GUIDELINES
Good Practice Guidelines: Alarm response Launched in June, the NZSA’s New Zealand Security Industry Good Practice Guidelines provides clear guidance on a range of security guarding topics. In this excerpt we step through alarm response. According to the New Zealand Security Industry Good Practice Guidelines, mobile security patrol is a security service provided by security guards travelling to multiple sites that are physically distant from one another, within a defined period of time.
Along with alarm response, the document lists noise and smoke control, community patrols, security escorts, parking enforcement, lockups or unlocks, bed-downs, internal or external checks, issuing trespass notices, animal control, business park patrols, freedom camper enforcement, and council park patrols as the various roles of mobile security patrols.
The Guidelines cover the minimum standard for a mobile security patrol guard carrying out an alarm response. Including the procedures covering the steps involved in approaching a site, arriving at site, leaving the patrol vehicle, conducting external and internal checks, dealing with an offender on site and taking follow-up action. The following excerpt should be read in conjunction with the Guideline’s chapter ‘Guidelines for mobile security patrol guards’, which covers additional information relevant to alarm response, including risk management and escalation plans.
Approaching the site When going to the site, you should be aware of vehicles and people present at or leaving the site. As you get within a block of the scene and when it is safe to do so, turn off your headlights, wind down your windows and slow down. This approach: • enables you to listen for and observe any possible offenders leaving the area. • is a more covert way of approaching the scene, giving anyone still on site less warning that you are coming. Note: Only adopt this approach where it is safe to do so and no other traffic is on the road. Skilled alarm response techniques make the difference between catching offenders, either on site or later, and missing offenders and contaminating scenes. Although most alarm activations are false alarms, you should treat every activation as live until you are certain it is not. There is always the possibility that a mobile security patrol may arrive and disturb an offender who is still on site. If this happens to you, you must ensure your own safety first but also immediately escalate the situation and remain in a safe position where you can safely observe and monitor the offender(s) and site until the Police arrive. Arriving at the site When you are arriving on site, it is important to conduct an immediate
24
NZSM
October/November 2020