Low-paid guards at 'critical' U.S. sites
WASHINGTON — Private security guards paid little
more than janitors and restaurant cooks are guarding many of the critical
security sites in the United States, usually with minimal or no
anti-terrorist training, an Associated Press investigation found.
Douglas C. Pizac, Associated Press
Valorie Webster does fingerprint checks at the Bureau of Criminal
Identification in Kearns, Utah.
The nation's security industry found itself
involuntarily transformed after Sept. 11, 2001, from an army of
"rent-a-cops" to protectors of the homeland. But cutthroat competition by
security firms trying to win contracts with low bids has kept wages low and
high-level training nonexistent.
Richard Bergendahl fights the war on terrorism in Los Angeles for
$19,000 a year. Down the block from the high rise he guards is a skyscraper
identified by President Bush as a target for a Sept. 11-style airplane
attack.
Bergendahl, 55, says he often thinks: "Well, what am I doing here?
These people are paying me minimum wage."
Security consultant Hallcrest Systems, in a January 2005 report for
the Department of Homeland Security, said its experts believe that 15-20
percent of the country's private security officers protect sites designated
by the government as "critical infrastructure." Major cities have a ratio of
three or four security officers to each police officer, the study said.
And the industry is governed by a maze of conflicting state rules,
according to a nationwide survey by the AP. Wide chasms exist among states
in requirements for training and background checks. Tens of thousands of
guard applicants were found to have criminal backgrounds.
A New Jersey Democratic congressman, Rep. Robert Andrews, said he's
confident that lawmakers will support a bill he sponsored to upgrade the
industry by requiring criminal background checks for all U.S. security
guards.
"How much is it worth not to have one criminal guarding a nuclear
power plant?" he asked.
Douglas C. Pizac, Associated Press
A man's fingerprints are electronically scanned at Utah's BCI. Not
all states require checks of guard applicants.
Andrews said the checks will have the effect of
raising pay, because they will weed out many guards whose criminal histories
lead them to accept the lowest salaries.
"This is one area where doing things on the cheap is a really bad
idea," Andrews said.
"A security officer is ... not trained to be a G.I. Joe," said Paul
Maniscalco, a research scientist at George Washington University.
More than five years after the attacks, Maniscalco is helping to
change the security guard culture. He recently developed an anti-terrorism
computer course for shopping mall guards, who are being taught they now have
more concerns than rowdy teenagers and shoplifters.
The middle-ground pay for security officers in 2006 was $23,620,
according to a new Labor Department survey. The low pay reflects fierce
competition among security firms, which submit the lowest possible bids.
Lowball contracts also mean lower profit margins and less money for training
and background checks for guards.
Some states require FBI fingerprint checks for every guard job
applicant. Others let the industry police itself. These states don't
regulate the industry: Alabama, Colorado, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri,
Nebraska, South Dakota, Kentucky, Wyoming and Idaho. The city of Boise and
many Idaho communities do regulate guards. Some states require background
checks for company owners but not guards.
In states that keep such records, the AP found more than 96,000 of 1.3
million applicants, about 7.3 percent, were turned down — mostly, state
officials said, for having criminal histories.
The most important number, however, can't be found: individuals
convicted of serious crimes who were hired in states without background
checks or in states where they slipped through the system.
Congressional investigators reported last year that 89 private guards
working at two military bases had histories that included assault, larceny,
possession and use of controlled substances and forgery. The Army says it
has purged guards with criminal histories from its bases.
"I frankly was shocked, after 25 years in the FBI; I assumed those in
the private sector had gone through criminal background checks," said
Jeffrey Lampinski, an executive with AlliedBarton Security Services.
The security businesses' own trade group, representing the largest
firms, acknowledges the industry as a whole isn't ready to recognize signs
of terrorism and respond to an attack.
"I would have to say no," said Joseph Ricci, executive director of the
National Association of Security Companies, when asked whether most guards
are trained to protect the homeland. "Companies that hire private guards
began spending more for security after September 11, 2001, but then began
cutting back. We've become complacent because we haven't had attacks."
For guards at the Energy Department's nuclear weapons facilities,
failure to protect nuclear materials from terrorists could be catastrophic.
That's why their training is far more exhaustive than that of most security
officer recruits.
At the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles from Las Vegas, contract guards
working for the Wackenhut Corp. train in desert camouflage and military
helmets, fire automatic weapons, put on gas masks and kick up the desert
dust in military Humvees with gunners on top.
They crouch behind cactus plants to shoot at targets, stalk
"intruders" with drawn sidearms and burst through doors of buildings, first
dropping "flash-bang" devices that have an explosive sound and fill the room
with smoke.
"Failure on our part is failure to protect a vital national security
asset," said David Bradley, the Wackenhut general manager at the test site.
"We don't see that ever occurring."
Other sites protected by the security industry include drinking water
reservoirs; oil and gas refineries; ports; bus and rail commuter terminals;
nuclear power plants; chemical plants; food supplies; hospitals; and
communications networks.