Personnel Selection in the Private Security Industry: More than a Résumé

Abstract

Private security is charged with protecting both assets and people—employees, customers, vendors, even passers-by. This responsibility cannot be met without security officers who are honest, trustworthy, law-abiding, and psychologically stable. To guarantee a superior security force, the most stringent screening methods are required. The responsible private security company will use the best means of ensuring that its security guards, as well as all its employees, are of the highest quality. Those means include a combination of background checks, polygraph examinations, checks of criminal records, and drug tests. In addition, a psychological test should be administered to ensure that the person hired is not placed in the wrong job. Recent trends—social, demographic, and legislative—are making the selection process increasingly difficult. As a result, the quality of service provided by the industry as a whole will likely decline in the near future.

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References

This study is commonly referred to as The Hall-crest Report.

2. James S. Kakalik and Sorrel Wildhorn , The Private Police Industry: Its Nature and Extent, vol. 2 (Santa Monica, CA: The Rand Corporation, 1972), p. 67. Guardsmark, Inc., is atypical of the industry in many ways, but the following statistics may be enlightening. Of its guard force, 10 percent have college degrees and 25 percent have attended college; 20 percent are female, and over 42 percent are minorities. The average age is 34.

3. Milton Lipson , On Guard: The Business of Private Security (New York: New York Times Books, Quadrangle, 1975), p. 87.

4. Security Letter, 1 Nov. 1984.

5. Selwyn Raab , “Growing Security-Guard Industry under Scrutiny,” New York Times, 4 June 1984.

6. “Proposed National Policy for Utilizing the Interstate Identification Index for Access to Criminal History Records for Noncriminal Justice Purposes” (SEARCH Group, Inc., 1986).

7. Other tools are also used for screening in the private security industry, notably pencil-and-paper honesty tests and voice-stress analysis. Neither has received widespread acceptance.

8. Arthur J. Bilek , John C. Klotter , and R. Keegan Federal , Legal Aspects of Private Security (Cincinnati, OH: Anderson, 1981), p. 37.

9. Cunningham and Taylor , Private Security, p. 84.

10.

10. Charles Buikema and Frank Horvath , “Security Regulation: A State-by-State Update,” Security Management, Jan. 1984, pp. 40-41.

11.

11. “Help Wanted: America Faces an Era of Worker Scarcity That May Last to the Year 2000,” Business Week, 10 Aug. 1987, p. 49.

12.

12. Ibid., p. 50.

13.

13. See Lindsey Gruson , “Privacy of AIDS Patients: Fear Infringes on Sanctity,” New York Times, 30 July 1987.

14.

Sandra Blakeslee , “Genetic Discoveries Raise Painful Questions,” New York Times, 21 Apr. 1987.