Three hundred and two. That’s how many people were killed in Memphis last year, according to preliminary numbers from the Memphis Police Department. The figure is down from 346 in 2021, a drop of about 13%, and MPD Chief CJ Davis has been quick to frame it as progress. She’s not wrong. Any decline in homicides is worth noting in a city that has spent three straight years north of 300 murders.
The question for anyone running a security operation in Shelby County isn’t whether the numbers got better. They did. The question is whether 302 dead people in a single calendar year qualifies as a safe city. For property managers in Midtown, business owners on Poplar Avenue, and warehouse operators out in Hickory Hill, the answer hasn’t changed since 2020. It’s still no.
And that’s exactly why 2023 is shaping up to be another growth year for private security in Memphis.
2022 in the Rearview Mirror
Memphis spent most of 2022 near the top of every violent crime ranking in the country. The city’s per-capita murder rate was among the highest in the nation, and while the raw homicide count fell from the record-setting 346 in 2021, the decline was modest enough that residents didn’t feel it in their daily lives. Carjackings remained a constant problem. Aggravated assaults stayed elevated. Property crime, particularly auto theft, continued to drain resources from an already stretched police department.
Then came September.
Eliza Fletcher, a 34-year-old Memphis teacher and mother, was abducted while jogging near the University of Memphis campus around 4:30 a.m. on September 2. Her body was found days later. The case drew national attention and forced a conversation that security professionals in Memphis had been having for years: personal safety in this city requires more than hope and street lights.
The Fletcher case didn’t create demand for private security. That demand had been building since 2020, when homicides jumped from 225 to 305 in a single year. What the case did was make the demand visible. Suddenly, residential communities in Germantown and Collierville were calling security companies to discuss patrol services. HOA boards in East Memphis that had never considered hiring guards were putting it on meeting agendas. Corporate campuses near the University of Memphis tightened access protocols.
By October 2022, several Memphis-area security companies were reporting waitlists for new contracts. Phelps Security, the family-owned firm on Park Avenue that’s been operating since 1960, told local media they were fielding more inquiries than at any point in their six-decade history. National operators like Allied Universal and Securitas were expanding their Memphis footprints too, absorbing contracts that smaller firms couldn’t staff.
The Hiring Problem That Won’t Go Away
Here’s the tension sitting at the center of the 2023 outlook: demand for private security in Memphis is growing faster than the labor supply to fill it.
Tennessee’s Department of Commerce and Insurance, known as TDCI, processes guard registrations through its Private Protective Services division. The licensing pipeline has been under pressure since 2021. Every armed guard in Tennessee needs to complete training, pass a background check, and register with the state. Every contract security company needs a separate company license. The process works, but it wasn’t built for a market where demand spikes by 20% or more in two years.
The math is straightforward. Memphis needs more guards. Training programs have limited throughput. Background checks take time. And the starting pay for an unarmed security officer in Memphis still hovers around $13 to $15 an hour, which makes it hard to compete with Amazon’s warehouse jobs in Olive Branch or FedEx’s sorting operations near the airport. Some companies have pushed starting wages to $16 or $17 for armed positions, and that’s helped, but the gap between open posts and available guards hasn’t closed.
For security company owners, 2023 will be defined by how well they solve this equation. The contracts are out there. The question is whether you can staff them.
Where the Money Is Moving
Commercial property managers are the biggest buyers of private security services in Memphis right now. The reasons aren’t complicated. Insurance carriers are asking harder questions about on-site security. Tenants at Class A office buildings on Poplar and in the Ridgeway Center area expect visible security presence. Retail centers along Winchester and in the Wolfchase corridor have been adding patrol hours steadily since mid-2021.
The healthcare sector is another growth driver. Regional One Health, Methodist Le Bonheur, and Baptist Memorial all expanded security operations in 2022. Hospitals deal with a unique problem set: patients and visitors come through the doors in crisis, and the line between medical facility and potential crime scene gets thin in a city with Memphis’s violence profile. Hospital security contracts tend to be sticky once awarded, which makes them attractive for providers willing to meet the staffing and training requirements.
