Confessions of a security guy

[Hong Kong Pooey]

One of the others being??

Doesn't matter now, totally wrong!

After re-reading some of it I'll guess the same as Aedrasteia with Scandinavia.

I'd originally discounted it on the gun ownership comments, but the OP actually mentions carrying for self defence and I think everything else fits.

May well be wrong again though!

 

[Transk53]

Doesn't matter now, totally wrong!

After re-reading some of it I'll guess the same as Aedrasteia with Scandinavia.

I'd originally discounted it on the gun ownership comments, but the OP actually mentions carrying for self defence and I think everything else fits.

May well be wrong again though!

Yeah man, you have done way better than me. I kept getting more confused the further I read. Anyway, I'll agree with you, reckon that fits!

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

People here are very suspicious of beggars and anyone wanting money from them, begging here is illegal anyway.
Retail security, in fact all security work here is minimum wage and very long hours at least 60 odd hours a week. It is low status and not thought of highly on the whole.

And here I thought my first post in this thread made it clear that I had not intended to discuss security work within Britain or the US, primarily because of my lack of experience working there. Oh well.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

All right. Here's what I'm guessing you've been waiting to read about.

Type 1/regular guards, the type of which I belong to, always work for a security company approved by the County Administrative Board (I'm going to be referring to it as CAB from now on). Hence, we cannot freelance. The absolute majority of type 1's work either as stationary guards at hotel receptions and the like, or in the traditional role of nighttime patrolling. The latter more or less means driving from place to place in the middle of the night making sure lights and coffee makers are switched off, and the most exciting thing you're likely to ever encounter is having a burglary alarm go off - which, nine times out of ten, is false. And out of all the times when it isn't, nine times out of ten the thieves will have already left the scene.

There are two instances in which type 1's are allowed to operate without uniforms; one is what you would call loss prevention in English, and one is for bodyguard duty - the latter of which is by far the most common situation in which you'll find a type 1 guard carrying a firearm.
Also, there are only two things which separates a type 1 from a civilian, namely our right to carry and use batons (to defend ourselves as well as to assist in making arrests, I'll get to that later), as well as what you might call reinforced legal protection. Basically, that means that physically attacking or threatening us doubles the possible time one potentially has to serve, if one were to go to prison for it (which is far, far from likely these days). Nowadays, all guards who are likely to be making arrests in the line of duty are also required to carry handcuffs.

Training to become a type 1 can be done in two ways - one is by getting hired by one of the larger companies and having them pay the certification course for you, and the other is by paying for it yourself, which nowadays is by far the most common method. There are currently only two academies that are allowed to train guards - one is owned by the larger companies cooperatively, and the other is private. There used to be a third, which is the one I went to and which was also privately owned, but they've closed down since. Actually, you could say that there is a third way - the corporate-owned academy also runs a high school in which all students are certified during the course of education.
The courses are divided into two sections - step one and step two. Back when I went through them, it was possible to attend the second course directly after the first (also, back then, handcuffs and expandable batons hadn't been cleared for use just yet). Nowadays, however, you need to log 165 hours of actual work before you're allowed to proceed to step two. The privately own academy has dealt with this fact by creating their own security company, in which students simply get to work as a means to get cleared for step two. And in case you missed is - yes, you might say that students are paying for an opportunity to work, but in the end it's a matter of pro forma brought on by the recent years's tendency to make drastic changes to various regulations concerning all types of guards (more on the antics of the police later).

The manner in which guards and security companies operate, as well as how training and certification is carried out, is regulated by police guidelines which I'm going to be referring to here as RGPA (Regulations and Guidelines for the Police Authority), put together by the national police board. One of my former bosses has referred to these guidelines as "a huge sloppy mess created by armchair cops who have no idea as to how guards actually work". Personally I probably wouldn't go that far, at least not publically, but what I can say is that between 1992 and 2006, the RGPA concerning type 1 guards remained exactly the same. In just over half that time period since 2006, it's been changed and modified at least six or seven times - and from what I can tell, it was mostly because they discovered as they went on that a lot of the intended changes would be impossible to put into practice.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

I cannot, however, accurately describe the working conditions of type 1 without also touching on type 2.

Type 2 guards, which I will henceforth be referring to as peace officers or PO's for short, are answerable not to the CAB, but to the police. That is, they're selected by, trained by, and answerable to the police, and as a result, have a different set of rights and obligations compared to type 1.
You'll see PO's as bouncers in nightclubs, patrolling the subway, as well as other public areas such as shopping malls and courthouses.
As a PO, you are essentially the extended arm of the police, and your primary purpose is maintaining public order. In order to do so, they have the right to utilize certain parts of the Police Act. For instance, if a person disturbs public order by being too inebriated in the subway or at a bar, the PO has the right to order that person to leave the premises. Should that prove to be insufficient, the PO has the right to remove the person forcibly from the area. If that too were to prove inadequate, the PO has the right to detain said person, at which point he/she is to be handed over to the police.

