Three people shot on Lamar Avenue last Tuesday. A carjacking near Overton Park the night before that. Two aggravated assaults on Poplar within forty-eight hours of each other. Welcome to summer in Memphis.
The pattern isn’t new. Anyone who’s lived here long enough knows that once temperatures climb past ninety degrees, the city gets meaner. MPD’s own data confirms it year after year: violent crime in Memphis jumps between June and August, sometimes by as much as 15 to 20 percent compared to cooler months. Homicides, aggravated assaults, and robberies all tick upward. The reasons are straightforward. More people outside. Longer daylight hours. More alcohol at backyard cookouts and block parties. Schools out, which means teenagers and young adults with fewer structured activities and more free time.
Director Michael Rallings has been public about the challenge. MPD runs targeted patrols in areas like Whitehaven, Frayser, and Orange Mound during the summer months, pulling officers from administrative roles to put more blue on the streets. It helps. It’s also not enough.
That gap is where private security enters the picture.
The Summer Staffing Crunch
I spoke with managers at three Memphis-area security firms last month, and every single one described the same problem: hiring enough guards to cover increased summer demand while dealing with turnover that never stops.
“We lose guys to construction, to warehouse work, to anything that pays a dollar more an hour,” one operations manager told me. He asked not to be named because his company’s leadership doesn’t authorize press interviews. “Then right when we need the most bodies, we’re scrambling.”
The math is brutal. A security guard in Memphis makes between $10 and $14 an hour for unarmed work. Armed guards pull $14 to $18. Compare that to a warehouse job at one of the distribution centers along Airways Boulevard paying $15 with air conditioning, and it’s obvious why retention is a problem.
Phelps Security, which has operated from its Park Avenue office since 1960, told me they start recruiting for summer positions in March. They’ve been doing this long enough to anticipate the crunch. Imperial Security over on Poplar Avenue follows a similar timeline. The national firms like Securitas and Allied Universal have deeper benches to draw from, rotating personnel from other markets when Memphis demand spikes.
Smaller companies don’t have that luxury.
What Actually Drives the Summer Spike
Criminologists have studied seasonal crime patterns for decades. The theories aren’t complicated. Routine activity theory says crime happens when motivated offenders, suitable targets, and the absence of capable guardians all converge. Summer creates that convergence.
More outdoor festivals and events in Memphis mean more crowds. The Beale Street Music Festival wraps up in May, but summer brings neighborhood block parties, church events, Fourth of July celebrations, and Grizzlies-sponsored community events across the city. Every gathering needs security. Some get it. Many don’t.
Late-night activity increases dramatically. Bars on Beale Street stay packed until 3 AM. Clubs along Brooks Road and in the Hickory Hill area draw large crowds on weekends. Parking lots become targets. The walk from venue to car becomes the most dangerous part of someone’s night.
Residential burglaries shift patterns too. With windows open and families traveling, homes in neighborhoods like Cordova, Bartlett, and East Memphis become more vulnerable. Security companies report a 25 to 30 percent increase in residential patrol requests between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
Heat and the Human Factor
Here’s something that doesn’t get discussed enough: heat affects security personnel just as much as it affects everyone else.
Standing a post outside a warehouse on Shelby Drive when it’s 97 degrees with Memphis humidity is miserable work. Guards get fatigued. Attention wanders. Response times slow. I’ve watched it happen at construction sites, retail parking lots, and gated communities across the metro area.
The better-run firms account for this. Phelps rotates outdoor posts every four hours during summer months instead of the standard eight-hour shift. That costs more in labor and logistics, but it keeps guards alert. Some companies provide cooling vests, extra water stations, and shaded break areas. Others just tell their people to deal with it.
The difference shows up in incident reports. Properties with fatigued, overheated guards see more security breaches. It’s not complicated. A guard who’s been baking in direct sun for six hours isn’t going to catch the guy hopping a fence at the far end of the lot.
Outdoor Events: A Growing Market
Memphis has leaned hard into outdoor events over the past several years, and the trend is accelerating in 2018. Food truck festivals, outdoor movie screenings, concerts at Shelby Farms Park, neighborhood markets in Cooper-Young and Midtown. Every one of these needs some level of security planning.
Event security is a different animal than static guarding. You need crowd management training, emergency evacuation knowledge, and the ability to de-escalate situations involving alcohol and large groups. Not every guard has those skills. Not every company provides that training.
I’ve seen events in Memphis where the “security” consisted of two guys in polo shirts standing near the entrance checking bags. No communications equipment. No emergency plan. No coordination with MPD or fire. That’s not security. That’s theater.
The firms doing event work well in this market tend to be the ones with law enforcement or military backgrounds on their management teams. They understand crowd dynamics. They know how to set up perimeters. They have relationships with MPD’s special events division that let them coordinate effectively.
What Property Managers Should Know
If you manage commercial property, a residential complex, or a retail location in Memphis, here’s what the summer spike means for you practically.
First, don’t wait until June to think about summer security. The time to increase coverage is May at the latest. By the time crime numbers are making the news, you’re already behind.
Second, ask your security provider about their summer staffing plan. How many additional guards are they hiring? What’s their training pipeline? If they can’t answer those questions clearly, they’re winging it.
Third, consider the specific threats that apply to your property type. Retail locations should focus on parking lot patrols during evening hours. Apartment complexes need gate and access point monitoring. Office parks need after-hours patrol increases.
Fourth, coordinate with your neighbors. Crime doesn’t respect property lines. A shopping center on Winchester that increases security pushes criminal activity to the strip mall next door that didn’t. Business improvement districts and property owner associations can pool resources for broader coverage.
The Numbers Tell the Story
MPD released preliminary data showing that through May 2018, the city had already recorded 78 homicides. If the summer trend holds, and there’s no reason to think it won’t, Memphis could easily exceed 170 for the year. Last year finished at 181. The year before that, 228.
Those numbers represent real people in real neighborhoods. A shooting at a gas station on Elvis Presley Boulevard. A stabbing outside an apartment complex in Raleigh. A robbery gone wrong at a convenience store on Summer Avenue.
Private security can’t solve Memphis’s crime problem. Let’s be honest about that. What it can do is create harder targets. Properties with visible, professional security presence experience fewer incidents. The data on that is consistent across every market, not just Memphis.
The question for the rest of this summer is whether enough property owners and event organizers will invest in proper security coverage, or whether they’ll keep hoping the problem stays on someone else’s block.
Based on what I’ve seen so far this year, I’m not optimistic about the answer.