Security Considerations When Selecting an Office Site

Alert, informed employees who intuitively sense inappropriate behavior and who have been taught to report that type of behavior accurately are infinitely better and more effective than all the electronic sensors you could install. Select an office site that takes advantage of the employee “sensor field.”

If you are involved in site selection, pay close attention to the following questions:

• Will Forest Service employees, vendors, contractors, and public visitors not only feel safe, but be safe, at your office? Do potential attackers feel that they are being watched? Confined? Managed? Ideally, they should.
  
  
• Will your offices require the highest level of security? If so, choose a site that makes casual, spontaneous visitation difficult.

Siting offices in areas that have casual vehicular and foot traffic makes it easier for persons with hostile intent to study your facility. The casual traffic also makes it more difficult for Forest Service employees to spot unusual behaviors and visitors. In high-security settings, casual vehicular and foot traffic should be minimal so that persons with malicious intent will “stick out like a sore thumb” to security-aware Forest Service employees.

• Will the Forest Service be the sole tenant in commercial space? If not, evaluate the building management’s security and emergency plans. Look at the security measures supplied by building management in common or shared areas. Look at the security requirements imposed by building management on all tenants. Be wary if the building management does not appear interested or dismisses your attention to security. If the building has its own guard force, determine precisely how the guards will respond to a variety of anticipated emergencies that could occur at your office.
  
  
• Will your offices be located with businesses and agencies that are controversial or that are destinations for mentally and emotionally unstable persons?
  
  
• Does the neighborhood have public health and safety issues? Check with local social service agencies. Is there an unacceptably high incidence of crimes against people or crimes against property? Will your employees feel safe walking alone to their cars at night? Do law enforcement officers and firefighters (including hazardous materials first responders) have an inordinately high number of calls at or near your prospective address? Are you going to be downwind from sources of unacceptable air pollution, such as a pulp mill?
  
  
• Will your offices be located where they can receive timely response by law enforcement officers, firefighters, and emergency medical responders?
  
  
• Will you have good neighbors? Good neighbors who watch out for you (as you watch out for them) are as important in a business setting as in a residential setting. Will you be welcomed in the neighborhood?
  
  
• What is the intended and projected future use of the neighborhood? Is it improving or declining socially, culturally, and economically? Often, city and county planners can provide this information, but their analysis may be slightly biased if they would like you to move in. Social service agencies and colleges and universities may have more accurate and unbiased information.
  
  
• How readily could your office be cut off from essential services and emergency responder access? This can happen in an urban setting as well as in a rural one. A Forest Service office in the city center can be isolated and cut off by gridlocked traffic if a power failure shuts down all traffic lights. A washed-out bridge can have the same effect in a rural area.
  
  
• How easily can a potential attacker observe your facility and its operations without being observed by alert Forest Service employees and good neighbors? Nearly all attackers visit the site of their intended attack at least once. International terrorists conduct extensive surveillance of intended targets. Persons initiating a domestic violence attack against their partner at the partner’s workplace nearly always visit the partner’s workplace at least once before the attack.