Pulitzer Center Update

This Week: Private Security for the Rich

May 16, 2017 | Newsletter
By
Tom Hundley
Limited access to expensive private security services is both a symptom and a symbol of growing inequality around the world. Image courtesy of Pixabay user mannedguarding11.

Limited access to expensive private security services is both a symptom and a symbol of growing inequality around the world. Image courtesy of Pixabay user mannedguarding11.

Protecting the Rich

Claire Provost

In a trend that highlights the growing global gap between rich and poor, grantee Claire Provost reports in The Guardian that at least half the world’s population lives in countries where there are more private security workers than public police officers. “More than 40 countries—including the U.S., China, Canada, Australia and the UK—have more workers hired to protect specific people, places and things than police officers with a mandate to protect the public at large, according to the data,” she says. In the U.S., there are as many private security guards as there are high school teachers.

A worker cleans a solar panel on top of a factory building in Baoding City. China is installing a soccer field's worth of solar panels every hour. Image by Sean Gallagher. China, 2017.

A worker cleans a solar panel on top of a factory building in Baoding City. China is installing a soccer field's worth of solar panels every hour. Image by Sean Gallagher. China, 2017.

A Monster on Renewables

Beth Gardiner

While the Trump administration tiptoes away from the Paris agreement on global warming, the Chinese government is going all in on renewable energy. Grantee Beth Gardiner explains China’s logic: It has atrocious air pollution. It believes climate change is real. And it wants to be a "manufacturing monster" in renewables too.

Milad's family. Image by Diana Markosian. Germany, 2017.

Milad's family. Image by Diana Markosian. Germany, 2017.

A Refugee, Through His Own Lens

Diana Markosian

For a deeper understanding of how a refugee sees the world, photojournalist and Pulitzer Center grantee Diana Markosian turns the camera over to a 14-year-old Afghan boy in Germany.