19 – Your Future in Security and Loss Prevention

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses security and loss prevention in the future and lists trends affecting security and loss prevention. Technology has enhanced security in many ways. There are “smart cards” and “smart cameras,” and one will see many more systems and devices that contain “smart security,” that means that never-ending enhanced technology will be built into systems and devices. Future integrated security systems will perform an array of loss prevention activities beyond what is accomplished today. The criminal justice profession is one source for research direction for the security and loss prevention profession. Currently, the clinical experience model is the research path most frequently followed. Policies and technologies are based primarily on reports from practitioners about what they have found to work or not work. Sharing approaches and programs that seemed to work in one community with another community allows for quick application of successful ideas. It is found that the future direction of training largely depends on organizational needs and objectives, threats and vulnerabilities, technological innovations, and loss prevention strategies. Practitioners will need to know how to operate in an environment of new countermeasures and complex systems.