Bri­an Ram­sey, mba

Chair­man, Caribean In­sti­tute­for Se­cu­ri­ty and Pub­lic Safe­ty

Part one

Of­ten dur­ing the course of se­cu­ri­ty pre­sen­ta­tions the ques­tion is asked as to whether walls or fences are bet­ter. Very of­ten, from the side com­ments of the au­di­ence, it can be de­duced that the ma­jor­i­ty view is that walls are a bet­ter se­cu­ri­ty op­tion.

Walls give the im­pres­sion that a house is hid­den from view and many peo­ple think that if the house is hid­den from view then ban­dits will not know that the house ex­ists and so will not tar­get that house. This can seem plau­si­ble if the house is a one storey struc­ture and there are walls all around. Once the house is more than one storey in height, it is like­ly that the house will be vis­i­ble and so the idea of hid­ing from view as a means of pro­tec­tion is no longer ap­plic­a­ble.

One side ef­fect of the "hid­den from view" ap­proach is that while walls may block the view of peo­ple pass­ing by, it al­so rais­es their cu­rios­i­ty as to what is be­hind the wall, es­pe­cial­ly those who pass of­ten. In­deed, in the minds of some would-be thieves, the high walls in­di­cate that there must be a build­ing with items of val­ue and there­fore worth their time to in­ves­ti­gate how to break in­to the build­ing.

An­oth­er side ef­fect is that many peo­ple now sub­scribe to neigh­bour­hood pa­trols by a se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­ny and oth­ers have alarm sys­tems that are linked to a mon­i­tor­ing sta­tion with armed guard re­sponse. Guards, who are in ve­hi­cles pa­trolling a neigh­bour­hood or even the po­lice on a dri­ve-by pa­trol of an area, can­not see be­hind the wall and so are not able to give the res­i­dent of that home the ben­e­fit of the mo­bile pa­trol.

An­oth­er rea­son some peo­ple like to have walls as a se­cu­ri­ty mea­sure is the be­lief that in­di­vid­u­als can­not climb over the wall. For most homes in the Caribbean, this is a com­plete fal­la­cy be­cause the walls are sim­ply not high enough. Any wall less than sev­en feet in height can be eas­i­ly scaled.

Even walls up to ten feet are sim­ply over­come through the use of an aid. As walls by them­selves have failed to pre­vent bur­glary, a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of home­own­ers have re­sort­ed to us­ing barbed wire or ra­zor wire on the top of their walls. This use of sharp wire, how­ev­er, gives many homes a prison-like ap­pear­ance.

The oth­er perime­ter de­fence sys­tem that is wide­ly used in the Caribbean is fences. As a re­sult of the ease of in­stal­la­tion and its long life, the fenc­ing of choice has been chain link fenc­ing and this type of fenc­ing does ful­fill cer­tain se­cu­ri­ty func­tions. It clear­ly shows the le­gal bound­ary of the home­own­er's prop­er­ty and cre­ates a psy­cho­log­i­cal de­ter­rent there­by de­ter­ring ca­su­al in­trud­ers as it presents a bar­ri­er that re­quires an overt ac­tion to go past.

For the in­di­vid­ual who is de­ter­mined to get in­to the prop­er­ty, it re­quires them to do some pre­plan­ning in terms of hav­ing tools to over­come the fence.

The biggest se­cu­ri­ty ben­e­fit how­ev­er of chain link fenc­ing is that it can be seen through and so the home­own­er's neigh­bours can see in­trud­ers at­tempt­ing to en­ter the prop­er­ty and act as an ear­ly warn­ing sys­tem. Of course, for in­di­vid­u­als to get this most tan­gi­ble ben­e­fit of chain link fences, there must be a sense of com­mu­ni­ty in the neigh­bour­hood; neigh­bours must live well to­geth­er.

Home­own­ers who sub­scribe to neigh­bour­hood pa­trols by a se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­ny or have alarm sys­tems that are linked to a cen­tral mon­i­tor­ing sta­tion with armed guard re­sponse have the ben­e­fit that the se­cu­ri­ty guards, in the ve­hi­cles or even the po­lice on a dri­ve-by pa­trol of an area, can eas­i­ly see what is hap­pen­ing in and around the prop­er­ty.

Many in­di­vid­u­als of­ten den­i­grate chain-link fenc­ing on the ba­sis that thieves can lift the base and go un­der the fence. That method of en­try is sim­ply the re­sult of poor in­stal­la­tion. Chain link fences should al­ways be an­chored in con­crete to pre­vent this en­try route. The oth­er com­plaint that is some­times raised is that the links are eas­i­ly part­ed. The ma­jor­i­ty of Caribbean in­di­vid­u­als, how­ev­er, do not know how to dif­fer­en­ti­ate among chain links and in­deed most do not re­alise that there are dif­fer­ent types of chain link. Hence, they pur­chase chain link that is eas­i­ly pulled apart.

In the sec­ond part of this ar­ti­cle, we will con­tin­ue to look at chain link fenc­ing and al­so ad­dress the use of wire wall, elec­tric fences and ra­zor spikes.

Many train­ing cours­es that deal with phys­i­cal se­cu­ri­ty, risks as­sess­ments, se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems, se­cu­ri­ty su­per­vi­sion as well as law en­force­ment and pub­lic safe­ty ar­eas top­ics like fire safe­ty, first aid and first re­spon­der train­ing are avail­able to or­gan­i­sa­tions, groups and in­di­vid­u­als at the Caribbean In­sti­tute for Se­cu­ri­ty and Pub­lic Safe­ty. Con­tact us at 223-6999, in­fo@caribbeanse­cu­ri­tyin­sti­tute.com or www.caribbeanse­cu­ri­tyin­sti­tute.com