Electronic detex....

[ValleyOne]

Looking into putting together and argument against using those little RFID tags/buttons to be used for educating clients. Those that don't know these are basically the replacement of the old school detex key stations.

I recall from experience and a study somewhere that concluded that the only thing these tags/key stations do is train the guard to focus on nothing but going to and from each station in the most direct path and then only paying attention to an area around them. This is great to show the client and others that; "See we checked the property." What it lacks is that few people understand that it only shows those stations getting hit, and does nothing for the rest of the property.

Now then, anyone know of this study and where to find it? I recall it was put out by the USDOJ, but I Could be wrong.

[N. A. Corbier]

Good luck finding the report, but for $200 dollars you can buy a cheap guard scan system at Uniforms 4 All as a test device. Set it up around the client's office for demonstration purposes, and then leave things obviously amiss.

Tell them the truth:
You will hit the keys at 12:01, 12:03, 12:04, 12:05, 12:07. Any deviation in this will require an incident report where you will explain why you were late. Any unexplained or improperly explained deviation will be considered negligence, and you will be disciplined. If you consistently fail to make key hits, you will be terminated.

Let em run it. See what they miss. Then explain to them that the guard (If they're thinking about a guard management system, they're looking for guards, using the term "officer" may put them off as an "uppity security guard doesn't know his place.") is focused on the keys, and not the situation.

I have seen security personnel throw fits if they find something. Its the same as mobile patrol, "Please don't let anything happen because I have 12 more hits on 4 properties across town." I have heard on the radio of mobile patrol personnel ignoring problems they were contracted to deal with or calling the police on the way out (their job was to intervene, not observe and report, nor was the issue a police problem) because "I don't have time for this."

[SecTrainer]

Looking into putting together and argument against using those little RFID tags/buttons to be used for educating clients. Those that don't know these are basically the replacement of the old school detex key stations.

I recall from experience and a study somewhere that concluded that the only thing these tags/key stations do is train the guard to focus on nothing but going to and from each station in the most direct path and then only paying attention to an area around them. This is great to show the client and others that; "See we checked the property." What it lacks is that few people understand that it only shows those stations getting hit, and does nothing for the rest of the property.

Now then, anyone know of this study and where to find it? I recall it was put out by the USDOJ, but I Could be wrong.

While it is true that you can narrowly interpret a guard management system as only proving that a guard was at a particular station at a particular time, this in and of itself is not bad information to have, and the question of whether a guard focuses exclusively on "hitting the station" is really a matter of better training and supervision.

Both clients and officers need appropriate training in the use and interpretation of these systems and the information they provide. It is not, for instance, proper use of such systems to require that officers "hit the station" at some particular moment in time. Any client would be able to understand that security patrols not only cannot, but SHOULD NOT, be that predictable anyway.

However, every client has a right to know (and security management NEEDS to know) that there has been some contractually-defined level of service delivered. All that is required is that such contractual definitions are expressed in reasonable terms. For instance, "four times per shift" or "once every two hours" makes a lot more sense than "2:53, 4:17, 6:12 and 8:04".

The fact that there have been silly applications or interpretations made out of the information these systems provide should not preclude our understanding how valuable their proper use can be. And, if officers become focused on "hitting their marks" instead of doing their duty, well...that's a problem that proper supervision can solve very easily. For instance, when I was supervising in the field, I took little yellow sticky notes with me. Very visible to anyone who was LOOKING for them. I'd put them around here and there - for instance, I'd put one on a window that said "broken window". Or, I'd put one on an employee's car out in the parking lot that said "abandoned vehicle". We made an exercise or really a "game" out of finding these, with small incentives like dinner for two to the officer who found the most during the week. They loved it and they understood the reason for it. It relieved a lot of their boredom, as well. Of course, I made sure to pick up any that hadn't been founnd by the end of the shift!

The sticky notes that weren't found, incidentally, were also useful to me, because they were a good reason to open a conversation with an officer about his patrol techniques. Since I didn't try to be overly sneaky or "tricky" with this idea, I felt that all of them really should be found and so I could ask why they weren't found.