A lot of times when discussing arrests when people with experience working within, for instance, the British and American legal system, it's been suggested to me that what I do is not arresting people per se, but rather a form of detainment whilst waiting for the police to arrive. Thing is, there is a clear difference between arresting people (which is what I do regularly, or as some might say, apprehending) and detaining them, which is what PO's often start out doing. You see, disturbing public order is not a crime per se, as opposed to, say, stealing or destroying private property. Therefore, a PO finds him/herself being in the unique position of having the legal right to physically restrain a person *WITHOUT* that person ever having committed an actual crime or even being suspected of having doing so. I do not know of anywhere else on Earth where it is legal for non-police officers to do this, and as you can imagine, this has been discussed by representatives of various human rights committees over the years.

In practice however, this is not too much of a problem. Even though guards and PO's have arguably the clearest and most thoroughly defined sets of rights and obligations imaginable, the general public typically hasn't got a clue as to how to distinguish between the two. The primary reason for this is probably the fact that up to around 2007, you were allowed to work as a PO AND as a type 1 guard at the same time. This meant that the "guard" sign would be located on the right side of your torso when in uniform, and the PO sign (which up to recently was a badge with the police emblem, rather than regular letters) to the left. Therefore, what started out as just detainment, often ends up being violent resistance - which *IS* a crime, one that you can arrest people for - all because of the perpetrator's ignorance of the laws and regulations concerning PO's, often confounded by the tendency of the media to spout the claim that "guards have no rights setting them apart from the ordinary citizen".

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

What further serves to complicate the issue is, as I've said before, that the police as well as attourneys generally tend to mistake type 1 guards for PO's. Not all that surprising really, since a PO is obligated by law to follow any police officer's orders, whereas regular guards are technically not. Typically, there are five instances in which conflicts are most likely to arise between guards and the police (and trust me, I have plenty of experience with all of them):

- the right to search people for weapons
- use and carry of handcuffs
- use and carry of batons
- our legal protection
- whether or not people under arrest *HAVE TO* be handed over to police or not.

As for the first - the right to search detained and/or arrested people is regulated in the Police Act. Many police officers don't care to distinguish between guards and PO's beyond the fact that the latter have the right to use certain parts of said legislations, and the former do not. However, upon thorough reading of the last paragraph, you'll find that the right to use force when carrying out apprehensions (I'm going to use that term from now on since the terms detention and arrest both have multiple uses, I'll get to that later), as well as the right to frisk people in search of weapons, applies to not just police officers or type 2's, but everyone else as well. Granted, only police officers and Special Protection guards may carry out body searches in order to locate stolen property or to verify a person's identity, but the right to carry out searches with the purpose of finding weapons applies to everyone.
But you shouldn't be at all surprised if a police officer shows up actually being angry at you for having searched someone, particularly if his/her ID is lying at a nearby table. Regardless of whether or not it was produced voluntarily (which is usually the case).

The second and third, well, for some reason, it's becoming less and less of a problem compared to the others, which is kind of strange because their use is still not nearly as common as the other three instances. However, you may still, as a type 1, encounter police officers demanding to see your "appointment", as it's known. I should probably clarify that - type 1 guards generally only carry with them their personal ID card identifying them as guards working for a specific company. PO's, however, also have appointment cards, on which one can see which set of equipment they're allowed to carry with them (which is usually just a baton and handcuffs, though there are those who carry handguns), as well as in which areas they're allowed to operate (working at a bar or nightclub, for instance, requires a different kind of appointment than that needed to work in a courthouse, which is also different from that required in a shopping mall).
PO's, as one might imagine, are required to show these appointment cards to any police officer requesting it, because like I've said, they're trained by and answerable to the police. Type 1 guard, however, are not answerable to the police as such, but to the County Administrative Board. As a type 1, I'm therefore not legally obligated to prove to any policeman that I'm certified in the use and carry of a baton and handcuffs (furthermore, the Work Environment Authority requires that all plainclothes guards be equipped with batons and handcuffs while on duty, on pain of severe penalty fees to his/her employer otherwise). But you will still encounter police officers who refuse to accept this fact. A senior officer of 25+ years that I talked to about this, went so far as to dial up a member of the National Police Board (who happened to be on vacation at the time) to verify whether or not this was true. In the end, he was so upset about it that he promised me to suggest to the NPB that type 1 guards were to have said qualifications printed on their ID card. That was three years ago, however, and nothing's come of it since. Probably because someone realized that the ID card is valid for three years, whereas the baton certification is valid for four years. Strangely, the handcuffing course doesn't need to be repeated, as least not as of writing this.

