In an episode of The Simpsons, Homer is reading a magazine on a flight and exclaims, ‘ooh! Indonesia is at a crossroads!’. It serves as a reminder against lazy journalism; but we can at least argue that security management is at a turning point. Like any function, trade or profession, it has to move with the times, or other functions that adapt better than it will march onto its territory. The incursions come in numerous ways: such as in terms of hierarchy; and sector that’s protected.
In some sectors, such as the guarding of the public realm, and university campuses, it’s been striking in recent years how security departments have sought to move away from the very word ‘security’. To quote one manager, the ‘connotations’ are wrong. Patrollers of public space may be called wardens, or rangers; what were once security officers on campuses may now be called community safety or support. Partly, ‘Security’ does not put across what its management wants it to. Too militaristic; too stab-vesty, if that is a word; too confrontational. As the manager puts it, ‘if you give some people a label, they act up to it’. Partly, a name other than security better reflects the service, as the customers might imagine it; not telling people what not to do (as door staff might – ‘Security’ still has its place on the chests and shoulders of uniforms), but liaising with businesses (if in a city centre public realm) or students (if a campus), passing on concerns (a broken pavement stone or window), asking after the welfare of the on-street homeless or other vulnerable people.
In hospitals, security management has yet to recover from the scrapping in 2017 of the NHS’ security management central function, which now covers counter-fraud only. Hospitals still have security managers; but some would conflate healthcare security management with violence reduction. That would ignore the risks of theft, and acts of terror; and that many or even most incidents of violence against staff are not due to malice – by the criminally minded – but due to the confusion of those suffering from dementia or under the influence of drugs (or not taking medication), in other words medical cases (although security officers may be called upon to restrain the violent; how will that make someone feel, if they are already in distress or mentally not well?).
In corporates, security management may be at risk of being squeezed into having no more responsibility than checking on the guard force in the foyer. The value to the business – and therefore the pay and esteem of the managers – lies more in resilience, and risk.
In IT, the word ‘cyber’ may mean ‘security’, even though the international standard ISO 27001 for information security management takes in physical and digital security. If the proverbial crown jewels of a tech company are its intellectual property, its data, does that mean data protection is more important? And ‘cyber’ in fact is more about processes of handling data, and simply knowing where it is, than using it?
Even where the word ‘security’ might appear to remain of use, in door security, the job of working a door has changed. Gone are the days of door staff seemingly delighting in denying entry to someone who was wearing the wrong sort of shoes, or not a shirt with a collar. Door staff will tell you that they are there as the first sight of a premises, there to be welcoming, not forbidding (for one thing, the hospitality sector is glad to have patrons through the doors); if door staff have to get physical, it’s very much a last resort.
