New year, new edition of Professional Security magazine. In the January 2020 edition, as ever we aim to bring our readers news and opinion about every and any branch of private security, whether guarding, electronic, physical or cyber.
As for the various sectors that private security people work in, we feature Claudia Sturt of HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS). She gave a talk to last month’s four-day International Security Week, the online event that took the place of the usual International Security Expo, that could not go ahead physically due to the pandemic.
She set out that mobile phones and drones have in effect enabled criminals to go over the prison perimeter, and either carry on directing their crime from their cell, or carrying out crime in jail – bringing in illicit phones, drugs and other contraband. It added up to what she admitted was a ‘bleak analysis’. In past editions we’ve featured HM Inspectorate of Prisons reports, showing violence against prison staff and other prisoners.
Also set out at the online Week was a proposed ‘Protect’ duty, due to come into force by the Home Office as the UK Government looks to take up Martyn’s Law, arising from the Manchester Arena terror attack of May 2017. Briefly, it would place a statutory duty on venues – not only events, but the likes of cafes and supermarkets – to look to secure customers. However, word from people who actually do security was sceptical – what will the detailed requirements be, who if anyone will enforce it, and might it cause delay or even create security risks such as queues to get into concerts?
We return to campus security in general and Sunderland University in particular. In our December 2020 edition we interviewed security manager Colin Ferguson and duty manager Martin Brewster, on the uni gaining the Secured Environments accreditation, which set the seal on the modernising work they had put into the security department. In passing they mentioned the input from Dr Nicola Roberts, a senior lecturer in criminology at Sunderland. As campuses like many places are mainly doing remote work, we spoke to her separately by Teams, to get her side of things. Briefly, the academic criminological perspective and gathering of evidence – such as about how students feel about safety (from crime) on campus – has allowed the security department to tailor their service to staff and students.
Plus pages on the cyber side of the UK Government security profession; communications in a crisis incident; red teaming; how close protection ought to be about personal risk advice; public space CCTV; and word from Liz France, whose term as Security Industry Authority chair ends this month. Plus such regulars as magazine MD Roy Cooper’s gossip page for manufacturers, distributors and installers.
You can freely read the January edition and past issues on the ‘magazine’ part of the Professional Security website. If you don’t receive a print copy but would like to take a look at one, email your postal address to [email protected].
Photo by Mark Rowe; Maidstone Prison wall, Kent.
