incidents

Those in the security industry know that it often pays better to work in the private sector than the public. According to the 2010 U.S. Security Salary Survey conducted by ASIS International, those who work in the private sector tend to have higher average salaries than those who work in the government sector. However, those employed by the government have higher median salaries. “This seems to indicate if you start your career in the government sector you’ll start out at a higher rate, but transitioning to the private sector will garner higher compensation,” said Mike Moran, special projects editor for ASIS International.

But you can't really do both at the same time, now can you? I just read an interesting article from the Courier-Post in New Jersey that the Medford Police Chief has been moonlighting as the security director of a Pennsylvania casino. First of all, I'm pretty sure being a chief of police is a fairly time consuming job that requires being available at all hours (am I naive on this one?). Well, apparently others agree with me:

Eric Mason, president of the New Jersey State Association of Police Chiefs, said a police chief's job is a 24/7 position and one is never truly off duty or on vacation. Mason said he hasn't heard of a police chief working a second job in his 33 years in law enforcement but would be surprised if Canale is the first.

But, others think that law enforcement officers, just like the average Joe, should be able to make money working other jobs if they want to:

Ray Hayducka, second vice president of the police chiefs association, said he works as a part-time law consultant and teacher -- about 20 hours per month -- and police chiefs should be able to take advantage of money-making opportunities like other citizens.

But, there's a big difference between working as a police officer and a teacher, in my opinion. If there's an emergency, leaving a bunch of college kids isn't really such a big deal, but leaving one's security duties at a casino (or any facility, really) seems like it could jeopardize the safety and security of individuals.

And, something the article only touched on, was the conflict of interest involved in holding these two positions. Granted, his two gigs are in different states so he doesn't have jurisdictional powers at his casino job, but I think this certainly begs the question of priorities. How are citizens of Medford, who foot the bill for his salary, know they have the complete dedication of their highest ranking police official? If I lived there, I would certainly be irked by this.

Plus, the man makes $139,000 as a police chief and is slated for another $10,000 pay increase in January, according to the article. I'm not aware what the cost of living is in New Jersey or how much the average police chief makes, but that seems like a good chunk of change, doesn't it? Frankly, I'm bothered by this. Are you?

I began my security reporting career focusing on the third-party monitoring side of the industry as the associate editor of our sister publication, Security Systems News. One of the biggest issues for that beat was ensuring that these third-party companies provided adequate monitoring of residential and commercial customers, which, when you have thousands and thousands of accounts, is by no means simple. (Check out Dan's blog and the monitoring page for continuous reporting on this sector).

And every so often a story would hit the mainstream media that a customer had been paying for an alarm system to be monitored, but it wasn't working properly. This, of course, was never good news and contributed to the public's skepticism about the security industry.

Now that I live on the end user side of life, I can better understand the frustration of not getting what you're paying for. Take, for example, this story out of New Jersey where a hotel employee was viciously attacked while on duty. The woman managed to hit a silent panic alarm during the course of the attack to alert police, but guess what? It wasn't working and the police never showed. Fortunately, the woman managed to escape to a guest room, but sustained significant injuries and trauma from the incident.

The article points out that the alarm company, Vanwell Electronics, who installed and then outsourced the monitoring of the system, was aware that it wasn't working properly, but didn't do anything to fix it.

"Vanwell knew for 16 weeks the (security) line wasn’t properly connected and did nothing about it," said her lawyer, David Mazie.

Yep, for 16 weeks it wasn't working. Disgraceful, I know.

The alarm company has agreed to pay the woman $2.5 million to settle the lawsuit. I suppose it's good to know that these companies who aren't doing their jobs (and are making everyone in the security business look bad), are being forced to pay up.

But, my question to the end user community is: How much responsibility do you have in ensuring that your security systems are working properly? Most end users employ some sort of integrator to put these systems in place, but ultimately isn't it the responsibility of the security department to make sure the job is done right? What type of policies do you need to have in place to make sure things are working properly?

While I agree with this settlement, that it is largely the fault of the security company for not taking care of this problem, what responsibility does the hotel security department have in this? It is, after all, the hotel's assets and the hotel's people at risk.