21 Security, Safety Tip For Churches, Mosques and other places of worship

A trite wise saying suffices that prevention is better than cure. Proactiveness should be the watchword of every place of worship, nay organizations. A professional, visible, courteous, responsive security team will certainly make worshippers, visitors feel safe and welcome. Listed below are recommendations that will help strengthen the security, safety of lives, properties in places of worship.

1. Establishing a full-fledged Security ‘Ministry’ or Department/Committee must be a priority for all places of worship. The Security ‘Ministry or whatever name it is called, must be peopled with members of the congregation that have extensive security background (ideally, serving and retired military or law enforcement personnel coupled with carefully selected laymen/laywomen, ushers, volunteers who must be trained to recognize, report and respond to security/safety incidents). Basic first responder training and knowledge of basic first aid will help. A security consultant can be retained and private security operatives hired if need be.

2. A detailed security policy is important. A security policy is a continuously updated template that figures out, outlines how the organization plans to protect its people and properties. A typical security policy should include specifics such as: procedures for evaluating the effectiveness of the security policy to ensure that necessary corrections will be effected; stipulates who is authorized to talk to the Press/Police in the event of an incident, that under-aged children will be released ONLY to their parents or an authorized adult after service and so on and so forth.

3. Places of worship should formulate a comprehensive emergency (fire, terrorism/active shooter, health-related natural disasters) and evacuation plans, lockdown procedures and scrutinize the aforementioned procedures routinely in response to plausible natural or man-made misadventure.

4. The security department must strive to organize periodic security awareness programmes: seminar, symposium or briefings for members of the congregation.

5. Carry out a routine comprehensive risk assessment and vulnerability surveys of the place of worship vis-à-vis location of the place of worship and crime demographic, identifying potential hazards, how secured the access or entry points are, fencing, untrimmed shrubs/trees, inventory of equipment amongst others. Recommendations must be put in place to mitigate such risks. Recent events demands that places of worship must re-think leaving their premises unlocked to such an extent that anybody can walk in and out.

6. A rigorous background check or screening must be done on staff of the security department, volunteers, those taking care of children and those responsible for money/finances. Don’t be carried away by how sanctimonious folks appear when they are in the public or a religious centre. A popular parlance holds that in every twelve, there’s a Judas. Again, not every member of the choir or congregation sings with the same passion. There are paedophiles, sexual predators everywhere; churches, mosques are no exceptions.

7. Ensure the place of worship is thoroughly scanned or searched prior to a religious activity. In addition to this, it is in the best interest of worshippers and visitors to have their bags, vehicles professionally frisked prior to coming into the worship centre. This is where metal and bomb detectors come into play. Recall that a while ago, about six Boko Haram militants were purportedly apprehended inside a Winners Chapel branch in Owerri, Imo state while attempting to implant improvised explosive devices within the church premises.

8. An efficient access and traffic control mechanism must be activate to detect, prevent a would-be suicide bomber from gate-crashing with IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) or VIEDs (Vehicle Borne Explosive Devices), commonly called car bombs and also to avoid inconveniencing other road users or passers-by.

9. Thanks to the proliferation and affordability of security gadgets, financially established places of worship are encouraged to invest in some of these devices. Please ensure whatever security gadgets you want to buy are tested prior to purchasing them to ascertain they work according to specification. For instance, an efficient CCTV Camera, an intrusion (burglar) detector and fire alarm/extinguisher system, metal or bomb detector will respectively help monitor the premises in real time, protect against intrusions, fire incidents and concealed weapons, IEDs or VBIEDs.

10. In buying a metal or bomb detector, ensure it is easy and safe to use, boasts greatest SENSITIVITY and SELECTIVITY, very minimal false alarms or noise. For CCTV Cameras, go for high-end security cameras with night vision capability, motion detection capability, consider storage capacity and ability to save videos/pictures externally, not hackable (especially for wireless cameras), weather resistant, high definition (HD) capability (though consumes more storage space), can discriminate objects at farther distances (say 75-100 feet), wide angle of coverage, amongst others. Note that wireless cameras slow down internet connections. For more details, please Google, read – Guide To Buying A Home Security Camera: 16 Features To Consider.

Read the rest here: http://donokereke..com/2015/12/21-security-safety-best-practices-for.html
Written by:

© Don Okereke
(Security Adviser/Consultant, Entrepreneur, Researcher, Writer and Change agent)

Follow Don on Twitter: @DonOkereke

okay

Nice one

Cheers. All the very best. Stay safe, be security conscious during and after the yuletide!

lalasticlala!!

This is important during this festive period!

^ Exactly! One figured out a whole lot of religious organizations don't take security, safety seriously. That's why I put this forward. Recall the xmas day bombing of a St Theresa catholic church, Madalla, near Abuja.

Stay safe, shine your eyes.