How security extends the long arm of the law

Mar 1, 2001 12:00 PM, Larry Anderson

Here's some good news worth passing along: We as a society are safer from crime than we have been in a generation.

You wouldn't know it from blaring headlines about street killings, but the rate of violent crime declined 10 percent from 1998 to 1999, reaching the lowest level in the history of the Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey. This survey of the nation's households tracks how many rapes, sexual assaults, robberies, assaults, burglaries and motor vehicle thefts occur in American households each year.

The trend is down in property crime victimization, too, dropping some 9 percent in 1999 over the previous year and continuing a 20-year decline.

This triumph of law enforcement is largely attributable to the so-called community policing approach. Community policing seeks to address the causes of crime and reduce the fear of crime and social disorder through problem-solving and police-community partnerships, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

It's striking how much the description of community policing resembles the job descriptions of a security director and his staff. Certainly security people work closely with their communities (the company or institution they are tasked with protecting) to promote order through problem-solving. They seek the causes of crime, emphasize prevention and reduce the fear of crime in the process.

In fact, it's not a stretch to suggest that the practice of security is, and always has been, a variation on the principles of community policing that have proven so successful in the public arena.

It's also not a stretch to recognize the role of private security in working hand-in-hand with law enforcement, furthering the same protection mission in a different environment — private business and institutions.

The fact is, there are never enough policemen to protect us against all the bad guys, and the contributions of private security personnel in promoting the common mission is worthy of recognition and comment. Many times, a security person is there when a police officer cannot be. Where police protection ends, private security protection can fill in the gap.

Another striking contribution by our industry to crime prevention is technology. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the growth of technology mirrors closely the decline of crime over the last 20 years. Ask any police department about the effectiveness of CCTV cameras — for example, those installed to watch crime-ridden street corners. Ask them how many times a videotape has played an important role in solving a crime.

CCTV and its sister technologies in the security industry — access control, burglar alarms, etc. — have allowed companies and institutions to protect their facilities, people and assets in unprecedented ways. And as the technology improves, so does the protection.

We live in a safer world than ever before, and security technology and personnel can proudly claim some of the credit.

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© 2012 Penton Media Inc.

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