Mall Cops

There is no greater bastion of capitalism than the American shopping mall. It is a place where, in the course of an afternoon, you can buy a pair of Crocs, eat a Cinnabon, and test out Piña Colada-scented lotion at Bath & Body Works. But it’s also a place where the full spectrum of human behavior is on display — a place where visitors might require protection. And out on the concourse, scanning the crowds for suspicious activity, a guy like Gus Parsons is heeding the call.

PARSONS: If you ever met me, I’m 5’11”, 300 pounds, you know, bald headed, 40. I’m not approachable by any means.

Parsons is a veteran mall cop. He spent 20 years, on and off, working as a security guard at shopping centers in San Diego.

PARSONS: We would dress like the normal knockoff cop. Sometimes we’d have to wear those little fake Mountie hats. I carried a radio. I carried a glass breaker. Handcuffs, extra handcuff keys. Some malls wanted you to wear a utility belt, but there was no utility. The only thing that would be on the belt is a flashlight.

Private security officers are a common sight for Americans. We encounter them at airports, grocery stores, gas stations, office buildings, and banks. There are 1.2 million of them in the U.S. — more than all police forces combined. Private security is a $48 billion dollar industry in the United States. And, while mall security only makes up a fraction of that market, it’s a strange calling. Mall guards are there to provide a sense of public safety — but they often don’t have the authority to enforce it.

PARSONS: You’re not allowed to do any hands on. You’re not a law enforcement type person. You basically just observe and report. It’s a mall job. It’s eight hours worth of nothing and you get to walk around and lose some weight. And that’s about it.

For the Freakonomics Radio Network, this is The Economics of Everyday Things. I’m Zachary Crockett. Today: Mall cops.

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A lot of malls have closed in recent years, but they’re still a significant part of America’s retail landscape. There are more than 1,000 enclosed shopping malls, and tens of thousands of smaller strip malls and commercial centers, in the U.S. Most major cities have at least one mega-mall — a goliath complex of shops, department stores, restaurants, and movie theaters, where you can waste a Saturday afternoon. But where you might see a convenient place to get some errands done, someone like David Levenberg sees a minefield.

LEVENBERG: A large shopping center may have 10 to 15 to 20 million people a year come through. And when you have that many people in one location, something is bound to happen.

Levenberg is the owner of Center Security Services, a consulting agency that helps malls and other commercial properties assess risk. He says all kinds of things can go down in a mall.

LEVENBERG: There might be auto-burglaries or auto-thefts in the parking lot. Could be assaults or fights, major thefts, homicides, kidnaping, rape.

The Department of Homeland Security even classifies malls as a soft target.

LEVENBERG: Which means someplace easy to get into, an area that a potential terrorist might target because of the amount of people in one confined space.

Now, a mall is essentially just a piece of real estate, with a bunch of storefronts that are leased out to retailers. Each retailer in the mall is responsible for what happens inside of its own store. And many of them hire their own private security to protect their merchandise. Bigger stores may even have a whole team of loss prevention officers roaming around inside watching for shoplifters. But the areas outside of the stores — the walkways, the atriums, the escalators — those are the mall owner’s responsibility. In most jurisdictions, they’re required by law to provide a reasonably safe environment for patrons. And that means hiring mall cops.

LEVENBERG: Their function is to patrol what’s called the common area. Those concourses between the stores in a mall and the parking lots or parking garages. And they’re a visible presence to try to deter disruptive or criminal behavior.

Most malls choose to work with an outside security firm that hires, trains, and provides guards. There are hundreds of these companies to choose from, but the industry giant is AlliedUniversal. They’re the third-largest non-government employer in North America, trailing only Walmart and Amazon. A company like Allied will sign a deal with the mall developer’s corporate security department. It will pay its guards an hourly wage — typically, around $18 dollars — and then charge the mall a marked-up rate for their services.

LEVENBERG: The markup over wages when I was in the industry was 41-42 percent. But the larger you are and the more business you give to a particular vendor, the more leverage you have to negotiate a lower markup.

Every mall’s security needs are different. The property’s size, location, and historical crime rates determine its budget for guards.

LEVENBERG: I’ve seen as low as $100,000 a year for a small, quiet property, up to several million dollars a year for a very large, busy property.

The mall owner usually offsets this bill by passing the cost on to the retailers who rent space there.

LEVENBERG: The mall calculates, “What are all my common area expenses every year?” and that would include janitorial service, maintenance, security. And then they calculate a dollar per square foot charge to a retailer.

