Security guards these days are essential in many places to ensure everyone is following the rules and to make customers, workers, patients or members of the public feel safe. The security profession is something that has been in existence for a long time. In the past, security guards were in the form of soldiers or other armed individuals who would guard the boundaries of a city, a castle etc at night. These days, security guards are integral and essential parts of most buildings at all points of the day.

Men who would be known as security guards today existed as far back in time as ancient Rome. These men were known as vigiles. Their primary duty was to protect the city from the threat of fire and crime; however they also guarded the city’s boundaries. The vigiles are commonly credited with being the ‘origin’ of security guards. Otherwise, there were night watchmen around as far back as the Middle Ages in parts of Europe, since many cities at this time were subject to attack. What is known as the watchman’s chair was invented around this time. It was designed with a forward slant so the watchman would fall off should he fall asleep while on duty, thereby ensuring he performed his job properly. These days, security guards are needed in almost all moderate to large sized buildings. They must make sure no one is stealing from shops, that there are no intruders in the building and that everything in their designated area is going smoothly. The number of companies that use security guards is vast. Security guard duties often involve patrolling the grounds of the premises and watching CCTV cameras closely. They are necessary for almost all public buildings, office buildings and even some unoccupied buildings (such as storage units). Security guards have training that covers handling rule breakers (restraining, handcuffing, etc), carrying out first aid and writing up reports of incidents. The job these days can be varied and encompasses a variety of skills. They are not allowed to make arrests, and such action must be taken instead by police officers. In some cases, security guards can make citizen’s arrests however.

The job of a security guard is to deter and to detect un-allowed or illegal activity. Many companies view their simple visual presence as effective, since seeing security guards puts a lot of potential trouble makers off of their plans. What is in the future for the security profession? With advances in technology, it is likely that the job may vary to some degree in the future. Alarm systems will become more advanced, as will video camera monitoring systems. However, the most basic level of the job – to deter and to detect in order to keep an area safe – hasn’t changed as much as one might expect since ancient Rome. Security guards in the future will have more technology to help them do their job, but they will still always be needed for the sake of safety.

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