rent-a-cop

rent-a-cop

A hired security guard. Usually uniformed but, unlike genuine police officers, unarmed, they are used to monitor malls, concerts, and schools. The term dates from the 1900s. Thus, “I don’t know what good it will do but inner-city high schools always use rent-a-cops.”
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
See also:
  • ring of truth, the
  • will the real (someone) please stand up
  • will the real someone please stand up
  • would the real (someone) please stand up
  • tbh
  • out of context
  • reach toward
  • reach toward (someone or something)
  • if that's not (something), (then) I don't know what is
  • being that
References in periodicals archive
THE star of BBC series Rent-a-Cop has seen an assault charge against him dropped.
Mr Jones, who appears in BBC series Rent-a-Cop, was charged with assault by beating after police were called to the Amazon warehouse in Darlington on June 19.
That's a major blow to residents as crime figures dropped significantly during the rent-a-cop scheme.
"There will always be trash somewhere, only due to our work, somewhere else." (3) So commented the managing director of Berliner Wache, a rent-a-cop company, on the effect of his work.
Known as Schwarze Sheriffs, (5) these rent-a-cop firms represent the beginning of the modern security industry (which accounted for a four billion euro, or 4.87 billion dollar, turnover in 2002 and employed about 200,000 employees).
The Yates Group, which owns more than 150 nightspots across England and Wales, launched the rent-a-cop scheme in Nottingham this weekend.
Write to Rent-A-Cop, Sunday Mercury, Weaman Street, Birmingham B4 6AY or e-mail SundayMercury@mrn.co.uk
I casually strolled up to Derrick, the Rent-A-cop, and told him it might be wise for him to do his routine bathroom check.
FURY erupted last night after rank-and-file police were told a controversial "rent-a-cop" plan is to go ahead.
You turn around and see another red-eyed rent-a-cop. They're playing the zone, a clumsy, loose zone, and expect you to panic, to run back upstairs.
TWC is and always has been more than what it pretends to be--the biggest private rent-a-cop agency in the world.
A POLICE chief came under fire last night after he backed a controversial "rent-a-cop" plan.
The Police Federation also reacted angrily to the plans and Lothian and Borders secretary Calum Laurie said: "We are totally opposed to any kind of rent-a-cop policy.
In Brazil, these include, but are not limited to, subcontracting on-duty police to public or private buildings and establishments, police officials on-duty heading private security businesses, registered and unregistered "rent-a-cop" businesses and their (often police) employees, and police and nonpolice in death squads.
In Brazil today, death squads continue to operate, paralleled by a growing "rent-a-cop" industry, with each social control entity directly "serving" different population segments to the benefit of one over the other.