Three hundred and forty-two. That’s how many people were killed in Memphis during 2021, according to Memphis Police Department records released on New Year’s Day. The number shattered the previous record of 332 set just twelve months earlier in 2020. Before that, the old benchmark was 230, set way back in 2016.
Two record-breaking years in a row. For anyone working in private security across Shelby County, the number isn’t just a headline. It’s a forecast.
What the Numbers Actually Show
The 342 figure represents total homicides investigated by MPD, including both criminal murders and justifiable homicides. Of those, at least 304 were classified as murders. Dozens of victims were under 18 years old.
To put the trend line in perspective: Memphis recorded 161 homicides in 2014. By 2016, that figure had jumped to 230. It dipped slightly in 2017 and 2018, then started climbing again. The jump from 230 in 2016 to 332 in 2020 was already alarming. Going from 332 to 342 in a single year tells us the trajectory hasn’t peaked.
Gun violence drove the overwhelming majority of these killings. The Memphis metro area has one of the highest per-capita violent crime rates of any major American city, and 2021 made that worse by every measurable standard.
Cerelyn “CJ” Davis, who took over as MPD’s chief of police in June 2021, inherited a department that was already stretched thin. Davis came to Memphis from the Durham Police Department in North Carolina and became the first woman to lead MPD. She walked into a job that nobody envied: a department struggling to recruit officers, a city setting homicide records, and a public that wanted answers fast.
The Security Industry Feels It First
When violent crime rises this sharply, the private security industry doesn’t wait for government reports. The phone starts ringing.
Property management companies across Memphis have been scrambling for months. Apartment complexes along Getwell Road, strip malls on Winchester, office parks in East Memphis: the demand for guards, patrols, and camera installations has surged across nearly every commercial sector in Shelby County.
One hiring manager at a Midtown-based security firm told me in late December that his company received more quote requests in Q4 2021 than in any quarter he could remember. “We’re getting calls from property owners who never used private security before,” he said. “People who thought crime was somebody else’s problem.”
The pattern tracks with national data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported roughly 1.1 million security guards employed nationwide at the end of 2021. Demand was climbing, and the Memphis metro area was no exception.
Here’s the catch: finding guards to fill all those posts is a different story.
The Labor Crunch Nobody Wants to Talk About
Tennessee’s private security industry was already dealing with a worker shortage before 2021 made things worse. The state requires all security officers to register through the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance (TDCI) under the Private Protective Services (TN-PPS) licensing program. Armed guards need additional training and certification. That’s all fine on paper.
In practice, the pipeline of qualified candidates has dried up. Several factors are working against security employers at the same time:
Wages are too low to compete. The average security guard in Memphis earned around $12 to $14 per hour through most of 2021. That’s in a market where Amazon’s fulfillment centers along Holmes Road and in Olive Branch were offering $15 to $18 per hour for warehouse work with no licensing requirements. FedEx, the city’s largest private employer, was running signing bonuses through most of the year. For a potential guard candidate weighing their options, the math doesn’t work.
COVID never really ended. The pandemic shuffled the entire low-wage labor market. Workers who might have taken security posts in 2019 found other gigs during 2020 and 2021. Some left the workforce entirely. Security companies that couldn’t match the unemployment-plus-stimulus income lost candidates they haven’t gotten back.
The job got harder. Standing a post in a parking lot off Raines Road at midnight isn’t what it used to be. Guards are encountering more aggressive situations, more weapons, more people in crisis. Turnover rates at several Memphis security firms climbed above 100% in 2021, meaning companies were replacing their entire workforce within a twelve-month window.
The result is a market where security companies have more contracts than they can staff. Property managers are signing agreements and then waiting weeks for guards to actually show up. Some firms are turning down new business because they can’t hire fast enough.
