Six Security Issues You Might Face

When your employees, students, members, and visitors feel safe, they are less anxious, more productive, and more focused. Physical and psychological safety boost morale, improve productivity, and increase revenues. It’s better for everyone.

Churches welcome (or are supposed to welcome) everyone, from all walks of life, backgrounds, and socioeconomic status, and by doing so open themselves up to a litany of risks. Left unmitigated, ignored, or left to manage itself, those risks could result in untold harm to the people under its charge — especially women and children.

Schools are filled with children, have set schedules, playgrounds, and sometimes angry, dysfunctional parents and extended family members. Teachers love the kids and do their best to keep them safe but are generally not in a position to prevent or stop an attack. Schools are the second-most common target for active shooters and mass murders, probably because they are a target-rich environment full of defenseless children.

Businesses hire the wrong people, aren’t good at leading their teams, and sometimes do a poor job identifying problem employees, hanging onto them too long then eventually letting them go without dignity or respect. Or they might hire a good person with a bad spouse who has the potential to bring domestic violence to their company doorstep. Sometimes simply producing a product that allegedly harms the environment, aids an out of favor country, or supports an unpopular political issue is enough to incite an act of violence. For all those reasons they can become the target of a disgruntled employee, an angry spouse, or illogical activists.

Depending on the nature of your organization and on what side of the current thing you find yourself standing on, you may face any one of the following common security issues. These six issues are at a minimum what you need to plan for, develop policies and procedures around, and then get your security team the training they need to handle them.

1. Hecklers / Protesters / Activists

You’ve got to decide ahead of time how your church is going to handle the heckler who interrupts the pastor in the middle of his sermon or how your business will respond to protestors that show up in the parking lot with signs and bullhorns. If you wait until the day-of and make it up as you go along, it probably won’t end well.

Assess the incident under the totality of circumstances — there is no one-size-fits-all. Is it one drunk loudmouth or a group of 30 organized activists? Do you need to call the police right away or can you isolate the person, talk them down, and convince them to leave on their own? There are too many hypotheticals to list, but forethought will pay dividends.

2. Sex Offenders / Womanizers / Stalkers

No one under your supervision or under your care should be made to feel uncomfortable, let alone have their innocence violated. Besides having zero tolerance for sexual harassment, you need to keep a wary eye open for the sexual deviant who may work their way into your organization. Convicted sex offenders have been known to change their names, as evidenced by recent news stories, in an effort to make detecting them much more difficult than a simple Google search. They may also move around the community and the country to further their attempt at anonymity.

Does your organization conduct background checks on those they intend to put in positions of authority, especially positions over women and children? Does your security team conduct proactive patrols and check bathrooms, closets, and out of the way parts of your building or grounds? Make sure you’re doing your due diligence and being ever vigilant.

3. Suspicious or Unwanted Persons

To the extent possible, your security team needs to get to know the people that should be there, the regulars, know who the visitors are, and who doesn’t belong. Simply engaging someone in conversation using a nonconfrontational line of questioning can be enough to detect and deter a shady person.

How will you handle the person who hasn’t done anything objectively wrong, but maybe who is in a place or at a time where he or she just shouldn’t be there? Does your team have the authority to remove them, and if so, how? Are they empowered to listen to their intuition, use their judgment, and act?

4. Natural Disasters

Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, or a vehicle crashing into your building causing a partial collapse are all possibilities your security team will face. They are the first people everyone will look to for leadership and guidance while waiting for police, fire, and medics to arrive.

Does your security team know how to assess and treat traumatic wounds? Do they know your building and grounds like the back of their hands? Are there designated rally points and a system to account for everyone? Are they prepared to assist with an evacuation if necessary?

5. Fire or Smoke in the Building

Most of us have been doing fire drills since we were in kindergarten, but the older you get, the less you care. How many times have you seen the fire alarm go off at work and everyone just sits there because, hey, they have work to do. Fire alarms have become a manifestation of the boy who cried wolf.

Your security team needs to know your evacuation plan, all the points of egress, and should be the ones to ensure a total evacuation. Once outside, there should be designated rally points and a system for accountability so no one is left behind. Your team needs to know the evacuation plan and be prepared to direct everyone out while they themselves are the last to leave.

6. Active Shooter

The average time it takes for police to respond to an active shooter is three minutes. (Rural areas can expect a longer average response time.) Now, as fast as that is, one person can shoot a lot of bullets and kill a lot of people in three minutes. So here’s where your security team really comes in.

Is your team prepared to engage an active shooter in order to stop the killing? Are they trained in Tactical Combat Casualty Care and equipped with a trauma kit so they can stop bleeding and prolong the life of an injured person? Are they prepared to direct or assist responding officers and get them access to all areas of the building?

Fortune Favors the Prepared

These are all real security concerns your team needs to be prepared for. Once your team has been selected, make sure you have the policies in place, the support of leadership, and get them the training and equipment they need to handle each one.

If you need any help establishing and training a security team, be sure and contact us. We offer a variety of training and consulting services to help make your security team the best it can be.