Home > Security guard

Security guards also perform access control at building entrances and vehicle gates by ensuring that employees and visitors display proper passes or identification before entering the facility. Security guards are often called upon to respond to minor emergencies (lost persons, lockouts, dead vehicle batteries, etc.) and to assist in serious emergencies by guiding emergency responders to the scene of the incident and documenting what happened on an incident report.

The security guard motto is to "observe and report." Contrary to popular belief, security guards are not normally expected to make arrests or otherwise act as police officers. However, security guards do enforce company rules and can act (as would any other person) if necessary to protect lives or property. Security guards are often trained to operate emergency equipment, perform first aid, take accurate notes and write effective reports, and perform other tasks as required by the property they are protecting.

Security guards are either " in-house " (i.e. employed by the same company they protect, such as a mall or a theme park) or " contract," working for a private security company which protects many locations. Some large contract private security companies in the United States include Pinkerton, Metro Patrol Services, Inc., Burns, Wackenhut, Allied, and Guardsmark.

One major economic justification for security guards is that insurance companies (particularly fire insurance carriers) will give substantial rate discounts to sites which have a 24-hour presence. This is because having a security guard on site increases the odds that any fire will be reported to the local fire department before a total loss occurs. Also, the presence of security guards (particularly in combination with effective security procedures) tends to diminish " shrinkageIn sales, shrinkage (also commonly referred to as shrink is the loss rate of products between point of manufacture and point of sale. Sometimes shrinkage may be as high as 15% to 20% of total volume, having a major negative impact on profits. Shrinkage is," theft, employee misconduct and safety rule violations, or even sabotageDisambiguation This article is about Sabotage the destructive action. The term sabotage can also refer to: an early Black Sabbath album ( Sabotage), a Alfred Hitchcock film ( Sabotage), a Beastie Boys song, or a type of shock site. Sabotage is a deliberat.

Most U.S. states and counties require a licenseA license or licence is a document or agreement giving permission to do something. The spelling license is usual in American English. In British English, licence is the noun form, and license is the verb, so a when a licensee has a licence they are licens to work as a security guard. This license may include a criminal background checkA background check is a process in which the specifics of an individual's past history are revealed for the purposes of employment or obtaining classified information. Reasons They are frequently conducted to confirm information found on an employment app and/or training requirements. Most security guards do not carry weaponA weapon is a tool used to kill, maim, destroy or perhaps simply disable, a person or animal and as a result, also to threaten and defend. Since the dawn of humanity the use of weapons has been codified resulting in both martial arts and strategic doctrins and have only the same powers of arrest as a private citizen , a "private person" arrest or " citizen's arrestA citizen's arrest is an arrest performed by a private citizen, as opposed to a sworn law enforcement officer. The practice dates back to medieval England, where sheriffs encouraged ordinary citizens to help apprehend law breakers. In the United States, s." If weapons are carried, additional permits and training are usually required. Normally armed security guards are used (in the USA) to protect sensitive sites such as government and military installations, banks or other financial institutions, and nuclear power plants. Armed private security is much more rare in Europe and other developed countries. In developing countries (with host country permission) armed security composed mostly of ex-military personnel is often used to protect corporate assets, particularly in war-torn regions.

Some jurisdictionThe term jurisdiction has more than one sense. Power of a court of law Jurisdiction is the power of a court to hear and decide a case before it. In most common law systems, jurisdiction is conceptually divided between jurisdiction over the subject matters do commission or deputize security guards and give them limited additional powers, particularly when employed in protecting public property such as mass transit stations. Some security guards, particularly in hazardous jobs such as bodyguardA bodyguard is a person who protects someone from personal assault, kidnapping, assassination and acquiring confidential information. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, most bodyguards are former or current police officers, or sometim work and bouncers outside nightclubs, are off-duty police officers (although in some countries it is illegal for police officers to take private security work). Except in these special cases, a security guard who misrepresents themselves as police is committing a felony crime.

Industry terms for security guards include: guards, agents, watchmen, officers, safety patrol. Other job titles in the security industry include dispatcher, receptionist, driver, supervisor, alarm responder, armed security officer, and manager.

It was a security guard, Frank Wills, who detected the Watergate burglars, ultimately leading to the resignation of Richard M. Nixon as President of the United States.

Derogatory terms for security guards include rent-a-cops and imitation bacon. Some people do not like security guards because their duties include enforcing rules and serving as a symbol of authority. Others believe that security guards are "wanna-be" or would-be police officers, or have had bad experiences with security guards in the past.