Security guard duties are often viewed as a job that anyone can do, and indeed, anyone can do it, once they are trained.
Within the Caribbean, many companies often hire anyone for the job, but do they train them? Unfortunately, the answer is often no or not enough; yet, training is vital in preparing individuals to perform in a security role.
The Caribbean is not unique here as many other parts of the world also have security guards operating with no or little training. Many countries in Europe and many states in the USA have experienced this situation. However, they have recognised that this is not a healthy state of affairs and have passed laws that make such training mandatory before a security officer can function.
Given the level of crime in many parts of the world and in the Caribbean, the protection of life and property has become an important role. While in every country the role of protection falls to the police service, unfortunately police resources cannot be everywhere. Thus, this led to a mushrooming of security service providers. In many parts of the world, the number of people employed in private security companies is greater than the number of police officers as also shown by an OAS study on Caribbean countries.
The role of private security officers has grown from simply being someone to look and see if there is an intruder and then call for help. It has widened in terms of the functions that the officer is expected to perform. Thus, it is important that security officers are adequately trained so that their actions do not result in liability falling on the customers of their firm or their actions infringing on the rights of members of the public.
If we agree that security guards should be trained, the next discussion is: what should this training consist of? It should cover the major aspects of the job that the guard is required to carry out. Given that guards carry out a variety of roles, there should be different training for such roles as it is not a case of "one size fits all." In a highly regulated security environment, the regulations mandate different training for different functions and the licence that is issued to a security guard specifies what role the guard has been trained for and so licensed to carry out.
Then, how long should this training be? It should be as long as it takes the individual to understand and learn the information imparted. While this is good from a theoretical perspective, in a practical sense there has to be some time limit on any training programme. Many security practitioners state that the training for basic security duties can be covered within a one to two week period. ASIS International, which is an organisation for security professionals with membership in 125 countries, in their guidelines recommends that the basic training should be a minimum of six days.
All of us can remember someone from our school days who sat in classes but never learned anything. The same situation can arise when training for security officers only consists of individuals sitting and listening to lectures. Some security firms seek to give the impression that their staff has been trained by having them listen to lectures. Unfortunately, this does not mean that the person has learned from the lecture. Indeed, the only way to be certain that the prospective security guard has learned is to have some type of examination/evaluation at the end of the training programme with a preset pass mark.
Anyone who is seeking to engage the services of a security company should find out what training has been given to the employees. This enquiry, however, should go beyond just asking if the staff has been trained because every company will say that they have trained staff.
A prospective customer is entitled to ask what is the content of the training, who are the lecturers, how long is the training and how is the staff evaluated. A customer is also entitled to have a requirement in their contract that only trained staff is supplied to them and failure to supply such would be grounds for terminating the contract.
The Caribbean Institute for Security and Public Safety delivers a wide range of training programmes for security personnel at all levels in-house or at its scheduled classes. Additional courses relevant to law enforcement, OSH, etc. are available. Please contact us at 223-6999, info@caribbeansecurityinstitute.com or www.caribbeansecurityinstitute.com
For a basic security officer's role, the following are fundamental elements that should be in such a training programme:
1. Nature and role of private security
2. Assignment or post orders
3. Security and safety awareness
4. Bomb threats
5. Communications
6. Physical security and access control
7. Theft prevention
8. Traffic control and parking lot security
9. Use of force and force continuum
10. Workplace violence
11. Crowd control
12. Customer service and public relations
13. Ethics, honesty, professional image and proper conduct
14. Emergency response procedures
15. Fire prevention and control
16. Harassment and discrimination
17. Legal aspects of security
18. Laws of evidence
19. Preserving the incident scene
20. Note-taking/report writing
21. Testimony
22. Lock and key control
23. Patrol techniques and observing unusual circumstances