I've only ever encountered one set of outdoor lights that I consider "security lights".

The guy in question mounted 1KW halogens around the underside of his house eaves. The system was connected to motion sensors, zoned. He spent quite a bit of time locating and tuning the motion sensors to minimize false alarms from deer and the like.

Now that's a security light. When it came on, the occupants of the house were able to see -- whereas anybody approaching was pretty well guaranteed to be blinded by the light :-)

OTOH my mother, who lives ~1/2 mile from town, pays the power company $9 a month for her "security light", a 75W mercury vapor which is located where any glance out a back window includes the lumeliere. You could hide half a company of troops in the dense shadows around the pole, and nobody in the house would ever see them... this seems to be pretty well the default version of a security light installation; IOW the point is revenue for the power company.

My neighbor has such a light in his back yard, but so much vegetation has grown around it that it's hardly noticeable. It does cast a skyglow, and there are enough similar ones nearby that I don't have a dark sky at night; in fact, I can walk around fairly well twenty-four hours a day.

Fooey. Ashton, you don't know how lucky you are to have such cooperative neighbors.