Security Plan: Mecklenburg County Courthouse - Research Paper Example

Security Plan Mecklenburg County Courthouse Mecklenburg County Courthouse is a moderately tall storey building housing courtrooms for the MecklenburgCounty. Design and architectural work was done by three constructors namely; HDR Architecture, Schenkel Shultz and KMW, for purposes of housing all major courtrooms in one building. Mecklenburg County Courthouse was therefore designed to be a large structure easing congestion and improve coordination, among which include security of courtrooms. Design of the Mecklenburg County Courthouse was aimed at creating a cohesive environment and modern government office units, especially for the judiciary. Physically, the building is triangularly shaped and located at a road junction of East Third Street (South McDowell), East Fourth Street (South McDowell) along 324 South McDowell Street. Other neighboring buildings include Mecklenburg County Court Services block. Security Plan for Mecklenburg County Courthouse A Security Coordinator will be responsible for the implementation of the security plan designed for Mecklenburg County Courthouse. This is because security issues are sensitive such that a complete department may be necessary to be created (Mathur, 2003, p26). Trained security professionals will carry out the overall management and implementation oversight for the program, which necessitates hiring of professionals. The management board of the Mecklenburg County Courthouse may alternatively train their own security officials. The main official in the security plan is the Security Coordinator whose responsibilities will include; ensuring security program is followed strictly, evaluate security measures, formulate remedies to security threats, linking the security department with state security personnel, organizing hiring and training of security staff, ensuring internal security standards are updated and ensure efficiency in delivery of services and security intelligence at the Mecklenburg County Courthouse. Prioritizing Security The Security Coordinator at Mecklenburg County Courthouse will first analyze the security condition of the entire building and identify high risk areas of the building. High security areas of the department will be identified, for instance, the departments with most security breach incidences or areas with far reaching effects in case a security breach occurred. Such an assessment will entail a one on one assessment of all the units inside the building and determine the source of the threats. External and internal sources of security threats will be classified accordingly for all the areas. On a vulnerability score, the Security Coordinator will formulate an effective security strategy for the Mecklenburg County Courthouse. The most risky areas get the first priority in the determination of strategies and policies. For instance, the external risk factor, high occurrence areas as well as grievous risk areas will get the first priority in making the security plan. It is also imperative to put human security threat top on the priority list over other property risks. Risk Assessment At any given time, the security situation of an organization is given by the risk assessment carried out in the most immediate past. The changing nature of security concerns of an organization will necessitate frequent Mecklenburg County Courthouse security assessment for all the departments (Bender, 2003, p1). Security risk assessment aims at determining how likely certain threats occur at the organization. Following the assessments, the Mecklenburg County Courthouse will come up with a comprehensive plan to curb the occurrences of the specific threats, which also assists in discovery of new serious security threats. The assessment will entail: identifying risk factors, quantify probability of occurrence, design intervention measures and determine the costs to facilitate the implementation of the intervention measures. To carry out security risk assessment, several methods may be utilized to determine the level of threat that an organization is exposed to. At Mecklenburg County Courthouse, the Security coordinator will assess the risk exposed to various sections of the building and determine if the available security measures are sufficient for the security needs of the Mecklenburg County Courthouse. Assessing the available security resources and staffing will enable the Security Coordinator to determine deficiencies and excesses which could hinder effective delivery of services for the security department. The assessment report will make useful recommendations on an informed basis. The physical staffing efficiency will be assessed by scrutinizing the competence of the security personnel on the ground, analyze the training offered to the staff as well as how equipped the staff is to tackle security issues. Security assets required for the Mecklenburg County Courthouse will be determined by the risks and threats involved after performing the assessments. For instance, CCTV installation will be necessary around the building, inside the rooms and offices as well as in the elevators to monitor movements. This equipment and the manning officials will be obtained depending on the demand occasioned by the level of risks. For instance, protective equipment including HAZMAT suits which also incorporates specialized training will be necessitated by the level of risks involved. Critical security assets will be secured by provision of a clear authorization and access system, where only specific personnel are allowed with specific areas. Internal control standards will be reviewed to enable authorization adherence and compliance in the spirit of securing the building. Security software handling emergency should be incorporated in the modernized security planning measures, for instance E-Team and Web EOC (Canton, 2007, p289). These are useful in the data handling procedure for the incident as well as connecting communication and other resources that need to be tracked. The necessary training and personnel staffing need to be handled prior to the implementation of the program in the building. Support equipment and machines will be hired and installed with respect to the security risks of the building, to avoid excesses or insufficiency. Incidents Approach Planning The Security Coordinator will tackle security threats using a practical approach for key threat possibilities such as bomb scare, hostage threat and unruly mob threat. For a bomb scare, Mecklenburg County Courthouse being a massive building able to house several hundreds of people, there will be specific measures handling the threat. Since the onset of antiterrorist campaigns, the whole of the USA has to have measures in place to control the public and ensure safety against the rising incidents of bomb scares. There is little control that the Mecklenburg County Courthouse security personnel can do to avert raising of bomb threats, whether true or false, due to their limited scope. Besides, most of the bomb threats are raised over the phone, which is a wide control area that involves specialized state security intelligence. The seriousness that terrorism acts are handled with may overwhelm the Mecklenburg County Courthouse internal security plans. However, the basic security procedure that is applicable at any bomb scare cites will be enhanced and clearly outlined for better handling of the emergency security risk involved (Bender, 2003, p4).. Security communication alerts will be installed in the building for easy instruction relaying procedures to be carried out. Throughout the emergency, I would recommend that the security personnel maintain calm and dispel panic movement and noise among the public within the building. Mechanisms to obtain as much information as possible should be developed and enhanced to obtain every detail on the nature of the bomb and at what location of the building. Evacuation strategies will be formulated for the entire building, which should be done in a systematic way to avoid casualties even if the scare is a hoax. Coordination with relevant security detail handling terrorism threats will be enhanced and frequent information obtained in preparation of eventualities in the future. Evacuation and any other action should only be carried out after ascertaining the authenticity of the scare, taking caution on the timing of relaying the information to the public. Dealing with a hostage threat in the Mecklenburg County Courthouse should be done in a similar way as the bomb scare. Possible hostage injury and harm should be avoided at all instances. This implies that an audience should be given to the kidnappers by establishing communication for negotiations. Liaison with state security agencies will be facilitated to allow an amicable solution to hostage threats. Unruly mobs accessing the Mecklenburg County Courthouse will require prior staffing guidelines to be disseminated. The area around the building must be under surveillance to spot possible mob gatherings which need to be handled. Mecklenburg County Courthouse management must be prepared for unpopular sentiments originating from the offices that are likely to be exploited by antisocial characters to stage riots. Security staff should always keep the mob at bay and avoid any contact with the building to prevent damage. Information should be availed for possible reinforcements from police, fire brigade and any other security agencies to curb activities of the mob. Confronting the mob should be planned such that it is carried out in a harmless manner. According to Mathur (2003, p62), all the antiriot practice phases will be carried out sensitively; preparation, planning, intervention and confrontation, withdrawal, post confrontation and post riot phase. References Bender, J. (2003) How to Prepare a security plan. Alexandria, VA: American Society for Training and Development Canton, G. L. (2007) Emergency management: concepts and strategies for effective programs. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Interscience Mathur, K. M. (2003) Challenges to police, human rights and national security. Delhi, India: Kalpaz Publications Read More