn’t capture. When violence stays in neighborhoods that are already high-crime, security demand stays relatively stable because those areas were already buying protection. When violence moves into areas that considered themselves safe, new buyers enter the market. And in 2021, a lot of new buyers entered the market.
CJ Davis Takes the Wheel
Cerelyn “CJ” Davis was sworn in as Memphis Police Director in June, replacing Michael Rallings, who had held the position since 2016. Davis came from the Durham Police Department in North Carolina and arrived with a reputation for community policing and data-driven strategies.
Her appointment mattered to the private security industry for a specific reason: the relationship between MPD and private security companies has always been complicated in Memphis. Under Rallings, the department maintained an arm’s-length posture toward private security, cooperating when necessary and mostly staying out of each other’s way. Davis signaled early interest in more formal coordination, including better information sharing between MPD’s Real Time Crime Center and private security operations.
Whether that interest translates into action in 2022 remains to be seen. Six months is barely enough time for a new police chief to learn the political terrain, let alone restructure institutional relationships. The security industry is watching, and most company owners I’ve talked to are cautiously optimistic.
SCORPION Enters the Picture
MPD launched the Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods, known as SCORPION, in the fall. The unit focuses on street-level crime suppression in high-crime areas, deploying plainclothes officers for targeted enforcement operations.
The unit focuses on street-level crime suppression in high-crime areas, deploying plainclothes officers for targeted enforcement against drug sales, illegal weapons, and violent offenders.
For private security companies, SCORPION’s presence has been a mixed blessing. In areas where the unit operates actively, property crimes and some violent crime categories have dropped. Security companies with contracts in those neighborhoods have seen quieter shifts. The flip side is that SCORPION’s concentrated presence can push criminal activity into adjacent neighborhoods, sometimes into areas where security companies had been managing with existing resources.
Specialized enforcement teams have a mixed history in American policing. They produce results, and they also create civil liability challenges. Memphis will be watching closely.
The Labor Shortage That Wouldn’t Break
If there’s a single story that defined the private security industry in Memphis during 2021, it’s the labor shortage. Every company I’ve spoken with this year has described the same problem in different words: they cannot hire enough people.
The numbers tell part of the story. Before the pandemic, an unarmed security officer in Memphis typically earned $9 to $11 per hour. By January 2021, the floor had moved to $11 to $12. By December, companies hiring unarmed guards at $12 were still struggling to fill positions, and many had pushed starting wages to $13 or $14.
Armed guards saw even steeper increases. The pre-pandemic rate of $13 to $16 per hour has moved to $16 to $20 for most commercial posts, with specialized assignments like executive protection and high-risk site security commanding $22 to $28.
The shortage has multiple causes.
Extended unemployment benefits kept workers out of the labor force through September. Stimulus payments let people be selective. Standing in a parking lot for eight hours in August heat at $12 per hour became a harder sell when the alternative was staying home.
The Amazon effect hit hard too. Memphis-area distribution facilities start at $15 per hour with benefits. For someone choosing between guarding an apartment complex in Frayser for $13 and working a climate-controlled warehouse for $15, the math is simple. FedEx has similarly raised its wage floor.
Companies built on $10 to $12 labor costs have been forced to restructure. Billing rates need to jump 20 to 30 percent. Some clients accept the increases. Others push back, shop around, and discover every reputable company is charging more.
The firms in the worst position are those with multi-year contracts signed in 2019 that locked in billing rates without escalation clauses. They’re paying 2021 wages on 2019 revenue. A few won’t survive into 2022.
COVID Vaccine Debates Hit the Guard Force
The security industry’s workforce challenge got another complication in 2021: COVID vaccine mandates. Or, more precisely, the debate over whether to impose them.
President Biden’s September executive order requiring vaccines for federal contractors sent ripples through the security industry. Companies holding federal contracts, including guard services at federal buildings, military installations, and government facilities in Memphis and across Tennessee, faced a choice: mandate vaccines and risk losing workers who refuse, or lose the federal contract.