For a retailer, that cost can be anywhere from $3 to $10 per square foot. Levenberg says this investment can pay off.

LEVENBERG: The mall owners understand that, “If my customers feel safe coming here, they’re going to come more frequently, they’re going to spend longer time here. And that translates into dollars in the pocket.”

The presence of mall security may make some people feel safe. But when things go wrong, many guards don’t have the legal authority to physically get involved.

LEVENBERG: Typically the security officer is no different than any citizen. They don’t have any police powers. If they observe a crime being committed, legally they could make a citizen’s arrest, detain an individual and hold them for the police.

Most guards are instructed not to pursue that option. Security firms are often held liable for any security-related issue that arises at the mall. Over the years, they’ve had to pay out millions of dollars in settlements and verdicts — due to false arrests and excessive force. Most firms tend to shy away from intervention.

LEVENBERG: Employers and the owners of the shopping centers say, “We don’t want you to get involved. We want you to simply observe, gather information, give it to the police when they arrive and help them with their investigation.”

So, what exactly does a mall cop do all day?

PARSONS: I’m not saying I’m a lazy employee. But if you’re not a stoner as a security guard, I think you’re doing it wrong.

That’s coming up.

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Gus Parsons first got into the security business in the late ‘90s, at the age of 18. He started out patrolling at sporting events. But that changed when a friend called him with a different opportunity.

PARSONS: He’s like, “Hey, I have a full-time security job at the mall. Do you want to come check it out?” I said, “Sure, why not?”

In most states, security guards have to go through an 8-hour training course to get a guard card — the same basic certification required to be a bouncer at a bar. Once they pass, they can apply to be a mall security guard with a private company — and depending on the company, they may have to go through another set of training protocols. Or, maybe they won’t.

PARSONS: The hiring process is a cakewalk. You’ll go in with a group. You’ll do a group interview. You’ll do a group test. It’s just like, “Can you breathe?” Yeah. “Can you count to ten?” Um, yeah. And that’s pretty much it.

During his 20 years in mall security, Parsons says he encountered the same recurring cast of characters.

PARSONS: We have what’s called the pant booters. Those are the security guards that tuck their pants into their boots. And, you know, they’ve been there a while and they’re protecting the mall like it’s their own house. There’s the old guys that were in the military and bring the military with them. They like to assert their stuff and show off their walkie talkies. And then you have the lazy security guards who just don’t care. Those are the guys that like to get in trouble a little bit and they make the job more fun.

Parsons says he fell into the latter camp. Whether that was sneaking off to the movie theater — or taking the occasional nap on the job. For his work, Parsons says he was paid around $20 an hour. But he had ways of supplementing his income.

PARSONS: If you can work the system right with a mall cop, man, you can get in good. I’ve had some people tip me quite well.

CROCKETT: Was that a common side hustle with security guards in your experience?

PARSONS: One hundred percent. We’re the ones who have to call the tow truck companies. Like, “Hey, man, you could park right here. Don’t worry. Just 20 bucks.”

Watching a movie on the job or taking an occasional bribe is relatively harmless compared to the behavior of Parsons’ peers. Mall security guards have been caught macing people in the face, doing donuts in the parking lots, and even allegedly recording women in bathrooms. But most guards are happy just sticking to the monotony of the daily routine.

A mall security guard has a few recurring duties. A big part of the job is customer service — telling shoppers where the bathrooms are, or helping them find a lost cell phone. They keep an eye on parking lots, monitor security cameras in the backroom, and enforce the mall’s code of conduct — say, reprimanding a teenager on a skateboard.

At many malls, they patrol around the perimeter scanning a wand or other handheld device at designated spots to create a digital footprint of where they’ve been. They also have to write up daily activity reports, chronicling all of the things they encounter on their shift.

PARSONS: It’s just a pass down of what happened today. Like, “Hey, such and such is being a nuisance over at the jewelry store. Just keep an eye on that.”

While on the job, Parsons and his colleagues would communicate on radios, often in a shorthand liberally based on police codes.

PARSONS: There’s 10-1, 10-2, 10-3, 10-4, 10-5, 10-6. 10-19, baby! 10-19.

CROCKETT: What’s a 10-19?

PARSONS: That’s the bathroom break. 10-20 is where you’re at. Code 4 is basically, “It’s all good.” Blue code was someone was not breathing. I have been in a Code Blue situation a few times because of the food court — you know, someone’s choking up there. There’s a few codes that, I don’t care what kind of security guard you are, you will perk up. You will do your job. And Code Blue is definitely one of them.

