Introduction
As a new member to the team, it is important that you understand what your role is as part of the security staff. First and foremost, you are expected to prevent losses of equipment, information, and other relevant assets, which are caused by human error, emergencies, disasters, and most notably, criminal actions (Hess, 2009). In addition, you are expected to prevent the unauthorized access to the facility, as well as, areas within the facility that management has determined required extra security. Lastly, you are expected to maintain a safe workplace environment by enforcing security policies and procedures that have been established to prevent threatening and unsafe security conditions (Hess, 2009).
Investigative Principles
Naturally, it is likely that during the course of your employment, you will need to respond to an on-site security incident. When such an incident does occur, there are a few fundamental principles that must be followed in order provide the most effective response. First, “find the truth” (Nemeth, 2010). The truth here refers to an understanding as best as possible of what occurred, when the incident occurred, who was involved, how was the incident conducted, and where did the incident occur. As a security staff member, what “finding the truth” means for a practical perspective is to gather any information that will lead to or facilitate a comprehensive understanding of the incident. The means and method of obtaining information will, of course, depend on the nature of the incident. For example, gathering information about equipment that is missing from a delivery truck or data that was stolen from the factory’s computer database will require distinctive procedures; however, the fundamental fact that information needs to be gathered to “find the truth” remains the same in either case.
Once all relevant and necessary information has been gathered, the second investigative principle to keep in mind is, the information must be made actionable. Actionable here refers the process of making the information useful in a way that helps to resolve the incident. In other words, the information must be analyzed and processed to provide the answers to finding the truth. The method of analysis that is involved will depend on the specific incident. It could be as simple as matching faces on a security video to faces of factory personnel or involve more complex procedures.
Lastly, once the information is analyzed, it must be drafted or produced in a manner that is easily understood to non-security personnel and then disseminated to the relevant party. For example, a security report could be generated listing the details of the incident, suspected people involved, and a recommendation for use by management or for local law enforcement in the event that criminal charges are filed.
Criminal Investigations
Once an incident has been reported, there are a number of steps that you are expected to take in order to thoroughly examine what occurred. First, access to the area(s) where the incident occurred should be controlled and maintained for as long as necessary to perform the investigation. For example, if the incident involves missing equipment for a delivery truck, access to the truck and its contents should be limited to only authorized personnel such as other security staff and/or company leaders. This is necessary to prevent contamination of the scene and or further criminal activity. Second, once the scene has been secured, it must be documented as thoroughly as possible without contamination of any evidence that might be useful in a later law enforcement action if necessary. Documentation can be performed in a number of capacities depending on the nature of the incident. In the missing equipment from the delivery truck, for instance, documentation can include photographing the truck cabin and observing the area around the truck. On the other hand, in the case of the unauthorized accessing of the factory’s database, documentation could include accessing the hard-drive of a particular computer. Third, any relevant evidence should be preserved. Relevant evidence here refers to any information that will facilitate the resolution of the incident such as evidence confirming that a particular person was involved. Preserved means, keeping the information in a state as close as possible as the state that it was originally found. Again, how evidence is preserved will depend on the incident. For example, preserving a computer hard-drive may require specialized procedures (ACLU, 2015). Fourth, security staff should perform a preliminary information gather activity. This includes interviewing all relevant parties such as the person(s) that first discovered or reported the incident as well as any witnesses or other personnel that had the opportunity to observe the incident or were present when the incident occurred. In addition, security should begin gathering all pertinent information that might be linked to the incident. This information, for example, could include researching the driver’s log of the driver’s that had operated the delivery truck prior to the discovery of the missing equipment, or who logged onto the computer that was found to be involved in the unauthorized access to the company’s database. Fifth, based on the above four steps, security should then conduct a final information gathering activity. This might include re-interviewing witnesses, and if possible, suspects or people that were suspected of being involved. This is to confirm or reevaluate information already obtained. Lastly, security staff should write up their investigation in as much detail as possible and submit to the relevant supervisory or management personnel.
References
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). (2015). DEA Handbook: Online investigative principles for federal law enforcement agents. Retrieved from https://www.aclu.org/other/dea-handbook-online-investigative-principles-federal-law-enforcement-agents
Hess, K.M. (2009). Introduction to Private Security, 5th ed. New York, NY: Cengage Learning.
Nemeth, C.P. (2010). Private Security and the Investigative Process, 3rd ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Publishing.
