Safe Passage Security Training Blog

It’s a scene you’d expect to see from Netflix’s hit series Orange is the New Black. Prison guards storm inmate cells simultaneously to conduct a shakedown. Except in this case, it’s not a show. It’s real life and it has happened at several facilities overseen by the Mississippi Department of Corrections over the past couple of months.

The MDOC’s goal? Combat contraband behind bars.

And it’s not just the MDOC. Many prisons and correctional facilities have emphasized confiscating contraband as one of their top priorities.

Typically located in centralized areas for easy access by many, courthouses are an essential part of critical infrastructure. Every day, thousands of people around the world gather there to attend hearings and trials and to handle other legal matters.

Considering the nature of activities taking place, courts can become vulnerable to acts of violence. That’s why courthouses everywhere are taking the necessary steps to protect their property, the visitors and employees, as well as the integrity of the judicial system.

Workplace supervisors have day-to-day responsibilities they must attend to including overseeing employees, ensuring productivity is maintained, and reporting to management. Part of their duty involves coaching employees, but sometimes that role expands into a full-on trainer position.

Many companies experience this – supervisors are forced to take on additional responsibilities in order to provide employees with security training in compliance with regulations or programs such as EU 185/2010, AOSSP, IACSSP, FACAOSSP, MSP, or CCSP. When supervisors double as security trainers, they’re only fulfilling a short term role so supervisors generally do not get the guidance and support needed to be successful in delivering training.

Everyday security screeners at airports all over the world have a very difficult job to do. Security screeners often lack up-to-date threat information as they screen hundreds of passenger bags each day. They rely on any current information provided by local authorities and their own historical knowledge to make the best decisions possible.

Talking with security screeners from a wide variety of international airports about this issue, one common theme prevails. There is no formal mechanism for sharing such threat information. In most cases, the best sources for getting information about new or emerging security threats are via the media or when items are found at the checkpoint where the security screener works.

There is often a lot of criticism about how security screeners do their job. The mainstream and social media offer many accounts about how screeners don’t know what they are doing and how they search passenger bags inconsistently from one airport to the next.

Certainly, there is room for improvement for all of us. However, when we look at the characteristics of a security screener and his work environment and compare them to those of a radiologist, we might all decide to give screeners a break.

Here’s an infographic comparing an X-ray screener to a radiologist.

At the start of every year, experts release trends and predictions for the airline and air cargo industries. As usual, there is a lot of information floating around and it’s sometimes difficult to make sense of it all. This is especially true as we look at regional anomalies that don’t align with broader global trends.

Having said all that, I’ve conducted a little research, gathered the most interesting information, and assembled them here just for you. Let’s take a look at current aviation industry trends, predictions for 2015, and advice from the experts.

One of the most frustrating things an Operational Manager must do is pull productive resources off the line for mandatory training events. In the highly regulated environment of aviation security, this happens all the time. It doesn’t matter if your aviation security training program was made to comply with the US TSA, UK DfT, EU, or any other government entities.

Anytime there’s a security incident, operational procedures at the local, regional, or international level are bound to change. These changes need to be communicated to employees quickly, effectively, and in a standardized way. The repetitive cycle of pulling off resources for training and recertification continues, fueling the conflict between mandatory security requirements and operational constraints.

Although there may be no end in sight for these disruptions, there are ways to mitigate their influence on your operational performance. Handle these stresses by incorporating these four key elements into your regulatory training program.