Contract security guard companies

Considering using a contract security guard company for your business or organization? Buz, the security consultant, thinks, in light of the suspicion surrounding burglaries at the area's private schools, there are:

Some questions you should ask your security guard company (before you get one or of the one you have):

1.Do you do background checks on your guards, even if they come to you with a valid clearance card?
2.After you hire, do you ever check again? When? How often?
3.What are your standards for rejection, if any?
4.Do you do drug testing on your guards? Before hire? (Of course, they'll say. Buz recently ran into a security guard who is stationed at a school in the city. He said he's never had a drug test after working for them for more than 15 years.) Periodically? Randomly? For cause?
5.Do you pay your guards a living wage (Huh? What's that? Buz recently coached a woman who got a job as a security guard at a contract guard agency in Baltimore. They started her at $6.75 an hour. Think it might be a little easy to pay her a few bucks to look the other way? Would you really want anyone watching your assets or people who gets paid only $6.75/hour?)
6.What are your guards trained in? Anything? Or are they just bodies, a commodity, like say paper, or wood or electric.
7.Will you give me enough info on the guards proposed for my site to do my own background check if I wish? (social security number, date of birth, say)
8.If I don't want a particular guard for any reason (or no reason), can a different one be provided?
9.What are your guards' rules of engagement, say, if a fight breaks out?
10.When can they use their weapons (if they have any).


See how, if at all, they answer these questions.

Buz wonders if anybody out there has had any praise or criticisms for guards you may have run into.