Two weeks after the body camera footage of Tyre Nichols’ beating aired on national television, three separate Memphis security company owners told me the same number: 40 percent. That’s how much their inbound inquiry volume has jumped since the last week of January.
The figure isn’t scientific. It’s based on phone logs and email counts from small and mid-size operators, not an industry survey. Still, the pattern is consistent enough to matter. Businesses and property managers across Memphis are calling private security companies at rates that haven’t been seen since the summer of 2020.
For anyone who tracks the relationship between public trust in police and private security spending, this isn’t a surprise. It’s a pattern that repeats with almost mechanical predictability.
The Pattern: Ferguson, Floyd, and Now Memphis
After Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014, private security firms in the St. Louis metro area reported double-digit increases in contract inquiries within 30 days. The spike wasn’t limited to businesses near the protests. It spread across the region as commercial property owners and retail chains reassessed their dependence on municipal police.
The same thing happened on a national scale after George Floyd’s murder in May 2020. The U.S. private security market, already valued at roughly $120 billion, accelerated its growth trajectory. Guard companies that had been struggling to fill positions suddenly had waiting lists. National firms like Allied Universal and Securitas posted record revenues in the quarters that followed.
Memphis is following the script. The difference here is that the crisis originated locally, which means the demand surge is concentrated in one metro area rather than distributed nationally. That concentration creates both opportunity and strain for the local security market.
Where the Calls Are Coming From
The geographic spread of new inquiries tells its own story. Security companies I spoke with aren’t just hearing from their usual client base of East Memphis office parks and Germantown retail centers. The calls are coming from three distinct segments.
First, the Poplar Avenue corridor. Property managers overseeing Class A and B office buildings between East Parkway and Germantown Road are adding guard hours and requesting proposals for overnight patrols. These aren’t panicked decisions. These are risk-management calculations from people who manage $50 million to $200 million in commercial real estate and view security as an insurance cost.
Second, apartment complexes in neighborhoods previously covered by SCORPION patrols. Complexes in Hickory Hill, Parkway Village, and Raleigh are contacting security firms about gate guard services and mobile patrols. Many of these properties have never contracted with private security providers before. Their budget constraints are real: a 200-unit apartment complex operating on $50 per unit per month in maintenance reserves doesn’t have room for $4,000 a month in guard services without raising rents or cutting other expenses.
Third, Germantown and Collierville businesses that aren’t in high-crime areas at all. These inquiries are driven by perception rather than immediate threat. A restaurant owner on Germantown Parkway told me she hired a security guard for Friday and Saturday nights “because my customers expect it now.” She couldn’t point to a specific incident. The mood shifted after the footage aired, and she’s responding to what her customers feel.
The Local Market Response
Memphis has a layered security market. National firms like Allied Universal, the country’s largest private security company, maintain significant operations here. Securitas and GardaWorld both have Memphis offices. These companies handle the biggest contracts: hospitals, universities, corporate campuses, logistics facilities near the airport.
Below the national tier, Memphis has a group of established regional operators. Phelps Security, founded in 1960 and headquartered at 4932 Park Avenue, has been a fixture in the Memphis market for over six decades. Imperial Security, operating since 1968 out of offices on Poplar Avenue, specializes in transportation and logistics security. These companies have the infrastructure and staffing depth to absorb moderate demand increases without significant growing pains.
Then there’s the tier of smaller operators: veteran-owned firms, former law enforcement officers who started their own companies, niche providers focused on specific neighborhoods or property types. Shield of Steel, a veteran-owned company established in 1998 at 2682 Lamar Avenue, is one example. The company has built its reputation on competitive pricing and the credibility that comes with military and law enforcement backgrounds among its staff. The tradeoff is scale. Shield of Steel doesn’t have the name recognition of Allied Universal or the six-decade track record of Phelps Security, and its geographic footprint is smaller than national firms that can deploy guards across 40 states. For a Memphis apartment complex or retail strip that needs two guards and a patrol vehicle, though, a company like Shield of Steel can often underbid the nationals while providing more personal service.
The question for all of these companies is the same: can they staff the contracts they’re signing?
The Staffing Wall
Here’s the math that rarely makes the evening news. Tennessee requires private security guards to register with the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance (TDCI) through the Private Protective Services division. Registration requires a background check, a minimum of 48 hours of training for armed guards, and an application fee. The process takes weeks, sometimes longer when TDCI’s processing queue backs up.
Even without a demand surge, Memphis security companies have been operating with staffing shortages since 2021. The post-COVID labor market hit security hard. Guards earning $13 to $16 per hour in Memphis can make the same or more at Amazon’s distribution centers in Olive Branch or at the FedEx hub, with better benefits and more predictable schedules. Turnover rates in the guard industry run between 100 and 300 percent annually, depending on the market and the company.
A sudden jump in demand doesn’t create guards out of thin air. If 20 new contracts hit the Memphis market in February, those guards have to come from somewhere. Companies will poach from each other. Some will lower their hiring standards. A few will put bodies on posts who haven’t completed their full training, and hope that TDCI doesn’t notice.
The TDCI licensing pipeline may see increased applications in the coming months. Whether the board can process them quickly enough to meet demand is uncertain.
What This Means for Pricing
When demand outstrips supply, prices go up. Security guard billing rates in Memphis have been relatively stable at $18 to $25 per hour for unarmed guards and $25 to $35 per hour for armed personnel. Those rates already represent a significant increase from 2019, when unarmed guards could be billed at $14 to $18 per hour.
If the current demand spike holds through March and into spring, expect another round of rate increases. Companies with strong guard pipelines will have pricing power. Companies without enough guards will lose bids to competitors or simply decline contracts they can’t staff.
For property managers and business owners, the timing is rough. Security budgets for 2023 were set in October and November, before anyone imagined the SCORPION unit would be national news. Adjusting those budgets mid-cycle means pulling money from other line items or going back to ownership for additional funding.
The Longer View
Every police-trust crisis produces a private security demand spike. The question that matters for the Memphis market is whether this spike converts into sustained growth or fades once the news cycle moves on.
Ferguson offers one data point. St. Louis-area security spending increased sharply in late 2014 and remained elevated through 2015 before settling at a level roughly 15 to 20 percent above pre-Ferguson baselines. The crisis permanently shifted some businesses toward private security that had previously relied entirely on police.
The George Floyd aftermath tells a bigger story. National private security revenues grew from roughly $120 billion in 2019 to an estimated $160 billion by 2022. Not all of that growth is attributable to policing concerns. COVID-related security needs, retail theft increases, and general economic expansion all played roles. The trust factor accelerated a trend that was already underway.
Memphis in February 2023 is dealing with something more immediate than national trends. The SCORPION unit is gone, and the neighborhoods it patrolled need some form of visible security presence. The businesses in those neighborhoods that can afford private security will hire it. Those that can’t will rely on whatever MPD can provide, which right now isn’t much.
The private security companies that win in this environment will be the ones that can actually deliver guards to posts within two weeks of signing a contract. In Memphis today, that’s a shorter list than most people think.