 

[Tez3]

And here I thought my first post in this thread made it clear that I had not intended to discuss security work within Britain or the US, primarily because of my lack of experience working there. Oh well.

However you made points about the UK that weren't true and used them as a comparison to where you are so I pointed them out. If you don't know, don't start a sentence with 'unlike the UK and USA' because a few of your assumptions were wrong. Just saying.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

However you made points about the UK that weren't true

No I didn't. You misread it.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

The fact of the matter, however, is that I live in a part of the world with a long tradition of people being supportive of the government, and having distrust in market capitalism - whereas I realize that for most of you native speakers of English, the situation is the direct opposite.

There. Now, moving on in a while...

 

[Tez3]

No I didn't. You misread it.

Gosh, now why didn't I think of that. Why the secrecy, why not just say 'I live in...' ?

 

[Transk53]

I am jumping on this one, cos quite frankly brain hurts and I am bleeding out of ears, etc..

working at a bar or nightclub, for instance, requires a different kind of appointment than that needed to work in a courthouse, which is also different from that required in a shopping mall).

Pretty certain that you stated a lack of experiance in the UK at least. This is quite the assertion. We have the SIA framework. The Doormans will cover all three of those particular jobs. There will court specialist training and no doubt, a professional certification.

Clicky

 

[drop bear]

I am jumping on this one, cos quite frankly brain hurts and I am bleeding out of ears, etc..



Pretty certain that you stated a lack of experiance in the UK at least. This is quite the assertion. We have the SIA framework. The Doormans will cover all three of those particular jobs. There will court specialist training and no doubt, a professional certification.

Clicky

As a side note ours do some silly distinctions on our licence like control room and body guard. Personally I think it is a money grab.

 

[Transk53]

As a side note ours do some silly distinctions on our licence like control room and body guard. Personally I think it is a money grab.

Same over here. We have to basically buy a new licence every three years. They call it renewal.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

Why the secrecy, why not just say 'I live in...' ?

Because the attempts to fill in the blanks fascinate me. As does the underlying assumption that the differences aren't as important as the similarities.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

Moving on...

Last year, I apprehended this Moroccan dude with the aid of two uniformed colleagues - both of whom were working as type 1 guards at the time.
Not only did said gentleman find it a good idea to try to steal stuff using a specially prepared bag clad with aluminum foil, but as it turns out, he was also wanted for pickpocketing and had previously been convicted of rape, the sentence for which he was on the run from at the time. On top of all this, he was also supposed to be extradited to his homeland. No big surprise then, that he didn't take kindly to being caught, but instead proceeded to threaten to come back and cut the throats of all three of us. As you might expect, he was charged with theft, gross theft (pickpocketing always counts as gross theft) and three counts of threatening public servants. Keep that number in mind.

The first trial that we were called to attend had to be cancelled mid-session, for the simple reason that someone had failed to discover that the defendant had been using a false name. This also meant that a different prosecutor would be handling the case fortwith. As I showed up to the second hearing, I discovered a very strange occurrence - apparently, the indictment had been changed, and the guy was charged with two accounts on threatening a public servant, and one account of a run-of-the-mill unlawful threat. I pointed this out to the new prosecutor, an obviously bright and pleasant young woman, whom immediately made changes to the charges brought, whilst at the same time pointing out to me that she hadn't been the one to have made any changes to the indictment. As the changes were brought up in court, the presiding judge asked something along the lines of "strange, because from what I'd been told the incident involed two peace officers and a 'store controller'?" To which I replied "no, there were three guards, two in uniform and one in plain clothes, which happened to be myself". Turns out, neither he nor the prosecutor who changed the indictment (whom I dialed up afterwards) were aware that people in loss prevention are technically guards. And mind you, that same prosecutor was the one assigned to handle the highly publicized Neo-Nazi riot case that took place a few months later. I couldn't help but wonder - if she'd managed to neglect something as simple as that, what else could she have been missing which might have helped to send those Nazis to prison even longer?
However, the man was convicted and all three of us were granted a sum corresponding roughly to 300 GBP by the Crime Victim Support and Compensation Authority, so I suppose all's well that ends well.

