The Memphis Safe Task Force has made 7,115 arrests in six months. Forty-four of those were for homicide. More than 1,100 illegal firearms have been seized. And now the President of the United States is flying to Memphis on March 23 to stand in front of cameras and declare it a success.
For the private security companies that have worked this city for decades, the question is not whether those numbers are impressive. They are. The question is what happens to their contracts, their staffing plans, and their growth projections when a 31-agency federal operation is doing the kind of work that property managers and business owners used to hire them for.
The Numbers Behind the Visit
President Trump’s upcoming Monday visit will spotlight an initiative that launched in September 2025 as a coordinated effort between local, state, and federal agencies. The U.S. Marshals Service has published weekly arrest reports since the task force began operations, and the trajectory has been consistent: dozens of arrests per day, hundreds of firearms recovered per month, and cumulative totals that keep climbing.
As of March 13, the task force’s record looks like this: 7,115 total arrests, 44 for homicide, 789 for controlled substances, 606 for firearms violations, and 93 for sex offenses. The U.S. Marshals Service releases these figures in near real-time, which is unusual for federal law enforcement operations and suggests the numbers are part of the strategy itself.
The White House confirmed the visit this week, with regional press officials framing it around the city’s “turnaround” on crime. Senator Marsha Blackburn told reporters there is “no better use of federal resources than protecting law-abiding citizens from harm” and said the task force should remain active “as long as it takes to make Memphis one of the safest cities in America.”
That phrase, “as long as it takes,” is doing a lot of work. It is both a commitment and an open question. The task force currently has no confirmed end date.
What Citywide Crime Data Actually Shows
The arrest numbers tell one story. The crime data tells a related, slightly more complicated one.
Violent crime across Memphis is down 48% compared to the same period last year. Motor vehicle thefts have fallen 68%. Downtown specifically has seen crime drop just under 50%, with car theft in the North Main precinct area down more than 70%, according to Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Chandell Ryan, who discussed the figures on WKNO’s “Behind the Headlines” program on March 12.
Those are real and significant declines. They also raise a question that Memphis resident Deario Larry put bluntly in an interview with ABC24 this week: “Crime was already down” before the task force arrived.
He is not entirely wrong. Memphis ended 2025 with fewer than 200 murders for the first time since 2019, and the “Sustain the Gain” strategy was already in motion before the first federal agents arrived in September. Separating the task force’s contribution from the broader trend that preceded it is genuinely difficult, and that distinction matters for anyone making security investment decisions.
The Private Security Calculation
Here is where this story gets relevant for the 847 TDCI-licensed contract security companies operating in Tennessee.
When federal agents flood a city, some of the demand signals that private security companies rely on start to shift. Property managers who might have increased patrol hours instead see National Guard Humvees parked outside their buildings. Retailers who were budgeting for additional armed guards notice federal and state law enforcement running operations in the same corridors their patrol officers were covering.
This does not mean private security contracts are disappearing. Many have actually expanded over the past six months, particularly for commercial properties in East Memphis, Cordova, and Germantown where the task force concentrates less of its visible presence. Some companies have reported stronger demand for technology-driven services like camera monitoring, access control integration, and GPS-tracked patrol verification, areas where they offer capabilities the task force does not.
Companies like Phelps Security, which has operated in Memphis since 1960, have the institutional knowledge to navigate these shifts. Firms with statewide coverage, including Walden Security out of Chattanooga and Shield of Steel, a veteran-owned operation that runs armed patrol and monitoring across Tennessee from its Lamar Avenue office, are positioned differently than smaller local outfits. They can absorb short-term contract fluctuations because their client base is not concentrated in the task force’s primary operating zones.
The smaller firms, the ones running five to fifteen officers on night shifts at strip malls and apartment complexes in Whitehaven or Hickory Hill, are feeling the squeeze more directly. Some property owners are asking hard questions about whether they need to maintain current staffing levels when federal agents are making arrests in the same parking lots.
The Sustainability Question No One Wants to Answer
The Community Foundation of Greater Memphis apparently sees what is coming. Earlier this month, the organization published an opinion piece in The Commercial Appeal with a headline that said it plainly: “The Memphis Task Force is temporary. These solutions aren’t.”
Their Community Solutions program is designed to prepare for public safety after the task force. The timing of that announcement was not accidental. Six months into an operation with no end date, the smartest planning assumes the resources will eventually pull back.
For private security operators, this creates a strategic window. The companies using this period to invest in technology upgrades, expand their training programs, and build relationships with property managers who are currently relying on the task force’s presence are the ones that will be positioned to absorb the demand when federal resources scale down.
The companies sitting on their hands, waiting for the task force to leave so the old contract environment returns, may find that the market has moved past them. Property managers who have gotten used to camera command centers, real-time monitoring, and coordinated response protocols are not going to settle for a lone guard in a sedan doing hourly drive-bys.
What the Survey Numbers Say About Appetite for Security
A March 15 opinion piece in the Daily Memphian from Bill Gibbons, president of the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission and executive director of the Public Safety Institute at the University of Memphis, cited survey data showing strong public support for hiring more Memphis police officers.
That finding has implications beyond MPD staffing. When the public signals that it wants more law enforcement presence, that sentiment typically extends to private security as well. Property owners read the same surveys their tenants do. Corporate boards in Nashville and Atlanta that oversee Memphis facilities see the same headlines.
The appetite for security spending in Memphis is not shrinking. It is reorganizing around a different set of expectations. Clients want accountability, data, and measurable outcomes. The task force, whatever its long-term trajectory, has raised the bar on what “security presence” means in this city.
The Downtown Test Case
Downtown Memphis is a preview of where the broader market may be heading.
The $74 million in state funds for safety and infrastructure improvements around Beale Street, combined with the DMC’s camera command center and its $2 million ambassador program, represent a model where public investment and private security work as layers rather than substitutes.
Ryan described the approach on WKNO: enhanced camera coverage at key locations like Second and Beale, active monitoring from a central command center, and coordinated response with MPD. “Having the command center, people actively watching every day to try to prevent incidents from happening has been a game changer,” she said.
Private security companies that can plug into this kind of infrastructure, rather than operating as isolated patrol loops, have a clear competitive advantage. The firms investing in camera integration, electronic reporting, and real-time communication with law enforcement are building the muscle that will matter after the task force headlines fade.
Reading the Room
The political dynamics around this visit are worth watching. Trump’s trip to Memphis on March 23 will generate national media coverage. That coverage will frame the task force as a success story, regardless of how the credit is allocated between federal intervention and pre-existing local trends.
Resident reactions so far are mixed. Rachel Belz told ABC24 the increased arrests and prosecutions have made her feel more comfortable “going to the gas station or to the grocery store.” Valerie Meader was less certain: “He says it’s better in Memphis, but I don’t see it.”
For security industry professionals, the lesson is not in the politics. It is in the expectations being set. When a president visits a city to celebrate crime reduction, the implicit promise is that the improvement will hold. If it does not hold after the task force scales back, property owners and business operators will look for someone to fill the gap.
That someone will not be the federal government. It will be the private security companies that prepared for this moment while everyone else was watching the arrest numbers climb.