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The Security Continuum |
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The Security Continuum© Because of recent tragic and well-publicized events, security has taken on new meaning and importance. Security has become synonymous with those measures taken to protect ourselves against raging co-workers, unbalanced school students and now, radical terrorists. This has resulted in a barrage of often intrusive tactics being touted as the answer to our security needs. However, for a security strategy to be successful the mission and culture of the organization must be clearly understood. For example, a school’s mission is to educate the students who attend the school, but each school accomplishes this mission in its own unique way. Each school has its own culture and any successful security program must understand and work within that culture. Security should not become so intrusive as to interfere with the mission of the school. There are many stakeholders and other influences that go into determining a school’s security strategy. Certainly the teachers, students, and administrators have a great impact but so do parents and other members of the community such as police, fire and rescue, and government administrators (i.e. the school board). The school’s maintenance personnel are critical to any successful security plan, as is having effective training, and supportive policies and procedures. All of these things affect how a school plans and executes their security strategy. For a security strategy to be successful, it must be understood who and what is being protected and from what kind of threats. The strategy should be a continuous process that integrates the users of the facility, the neighboring community, the appropriate tactics, outside agencies (such as police and rescue personnel), training, maintenance, and policies and procedures that support all of these components. This is what we call the security continuum. Without a strategy that ties all of these things together the individual components may not provide the expected benefit and may fail. Safe, secure and responsive environments are created through assessing risks and vulnerabilities and developing a comprehensive security strategy that addresses those actual threats and perceived risks within the context of the school’s mission and culture. Strategies and tactics often get confused but the end goal is a secure environment. To clarify the difference, a security strategy is a plan to achieve the desired goals, while tactics are those actions taken to achieve the strategy. There are three main classes of tactics: 1. Natural Tactics Are tactics that utilize the physical environment and normal every day activities to accomplish the desired result. Example: Designing the main entrance so that users are naturally directed and drawn towards it makes anyone attempting to gain entrance elsewhere very conspicuous. Their inappropriate behavior is immediately questioned and an appropriate response initiated. 2. Organized Tactics Are planned actions designed to improve safety, security and emergency response capabilities? Example: A School Resource Officer, SRO, program utilizing organized and planned surveillance and deterrence to better protect the school and its users. 3. Technical Tactics Are mechanical tactics that aid human involvement. Example: CCTV for visitor identification, or CCTV to aid surveillance of areas that cannot be observed by legitimate users in the normal course of their duties. Tactics are ultimately chosen to modify behaviors by deterring, detecting, delaying, or denying the ability to behave inappropriately. Strategy is determining what types of behaviors you wish to discourage (and which types you wish to encourage). During an assessment, vulnerabilities and behaviors are identified from which strategies are developed, only then are tactics selected to produce the desired behaviors.
Many times tactics are chosen without a thorough understanding of the behaviors that the tactic may influence. For example, card readers and lock systems are often touted as "access control" but once a door is opened, anyone or any number of people may enter. Misapplied tactics often create a false sense of security and create potential liabilities, because they do not always produce the expected results, i.e. card readers, by themselves, cannot tell who or how many people come through a door once it is opened.
So how does an organization develop a strategy and choose tactics that will work for them? Let us consider the previous example of access control. Ask the basic question of who and what is being protected? In most facilities it is the people first, followed by the property and then protection from disruption of the mission. So if we are protecting people first, from what kinds of threats? It, of course, depends on the facility. Are the threats internal or external? Is the user population known and easily identifiable or is it transient? What types of inappropriate behaviors can be expected? Obviously the strategy must be tailored to the specific circumstances – in security one size does not fit all.
For example, an elementary school is more likely to face a threat from outside the school. A non-custodial parent taking a child from the school playground is a relatively common threat. But in a high school the threat is more likely to come internally from the student population in the form of bullying, etc.
In the urban school the strategy and tactics might need a secondary focus on protecting the users once the perpetrator was already inside the building because in many urban schools the property perimeter is the building’s wall. Tactics here might include internal barriers, such as counter tops and shatterproof glass dividers to delay the perpetrator until help can arrive. A floor plan that allows users of the school to observe each other would also help. Other tactics might include panic buttons and the ability to quickly respond and to easily isolate a perpetrator. In a suburban setting, the focus would more likely be on the perimeter of the property so that perpetrators feel at risk because they are easily seen and subject to capture. A tactic might be locating the parking lots where the people in the building or the surrounding community can easily observe them. A CCTV system might be part of the overall strategy. If someone watches the monitors at the times users are entering or leaving high-risk parking areas and the watchers are trained to respond if they see an incident taking place, that tactic could work. As a deterrent, signs could be posted stating that CCTV cameras are used to monitor the parking area. Users could also be trained to use the area in groups, i.e. the ‘buddy system’. Providing good lighting might also be an appropriate tactic as it improves surveillance at night and so deters criminal activity. But do not assume it is always a good idea to light the building and grounds at night. Sometimes it is not. Lighting is one of those often-misapplied tactics, where people think that if it works in one situation it should work in all situations. If no one is in the building and there are no neighbors to observe the grounds, providing lighting may just make it easier for the criminal! The people who work for and attend a particular school are unique, as is the facility itself. Different users and different types of facilities face different threats, are vulnerable in different ways, and therefore must address how to protect themselves differently. The security strategies for an elementary school, a middle school, and a high school are very different because the users are very different. If you add into the mix, urban, suburban, and rural environments and all of the stakeholders and other influences we have discussed, it becomes clear that there is no one size fits all solution. When tactics do not fit into a comprehensive strategy and people are not at the core of that strategy, the tactics will inevitably fail. The best lock in the world is of little value if doors are propped open. If the security planner knows the door will likely be propped open (the culture is understood) then another more appropriate tactic can be selected to protect unauthorized entry through that particular door. Each school must develop its own strategy and its own unique set of tactics. Understanding the interrelationships of the security continuum and using them appropriately to improve security is the key to having a safe and secure school. ©Standing Stone Consulting Inc., 2002 |
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