Over the years the non-sworn, corporate public safety industry has failed to achieve any long-lasting measures of professionalism. There are many possible reasons for this failure, but chief among them is the failure to adopt reliable public safety officer core competency standards.
Nearly a third of moviegoers believe that bags and purses should be checked for weapons before people go into a theater, and 34% believe that lobbies should have armed security personnel and a metal detector.
What do you think of when you think about a security officer? Is your perception tainted by Hollywood which generally paints security officers as comedic caricatures with delusions of grandeur? Do you think of security officers as “wannabe cops” who have no career path? If your answer is affirmative, I ask you to push aside these dated and inaccurate perceptions about security officers and learn what is truly involved in this critically important profession today.
It's cliché but true: One bad apple gives the whole bunch a bad name. When hiring new officers for private security, one untrained security officer can ruin both your company's brand and the reputation of the industry as a whole.
Has investigative reporting turned against the security officer? According to Mark Fidelman, biases embedded in news reports can give your security team an undeserved bad reputation.
What do famous TV surgeon Marcus Welby and Tim Mendiola, a real-life security officer, have in common? Beyond their different and equally essential tasks, both are on-call when not with a patient or patrolling a site.
Despite the gravity of what security personnel potentially face each and every day, popular culture delights in depicting them in a comical light. Reality shows and films provide light-hearted fun and entertainment, but in no way personify the real world of security officers on the job.
