In general, the costs associated with deploying personnel are the most expensive security countermeasure an agency can undertake. The labor costs associated with the agency’s operating budget for security can exceed 90 to 92% of total annual expenditure. However depending on the threats and unresolved vulnerabilities facing the organization security personnel are often the most critical and significant resource available to reduce security-related risk.
Deciding on the necessity for security personnel or the extent to which forces should be deployed can be a significant challenge for security decision makers. The answers depend on the nature of the threats facing the agency based primarily on issues such as size, population served and operating locale. At one end of the available choices is the deployment of unarmed, part-time security officers, with no arrest authority. At the other end is the fielding of a full time, armed police department with powers of arrest. Where the agency falls on this decision line will impact on the capabilities of not just the security labor force but also the performance and effectiveness of all other integrated system security countermeasures.
CASE has performed police and security force staffing and modeling reviews using a time tested combination of qualitative factors and quantitative analysis. Factors such as the make-up of the community, the agency’s history regarding the deployment of security forces, and other unique or special circumstances are considered. This information is then tied to different sets of quantifying data including workload, scheduling, security breach or crime incident based information, calls for service and self-initiated incident responses, and agency goals and objectives. The end result of the study is a rationalized plan that can be used by decision makers to establish the appropriate level of police or security forces needed to meet operating requirements.