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Private Security Bureau
By Capt. Leonard Hinojosa
DPS TEXAS PRIVATE SECURITY
BUREAU
As we enter a year, I would like to reflect on the great working relationship that continues to grow between law enforcement and the private security professions. By working together, legislation was passed in the form of House Bill 2833 governing the regulation of the Texas Private Security profession. This bill will enhance public safety.
In this last year, I have had the opportunity to meet with individuals from all aspects of the security profession and listen to your concerns and suggestions for improvement; not only in how the bureau can better serve the profession, but how the profession can help us achieve that goal. In addition, the profession continues to be a partner in assisting us to achieve the priority of identifying, investigating, and resolving unlicensed activity in Texas.
Several matters of interest were discussed at the December board meeting in Austin. Rule 35.257 on training courses was approved by the Public Safety Commission Nov. 29, 2007, was published Dec. 14, 2007, and went into effect Jan 3.
Agenda items carried over to the next meeting pertained to drug testing and the manager�s examination. At the meeting, I requested feedback from the profession regarding these issues. To be able to move forward with these agenda items, I make that same request here. If you have ideas, opinions or comments, direct them to my attention via our e-mail address
[email protected].
In the coming year, I plan to meet with ASSIST President Dan Flores to discuss issues of concern to your
association. I know that it will be productive and helpful to have this open communication and exchange of ideas and information.
INVESTIGATIONS AND ENFORCEMENT SECTION
Trooper investigators of the PSB continue to conduct inspections of regulated companies and onsite field employee inspections in addition to investigating allegations of unlicensed activity.
Troopers completed 428 investigations in November and 315 in December.
They also presented seven cases to criminal prosecutors in November and six cases in December.
We currently have 618 open investigations.
We opened 556 new cases in November and 381 new cases in December.
Some of the criminal and administrative investigations performed by the investigators in the PSB involve individuals who are illegally in the country or who are providing security to locations considered to be critical infrastructure facilities. In either case, these investigations must be made a priority due to the potential link to terrorism. �Critical infrastructure facilities� includes, but is not limited to, locations such as major petrochemical companies, major ports, and major metropolitan medical centers. Security for these facilities is often provided by private security companies that are required to be licensed by the department, so in addition to investigations involving security officers hired by these companies, inspections of such companies must also be made a priority.
We conducted inspections on 12 critical infrastructure facilities during November and December. One misdemeanor arrest resulted from these inspections.
LICENSING SECTION
The licensing section issued 180 company and 8294 individual licenses from March 3 to June 13, 2007.
As a reminder to everyone, I would like stress the importance of sending complete applications.
Complete information on applications allows the licensing section to process paperwork in an expeditious
fashion. I want to share with you some of the common errors in applications we receive that can cause a delay in processing. The following are a few examples: omissions in the application, including date of hire; applications that are not legible; and failure to submit supporting documents, such as level of training or fingerprint cards. In addition, not submitting the appropriate fees for the license desired will cause the application to be returned.
The use of Texas Online for registrations and renewal licensing is a good way to ensure processing with minimal
delays. There is a link to Texas Online through the PSB website. The online registration is convenient and provides the user with documentation of the transaction that is submitted. As always, the PSB website
www.txdps.state.tx.us/psb/ is an excellent source of information regarding all PSB issues.
Recently on our website, we have published the telephone numbers and addresses of our field investigative offices around the state. This serves two purposes; first it gives more availability to our licensees and companies for information at a local level, second it provides another opportunity for that partnership between law enforcement and the private security professions.
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