Now, I suppose someone could have come along and said that I was just "training officers to look for sticky notes", right? There's always someone somewhere who can criticize literally anything you do, or any method of supervision you employ (electronic or otherwise). Nothing's perfect and all you can do is to consider whatever the downsides are to any method of patrol management/supervision you employ and try to compensate for them.

Bottom line: I wouldn't try to present arguments against RFID or any other form of patrol management system. I would only present a discussion about how they should and can be used to best advantage of both the client and the management of the security company. These are not intended to be used as "straight-jackets" or to turn officers into "robots".

[mbmx13]

The current job that I work surveillance at has a security service providing protection 24-7 and recently went to the Detex system.

This is my personal feeling on the Detex system. If the intent of deploying the Detex system is for roving patrol then I don't see a problem with it. Where I do have an issue with it is when management uses it as a tool to micromanage security operations while they are not there. This is the case at the place where I currently work.

Most of the security guards are slowly leaving this company because it also makes them feel like they aren't trusted.

Again, this is my personal feelings on the issue but I am really against the use of the Detex for Site Security and will never implement it at any of my client's sites for that reason.

Raymond A. Miller III
President
Intelligent Ops International, Inc.
Security and Investigative Service

[Officer]

Looking into putting together and argument against using those little RFID tags/buttons to be used for educating clients. Those that don't know these are basically the replacement of the old school detex key stations.

I recall from experience and a study somewhere that concluded that the only thing these tags/key stations do is train the guard to focus on nothing but going to and from each station in the most direct path and then only paying attention to an area around them. This is great to show the client and others that; "See we checked the property." What it lacks is that few people understand that it only shows those stations getting hit, and does nothing for the rest of the property.

Now then, anyone know of this study and where to find it? I recall it was put out by the USDOJ, but I Could be wrong.

I don't know where you can find that particular study, but here's a thing or two you can tell those little SOB's (and you can tell 'em I said so, too)...

During my time in the Security industry, I've had to do a couple of different forms of "Detex" (not to mention, the old Key/graph clock "purse") and I can tell you from experience that the study you quoted is 100% correct.

In fact, the guard rarely even pays attention to their immediate surroundings, especially the first few times they perform the rove, because they're concentrating so hard on trying to remember the "path" they're supposed to take (and when you miss one on a built-in computerized system that won't allow you to back track, it makes it all the worse).

It's also been my experience that any site that has a detex will immediately tell you one of two things about the place you're working.
Either you're working with a lackadaisical crew (and the Site Sup/Property Mgmt. has found out about it and this is their way of dealing with it) or the Property Mgmt / Site Sup. are trying to their making themselves appear "officious" by making the guard(s) weave through a path that is:
A) almost impossible for any normal human being to completely remember
B) taking the guard to "unusual" places

...trust me - been there, done that.

My rule of thumb is if I end up at a site that has a detex rove, I'm either going to ask for a transfer to a different site, or I'm going to look for another company to work for.

Period. End of sentence.

[john_harrington]

I don't know where you can find that particular study, but here's a thing or two you can tell those little SOB's (and you can tell 'em I said so, too)...

During my time in the Security industry, I've had to do a couple of different forms of "Detex" (not to mention, the old Key/graph clock "purse") and I can tell you from experience that the study you quoted is 100% correct.

In fact, the guard rarely even pays attention to their immediate surroundings, especially the first few times they perform the rove, because they're concentrating so hard on trying to remember the "path" they're supposed to take (and when you miss one on a built-in computerized system that won't allow you to back track, it makes it all the worse).

It's also been my experience that any site that has a detex will immediately tell you one of two things about the place you're working.
Either you're working with a lackadaisical crew (and the Site Sup/Property Mgmt. has found out about it and this is their way of dealing with it) or the Property Mgmt / Site Sup. are trying to their making themselves appear "officious" by making the guard(s) weave through a path that is:
A) almost impossible for any normal human being to completely remember
B) taking the guard to "unusual" places

...trust me - been there, done that.

My rule of thumb is if I end up at a site that has a detex rove, I'm either going to ask for a transfer to a different site, or I'm going to look for another company to work for.

