Introduction

It would appear that the perpetrators gain access to the interior of a house or a building's roof by cutting open or lifting the roof tiles of the particular building. In most instances this occurs at night, which makes visual identification extremely difficult and almost impossible for the reaction officer, because this is often not observable from the ground, especially if there is a parapet wall or a similar object obscuring the line of vision.

Problem identification

The burglars hide inside the building waiting for the response officer to arrive and check the building, if the officer does not see anything indicating a possible break-in; he will leave the premises reporting that all is in order. Once the officer leaves the premises the burglars are free to go through the premises and take whatever they deem valuable. The perpetrators can take their time as the risk of a security officer returning to the premises is almost zero, since the perpetrator has destroyed the alarm panel and there will be no further signals received at the control room. After collecting the items they consider to be valuable, they then start to break windows and doors from the inside of the building to exit the premises.

We are sure that the other security companies in and around Kempton Park are experiencing a similar trend. The following contributing factors should be considered:-

• Often the key-holder does not come out to the premises to assist the reaction officer to check the interior of the premises; this means that the reaction officer can only inspect the building from the outside.
• The perpetrator is a "career" criminal and is "trained" to go about their business.
• The perpetrator does not wish to be caught.
• The perpetrator will familiarise themselves regarding alarm systems, because this is their greatest hindrance to perpetrate their criminality.
• The alarm system must compliment other security systems, electric fence, CCTV equipment, and physical security such as gates.

Our Solution

All key-holders will be requested to attend all alarm activations. Please assist us in combating this hideous act of criminality by making a key holder available on a 24 hour basis.

The reaction officer will secure the exterior of the property until the key holder arrives to open the premises. The reaction officer will then secure the interior of the premises after the key-holder has opened the building.

This will reduce the loss and ensure that the burglars do not have the many hours currently available to them to vandalize and to remove your possessions.

Please note that if the key holder does not attend to the alarm signal, Alpha Security shall not be held liable for the damages or losses. It is important to Alpha Security to reduce the losses incurred by our clients and reaction officers will check the premises from the inside.

The second aspect of our solution is that all our clients must install the appropriate Infra Red Detection (PIR) devices as soon as possible the into their roof structures. This will cause the alarm to activate prior to the perpetrator being able to access the roof structure and the alarm.

If you have any questions or suggestion to address these incidents, or to update your key holder information please contact Quinton Harris on 011-394-1880 or email him at qharris@alphasecurity.co.za at your earliest convenience.

This is an important aspect of your security please support us in our drive to reduce the crime in our community.

Thanking you for your continued support

Mornè Le Grange
Assistant General Manager

• As a consumer of security services the Private Security Industry Regulation Act (Act 56 of 2001) places an explicit legal onus on consumer of private security services to use only legitimate and registered security service providers. Consumers can be found guilty of a criminal offence and can be prosecuted for intentionally or negiligently using the services of s security business which is non-complaint with the Act. Any security service provider has to be registered with PSIRA (Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority). A registration certificate to this effect must be made available on request.
• Are all of the employees deployed to render a security service registered with the Authority? Registration certificates as well as the last PSIRA audit inspection report to this effect must be made available on request) as well as the last PSIRA audited inspection report.
• Are all the security officers deployed to provide a security service, in possession of the necessary training certificates from accredited training establishments?
• Are all the security officers deployed to provide a security service, paid at the least minimum statutory wage applicable in terms of the Sectoral Determination 6 for the private security industry issued by the Minister of Labour.
• Does the security business guarantee that all the security officers deployed on your premises will adhere to the statutory code of conduct applicable to all security service providers?
• Does the security business guarantee that its security officers are specifically trained for the task that they have been allocated to do?
• All security officers are required to be members of a provident fund ant the company must contribute 6.5% of their salary to the fund and the employee contribute 6.5% of their salary to the fund. Can your security service provider produce a letter of goodstanding from its provident fund administrator?
• Does the security business register for tax and can they provide their tax clearance certificate and up to date contribution?
• Does the security business register for Workmanship Compensation and can they provide you a letter of goodstanding?