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The History of Associated Security Services and Investigators of the State of Texas (ASSIST)
Back in the 1960�s the security industry in Texas was required to be licensed by every municipality where they did business or even drove through to get there. It was a mess. And to add insult to injury, police departments could require disclosure of the licensees� customer lists with numbers of guards at each site and then compete with the guard companies for business. To combat this unfairness, a pioneering group of businessmen, including my father, formed ASSIST with the sole purpose of lobbying the State legislature to create a State agency to supercede the municipalities and bring some order to the chaos. Thus was born the Texas Board of Private Investigators and Private Security Agencies (T.B.P.I.P.S.A.)
T.B.P.I.P.S.A. got off to a rough start, going through a couple of Executive Directors in as many years. But then began the era of Clema D. Sanders which lasted over 20 years. During that time my uncle, George Smith, was appointed to the Board and served for quite some time. In the beginning, Clema Sanders did a good job, but as time went on, one particular practice ended up hurting the Agency as well as the security industry. Clema felt that the Agency should always turn a profit, and along with that she was reluctant to ask for adequate funding. Her emphasis on sending profits back to the State with an already tight budget meant the Agency could not do its job properly, and complaints staring coming in to the individual legislators.
While some complaints were valid, others were just sour grapes. Furthermore, over the years ASSIST had developed a comfortable working relationship with Clema. Nevertheless, an audit was ordered and some irregularities surfaced. Unless Clema Sanders was replaced, the Legislature would not fund the Agency. After that, the Agency went through a series of Executive Directors. ASSIST educated them about our industry and worked closely with all of them. They were good people and did good jobs. In each case ASSIST asked them to commit to stay ten years, but they must have heard �dog years,� and they only stayed a year or two. Add to that the problem of working with government employees whose tenure is relatively assured regardless of their competency, and they had a challenge on their hands.
Despite a name change to the �Texas Commission on Private Security� (T.C.P.S.), the Agency�s problems multiplied. Now the T.C.P.S. is going away and the private security industry will be regulated by a new agency we and ASSIST have given our input that we want to be under the Department of Public Safety (DPS). There are battles that we have fought since the beginning of the Agency that we hope we will not have and can be resolved with DPS, but we still have a lot of hard work ahead of us with all the Assist members behind us we hope to have a smooth transaction.
1. TRAINING � While some think security guards should have the same training as police officers, that is not the case. While police officers need a wide range of general knowledge, security officers need depth of knowledge in the specifics of each post assignment. In fact, some police officers would need extra training to work some security officer posts. Some think a security officer should be able to shoot a gun as well as a police officer, but in most instances we would prefer that a security officer not even carry a gun, much less shoot one.
2. UNIFORMS � There are as many different uniforms worn by local law enforcement as there are municipalities, making it almost impossible to comply with any rule that private security uniforms cannot resemble law enforcement officer uniforms, particularly if you do business in more than one city.
3. HIRING � What if we were not allowed to hire and work security officers until their background checks are totally completed? We need to be able to hire them the same day they apply or we are killing the industry�s ability to recruit desirable employees. An instant background check through Publicdata or a similar online service, while not perfect, should give us enough information to hire and place provisionally while awaiting the fingerprint checks.
Looking at the future � with the threat of terrorism, and after 9-11, people want more security, but they do not or cannot pay for it. Therefore, our future depends on making the security officers we have today more efficient through the use of computers, cameras, etc., reducing our manpower costs while investing in technology.
Nonetheless, security is going to cost more.
ASSIST has been and will be at the forefront of all these changes and debates. As Pericles said in 430 B.C. �Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn�t mean politics won�t take an interest in you.�
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