Security Officer Incident Reports/Daily Activity Logs

[LPCap]

I have a question regarding Security Officer Daily Activity Logs and Incident Reports.

I was talking to a few Security Officers who work unarmed security and they were telling me that a memo came from above stating that they were to shorten their daily logs and incident reports. There was a guy who had to read them and if they were too long, it took him too long. It was also explained to them that these weren't "legal" documents, just a piece of paper showing their bosses that they were working.

Two of the officers were upset because they (being former EMT's/911 operators) were trained on "if you don't document it, it didn't happen". One officer said many officers would have five line daily logs while theirs had twenty or so. Incident reports were not to exceed two paragraphs.

What do you think of this policy? Comments?

[HotelSecurity]

I like incident reports to be as short & sweet as possible. I tend to get rookies that start there reports something like this: "I was on my routine patrol at 16h00 on the 16th floor of the hotel when the Operator called me on the walkie-talkie to go to room 1234 for a report of the smell of smoke..." Instead of "at 16h00 I was sent to room 1234 for the smell of smoke..."

[copelandamuffy]

I have told my Guards after leaving for the weekend, that come Monday morning I would prefer that I cannot open the door to the Gatehouse, because it is over flowing
with paper work of Incident Reports and Daily Activity Reports, than the alternative of at
end of the weekend there is not a scrap of paper written of a serious incident.

If I cannot take the time to read all DARs from my Guards, and Incident Reports, then it is time for me to find a new job.

I welcome well thought out written DARs. If is a tad too windy or wordy, so
be it. I will let it pass.

[Security]

I have told my Guards after leaving for the weekend, that come Monday morning I would prefer that I cannot open the door to the Gatehouse, because it is over flowing
with paper work of Incident Reports and Daily Activity Reports, than the alternative of at
end of the weekend there is not a scrap of paper written of a serious incident.

If I cannot take the time to read all DARs from my Guards, and Incident Reports, then it is time for me to find a new job.

I welcome well thought out written DARs. If is a tad too windy or wordy, so
be it. I will let it pass.

Agreed. I much rather read detailed DARs from my officers than barely anything at all. Sure, it can be a bit time consuming, but a true professional pays careful attention to the fine details instead of rushing through the job.

[Security]

I like incident reports to be as short & sweet as possible. I tend to get rookies that start there reports something like this: "I was on my routine patrol at 16h00 on the 16th floor of the hotel when the Operator called me on the walkie-talkie to go to room 1234 for a report of the smell of smoke..." Instead of "at 16h00 I was sent to room 1234 for the smell of smoke..."

I disagree. If the aforementioned incident were to occur at my facility, I would probably be curious to know who it was that instructed my officer to investigate a smoke odor in Room 1234. Was it an employee? A hotel guest? A trespasser trying to distract security in an effort to commit a crime? "Short and sweet" is certainly easier, but not always preferable.

[BoyInBlue]

I have a question regarding Security Officer Daily Activity Logs and Incident Reports.

I was talking to a few Security Officers who work unarmed security and they were telling me that a memo came from above stating that they were to shorten their daily logs and incident reports. There was a guy who had to read them and if they were too long, it took him too long. It was also explained to them that these weren't "legal" documents, just a piece of paper showing their bosses that they were working.

Two of the officers were upset because they (being former EMT's/911 operators) were trained on "if you don't document it, it didn't happen". One officer said many officers would have five line daily logs while theirs had twenty or so. Incident reports were not to exceed two paragraphs.

What do you think of this policy? Comments?

This policy is a joke. Just some lazy manager that doesn't want to read...

[Guest]

Reports

I always try to make mine as detailed as possible. One of my former trainers, hoji, you know him, told us that he was promoted on the basis of his report writing. On an average 12-hr post, I could usually get about 5 pages of incident reports. Of course, this was not always the case. When I was tired or had incidents occurring, I would leave out minute stuff and focus only on the important parts instead of recording my every move...

[NRM_Oz]

Well we don't need to know shoe size but a shift log is different to an incident report. SL's will be a brief and an IR will be the facts of an incident. Some SL's are based on a time stamp (ie. 1 - 2 hour sections) and this may mean a statement such as "0100 - 0200 S/O Jones patrolled North Perimeter fenceline, Gates N1 and N2 secured by padlock NFTR (nothing further to report).

Now if you are going to report padlocks missing and holes found in fenceline you would probably complete an IR saying padlocks secured or gate secured with spare locks and cut fence line secured with cable ties with Police notified.

Again this was how it was shown to me 20 years ago by former police as the idea being that a brief of evidence was a summary with the annexures supporting the brief or summary for further information. Sometimes you may be patrol and radio back to base or partner that you have say a cut fence line and that person SHOULD record that conversation in your communications and site incident log (ie. what you do and when you do it).

[The Lord of the Keys]

I've always ried to make incident reports as brief as possible, but it is important to iclude all of the data. There is a world of differece between reporting a multi-car accident and reporting that a lightswitch ism't working.
As for daily reports I like them to be as long as possible. I wanted to show the client that we were an active security team and not off somewhere sleeping. Anything I did would go down in the report.

