Politics

By Jim Goding

Basic Rule: The Surveillance Department does not become involved in company or corporate politics.

Basic Principle 1: Any member of the organization that attacks or attempts to neutralize a trained and effective Surveillance Department has something that he or she wishes to hide.

Basic Principle 2: When a Surveillance Department becomes involved in political games, either internally or with other areas of the company or greater corporation, its attention has been effectively directed away from its proper focus.

Basic Principle 3: When someone outside the department attempts to involve Surveillance in political squabbles, he or she is attempting to neutralize the department.

These principles apply as well to any other department (Security, Audits, Compliance) whose job it is to prevent, locate and handle theft or dishonesty. Surveillance Managers and staff should look with a good deal of skepticism upon any reports, especially verbal reports, of generalities about other areas of the organization. The Surveillance Department deals in specifics: events with personnel, time and location. While it is true that it is our purpose to investigate and document events, it can be very distracting to be handed a verbal report that “someone told me that there is a dealer on Swing or Graveyard that is paying people too much.” This type of thing is possibly an attempt to direct Surveillance attention away from another area.

Attacks on Surveillance Personnel

When the Manager or Supervisors in a Surveillance department come under attack from inside or outside the department, realize that one of three things is occurring:

• 1. In an attack originating within the department, someone (not necessarily the attacker) has formed an alliance outside the department with someone who is hiding something.
• 2. In an attack from either inside or outside the department, someone is attempting to direct attention away from himself.
• 3. The personnel under attack may actually be doing something wrong.

These three things should all be investigated. However, those doing the investigation should first look at who is being attacked: If this person is one of the most effective members of the department, the likelihood is that the attack is an attempt to neutralize Surveillance, or even to make that person, specifically, ineffective because of suspicion. The Director should find out what that person knows about that has not yet been reported, but has been discussed with others, and direct his investigation accordingly.

<<Note: this article is the basis for several other articles, lessons and other materials regarding distractions and attempts to throw Surveillance off of legitimate investigations. At some point in the future, a "Surveillance lesson" based on our Powerpoint presentations will be included in some form, complete or extracted, on the website. For now, search in the top left corner under the topic "distractions.">>

Copyright © 2000, 2002 by Jim Goding. All rights reserved. Duplication in any form, electronic or otherwise, without the express written permission of the author is forbidden, is a violation of the proprietary rights of the author and is actionable under law.