Wages Are Moving, Slowly
The shortage is doing what shortages do: pushing wages upward. Several Memphis security companies bumped their starting pay for unarmed guards to $13 or $14 per hour by late 2021, with armed guards seeing $15 to $18 depending on the contract. A few high-risk posts, like overnight shifts at convenience stores in Frayser or Whitehaven, were paying $16 to $20 for armed officers.
Those numbers still lag behind what workers can earn at distribution centers or in the trades. The gap is narrowing, though. If the labor market stays tight through the first half of 2022, expect starting wages for security guards in Memphis to push toward $15 across the board.
That wage pressure creates a downstream problem for property owners: the cost of security contracts is going up. A property manager who was paying $22 per guard-hour in 2020 might see quotes at $26 or $28 in 2022. Those increases get passed along to tenants or absorbed by ownership, and neither option is popular.
The SCORPION Factor
One development worth watching in 2022 is MPD’s SCORPION unit, which launched in October 2021. SCORPION stands for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods. Chief Davis created the unit to target violent crime hot spots with aggressive, proactive policing.
Early reports suggest the unit made hundreds of arrests in its first few months. Mayor Jim Strickland has pointed to SCORPION as proof that the city is taking a harder line on street-level crime, and he’s expected to highlight the unit’s early numbers in his upcoming State of the City address.
For the private security industry, SCORPION is a wild card. If the unit drives down violent crime in specific neighborhoods, that could ease some pressure on property managers and business owners in those areas. If crime just shifts to other parts of the city, the net effect on security demand is zero. And if the unit draws controversy (as aggressive policing units often do), the political fallout could affect how the city allocates police resources for years.
Nobody knows yet how this plays out. What we do know is that 342 homicides created the political conditions for SCORPION to exist, and the unit’s success or failure will shape Memphis policing through 2022 and beyond.
What Property Managers Should Do Right Now
If you’re managing commercial properties in Shelby County and you haven’t locked in your 2022 security contracts, you’re already behind. Here’s what smart operators are doing:
Sign multi-year agreements. Guard wages aren’t going down anytime soon. Locking in a rate now, even if it’s higher than last year, protects you from the next round of increases. Some security companies are offering two-year contracts at favorable rates in exchange for volume commitments.
Focus on technology first. Cameras, access control, and monitored alarm systems are cheaper per dollar of risk reduction than human guards. A well-designed camera system at a Cordova retail center might cost $15,000 to install and $200 per month to monitor. That same money buys roughly six weeks of a single guard’s time. The math favors hardware for most routine surveillance needs.
Reserve guards for high-risk hours. Instead of 24/7 manned security, consider overnight or weekend-only guard coverage paired with cameras during business hours. Several property managers I’ve spoken with are switching to this hybrid model to stretch their budgets.
Verify your provider’s TDCI licensing. In a tight labor market, some operators cut corners. Make sure your security company holds a valid contract security company license from TDCI and that every guard on your property is properly registered. The last thing you need is an unregistered guard involved in an incident on your property.
The Bigger Picture
Memphis’s 342 homicides in 2021 didn’t happen in isolation. The city is dealing with poverty, a struggling public school system, a pandemic that disrupted every safety net, and a police department that can’t fill its own ranks. MPD was authorized for roughly 2,300 officers at the end of 2021 and had closer to 1,900 on the books. Some precincts were running patrol shifts with half the officers they needed.
When the public sector can’t keep up, the private sector fills the gap. That’s been the story of American policing for decades, and it’s the story of Memphis in 2022. More businesses will hire private security this year than last year. More apartment complexes will add guard booths at their entrances. More churches, schools, and event venues will bring in armed officers for weekend services and Friday night events.
The question isn’t whether demand for private security will grow in Memphis this year. It will. The question is whether the industry can grow fast enough to meet it.
Three hundred and forty-two is a number that will define this city’s public safety conversation for years. For the security industry, it’s already reshaping the market. Whether you’re a guard looking for better pay, a company owner trying to staff your posts, or a property manager watching your security line item climb, the same number is driving your decisions.
Get used to it. The conditions that produced 342 aren’t going away in January.