Three hundred and ninety-eight. That’s how many people were murdered in Memphis in 2023. The number broke every record the city had on file, blowing past the previous high of 346 set in 2021 and dwarfing the 288 homicides counted in 2022. A 38% year-over-year jump. No matter how you frame it, that number is staggering.
For anyone running a security operation in this city, the question isn’t whether 2024 will bring more demand. It already has. The phones started ringing in October and haven’t stopped. What matters now is whether the private security industry can scale fast enough to meet the wave coming its way.
The Numbers Behind the Crisis
Memphis Police Department’s year-end data paints a grim picture. Beyond the 398 homicides, aggravated assaults remained at elevated levels throughout 2023. Carjackings, which had become almost synonymous with Memphis in national media coverage, stayed high for most of the year, though auto thefts showed a slight decline in the final quarter.
The geographic spread tells its own story. Hickory Hill and Frayser absorbed a disproportionate share of violent incidents. Whitehaven, once considered relatively stable by Memphis standards, saw a troubling uptick in armed robberies targeting strip mall businesses along Elvis Presley Boulevard. Orange Mound, a neighborhood that’s been fighting for investment for decades, recorded its worst year for gun violence since tracking began.
One data point that gets less attention: property crime rates in commercial corridors. Businesses along Winchester Road, Summer Avenue, and the Lamar Avenue corridor south of the I-240 loop reported break-ins at rates that made insurance carriers nervous. Several national underwriters quietly increased premiums for Shelby County commercial properties in Q3 2023, citing loss ratios that had crossed internal thresholds.
What Drove 2023 Over the Edge
No single factor created a 398-homicide year. Several collided at once.
The disbanding of the SCORPION unit in January 2023, following the death of Tyre Nichols, removed an aggressive street-level enforcement mechanism. Whatever your opinion of the unit’s tactics, its absence left a gap in targeted policing that MPD struggled to fill. Officers across the department reported a chilling effect on proactive stops throughout the spring and summer. The Department of Justice announced a pattern-and-practice investigation in July, which only deepened the caution.
Staffing shortages compounded the problem. MPD entered 2023 roughly 500 officers below its authorized strength. Recruiting classes couldn’t keep pace with retirements and resignations. Response times lengthened. Patrol coverage thinned. In some precincts, officers handled calls that would have been assigned to specialized units in better-staffed years.
And then there’s the part nobody wants to quantify: distrust. After the Nichols case drew national outrage, the relationship between MPD and several Memphis neighborhoods deteriorated to a point where witnesses stopped calling and victims stopped reporting. That dynamic doesn’t show up in a spreadsheet, but every detective working Hickory Hill or Frayser felt it.
A New Mayor Walks Into a Crisis
Paul Young took the oath of office on January 1, inheriting a city that’s both exhausted and desperate for change. He ran on public safety as his top priority, and voters clearly agreed. The question is what tools he has.
Young has signaled interest in creating a Chief of Public Safety position, a move that would centralize oversight across MPD, fire services, and emergency management. He’s talked about technology investments and community-based violence intervention programs. These are reasonable approaches, and most of them will take 12 to 18 months to show results.
That timeline matters for the security industry. When city government takes a year or more to implement new public safety strategies, property owners and business operators don’t wait. They hire guards. They install cameras. They contract with private patrol services. The gap between when a crisis peaks and when government programs take effect is where private security thrives.
The Hiring Scramble
Every major security company in the Memphis metro is hiring right now. Job postings for armed and unarmed guards have tripled compared to January 2023. The Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, which licenses private security firms and individual guards through its Private Protective Services division, processed a record number of new guard registrations in the second half of last year.
The hiring isn’t just about warm bodies. Property managers and corporate clients are demanding higher qualifications. They want guards who can de-escalate. They want documented patrol routes with GPS verification. They want incident reporting systems that feed into their own risk management platforms.
This creates a squeeze. The pool of experienced, TDCI-licensed security professionals in Shelby County isn’t infinite. Companies that invested in training programs over the past few years now have a significant edge over firms that relied on quick-hire, minimal-training models. The cream-of-the-crop operators, the ones paying above market rate and offering benefits, are poaching talent from competitors who treated guards as disposable.
Starting wages for armed guards in Memphis have climbed to the $18-22 per hour range, up from $14-16 just two years ago. Some contracts for high-risk sites are paying $25 or more. These aren’t numbers anyone would have predicted in 2021.
Where the Money Is Moving
Three sectors are driving the surge in private security spending across the Memphis market.
Commercial retail. National chains and local businesses along major corridors want visible deterrence. The armed guard standing at the entrance of a Poplar Avenue shopping center isn’t just a safety measure anymore; it’s a marketing statement that says “we take this seriously.” Several large retail landlords have shifted from reactive security (calling a company after an incident) to proactive contracts with daily patrol coverage.
Multifamily housing. Apartment complexes in Hickory Hill, Raleigh, and parts of Whitehaven are adding guard services that didn’t exist two years ago. Insurance requirements are a big driver here. Some carriers now require documented security measures as a condition of coverage for properties above a certain claims threshold. A property manager I spoke with last month described it bluntly: “My insurance company told me I could either hire guards or find a new insurer.”
Healthcare and logistics. Memphis is a healthcare and shipping hub, and both industries are spending more on physical security. Regional Medical Center and other facilities have expanded their contracted security presence. FedEx’s logistics network, spread across dozens of facilities in the metro area, continues to demand significant security staffing.
The Elephant Nobody’s Discussing
Here’s a tension that doesn’t make the headlines: as demand for private security surges, the risk of quality dilution grows. When every company is scrambling to fill contracts, corners get cut. Background checks get rushed. Training gets abbreviated. Supervision gets stretched thin.
TDCI’s enforcement division has limited staff to audit the hundreds of licensed security companies operating in Tennessee. The state relies heavily on complaint-driven enforcement, which means problems often surface after something goes wrong, not before. In a year when everyone is hiring as fast as they can, the probability of an undertrained guard making a bad decision on a Memphis property goes up.
This is the conversation the industry needs to have in 2024. Growth is good. Record demand is good. The revenue projections look excellent. Yet none of that matters if a poorly trained guard at a Frayser apartment complex escalates a situation that should have been talked down, and the resulting lawsuit wipes out a company’s entire annual profit.
What 2024 Probably Looks Like
Predicting crime trends is a fool’s errand, and I’ve been doing this long enough to know that last year’s numbers don’t automatically repeat. Several factors could push Memphis in a better direction this year.
Paul Young’s administration brings fresh energy and new relationships with federal agencies. The DOJ investigation, while uncomfortable, could force reforms that improve police-community trust over time. Auto theft task forces that ramped up in late 2023 showed early results, and if that trend holds, at least one high-visibility crime category could improve.
Still, structural problems don’t fix themselves in a calendar year. MPD’s staffing shortage won’t close by December. The economic conditions driving violent crime in Memphis’s poorest neighborhoods haven’t changed. And the political dynamics around policing remain volatile.
For the private security industry, that adds up to a strong year. Companies with solid training programs, competitive pay, and the ability to scale will grow. Companies that chase volume without maintaining quality will create liabilities for themselves and their clients.
The 398 number will define how Memphis talks about itself for years. For the security industry, it already defines 2024’s opportunity and its obligation.