Decision-Making: A Law Enforcement Intervention Perspective
Executive Summary
The Beslan School Incidence took place in September 2004. This incidence occurred in three days before the forces could control the situation and free the hostage. At the end, 334 people died with more than half being children. Before, the incidence, very few governments, the US federal government involved did not believe that terrorists could use schools as their battle grounds. As a result, this incidence compelled government to establish security measures in schools in order to protect both students and school staff. The security plans put across encompassed some measures like having necessary equipments like fire extinguishers and first aid kits.
Schools should undertake improved measures mainly from terrorist’s attacks. Such measures include training school personnel on security matters. Well knowledge personnel on security matters are likely to reduce the incidences of death and injuries or even prevent an entire event from terrorist’s attacks. The knowledge on security will encompass staffs vigilance; that is monitoring all activities going on within and in the outskirts of the school compound. This staf will have the mandate of restructuring and establishing new security plan systems with regard to the dynamic and changing environment of security.
Again, it is the work of security personnel to regulate all activities going on in the schools. For instance, all vehicles entering and leaving the schools should be inspected. All individuals whether staff or supplies should identify themselves through security systems at the main gates. Again all studentsb should be accompanied by adults for instance teachers when they are visiting common areas like cafeterias, fields and hallways. Finally, the entire school compound should be covered by a invincible perimeter wall with one entrance unless when there is an emergency.
Introduction
The Beslan school hostage calamity happened in September 2004 and took three days for the situation to be kept under control. In addition it involved over 1100 people as hostages amongst this were seven hundred and seventy seven children. When the negotiations between the government and the terrorists collapsed, Russian forces stormed in and were engaged in a fierce fire shoot out with the hostage takers. The aftermath was a death toll of around 334 people including 156 children. Initially this incident had occurred the American government strongly believed that a terrorist attack on a school or schools was very unlikely to happen. In light of this, there was a significant amount of anxiety building up among students, parents, teachers and other faculty member. The United State government took a keen interest in improving the security in schools in order to prevent such a scenario and ensure that the teachers and children are prepared in the event such a situation occurs. it developed a school’s security grant which would enable schools to plan, buy the necessary equipment like first aid kits and fire extinguishers as well as facilitate the training of school staff on security measures. Another strategy is heightening security procedures especially during terrorists’ treats. However, it is critical to note that a single strategy or even a combination of several strategies fits in all school – community situations and schools. It is therefore, of absolute importance that personnel in charge of school security find out the strategies that are best suit for their environment so as to ensure that they obtain the best results. In addition, the strategies selected should be developed individually and have personnel trained. The strategies should be tested through performing exercises or drills therefore, consider the district specific guidelines and building blue prints in managing emergency incidents.
Trained Personnel
There are several measures that schools can undertake to improve security in the school especially from terror attacks. The measures include; equipping schools with trained personnel on matters of security. The teaching staff and faculty can be training on how to handle security issues effectively and efficiently to ensure that no life is lost and the perpetrators are arrested. These personnel will also be mandated with the responsibility of ensuring that safety instruments are monitored and evaluated periodically. They should also evaluate and re-structure security plans with the changing environment. It is very important for them to launch routine inspections within the building and grounds, secure roof hatches that can be used as exit points in the case of a hostage scenario. They can identify and eliminate structural objects that facilitate easy access to the school. Ensure that classroom windows and doors are closed at the end of each school day. Lately, they are to perform drills so that they can assess the amount of time takes to respond to a situation and how everyone responded. The results obtained from the drills can then be analysis to determine the strengths and weakness that exist. Emphasis should be concentrated on the weakness to turn them to strengths.
Encourage that the school personnel maintain a “heightened awareness” for suspicious activity and report such activities to the relevant authorities. Some of these suspicious activities could include unusual vehicles within and next to school vicinity during specific time or odd hours, strange persons within and next to school buildings. These individuals may have gargets such as cameras and video recording devices that they used to take images of the school. Packages from unfamiliar persons or around the building perimeter should be treated very carefully. The school managers should also involve non-formal employees such as grounds persons and custodians in implementing the security measures.
They should be trained on how to identify strange packages within the school compound, who they should immediately contact before doing anything and how they should handle such packages. The security personnel together with the other staff and students should pay special attention to security perimeter and control access points and the issues that arise. If there are no well defined perimeters they should be established. This can be done through building a perimeter wall or fence and ensuring that the entry and exit points (gates) are limited and can be properly managed. It may also include professional security measures such as CCTV cameras can also be installed and placed in strategic areas. In addition, the parking lots can be categorized into three; student parking lots, staff and guests/ visitors parking areas. For students with vehicles they should register their vehicles with relevant department and special passes issued while the visitor should register their vehicles at the gate before entering the school premises and log out upon departure. Moreover, these parking lots and the area outside them should be every so often be supervised and monitored. The individuals at the entrance should be trained on how to identify suspicious cars and persons.
Appraising Staffing and Supervision Plans
In a bid to heighten awareness it is important to appraise staffing and supervision plans. The schools’ administration should ensure that there is a low level of labor turn-over in the security department. This makes sure that the security details of the institution are shared among few trusted personnel. Ensure that parents understand the value of their children having adult supervision before and after school such as during drop-off and dismissal of students. The schools’ administration need to put emphasis on the importance of students being accompanied by adults inside the school compound, buildings, and in other common areas like areas such as hallways and cafeterias (Cronin, & Ludes, 2004). The teaching staff should maintain a heightened awareness especially when they are outside the classroom buildings with the students. This would be during physical education classes and other outside activities.
