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disaster can pale in comparison with the cost of defending litigation. One of the greatest threats to business in the U.S. today is the proliferation of lesser qualified attorneys seeking to make a living. At present the population of attorneys in the U.S. exceeds twice the population of the State of Wyoming. Reportedly the number of law students exceeds the number practicing. Like most investigators, most attorneys are professional, ethical and provide a valuable service which benefits us all. Others, however, are simply motivated by greed or desperation and can be credited with destroying entire industries with frivolous litigation of no merit. (The silicone implant industry was destroyed although litigants were unable to show any connection between their problems and the product and had the same statistical rates of incident as the public at large. The small aircraft manufacturing industry all but disappeared following a proliferation of ridiculous litigation. One of the first successful suits involved a manufacturer not predicting that a pilot would bolt the seat of the plane in backwards and, being unable to see, drive it into the side of a truck upon takeoff.) While some of these modern day ambulance chasers have focused on developing task forces relating to Y2K litigation, projected to reap a trillion dollars (about $4,000 per consumer), others have directed their attention to frivolous security negligence litigation. This is not to imply there are no valid security negligence lawsuits. There are, and these exposures are addressed in security surveys.
Security Standards and Standard Security Practices:
There are many standards in physical security and applicable standards are recommended in most cases. Since all security surveys conducted by Loss Prevention Concepts are conducted by a Certified Protection Professional (CPP), when we recommend variances to these standards we refer to the standards we are modifying and point out the logic behind our reasoning. Security is always a balance and often there is a tradeoff between standards, practicality and economics--or just plain good sense. An example would be chain link fencing, where specific security hardware standards exist. While a facility's fence line might be substandard in height, the cost to bring it into compliance with the standards might be better applied to more effective countermeasures when working with a limited budget. Any fence, after all, provides negligible benefits in security other than clearly defining the property perimeter. Anyone can scale a chain link fence and lazier intruders use wire cutters. In many cases an electronic intrusion detection system can be installed at a lesser cost than fencing upgrades, providing a real countermeasure rather than an illusion. However, in many areas where standards apply, such as with illumination, we recommend the client upgrade to compliance. This is not just to conform, but to provide adequate security.
Types of Services Available:
Security surveys are available in any depth desired. In the case of a small apartment complex, an applicable service would usually be a very basic, inexpensive "walk through" survey and a study of local crime statistics. In mid-sized manufacturing facilities, a typical survey would involve a perimeter survey, access control, security systems, internal controls and contingency planning. In retail chains, surveys generally contain basic procedures that would apply to all retail outlets and a limited
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