Pushing for Better Private Security Officers

May 1, 2003 12:00 PM, By RANDY SOUTHERLAND

When two planes crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, the first to respond and save lives were private security guards assigned to the building.

A cadre of highly trained officers guided stunned workers in the right direction and away from locked fire exists. Their skill at helping to evacuate thousands of people in an orderly manner saved untold lives.

While professional and sometimes heroic performance during moments of crisis is one reality, many people have a different image of security guards. It tends to be one of an ill-trained, low-paid, non-professional who perhaps has a criminal record, and who might have trouble finding a job.

That's an image the industry says is mostly dead wrong, and it will become even more rare in the future as the industry pushes for higher standards.

“It's totally unfair because there are thousands of very professional security officers working for our company and other companies,” says Don Walker, an executive with Westlake Village, Calif.-based Pinkerton. “They have a very good education. They have a substantial amount of training. And, they put their lives on the line every day to protect companies and people.”

Remembering Sept. 11, he asserts, the security officers at the World Trade Center had each received 40 hours of training to equip them to handle the worst of worst-case scenarios. They helped direct fire and police to the right locations and, like hundreds of those same police and firemen, they also paid the ultimate price — 35 private security personnel were killed in the line of duty that day.

Ensuring an abundance of the men and women who wear the uniforms of private security — whether contract or company-employed — is a growing concern. The $12 billion industry is growing larger all the time. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that demand for private guards is likely to grow faster than average for all occupations through 2010.

It is essential to public safety that the guards who patrol locations ranging from high-rise buildings to apartment complexes and shopping malls are both competent and honest. Guards who know their beats and who can recognize when something is amiss are far more likely to stop problems than police who are called after an incident.

Guidelines For Guards

While nearly 40 percent of guards are employed by one of the 15 largest security companies that are members of the National Association of Security Companies (NASCO), the rest work for nearly 10,000 smaller companies spread across the country. With so many players in the field, it isn't surprising that some companies can be found doing a bad job — effectively smearing the rest of the industry.

“As a result, it's very hard to reach them with the message that we have,” says Gail Simonton, NASCO's executive director and general counsel of her organization's efforts to promote higher standards. “Even if we reach them, I'm not sure they would necessarily have the experience or the background uniformity to appreciate it.”

Bowing to political reality, NASCO has decided against pushing for a single federal standard in favor of helping to improve state regulations that are already in effect.

While there are no federal regulations setting standards for guards, the states have created a widely-varied patchwork of laws and regulations. In some states, such as California, Florida, and Oklahoma, unarmed security guards must have 40 hours of training. In 30 others there are no specific training requirements.

Approximately 22 states require officers to be put through a federal background check. That ensures the company knows whether the guard committed a crime anywhere in the country.

To assist the states in formulating the right laws, ASIS International is circulating among its members a set of legislative guidelines for security officer selection and training.

“We're encouraging every state to look at its legislation and to see if it at least matches the level of ASIS guidelines. If it does not, we're encouraging them to take legislative action to amend their state laws,” says Walker, who serves as co-chair of the ASIS Commission on Guidelines.

The guidelines should be formally published later this year. Once they are available, Walker believes they will provide a powerful model for states — especially the 10 with no guard legislation — to implement or improve their laws.

The document will set forth 14 areas that should be included in legislation including selection, screening and annual training. The recommendations “aren't going to be the lowest common denominator,” Walker explains.

While many officers will likely already meet the standards, others will not. In fact, although they may meet state standards in which they work, it will not measure up to levels specified in the guidelines.

Background Checks

“One of the recommendations in the guidelines would be that every security officer would be fingerprinted and states would check them against state and FBI criminal history records,” Walker says.

NASCO has also been pushing for a federal law that would make it easier for security companies in every state to get FBI background checks on their employees. In the U.S. Senate, the Private Security Officer Employment Authorization Act of 2000 sponsored by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), is up for consideration again after failing to win approval last year.

“It would allow for checks to be done through the FBI database without necessarily having to go to each state to get permission,” Simonton says.

She believes the bill — with bipartisan sponsorship — has a good chance of passing this year.

In the meantime, Walker and others say the best first step is ensuring that private guards are paid well enough to end the attrition cycle that has traditionally plagued the industry. Pinkerton, which employs approximately 126,000 guards or 14 percent of the industry, began a program four years ago called “Living Wage” to boost salaries for its employees.

“It's designed around the fact that if you get your wage structure at a higher level, you attract a better-qualified candidate from the applicant pool,” Walker says. “When you recruit people who are more capable of learning, it's easier to train them. They can accept more responsibility, and they can have a career path that provides stability within the company and its customers.”

Share Your Story

Every month, we are offering information about managing guard services and leading in-house staff. Among other things, this page will offer an opportunity for readers to share the management lessons they have learned and to provide other helpful information to their peers in the industry.

To offer suggestions, or to contribute to this page, contact Jennifer Pero at 770-618-0135 or e-mail jpero@primediabusiness.com

Want to use this article? Click here for options!
© 2012 Penton Media Inc.

This month in Access Control

• Targeting The Customer
• Electronic Pedigrees
• One Hero Among Many
• Who? What? When? Where? Why?
• More from September's issue