A Code Blue isn’t the only thing that perks up a mall guard. The dull days walking the perimeter and napping in the parking lot are broken up by small moments of action. For starters, there’s the occasional lost child.

PARSONS: You got hysterical parents. A lot of the time the kid would either be in the same store and just like just camped out somewhere, just kind of like hiding or in the toy section.

Then, there are the crimes.

Fights, domestic disputes, threats — and, most commonly, theft. Parsons contended with shoplifters on a weekly basis.

PARSONS: I’ve seen the most clean cut mom — like you’d think she was on the PTA and, you know, Mrs. Soccer Mom herself. And she’s over here reaching over the counter, grabbing jewelry. I had grandparents stealing high-end purses. The lady would walk right out in front of everybody and then people were like, “Bye, have a good day!” And she’s like, “Bye! Thank you for this $20,000 purse!” I had a kid directly look at me in the face and ask me, “Do you work for the mall?” And I said, “Why?” He said, “If you work for the mall, you can’t even chase me.” And he literally just jacked a bunch of Gucci belts in front of me and just walked out.

Parsons says that when he first started working mall security back in the late ‘90s, he had more leeway to apprehend unruly mall patrons.

PARSONS: You could chase them down, grab them, arrest them, you know, hog tie them and throw them in the back. At one point, we were actually allowed to use a baton to defend ourselves and have pepper spray on us.

But by the end of his tenure, Parsons, like most mall cops, was under strict orders to let those kids with Gucci belts run away.

PARSONS: We can’t touch them and we can’t chase them. Most of the training is to get height, weight, hair color, stuff like that, that’s pretty much all you’re doing. You’re just trying to get as much information as you can to pass it on. And then that’s it. Case closed.

David Levenberg, the security consultant, says most retailers, and malls they operate out of, have a certain protocol in place.

LEVENBERG: Normally the retailer’s going to let the shoplifter exit the store because they want to be able to show that they passed all cash registers, all points of sale, had no intention to pay for that item that they’ve stuck down their pants. The mall dispatcher will send patrol to standby in that area to simply act as more of a deterrent, more of a show of force, which hopefully would dissuade the shoplifters from fighting or trying to run.

Most mall cops have a little help, in the form of technology. Today’s malls are retrofitted with hundreds of cameras. And there’s usually a control room somewhere in the bowels of the building, where an operator is watching live footage — on dozens of splitscreen monitors.

LEVENBERG: The technology that’s available today can detect and alert the operator to unusual activity. There’s a lot of things behind the scenes that people may not be aware of.

Malls have experimented with facial recognition, license plate scanning technology in parking garages, and even robots. Companies like Knightscope rent out autonomous security guards that look like giant Roombas for around $9 an hour. Although, the product still isn’t perfect. A few years ago, at a California mall, a 5-foot-tall, 300-pound robo-cop allegedly knocked down a toddler and ran over his foot.

For the most part, though, malls still prefer human guards — ideally humans with thick skin. Security guards are still dealing with the fallout from the 2009 movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop. In it, comedian Kevin James portrays a failed police officer who becomes a security guard at a mall in New Jersey. He’s overweight and clumsy, riding around on a Segway while guzzling Pixie Stix.

JAMES: Okay ladies, I’m going to need to see some I.D.

WOMAN: No you don’t.

Gus Parsons says the film gave teenaged mall-goers a whole new catalog of heckling material.

PARSONS: We were more of a target after that. Now, they can take all these jokes out of the movie. And because I’m a bigger guy I knew that I was going to be called Paul Blart. But it’s either you embrace the *BLEEP* or you don’t. And if you don’t, then this might not be the job for you, because mall security is definitely a targeted job for bullies.

But at the end of the day, shrugging it off is just another part of the job.

PARSONS: Mall security has definitely always gotten a bad perception. Like, “Oh, you’re fake security guards, fake mall cops and stuff like that.” They just completely clown on the whole security guard thing. I’ve never minded that because you know, we’re still getting paid. I still get a check. I still get a discount at the mall at Mrs. Field’s. So, I’m okay.

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For The Economics of Everyday Things, I’m Zachary Crockett. This episode was produced by me and Sarah Lilley, and mixed by Jeremy Johnston. We had help from Daniel Moritz-Rabson.

PARSONS: I’ve seen people defacing property with their butt, you know. It’s — I — I’ve seen a lot, man.