Large national companies quietly implemented the mandate for federal contract employees while keeping voluntary policies for commercial accounts. Smaller companies mostly avoided the issue, calculating that mandating vaccines in a market this tight was asking for trouble.
The debate divided guard forces and management teams. Some officers refused vaccination and quit. Others got vaccinated grudgingly. There was no winning move. The vaccine issue cost the industry workers it couldn’t afford to lose and consumed management attention that would have been better spent on operations.
Organized Retail Theft Goes National
Memphis has dealt with organized retail theft for years. What changed in 2021 was that the rest of the country started paying attention.
Videos of brazen shoplifting incidents in San Francisco and Chicago went viral on social media. National news coverage framed organized retail theft as a coast-to-coast crisis. Congress held hearings. The National Retail Federation released data estimating $69 billion in annual retail shrinkage, with organized theft accounting for a significant portion.
In Memphis, the problem wasn’t new. Retailers along Winchester Road, at Wolfchase Galleria, and in the Southaven shopping corridor have battled organized theft rings for years. The rings operate with sophistication: teams hit multiple stores in coordinated runs, load merchandise into waiting vehicles, and move product online or through flea markets.
The national attention brought two changes locally. Retailers who had been cutting security budgets reversed course, expanding contracted security hours in Q3 and Q4. And the conversation shifted from in-store detection to parking lot security, with retailers wanting armed officers visible outside stores.
Technology Adoption Accelerates
GPS tracking for patrol vehicles, body cameras for officers, video analytics for camera systems, mobile access credentials. Every technology that had been slowly gaining adoption went into faster gear in 2021.
The driver wasn’t enthusiasm for technology. It was necessity. Companies that couldn’t hire enough officers looked for ways to do more with fewer people. Camera systems with analytics could monitor areas that would otherwise go uncovered. GPS tracking let supervisors verify that patrol routes were being completed without sending a supervisor to check in person. Body cameras reduced frivolous complaints and protected companies from liability.
The Real Time Crime Center’s expansion at 201 Poplar set the tone. Over 2,000 cameras feeding into a centralized monitoring hub showed what was possible. Private companies started building smaller versions of the same concept, funded by companies already squeezed by wage increases.
Winners and Losers
The winners were mid-size companies with diversified clients and enough capital to absorb wage increases while adding technology. They could raise prices, retain clients, and grow selectively.
The losers were small firms competing on price. When labor costs jumped 25 to 40 percent, their margins evaporated. Some shifted to residential accounts. Others stopped bidding on commercial contracts they’d lose money on.
National companies like Allied Universal, Securitas, and GardaWorld gained market share by having deeper pockets. Whether they delivered better service is debatable. They delivered scale, and in 2021, scale mattered.
What 2022 Might Look Like
Predictions in this industry are worth about as much as you’d expect. Still, certain trends are clear enough to project forward.
Demand for private security in Memphis will remain high throughout 2022. The factors driving demand, which are violent crime, property crime, retail theft, and expanding liability awareness, show no signs of reversing. If anything, the first quarter will see a rush of new contracts as businesses implement security budgets finalized during Q4 planning.
The labor shortage will persist. Amazon, FedEx, and other major employers aren’t lowering wages. Neither can the security industry. Expect starting pay for unarmed guards to stabilize between $13 and $15 per hour, with armed officers commanding $18 to $22 for standard posts. Companies that find ways to recruit from non-traditional pipelines, including veterans transitioning from active duty, career changers from retail, and retirees looking for part-time work, will have an advantage.
Technology investment will accelerate because it has to. Companies can’t staff their way out of a labor shortage. The ones that build technology into their service model will differentiate themselves from firms offering nothing except a person in a uniform.
Legislative changes are possible. Tennessee legislators have discussed updating security licensing requirements, including armed guard training hours, company licensing fees, and reciprocity with other states. Nothing is certain, yet the conversations are happening.
Memphis will enter 2022 with a murder count that most people would have called impossible a decade ago and a security industry running flat out to meet demand it can barely handle. The year ahead won’t be calmer.
The companies that thrive will be the ones that stopped pretending 2019 was coming back. The ones still waiting for normal will be waiting a long time.