Surviving on the frontline: Retail security guards and their self-protection behaviours

Abstract

Despite the rapid expansion of private security guarding over the past 30 years, the reactions of guards to working in situations where violence is a constant possibility are seldom discussed. This article analyses how retail security guards respond to the threat of, and the actual experience of, violence through their adaptation of self-protection measures. We identify that a range of measures are adapted, broadly compromising of the ‘proactive’ that prepare guards for potential future confrontation and those described as ‘inactive’ where guards may use avoidance tactics or methods of withdrawal for their own safety. The article considers motivational factors that drive the adaptation of proactive and inactive measures and develops a novel explanatory framework outlining how fears around violence can generate both functional and dysfunctional forms of worry in security guards. Finally, some implications of these findings for the private security sector are outlined.

Potential Impact and Perspective of Shift Work on Fitness of Security Guards: A Review

“…It is clear that profession of security guards includes well-being, social, and health problems as of working in the shifts, especially rotatory and night shifts. [12] It is associated with social and family life, sleep disorders, gastrointestinal diseases, metabolic system disorders, circadian rhythms, diabetes, accident possibility, etc. [21] Few of the symptoms are temporary or associated to particular stage of shift works only that may disappear on holidays or on long hour's gap.…”