[Guest]

I did work post with one officer who would go so far as to make note of head calls and smoke breaks in his log sheet. Then, he would fail to give an accurate or satisfactory description of the person who was just trying to break into a car. We had to coach him a little bit to get that ironed out...

[EMTGuard]

I disagree. If the aforementioned incident were to occur at my facility, I would probably be curious to know who it was that instructed my officer to investigate a smoke odor in Room 1234. Was it an employee? A hotel guest? A trespasser trying to distract security in an effort to commit a crime? "Short and sweet" is certainly easier, but not always preferable.

I have to agree with Security. When I write reports or read them I don't just want "Responded to report of a fire in the billet yard." Who reported the fire? By phone or company radio? What was on fire?
Just last week a pickup truck used by the Scrap Yard supervisor caught fire and the fire spread to a large dumpster nearby. The Shift Supervisor/EMT called 911 and had the fire department respond. Her Security Officer who works with her and does patrols and such never got out of his chair. When the Fire trucks arrived, instead of leading them into the plant or having her SO do so she called a contracter who works in the to drive up to the main gate and escort the fire department back to the burning truck.
The shift supervisor noted one line in the logbook and her incident report was hand written on a piece of scrap paper and taped to the front of a video monitor when the site supervisor showed up the next morning.
Security is about Observe and Report. None of the security staff made an attempt to Observe and a handwritten note on a piece of scrap paper is hardly a Report. Oh God I have to get that other job I applied for. I can't work with these slackoffs anymore.

[N. A. Corbier]

This is not an acceptable shift report once it gets in a civil court:

0001 S/O John Jones on duty. All secure.
0100 Patrolled plant. All secure.
0200 Patrolled plant. All secure.
0300 Patrolled. A/S.
0400 Patrolled. A/S.
0500 Patrolled. A/S.
0600 Patrolled. A/S.
0700 Patrolled. Unlocked. A/S.
0800 Off duty.

They will tear this apart.

[flashlightcop509]

This is not an acceptable shift report once it gets in a civil court:

0001 S/O John Jones on duty. All secure.
0100 Patrolled plant. All secure.
0200 Patrolled plant. All secure.
0300 Patrolled. A/S.
0400 Patrolled. A/S.
0500 Patrolled. A/S.
0600 Patrolled. A/S.
0700 Patrolled. Unlocked. A/S.
0800 Off duty.

They will tear this apart.

Yep...

I've read reports by the overnight officer to the effect of, "Let delivery guy for Dunkin Donuts in the food service door at 0430, locked same door at 0500"; Granted, that pretty much says it all, but if something were to go missing from those areas which were secured by the owners at closing during the time until opening, "delivery guy" really doesn't work for me...

By the same token, and I'm as guilty as some others, that when you type your report 20 minutes before ending shift, all you're thinking about is clocking out and going home; soooo, you may cut a few entries short as far as details you may think aren't important... which may come back to bite you in the seatwarmer one day. As Nathan stated, reports written by S/O's are considered Legal documents if brought into court, so best to keep track of every little thing that may call the performance of your duties (and the requirements of said duties by your company) into question...

[NRM_Oz]

Yes agreed about the legalities as they are documents or records of activities of a particular site or activity. Our new state laws have really clamped down on meatheads making 1 line incident reports and even so far as coming on site, signing on, receiving brief, receiving WHAT equipment issued to you (ie. keys), listing what keys or ID cards are out on assignment (ie. visitors) and any faulty equipment such as chirp chirp radio units.

1 site I audited found 3 years of S/O Jones onsite - 12 hours later, S/O Jones offsite. Why would you bother writing anything like this at all ? Why bother showing up to work ? My first shift I was auditing the logs and I wrote what I was bringing onsite (ie. new radios) and accepted site keys only to hear "Oh we don't do that here". WTF !!!! These were 10 year S/O's.

Just in brief, I have followed the same formats and abbreviations used by the police in incident reports such as POI = Person Of Interest which the police use as well together with full terms explained. This cuts down alot of repeated use of "Offender" when this is not correct until the person has committed the crime.

[OMG_Ihatethisjob]

U get what U pay for

This is not an acceptable shift report once it gets in a civil court:

0001 S/O John Jones on duty. All secure.
0100 Patrolled plant. All secure.
0200 Patrolled plant. All secure.
0300 Patrolled. A/S.
0400 Patrolled. A/S.
0500 Patrolled. A/S.
0600 Patrolled. A/S.
0700 Patrolled. Unlocked. A/S.
0800 Off duty.

They will tear this apart.

I get paid just 13% over the state's minimum wage You get what you pay for. This is how my DAR looks like. If there's any safety-relevent info, I write that in red, or highlight it. If it requires detail explanation, I fill out an "Incident Report" or "Discrepancy Report." Because I feel I'm underpaid, I write out my DAR the last 15 minutes before I get off.