In theory, I can understand why the older members of the police force and the legal system believe that guards in plain clothes lack legal protection, because that was the way it was right up until some time in the mid-80's when you had what were then known as "store detectives" instead (mostly, these were recruited among elderly gossipy women whom no one would ever dream of smacking in the face, much less shower with tear gas). But that still doesn't explain why you can still encounter cops with less than ten years experience in the field spouting the same BS, or why a senior prosecutor may still ask if I walked up to the defendant and identified myself as a PO with my ID - despite the fact that PO's are not, have never been and most likely never will be allowed to operate without uniforms.

Another thing that continues to puzzles me is that whenever a civilian decides to help PO's out - usually whilst they're restraining someone - someone always starts screaming that it is illegal for him to do so, due to his not being a PO himself. The fact of the matter is that not only is it perfectly legal as well as welcomed if done correctly, but doing so also temporarily grants you the same set of legal protection. In short - assisting a person with the legal status of a public servant, such as a policeman or PO, grants you the same legal protection for the duration of the task.
For guards, PO's and police officers, this legal protection also applies if someone were to try and get back at you for things you've done in course of duty.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

Now, as to what to do with people that you've apprehended, and similar matters.

A while back, I posted a video elsewhere depicting a fight between a PO, two civilians assisting him, and three very inebriated gentlemen trying to gain access to a bar. Someone with experience of working doors in Britain suggested that the best thing to do would be to shove them away, get inside the establishment, lock the door, and let the three drunkards become someone else's problems.
Thing is, it is not legal for a PO to do so. Remember what I said about the state making it their business as to how and when you decide to get sloshed? Here's how it works:

Policemen, as well as PO's, have the right - and usually, the legal obligation - to utilize what's known as the Preventive Detention of Inebriated (I'm going to be using PDI for short) Act. Basically, this means that a person who is drunk or intoxicated to the point of posing a danger to himself or others, may be taken into temporary custody. If done by PO's, this means that he is to be handed over to the police as soon as possible. As is the case with disrupting public order, public drunkenness is not a crime per se. The law is intended to be a nurturing one, and probably owes some of it's existence to the days when workers received half or more of their payment in alcohol. As with regular detainment, this can also quite easily turn into an apprehension, should the person being intervened against offer up violent resistance or carry drugs and/or weapons on his person.

Under local law, it is not legal for a person to be "noticeably drunk" in an establishment or in the subway system - however, "noticeably drunk" is not synonymous with "posing a danger to him/herself or others". Since using alcohol testers is illegal for PO's (it actually counts as the legal equivalent of a body cavity search), pretty much all they have to rely on is their judgement. As such, being turned away from an establishment for being too drunk is highly possible even if you haven't had anything to drink (which admittedly is also possible pretty much everywhere else in the world).
However, ordering a person to leave an area is, for a PO, technically part of your professional conduct. As is detaining people, as well as your duty to report every crime you become aware of while on duty to the police. The reinforced legal protection of type 1 guards is technically what might be called an amendment - we have the legal status of public servants, but we are not public servants in the strict sense of the word. PO's, however, technically represent the state - whilst at the same time usually being paid by private interests. As you might understand, this is grounds for a conflict of interest.

PO's are required by law to report everything the see or hear about to the police, but doing so, I'm sad to say, may quite possibly cause more problems than it solves. If the Licensing Authority were to continuously receive reports of every threat, every person removed, every barroom scuffle, every drug use and every stolen object at an establishment, it's quite possible that they deem the place to rowdy and decide to withdraw it's permission to serve alcohol, forcing the place to close down and leaving the PO's as well as a whole lot of other people without a job.

Adding to this is the fact that becoming a PO requires a virtually clean criminal slate (there are exceptions, and I'll get to them later). Not only do you need a thorough lack of convictions, but you also need to be considered a relatively upstanding citizen. Having known contacts with organized crime figures or outlaw biker gangs, for instance, is usually grounds for an application being denied, as is having been detained under the PDI act a large number of times. The problem with this is, again, that it may create more problems than it solves.
A newly appointed PO in his early 20's with a clean middle-class background, quite frankly hasn't usually got a clue as to which people's bark are worse than their bite, and which ones are liable to start conflicts that continue long after the shift is over. In order to solve this, bars and clubs have a tradition of hiring "hosts" who, while not always hardcore criminals themselves, have pretty good glimpses into the criminal underworld. Basically, they're there because they know which people they can turn down without consequences, and which ones they can't. I've personally seen these guys hold back PO's preventing them from entering into fights with unsavory characters. Granted, this problem is decreasing in scope, chiefly due to the fact that more and more guards and PO's are being recruited from the same neighborhoods as the gangsters and know how to talk their talk, but the fact remains that you've got what is technically government representatives working side by side with thugs. The problem is still on a small enough scale that you can head into a bar or restaurant just thinking that their food and drinks taste nice, without knowing anything about Hells Angels, Bandidos, Satudarah, The Brotherhood, Chosen Ones or anything similar.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

Oops, I just realized I kind of sidetracked myself there.