Warehouse and logistics security is the sleeper category. Memphis moves more air cargo than any city in the world, thanks to FedEx’s global hub. The distribution centers and third-party logistics operations stretching from the airport south to Olive Branch and east toward Collierville need guards, gate access control, and mobile patrol. These aren’t glamorous contracts, but they pay consistently and they’re growing.
One more sector worth watching: houses of worship. Memphis has thousands of churches, and after a string of high-profile mass shootings nationally, congregations are taking security more seriously. Several Memphis churches added armed security in 2022, and that trend shows no signs of slowing.
The TDCI Factor
Tennessee’s regulatory framework for private security hasn’t changed much in recent years, and that stability cuts two ways. On one hand, companies know the rules. The licensing requirements under T.C.A. 62-35 are clear, the renewal process is predictable, and TDCI’s enforcement has been consistent without being heavy-handed.
On the other hand, the regulatory structure wasn’t designed for a market growing this fast. Processing times for new company licenses can stretch to several weeks. Individual guard registrations, while faster, still create bottlenecks when a company needs to onboard 15 or 20 people at once for a new contract. Several security company owners I’ve spoken with have mentioned that TDCI’s responsiveness to inquiries has slowed, which is probably a function of their own staffing challenges rather than any policy change.
If there’s a regulatory wild card in 2023, it’s at the state legislature. Tennessee lawmakers have shown intermittent interest in updating private security regulations over the past few sessions. Nothing major has passed recently, and there’s no bill on the horizon that would dramatically change the licensing framework. Still, it’s worth watching. Any push to increase training hour requirements or change the fee structure would ripple through every security operation in the state.
What 2023 Looks Like From Here
I’ll skip the crystal ball predictions and stick with what the data is actually telling us.
First, demand for private security in Memphis will keep climbing. The crime numbers would need to drop dramatically, not by 13% but by 40% or more, before businesses and property managers start reconsidering their security budgets. That’s not going to happen in one year. The factors driving crime in Memphis, from poverty concentration to gang activity to drug trafficking corridors, are structural. They don’t resolve on a calendar year timeline.
Second, the labor shortage will be the primary constraint on industry growth. Companies that figure out recruiting, whether through better pay, partnerships with community colleges, or veteran hiring pipelines, will capture market share. Companies that can’t staff their contracts will lose them.
Third, technology will fill some gaps but not all of them. Camera systems, access control, license plate readers, and GPS-tracked patrol vehicles are becoming standard in Memphis security operations. They make guards more effective, and they give clients better reporting. They don’t replace a trained person standing at a post, though. Not yet. Maybe not for a long time.
Fourth, consolidation is coming. The national security firms have been acquiring smaller regional operators for years, and Memphis is no exception. If you’re running a local security company with 50 to 100 guards and you’ve been getting calls from buyers, expect those calls to continue. The economics of the industry favor scale, especially when labor is scarce and margins are thin.
The Memphis Equation
Here’s what makes Memphis different from Nashville or Knoxville or Chattanooga when it comes to private security. In those cities, the security industry is growing because the cities themselves are growing. New construction, new businesses, new residents, all of them need security services. Growth fueling growth.
In Memphis, the dynamic is different. The security industry is growing because the city is dangerous. That’s a harder story to tell at an industry conference, and it’s a harder business to run day to day. Your clients aren’t excited about hiring you. They’re scared. They’re frustrated. They’ve been watching their car insurance rates climb for three years and reading about carjackings on their street.
Running a security company in this environment requires something beyond good business practices. It requires understanding that you’re selling peace of mind in a city that doesn’t have much of it. Your guards are going to see things. Your clients are going to call at 2 a.m. Your retention rates will suffer because the work is hard and the pay, industry-wide, still isn’t where it needs to be.
Memphis recorded 302 murders in 2022. The city has a new Safe Community Action Plan running through 2026. MPD is talking about targeted enforcement strategies and community partnerships. All of that is worth watching.
The private security industry isn’t waiting to see if it works. Operators are hiring, expanding, and signing contracts right now because the phones keep ringing. That’s the 2023 outlook in one sentence: there’s more work than people to do it, and the city hasn’t given anyone a reason to expect that will change soon.