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Wandering along the high street in an English seaside town has long been uninspiring. Shops closed or in disrepair. Dodgy barbers and candy-sellers. But now one sees something else: people who are not police, not really security, but who are dressed up to look as if they are. As this correspondent notices in McDonald’s across Essex, remaining open late means hiring men all in black with fake stab-proof vests and walkie-talkies.

This security theater is not limited to fast food. Up and down high streets walk private security, dressed in phony police tactical gear, who do not look like much use in a fight but who are paid by fearful local businesses. In council offices, there are often men and sometimes women, not trained in any particular skills, who stand around and wear vests with “SECURITY” on them. This reporter has heard of a recent incident in Southend-on-Sea where, when a raving derelict ranted at a council reception, and mothers considered covering their children’s ears in the waiting room, a 6-foot-2 security guard stood there and wondered if there was anyone he should call.

“Up and down high streets walk private security, dressed in phony police tactical gear.”

Men like this have been called, a little unkindly, urban scarecrows. They are intended to ward off the criminals. But the cleverer criminals, like the cleverer crows, soon discover that the man in those clothes is made of straw. His stab vest is hollow. He does not have a heart.

A recent Policy Exchange report described a “toughness gap” between how tough people think the police are and how tough they want them to be.

In supermarkets, several large men now sit by the combination entrance and exits, some of them wearing vests saying “SECURITY.” In interviews, these people say they would love to tangle with the men who walk out with cooler bags filled with meat and Jack Daniel’s to sell in nearby pubs. Guards do occasionally get to wrestle a 50-inch TV out of an opportunist’s grip, while being called a pervert and told to take their hands off whoever was walking out with one.

But really, management says, you cannot touch the shoplifters who steal tens of thousands of pounds from individual large supermarkets weekly. Insurance wouldn’t cover either the security guard or the criminal getting hurt.

In railway stations, security theater is broader and more pronounced. A recent trip through Chalkwell railway station included several examples of the urban scarecrow. Four of them sat on high chairs, in hi-vis clothing, silently scrolling on their phones and not looking up. Another six stood around on a platform heading to London’s Fenchurch Street, likely going home after work.

In Southend, within the past year, machete fights on the seafront were widely filmed and circulated. It was put about that other gangs would come down on the trains from Greater London to have their confrontations near the Adventure Island amusement park. An Instagram story post promising chaos and mayhem circulated widely.

Some local residents staked out balconies on seafront flats, hoping to see their fill of the carnage. For a few weeks afterward, police stood at the barriers in local train stations, bidding to stop youths arriving with swords stuffed down their trousers. To the disappointment of rubberneckers, the seaside violence did not arrive.

Overmanning of this kind is already inefficient, a sink on productivity. It also speaks of the general disorder that Britain’s home counties increasingly face. In London, these warning signs include the metal “diversity” barriers around bridges and long pavements near landmarks where vans driven by would-be terrorists might career into crowds. In the rest of the home counties, disorder is signified by the urban scarecrow.