Private Security Companies have a great opportunity to immerse into South African communities.
Never has there been such a great outcry for partnerships between private security firms, community organisations, community members, and public law enforcement agencies.
Collaboration that extends beyond on-the-spot and incidental information sharing is crucial for greater and more effective policing and community safety. Proactive security efforts and emergency planning initiatives that involve everyone with a vested interest in safety and security is paramount. Involving everyone in planning training and awareness drives will allow plans to be as situational as possible.
We live in a country that has been experiencing significant levels of morale decay. As a result, there has been a public outcry against gender-based violence for example.
The raging COVID-19 pandemic relentlessly deepens our pain as its impairing consequences affects our society and economy. This has undoubtedly escalated community and family violence to levels never seen before. This scenario calls out to greater flexibility in the offering of private security companies who often sit with innovative reporting and response tools and capable manpower.
If my peers in the industry choose to empower themselves with trauma management abilities, we can assist in eradicating or at least reducing violence against women and children. Such flexibility will certainly assist the significantly stretched public sector management capacity.
Let us look at the images of public security companies. They are stereotyped as low paying institutions that offer their services to the affluent. This image, which is well processed and accepted by our communities at large, means that private security companies are divorced from poorer communities. These companies need to apply an intervention that reconciles them with the South African
community at large and showcases them as caring institutions.
In conclusion, private security companies should become part of the communities they seek to protect against these unprecedented levels of violence. These companies only stand to gain from greater collaboration and a deliberate inclusion of the poor and other issues facing communities in their strategies.
Article by: Glen Segwapa, Managing Director