The management should maintain a practical effort of regulating visitor access and control. In addition, to reducing the number of doors paving way to the institutions’ premises, they have a well structure system that shows the number of people within the school premises, who were in the premises and have left. Upon realizing that the visitors are stranger and/ or even suspicious persons the personnel controlling the entrance of people should greet them and try to establish the mission of their school visits.
This system should have the capacity of verifying the identity of individuals such as service personnel and salespersons visiting the school. Persons seeking access to utilities such as security devices like alarm and communications systems should be investigated to ensure that the details they provide correspond with the information give by their employer. The confirming employer (firm) should be the same firm that is given the responsibility of carrying out this duty. If their details are verified and are correct they should be allow into the maintenance areas and accompanied by an internal personnel to ensure that the work is completed effectively. However, if this information is not consistent then the gate officials should alert the head the of security department and explain the situation. After this, they should inform the individuals that they cannot be allowed inside the premises and the reasons for this. They gate officials have education on the importance of maintaining clear, comprehensive and proper service records firm personnel as well as suppliers personnel who visit the school during the day. These would included entering the full names of the individuals, firm name, vehicle information such as the model and number plate and other identification information for example their sex and identification numbers.
Surveillance systems in Critical Areas
Management can also secure access to critical utilities and facilities such as facilities operations and boiler rooms locations (Haberfeld, 2009). This is possible through the use of surveillance systems. Furthermore, they should check and improve physical security measures that relate to the outside access to heating, air and ventilation conditioning systems and utility controls such as water, gas and electrical. Substances with a high affinity to catch fire such as chemicals and cleaning product should be carefully sorted and secured in storage areas. Proper records of the same should be carefully maintained.
Security issues arising from school transportation facilities should be monitored and evaluated. The buses can be fitted with emergency doors for exit. Additionally, there should be drills such as bus hijacking performed to educate the students on what they should do in such situations (Stephen & Yiannis, 2010). Management can also arrange specific days for school transportation security awareness where the students watch videos involving school transportation insecurity. After this an interactive section is held where the students share ideas on how they can act in such a situation. When this section is done a trained official should educate the students on how best to act in such scenarios. In addition, lessons learnt from other previous incidents are supposed to be shared. This would include valuable best practices learnt and the schools’ emergency planning. Such information is important as it helps first time responders, emergency personnel and national security official to prevent, prepare adequately for and respond to terrorism.
Essential Amenities and Schools’ Health Facility and Medical Preparedness
Management should ensure adequate supply of water in schools and other essential supplies in case of staff and students are held against their will in the school for longer periods beyond the normal hours. The school should have access of beverage and food services, storage as well as the protection procedures to ensure an extended shelf life (Hoffmann, 2009). Methods of accessing food and beverage services and product areas should be examined in frequent periods.
It is also important to examine the schools’ health facility and medical preparedness in the event of a hostage situation. The school nurses should work with the security personnel and be involved in security activities such as drills performed (Diane, 2008). It is also important to assess the nurse staffing levels and see whether there are adequate in the event of any eventuality. The schools maintain a sufficient amount as well as adequate number of emergency kits such as first aid boxes cum medical supplies. It should have a list of students needing medication during school hours such as insulin shots and maintain a stock of at least three days worth for such medications for each of the students. This is possible through creation of medical inventories. It should also have trained first aiders and fire fighter in the school and consider training willing faculty members in first aid skills and fire fighting skills. Funds to cater for such training such are obtained from the homeland school security grant program (Dolnik & Fitzgerald, 2008).
National Trips and National Security Threat Assessment
Management should ensure that school trips take place during periods when there is minimum emanate threat on national security. The teaching staff should only continue with their local field trips but they should cease from that when they are faced with specific threats that are based on forensic assessment. This can be facilitated through evaluation of countrywide travel decisions which are usually based upon comprehensive and frequent threat assessments and, in sometimes drawn from a common sense. The International travels during the times of political uncertainties like during regional wars and terrorist activities should be discouraged. Moreover, the schools’ management should ensure the employees understand that employee screening is a must and its importance. They should also re-assess guidelines bind sub-contractors such as cleaning crew. Again, they should identify each and every individuals working within the school property.
Emergency Communications Systems
The school should have frequent status check on emergency communications systems and mechanisms. Be sure that there is proper two-way radio communication between the schools and the outside authorities. There should be back-up batteries and a back-up power supply in case of electricity blackouts. It has good telecommunication signal strength inside the building for proper functioning of cell phones. Therefore, they should make it possible for anyone with a cell phone inside the building to call for help. The public address system and fire alarm system should always be functioning well. This is possible through testing of the equipments. The schools should also review the emergence communication procedures with students quite often. These reviews will encompass the methods that enhance procedures of notifying parents in advance in situations of emergency. It important to review family reunification procedures using information obtained from the parents.
References
Cronin, A.K.,& Ludes, J.M. (2004). Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy. Georgia: Georgetown University Press.
Diane, F. (2008). Islamophobia: examining causal links between the media and “race hate” from “below”. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 28 (11/12), 564 – 578.
Dolnik, A., & Fitzgerald, K.M. (2008). Negotiating Hostage Crises With the New Terrorists. California: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Haberfeld, M.R. (2009). A New Understanding of Terrorism: Case Studies, Trajectories and Lessons Learned. New York: Springer.
Hoffmann, B. (2009). Inside terrorism. Washington: Columbia University Press.
Stephen, F., & Yiannis, G. (2010). Chapter 6 Apologies and Remorse in Organizations: Saying Sorry — and Meaning it? Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 7 (5), 103-120.
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