A professional Security report writing methods

security report
  •  Security guard basic training Unit 2 Lesson (B)

A security guard needs to write about security report along with performing his or her duty. The Security report is an official memo for a particular guard, security company and the client’s company as well.

In the course of the duty, a security guard encounters thousand of incidents and accidents. That need to pass the factual information to persons who were not present at the actual event that the security guard witnessed.

You should pass the information including your subordinates, co-workers, superiors, police, and insurance companies. Additionally, in the court hearing, you may require pass information to private investigators, defence lawyers, and the Crown prosecutor. Therefore a security guard must take an observation and record them in clear, concise and logical manner.

The report is a recorded remark in which the facts of the events are included. The report helps to learn other people just about past incidents. A security guard must know the following things regarding the report.

  • Reports are a guard’s way of passing on information
  • Reports are generally either administrative or operational
  • reports are read by many different people
  • Reports should have an introduction, what the incident was about, and a belief Summary about the incident at the end.
  • A good narrative has an introduction, a body, and a summary
  • Use heading what necessary
  • Remember the 5 c W’s and ‘H’ when writing a report. They are Who, What, When, Where, Why And How
  • Avoid slang and bad language in a report
  • The report should be written in the past tense.

Categories of security report.

  1. Administrative:- The reports are generally occurred in routine and needed some kinds of paper flows through the office on any given working day. You have to fill the form if you want to report either you require or going to do something.

For example, the administrative reports include a requisition for equipment, a visitor’s register, a temporary pass registry, a time card indicating hours worked, requests for vacation leave, requests for training, budgets, and so on.

2. Operational:- In another word, these are the incident reports. Incident reports are a description of the occurrence on the duty of the security guard. After an incident, a security guard has to write a complete report in detail.

An operational report you need to write when you supervise a criminal offence such as damage to property, robbery, theft, assault, fire, and shoplifting, etc.

The purpose of an operational security report.

First and foremost, you should know the following purpose of the good security report.

  1. to become an official record of what happened;

2. to record the occurrence for the writer’s future reference, and

3. to pass the facts of an occurrence on to others for a variety of uses.

Even Though a security guard writes a different type of report in a different scenario. A good report must include the following points.

  1.  factual,
  2. accurate,
  3. objective,
  4. complete,
  5. concise,
  6. clear,
  7. correct and
  8. well organized
What should include in the good report?

Generally, An integral formula to write the report is 5W and 1H.

  1. Who,

2. what,

3. when,

4. where,

5. why and

6. how.

  1. WHO?

“who” uses for the person. It describes anyone who was involved. When you writing the security report you should try to answer this question.

  1. Who was involved?

2. Who was the complainant?

3. Who witnessed the event?

In this part, we can include the victim, the person who made complain, someone who asks you to do something, the person who started the event, police if they come in the scene. Secondly, we should use “what” in the security report.

2. WHAT?

comparatively others, this portion includes the important part of the incident and accident. It indicates the title of the event and provides majority substance of the good security report. Answer these two question while you come to the point to include the “what”.

  1. What actually happened? and
  2. What evidence is available?

Furthermore, It includes the description of the event that was happened and the action was taken by the people are involved. also what shreds of evidence were available and what was done with it. Remember you should include the action taken by a security guard in that event.

3. WHEN? 

It represents the time, day and the date of the incident that are equally important for the good security report.

  1. When did the event occur?

Answering the above question it completes a section of the report. You should incorporate things like:

  1. when you last observed the area prior to the occurrence

2. when the event began and it ended

3. when you had contact with a witness

4. and when police, the fire department, or the ambulance arrived.

4. WHERE?

similarly above 3 WH questions “where” also equally important for the good security report. Where portrays the location of the incident.

  1. Where did the event occur?

2. Where the witnesses were located.

3. Where the pieces of evidence discover?

4. Where the accused was found?

In addition, you need to describe the environment and the location you and the other individuals were at the time.

5. WHY?

This part of the report gives the reason for the event. Starting from “Why” we can ask many questions at the investigation of the scene. Remember that, Some questions may remain unanswered even after a complete investigation. Some question you need to includes.

  1. What motive was there for the incident?
  2. Why did this particular series of events occur?

A good security guard report does not complete along with the above “5W” altogether it requires to include the 1H is

6. HOW?

This portion describes how the incident took place and what action was done in response.

  1. How did this event come to your attention?

2. How did the event take place?

3. How did the accused act?

4. How did the witnesses act?

5. How was the evidence recovered?

6. How was the suspect/accused arrested?

Before writing the good security report you should take time to organize the things need to include on it and the questions to be the answered.

Explore the best way on your writing which allows the audience easily understand the situation.

Although the report writing styles may vary depending on the worksite the stander format is applicable in the security industries. Your employer or the client may have a different format of different types of report that you need to fill up. Here is a sample report for you to learn.

Other lessons click here

Sample report.

To the general manager……..

1 sheikh Mohamad Bin Rashid 

Blv. Dubai United Arab Emirates. 

On 20 January 2016 at 17:00hs Sunday, I was regular on patrol around the company perimeter.

I found a Honda Civic car number DBX 2151 color black driven too fast by two local boys. On the highway outside of my location. After a few minutes, a pickup truck and a car rolled over.

A 21yrs old man suffered minor soft tissue injury and taken to the hospital in stable condition. The cause of the accident was by tyre blowout because it was very old.

Immediately, I called the police and inform the supervisor on the duty regarding the accident.

Informant

Raj Kumar 

Security officer.

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