Introduction
In any profession, there are several risks at hand that are inevitable. Especially for people in the security and criminal justice sectors, their responsibilities revolve around various risks that need to be managed effectively, unless they want to expose the lives of other people and themselves to various dangers that abound. In this case, for the security and criminal justice practitioners, risk management remains to be the most logical process that can be used to determine present and future potential risks and liabilities that could result in some kind of loss for both public and private organizations. As it is a process, risk management can draw up several strategies that may vary depending on the nature of the organization, including management style and organizational goals (Conrow, 2000).
Main body
To know why risk management is so important, Archbold (2005) explained “five basic steps in the risk management process” which are universally useful for almost all types of organizations:
- Identify risks, frequency of exposure to risks, and the severity of losses resulting from exposure to risks: to do this, organizations use data on the history of organizational loss including past lawsuits, complaints, and payouts resulting from liability claims.
- Explore methods to handle exposure to identified risks: this step includes a thorough review of organizational policies and procedures, training, and supervision of employees.
- Choose appropriate treatment or response to manage exposure to risks: this step includes making changes to department policies, training, and/or supervision to reduce exposure to liability incidents.
- Implement risk treatment: implement all changes made to department policy, procedure, and/or training.
- Continuously evaluate risk treatment applied to organizational risks: the risk management process is not over after steps 1-4 have been completed. The process is ongoing because organizational risks change over time and require continuous evaluation.
Since police organizations and security teams are always exposed to several detrimental risks, they can use these risk management steps in planning out their operations to prevent any untoward incident from happening or quell another similar incident from happening again. For example, an organized drug syndicate is operating in a certain city. Law enforcement agencies need to do draw out security risk analyses when they want to put the operators of this syndicate in jail. Without viable strategies, their lives might be in danger or other people might be harmed if they choose to push through with their goals without a risk analysis. A successful risk manager should also be able to assess risk and prevent its manifestation in such a way that the public remains almost totally unaware that the risk exists. Archbold (2005) emphasized that the use of risk management within security and police agencies includes the ability to determine “the oversight and management of department policies, training, recruitment/hiring standards, and supervision over line officers as a primary duty of risk management personnel”. Risk managers in these organizations should be adept in dealing “with high risk incidents (such as use of force and police pursuits) by tracking and identifying incidents that have resulted in some loss for their organization, and ultimately make changes to policies, training, and supervision of officers to reduce officer exposure to such risks”. Archbold (2005) also added that the benefits of using risk management in security and criminal justice organizations are:
- Increase the safety of both security and criminal justice practitioners and citizens.
- Increase the quality of services provided to the public.
- Financial management of the costs associated with police-involved liability incidents resulting in liability claims or litigation.
Archbold (2005) also informed that risk management can be suitable to be used in new paradigms of accountability because its ultimate objective is to identify organizational risks, “apply some type of corrective action (such as changing department policies or training), and then monitoring the impact of the corrective action”. In the modern world, newer risks have also evolved into something more ominous. For example, terrorism and technology have stemmed up a new threat like cyber terrorism. Criminal justice and security personnel should be aware of these new threats and they need to build plans to thwart new attackers. Thus, their job now also entails protection against computerized attacks and breakdowns of computer systems. People and organizations nowadays continue to become ever more dependent on the use of computers and electronic communication. While these systems are extremely helpful, they are also subject to “virtual” viruses and electronic attacks. Furthermore, increasingly smaller computerized hardware makes thievery continuously easier. Another possible threat would be terrorism and biochemical attacks. As the world becomes more politicized, people and organizations will become targets of acts of terrorism or political violence. To make this situation more complicated, sophisticated delivery systems mean that all heating and cooling ventilation systems are subject to infiltration, resulting in massive amounts of damage. Risk managers need to be equipped with wide knowledge in order to do their job effectively.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the risk management objectives should not only comprise the safety of people, but it must include attention to physical security, personnel security, information security, and, where possible, interdepartmental dependencies. These elements are linked by the important legal and ethical problems that result when the elements are not accurately identified or integrated. With the upsurge of newer threats to lives, property, and money, risk management should be entwined into the security and criminal justice organizations. No one can say for certain what the risk manager’s role will be in the future, but risk management is, like life itself, a process. As life changes, so will the risks we encounter; as the nature of the risks changes, so, too, will risk managers. One thing that is certain is that risks will always be present and the security and criminal justice should always be prepared and armed with plausible risk management strategies.
Works Cited
Archbold, C.A. (2005). Managing the bottom line: risk management in policing, Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management; 28(1): 30-48. Web.
Conrow, E.H. (2000), Effective Risk Management: Some Keys to Success, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., Reston, VA.