Security Guards' Issues: Low Wages & Poor Training

Security Guards' Issues: Low Wages & Poor Training

Introduction

According to the statistics, the private security officers and security guards greatly outnumber police personnel in almost every country in the world. In modern times, these private security officers and security guards play even more critical role than ever before in the wake of constantly increasing threat of terrorism not only in third world countries but in the developed countries as well. The profession of security guards and private security officers require them to be highly visible these days. Moreover, these security professionals are often placed in positions of trust. In most of the cases, they play an important role as being the only watchful eye on a commercial or personal property during the after-hours and the people who hire these guards or security officers heavily rely on their judgment and integrity.

Despite their critical nature of their job, the hiring authorities of these people often turn back to the problems faced by these professionals. Since security guards and officers are exposed to the same problems as those of face by the police, yet the former get much less in terms of income, on-job training and other benefits. This paper aims at discussing the issues of low income and poor training concerning the security guards and private security officers, highlighting the significance and consequences of these problems in light of current news articles and the research findings. The paper also attempts to suggest improvements in the security guards industry aimed at making the lives of these important people much easier than it is now.

Discussion

Every year we see and hear about the governments' planned actions for the regulation and standardization of security guards industry in order not only to increase the overall security process but also the solve the common issues face by these professionals. These governmental actions and initiatives are normally aimed at improving the hiring, selection, income and training for the private security professionals and guards. As a result of this security guards industry, has shown some signs of improvement in the recent years, but still these professionals continue to face a wide variety of problems mainly due to low income and poor training. These two major issues are discussed in more detail in the following sections.

Low Wages

The first and perhaps the most significant issues concerning the security guards and private security officers is the amount of ...