In any case, what it boils down to is this - PO's are public servants, albeit usually being paid by security companies or restaurants, and not by the state (the courthouse and parliament-employed ones being a notable exception, and as you might have discerned from my previous post, the major security companies don't accept doorwork and generally look disparagingly on their employees doing it on the side). Guards, however, aren't bound by the same obligations. The revised RGPA theoretically now requires that we report any and all crimes being committed towards the client/customer to the police, but in practice, this is usually only done when there's an identifiable culprit, i.e. after having made an apprehension.

The Code of Judicial Procedure states that if a person is caught red-handed committing a crime that bears the possible penalty of at least six months in prison, he may be apprehended by anyone. The crimes that bear the penalty of prison far outnumber those that don't, so one is usually taught to remember the ones that don't, which include

- unlawful entry
- taking an unlawful path
- trespass (no, not the same thing)
- defamation
- insulting behaviour (again, not the same thing)
- disorderly conduct.

It should be noted that some of these crimes actually do bear the penalty of prison, should they be considered to be gross. It is however generally inadviseable to deem such a crime to be gross without first contacting the police.
Any person who is wanted by the police may also be apprehended by anyone.

Now, the Code of Judicial Procedure, or CJP for short, also states that when a person is apprehended, he is to be hastily handed over to a policeman. See, this is where it gets a bit complicated.
The Judicial Preview put together a referral just under ten years ago, in which it is stated that the purpose of having the police arriving to the scene after having made an apprehension, is not primarily done in order to determine whether or not the apprehension was lawfully done, nor is it to immediately question the suspect. Rather, the purpose is to make sure that a continued infringement on the suspect's freedom is not taking place without the proper authorities being notified.
Granted, it's been a while since I was last in the US, but one thing I do remember it that police officers were a fairly common sight on the streets. Here, however, unless there is an immediate emergency, it is not only common,but quite frankly to be expected, to have to wait for an hour or more for the police to show up - even if the nearest police station is literally located a block away. My own personal record clocks in at four hours and thirty-five minutes. The idea then, is that for a common crime such as a petty theft, it is not reasonable to infringe on someone's personal liberty for too long, and the most correct thing to do whilst adhering to the rule of law, is to let said person go if there is nothing preventing it.

The RGPA currently states that when a guard has made an apprehension, he is to provide the police with a written report stating

- the crime that has been committed by the suspect
- whom he was apprehended by and whom else was present at the time
- the name, personal ID number and address of the suspect, if known
- whichever considerations had been made before the apprehension
- if property has been seized
- if property has been returned
- if a body search has been conducted
- if handcuffing or other types of force have been used, and if so, the reason for this.

(The funny thing about this is that technically, this was originally supposed to be a separate report from that which has traditionally been given to the police after having apprehended someone. I.e. guards were actually supposed to write two separate reports containing essentially the same information. In practice though, no one has a clue about this, and nobody cares. For the last eight years, the police have been perfectly happy with receiving just one piece of paper. This is one out of many confusing things that tend to happen when you change a set of regulations many times in a row in a short period of time.)

You will, however, still encounter police officers, as well as civilian dispatch operators, who are completely unaware of the fact that it is perfectly legal to release apprehended persons without having called the police to the scene. Some police officers even go so far as to state that doing so would be grounds for an unlawful detainment. However, that doesn't quite explain why the RGPA goes on to state that "if a guard has apprehended someone and has then proceeded to release him/her without contacting the police, the guard shall, in addition to what is stated in 2 §, also provide information regarding the considerations that were made prior to the release and as to why the police was not contacted."

Note that I am referring to type 1 guards and civilians here, not PO's. Like police, PO's are capable of committing the crime of professional misconduct, whereas type 1 guards, who are technically not public servants, cannot.

 

[Tgace]

Your use of "PO" makes your writing difficult for me....here "PO" typically means Police Officer.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

Your use of "PO" makes your writing difficult for me....here "PO" typically means Police Officer.

Yeah, I figured. Regular cops around here are usually referred to as Police Assistants.

 

[K-man]

Gosh, now why didn't I think of that. Why the secrecy, why not just say 'I live in...' ?

... Sweden!