Period. End of sentence.

Absent a system such as this, I am curious what you would recommend for logging your tours. If you are writing when you checked an area in a paper log, you are essentially giving management the same info. The pipe or morse watchman wand provides management with backup needed to verify the tours. Tours can be made to be random, and the device should direct you to your next destination.

However, a tour should not be a sprint- tours have to allow time for observation.

[N. A. Corbier]

Absent a system such as this, I am curious what you would recommend for logging your tours. If you are writing when you checked an area in a paper log, you are essentially giving management the same info. The pipe or morse watchman wand provides management with backup needed to verify the tours. Tours can be made to be random, and the device should direct you to your next destination.

However, a tour should not be a sprint- tours have to allow time for observation.

I have never seen a guard tour management system setup that does not create a performance metric measured by "number of hits," "time of hit," and "path of hit." Even when made random, the individual guards or supervisors will demand a path of the newer guards - that's how they have done it for the past 20-30 years as a security guard, and no kid is gonna come up and tell anyone something stupid about "random tours" or some BS.

I have only seen Guard Tour Management systems typically used for insurance accountability purposes, to determine the guard was in a place at a specific time. To do them randomly, would create an inability for the client and insurer to positively locate where the guard was. After all, the guard is a low wage employee and cannot be trusted to provide accurate information on where he was when the transformer in Building 4 caught fire and burned buildings 4 and 5 down, he may be covering it up.

Therefore, the GMS will positively determine exactly where the guard is, every moment of his shift. It will show if he slacked off, went to the rest room, or otherwise stopped performing his tour.

I have even seen a government contract where we did our Detex rounds in 20 minutes instead of 50, and instead of telling us to slow down... They doubled the amount of patrols to once per half hour, instead of once per hour. Instead of addressing the fact that we were speed running the detex runs, they simply decided that they'd get twice the output!

A perfect example of "number of hits" and "speed of hits" as a performance metric.

[SecTrainer]

The fact that an electronic system can provide a particular piece of "metric" information is not the point. The question is whether, and how, the management considers and/or uses the metric. If management believes that a particular piece of information is not of importance or does not tell them what it purports to tell them, they can obviously simply ignore it completely. Or, they can use the information but interpret it in light of other facts, etc.

This is only raw information...how it is used or interpreted, if at all, is up to management.

[N. A. Corbier]

That's my point, actually. Management, usually at the client level, uses the guard tour system in a way that defeats the purpose of security. They want the guards to do X, Y, and Z. The way they would. And the firms will just go, "OK, you're the client." And then the place gets broken into after the key pattern is detected.

[Officer]

Absent a system such as this, I am curious what you would recommend for logging your tours. If you are writing when you checked an area in a paper log, you are essentially giving management the same info. The pipe or morse watchman wand provides management with backup needed to verify the tours. Tours can be made to be random, and the device should direct you to your next destination.

However, a tour should not be a sprint- tours have to allow time for observation.

What do I recommend?
People doing their d**n job, to begin with!
Log the roves into the Daily, as one normally would.
If the LO and/or SS thinks the rove guards are "slack" in their duties, they can setup little "traps" to see if the guard(s) are doing their rounds.
In an office building, it could be something like an elevator cab shut off on a floor that's included in the rove, with the doors open and the lights off.
If there's no report about it, or the SS doesn't hear about it from the LO the next day, you know something's going on that isn't kosher.

...and some systems can be timed.
That was a "failing" of the non-back-trackable system I was saddled with back in the early 90's.
It was determined that it would take a certain amount of time to go from one point to the next.
However, if you forgot where exactly the next point was, and time expired, it was a call over the radio to see what was wrong.
Same thing, if you skipped points (both of which happened to me a couple of times).
I couldn't go back and hit the point I missed, but it wouldn't accept the following point because none of this made sense to the computer.
I had more than a few roves called off, that were only partially completed.
Thus the problem with that system. You couldn't be guranteed a successful rove, everytime.

In my mind, just trust in your guards and if, for whatever reason, you suspect they're not doing what they should be, find out and get 'em back in line.




Officer