Use of force

Officially, up until my shift today I was 'buddied up', meaning that I am supposed to work at all times with another, more experienced, security officer. However, as I picked up the basics of the job within a shift or two, I ended up walking around on my own a lot and getting on with it, on the condition that I played it safe and reported things and awaited backup before intervening. Furthermore, I was advised to be careful about restraining people until I had completed a casino approved course on 'appropriate' restraints. For that, you may correctly infer that said restraints are of the sort that 'look good' to the all-seeing CCTV cameras and to punters. Personally I disgaree with the 'softly softly' approach, advocated heavily by the casino.

That said, it was advocated to some degree in the police in the UK as well. My own view is that, as security officers, we should be both seen and heard. The suits certainly help us fit in with the surroundings, however if we are dealing with someone, either verbally or physically, we should be high-profile, both verbally and physically. This achieves two desired benefits:

1. It assures those who patronise the casino that security are on top of matters, will deal with people who cause problems and are intent on creating a safe environment in which people can enjoy themselves.

2. It sends a clear message out to idiots and potential idiots that they will not be tolerated, and will be dealt with, publicly and noisily, if the play up.

I have no issue with the 'talk first, act only if talking fails' approach - it's something I'm very good at after several years in the police and talking down everyone from distressed mothers losing their kids to drunk and drugged up idiots wielding knives they intend to use on me. There are times, however, when talking, no matter how systematically structured and delivered so as to ensure maximum compliance from somebody, will not work. By law we are perfectly entitled to use reasonable force to defend ourselves, detain someone or eject them from the premises (under one of three pieces of legislation, depending on which area it's at) and I have no qualms about resorting to force if I can justify it. I may end up having clashes with some managers about this, we shall have to see how it goes. I need to know what the official policy is.