The Police Can't Do It Alone- Businesses Have To Do Their Part

MILWAUKEE, WI- Every week I read stories about shootings at bars and gas stations, beatings in business parking lots, sexual assaults in apartment buildings and a variety of violent actions perpetrated upon our citizenry. Try as they may the police cannot be everywhere and be the sole solution to the surge of violence and assaults that permeate our society.

We live in an era of insecurity where citizens are clamoring for and demanding security. We are willing to wait through long lines at airports to be screened by the TSA and demand that our government increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the no fly list. There is a national debate about the security of our borders and the dangers of criminal elements illegally entering our country. While all these security issues make national headlines we as citizens are much more likely to be killed on the streets of our cities, assaulted in a neighborhood grocery store parking lot, beaten in our local bar or mugged at an ATM machine making a cash withdrawal than harmed by an international terrorist.

Recently our firm, Hausmann-McNally, S.C., has taken up the cause of premises security and has successfully resolved cases where individuals were unnecessarily harmed as a result of inadequate and insufficient security at local businesses.

In an effort to assist local businesses in planning and instituting proper security to protect their patrons and visitors, Attorney Charles J. Hausmann of Hausmann-McNally, S.C. in conjunction with security consultant Jon C. Paul, CPP (Board Certified in Security Management) developed a security checklist and outline to assist business owners meet their security responsibilities to keep their patrons as safe as the premises reasonably permit. Businesses should consider the following suggestions as a good start in helping to keep patrons safe in these turbulent-violent times, Attorney Charles J. Hausmann recommends:

• Businesses should partake of a formalized security assessment process, to identify reasonably foreseeable threats and risks and serve as the basis for determining reasonable security measures - one of the methods for determining the types of problems that can be reasonably anticipated at any particular place of business is a review of security-related problems and criminal offenses reported both at the specific place in question and in the immediate geographic area surrounding the place of business.
• Business premises should be properly maintained and kept in good general repair to provide an inviting environment for legitimate patrons and to discourage opportunities for criminal or inappropriate behaviors- in too many situations premises remain unkempt, have unsecured trash areas and excess liter, have non-functioning lighting, and generally create and allow an environment suitable for criminal and inappropriate behaviors.
• The business premise should have adequate and sufficient lighting, to provide an area bright enough to deter criminal or inappropriate activity, to make accurate observations and identifications, and/or to facilitate appropriate use of surveillance cameras- premises should have adequate lighting so that criminals cannot lurk in darkness and lighting should be bright enough that security cameras will create images that will be useful in making identifications of criminal actors.
• Video surveillance equipment should be properly utilized to assure that all premise areas are covered by cameras, to assure that cameras are routinely monitored by employees so they can quickly and accurately detect criminal or inappropriate activity in order to provide appropriate and timely response, and to assure that cameras and monitoring equipment are highly visible to serve as a deterrent to criminal or inappropriate activity.
• Appropriate signage should be prominently displayed to advise patrons and others of the kinds of behaviors that will not be tolerated, to publish the security measures in place to serve as a deterrent to criminal or inappropriate activity and to warn of the penalties for engaging in criminal or inappropriate activity on the business premises.
• Security personnel should be adequately screened, trained, supervised and deployed to serve as a visible deterrent, to provide appropriate, timely and efficient response to problems which may occur and to provide a source of credible information to police officers who respond to problems.

There is no single measure or strategy that in and of itself provides adequate and significant security. Rather, it is a comprehensive and integrated security plan that identifies threats and risks and employs a variety of countermeasures and strategies commensurate with those threats and risks that are needed to create an environment that does not invite criminal or inappropriate activities. Business owners who advertise, invite and solicit customers and patrons to visit their place of business and spend their hard earned money have a responsibility to know the dangers and threats of the neighborhood and their premises to adequately and appropriately provide security to protect their patrons from reasonably anticipated risks of harm.