5. Crowded Places: Security staff as a protective security measure

Protecting our ‘crowded places’ from attack

A new government strategy provides guidance to venue operators and event organisers in relation to protecting staff and visitors from armed attacks. In this series of posts, FIRST Security’s Chief Operating Officer Steve Sullivan looks at how you can implement the strategy and keep your people safe.

In my last post Crowded Places: Assessing Your Protective Security, the fourth in my Crowded Places series, I wrote about the Assessing Your Protective Security Tool that forms part of Protecting Our Crowded Places from Attack: New Zealand’s Strategy. Recently released by the New Zealand Police, this strategy aims to help owners and operators of ‘crowded places’ protect the lives of people working in, using and visiting their venue.

The Assessing Your Protective Security Tool is designed to aid your thinking about how to best protect your venue or event from attack, and to support you to make improvements.

In this post, we look at what the tool has to say about the deployment of security staff as a protective security measure. It’s a topic close to my heart, and one that’s key to an overall security solution.

The human touch

Along with physical barriers, gates, doors, alarm systems and CCTV, security guards and patrols are among the security measures available to venues. Security staff are a valuable part of an overall security solution.

One of the great things that sets security staff apart from the other security measures is that they are human. This means that they can carry out any number of roles, from patrolling to bag searches, VIP escorts to identity checks, CCTV monitoring to detecting behavioural red flags. Their security role can also extend to reception, concierge, wayfinding, law enforcement liaison, and just generally making visitors feel safe and looked after.

Things to consider

Usefully, the Assessing Your Protective Security Tool lists nine ‘things to consider’ in terms of implementing security staff as a security measure. I’ve categorised them below three headings: (i) Training; (ii) Procedures; and (iii) Engagement.

Training 

• What experience and professional training do your security staff have?
• What levels of training do your security staff need in order to carry out their duties?
• Have you got a training plan specifically for your security staff?

In security, nothing beats good training and experience. Faced with an unfolding security incident or a sudden threat, a well trained and experienced security officer will make the right decisions quickly. Faced with a distressed patron, an experienced officer will know how to engage and diffuse. Faced with a scene that might look benign to the next person, an experienced officer will be able to spot things that might not look quite right.

What level of training and experience a security officer needs is very much dependent on what tasks they are being deployed to perform. Site induction is also a must, and pairing security staff with fit-for-purpose supervision is critical.

Procedures

• What are the standard security procedures that are routinely carried out?
• Do you assess whether your standard procedures deliver the result you require? Do they need to be reviewed and how often?

No two venues are the same. Whether it’s a sports stadium, a place of worship, a museum or a shopping mall, venues differ by neighbourhood, size, age, design, build, purpose, and what they signify or represent. They also differ depending on the day, the time of day, the nature of any event being held, and the people attending or visiting. The weather can also play a big part.

Accordingly, the mix of security measures deployed may well differ from day to day, from day to night, and – sometimes – from hour to hour. In peak visitor times, or when hosting a big event, for example, a venue’s security measures will – or at least should – look very different than at other times.

Site-specific security plans and procedures that take this variability into account are a must. Security measures work best when they work together, but they can only work together with a good plan.

Engagement

• Are your security staff visible to, and engaged with visitors at your location?
• Do your security staff understand the benefits of pro-active engagement with your visitors?
• Do your security staff understand their role as a friendly face for your visitors to approach with any concerns?
• Would increasing visibility of security staff lift the profile of security at your crowded place?

Visible and well turned out security personnel are – far and away – the most effective deterrent against criminal, malicious and antisocial behaviours. The mere presence of a security officer can be enough to keep things on an even keel.

Add to being visible the idea of being ‘engaged’ and you’ve got a very powerful combination indeed! A security officer who engages with patrons is not only creating rapport and trust but is also gauging the mood of the crowd, identifying potentially problematic individuals, and – importantly – putting those with unlawful or antisocial intent on notice.

Coming up...

In my next crowded places post, I’m really looking forward to discussing the Crowded Places Strategy’s Detecting Hostile Reconnaissance Tool.

As always, if you’d like to have a discussion about how to keep your staff and visitors safe, feel free to contact me at steve.sullivan@firstsecurity.co.nz