The Importance of Professional Ethics and Clear Values in Private Security

Private security services can include executive protection for CEOs and other corporate executives, security program development, investigations, security training, and much more.  The growth of private security over the past several decades reflects broader social changes and shifts in governance, where private security oftentimes operates alongside state security apparatuses such as law enforcement and the military.  While the expansion of private security and increased collaboration with the public sector can be incredibly beneficial, this expansion also raises ethical considerations, such as:

• How the for-profit nature of private security may lead to prioritizing bottom lines over ethics.
• The specific ways in which a company’s guiding principles – their values and ethics – drive the implementation of security services.

To address these challenges, professional codes of conduct and clearly defined values are crucial for ensuring accountability and ethical practices in private security firms.

A Brief Primer on The Nature Private Security and Ethical Practices

The Nature of Private Security

As stated above, private security encompasses a multitude of industries related to security services, such as executive protection, armed and unarmed guarding, protective intelligence and geopolitical analysis, investigations, and much more.

The growth of private security can be tied in part to states’ ever-evolving relationship to force monopoly.  Historically, the modern state’s monopoly on force (e.g. security) may be seen as a temporary phenomenon in a longer pattern of multiple security providers and security markets.  The rise of private security can be linked to broader social movements and changes in governance, where the state either seeks to activate, or defaults to, non-state agencies to address security issues.

Ethical Dilemmas in Private Security

One of the significant concerns with private security is whether pursuit of financial gain will overshadow ethical considerations.  Critics argue that private security companies may prioritize profit maximization, which can result in a net negative for clients and even greater public good.  While this is not a problem relegated to the private security industry, the potentially catastrophic nature of security work demands a high degree of reliability, clear values, and sound leadership.  Moreover, the problem of profit maximization over compliance or adherence to ethical norms is not just an abstraction – there can be life-changing consequences to hasty hiring practices and security contract management.

The Role of Professional Codes of Conduct in the Private Security Industry

Professional codes of conduct and ethics, such as those provided by ASIS International, can offer a framework for ethical decision-making and accountability in private security firms. These codes ensure that security providers prioritize public safety and adhere to legal standards, which ultimately promotes transparency and trust between security firms and their clients.  By adopting codes such as the ones articulated by ASIS, private security firms can demonstrate their commitment to ethical practices and accountability to the public, the security community at large, their contractors and employees, and the clients they serve.

Security Companies Must Identify and Embrace Core Values

Values are core principles that guide behavior and decision-making.  While ethics are often more universal in nature than values, these two concepts work in unison to help encourage satisfactory behaviors at the individual or collective level (the values) which leads people to do the right thing (the ethics).

For private security firms, clearly defined values are essential for guiding ethical decision-making and fostering a culture of integrity.  Values such as transparency and professionalism should be central to security operations.  Embracing these values can enhance public perception and trust in private security services. For instance, in the context of armed security and executive protection, ethical values ensure that services are delivered with respect to the law and to the highest level possible.

Private Security Firms Should Embody Positive Values and Principles

At Convoy Group, we adhere to the values of T3PAF: Transparency, Training, Teamwork, Professionalism, Autonomy, and Flexibility.  We also strive to operate under the principles of High Reliability Organizations (HROs), ensuring resilience and reliability in our operations. By embracing these values and principles, we endeavor to deliver high-quality, professional, and ethically sound security services. We view these efforts as essential to enhance trust and integrity across the private security industry.

T3PAF: Values That Guide Our Behavior

• Transparency with clients and teammates, pricing and capabilities, and progress.
• Training to ensure the highest level of capability, service, and readiness.
• Teamwork is the key to meeting our clients’ needs and internal goals.
• Professionalism is the key to our reputation and success.
• Autonomy enables success at all levels, imbues a forward-leaning culture, and facilitates growth.
• Flexibility allows for dynamic organizational change to occur and the services to adapt to shifting demands.

The 5 Central HRO Principles:

• Sensitive to Operations – Being aware of the relevant systems and processes.
• Reluctance to Simplify – Understanding that services are complex and can fail in unexpected ways.
• Preoccupation with Failure – Viewing near failures as opportunities to learn and get better.
• Deference to Expertise – Valuing insight from those with the most knowledge over those with seniority.
• Practicing Resilience – Prioritizing emergency training for various unlikely, but possible, scenarios.

One of the unfortunate realities for clients is that it often takes security audits or post-mortem analysis to identify, or infer, a security company’s values and underlying ethical worldview.  At the pointy end of the service, or level of implementation, the substructure of variables that affect security service efficacy may not be entirely apparent.  Whether it be an executive protection detail for a CEO during a high-profile trial, or an armed guard deterring a targeted attack against a house of worship, catastrophe should not be the way clients (and the public) learn about the guiding principles which undergird their security services.