Security Officer Incident Reports/Daily Activity Logs

[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.

[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).

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...

[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...

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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..."

[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?