The Critical Difference:
Setting New Standards for Performance

All security agencies promise excellence. However, at Critical Intervention Services the pursuit of excellence isn’t just a pledge. It’s the lifeblood of our culture and the cornerstone of our success as proven over twenty years.

Following is a sample of the types of innovations and performance-oriented operational enhancements that distinguish Critical Intervention Services from conventional security agencies.

The Most Stringent Officer Candidate Selection and Training Process in the Private Security Industry.

CIS requires all officers to complete an intensive, two-phased screening and training process designed to comply with and/or exceed the standards of all government contract requirements. During Phase One of our process, candidates are first screened to ensure they meet our basic criteria of honorable military or law enforcement experience, law enforcement certification, or two years or more of security experience. Once they are pre-qualified, officer candidates are subjected to a rigorous background investigation, psychological examination, personality screening, IQ test, and drug urinalysis test. Phase One screening is conducted internally and preliminary to all other pre-employment activities including application for security clearance if required as a term of the contract.

Prior to assignment or initiation of contract-specified training, all officer candidates are required to complete manditory basic security officer training (40-hours in the State of Florida), firearms training (24-hours), and 80-hours of additional instruction under the supervision of an experienced Field Training Officer (FTO).

In addition to standard CIS officer training, all CIS Government Services LLC officers are required to complete the 32-hour Anti-Terrorism Officer (ATO) classroom training component. Officers assigned to protecting military bases, high-risk government buildings, and OCONUS facilities are required to complete all CIS Anti-Terrorism Officer training and certification requirements.

Superior Leadership and Operational Direction.

In 2009, the CIS Office of Professional Standards published its most recent edition of the CIS Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) Manual. The CIS SOP Manual establishes procedural and policy direction governing all aspects of CIS operations. At over 300 pages in length, the scope and depth of the CIS SOP exceeds the written procedural manuals of every security agency in the United States and rivals the SOP of most law enforcement agencies. As part of basic officer orientation, all CIS officers are required to study the SOP manual and complete an SOP written test within 90 days of hire.

As a living document, the CIS SOP is in a continuous state of review and improvement by the SOP Working Group, a collaborative team composed of senior commanders and field supervisors coordinated under the CIS Office of Professional Standards. All proposed policy and procedural improvements recommended by the SOP Working Group are submitted to the CEO for approval prior to implementation.

To ensure that violations of policy and procedure are properly addressed, the CIS Office of Professional Standards also administers a full-time Internal Affairs Board (IAB). The IAB is responsible for investigating serious infractions of the CIS SOP and any incident where the alleged actions of an officer may have violated state or Federal statutes. Once the Internal Affairs Board has concluded its investigation, the IAB submits its findings to the Vice President of Protective Services with recommendations for disciplinary action. If the officer appeals the disciplinary action (as permitted under the CIS SOP), the matter is passed to a Disciplinary Review Board for final adjudication.

While the CIS SOP Manual codifies directives on operational matters, the CIS Doctrine Document outlays the ideology behind Critical Intervention Services and establishes a mindset for CIS officers and leadership to follow. By contrast to typical “Mission Statement” documents written by most companies, the CIS Doctrine presents a comprehensive philosophy of our approach to operations and places significant emphasis on concepts such as “effectiveness over efficiency”, innovation, and non-linear decision making as critical elements in creating new solutions to complex and difficult security problems.

Although effective policy and doctrine are essential to the success of our operations, both alone are meaningless without excellence in leadership. Over the past twenty years, CIS has developed a highly-refined system for identifying and developing junior personnel with good leadership potential. As part of the CIS Leadership Development Program, all personnel within the rank structure are required to complete a series of mandatory leadership courses as a condition of eligibility for promotion. Once personnel are promoted to new rank and position, leadership training continues under the careful monitoring and mentorship of senior personnel.

Creative Solutions-Oriented Approach to Protective Strategy Design and Deployment.

Critical Intervention Services has developed a worldwide reputation for succeeding in many difficult environments where the complexity of threat and social dynamics have exceeded the capabilities of traditional security services and even public law enforcement. In many of these circumstances, conventional approaches to security and law enforcement are only short-term solutions at best and fail to achieve any significant threat reduction or long-term results. Success in these environments often requires novel, “out-of-the-box” strategies and tactics.

One example of these solutions is the Community and Character Based Protection Initiative (CCBPI) strategy for reclaiming and rehabilitating high crime communities pioneered by CIS in the 1990’s. While conventional security and law enforcement approaches only address one aspect of the equation (“The Criminal”), the CIS CCBPI strategy is a comprehensive model that holistically addresses the complex web of social factors that contribute to the cycle of crime.

As new security strategies and tactics prove successful, these lessons learned are often adapted for universal implementation and integration into other aspects of our operations.

The success of CIS in developing and implementing special solutions to security problems has been documented in books such as To Serve and Protect by Bruce L. Benson, and by research organizations including the Independent Institute, The Foundation for Economic Education, and the US General Accounting Office. As a contribution to advancement of the public safety community, CIS professionals have also authored academic books on these unique strategies including Private Security and Public Safety: A Community-Based Approach published by Prentice Hall and The Prevention Agency: A Public Safety Model for High Crime Communities in the 21st Century, published by California University of Pennsylvania.

Specialized Training and Support for Special Duty Assignments.

In order to ensure the effective implementation of unique security strategies and ensure the highest level of mission performance in all aspects of our operations, CIS and our sister company, the S2 Safety & Intelligence Institute, develop and regularly administer specialized training courses for CIS officers.

Expert Integration of Technology to Support Protective Operations.

Most traditional security agencies view technology as an unnecessary expense…a burden to the bottom line. By contrast, Critical Intervention Services has been a pioneer in leveraging the capabilities of technology for maximizing operational performance. In many cases, effective integration of technology is an essential element for implementing the types of sophisticated and unique security solutions that have made CIS famous.

In 1998, CIS became the first private security agency in the United States to equip all patrol vehicles with GPS tracking for monitoring and dispatch control by our operations center. This simple technology improvement greatly increased our response times and provided auditing capability unavailable with conventional security patrol services. To further improve the capabilities of our patrol division and personnel assigned in high crime communities, the CIS IT Department created a special database called CIS Matrix to document dispatch activities, alerts, incidents, intelligence about criminal activity, and even general interaction between officers and community residents (an important aspect of our CCBPI program). With a modem-equipped laptop computer mounted in each patrol vehicle, officers in the field have the ability to directly access CIS Matrix remotely or through our 24-hour operations center.

When CIS launched the Anti-Terrorism Officer program in 2003, the CIS IT Department developed the Suspicious Activity Tracking and Analysis System (SATAS) to support the ATO mission of recognizing and documenting suspicious incidents possibly indicating terrorist intelligence collection. SATAS was designed as a secure database to consolidate incident reports, suspicious vehicles and persons, and facilitate coordinated investigation between CIS and outside law enforcement agencies. As the first commercial database of its type, SATAS has been studied as a model by many organizations with similar concerns such as the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Coast Guard.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, CIS deployed over 100 officers to protect the assets of different clients in the afflicted zone. The assignments varied from protecting a coal barge beached on a New Orleans levy to securing millions of dollars worth of narcotics in an isolated warehouse. The unusual nature of these assignments and the absence of functional infrastructure in the affected area created some unique command, communication, and logistical challenges. In response to this experience, CIS created EDICTS (The Emergency Deployment Information and Command Tracking System). EDICTS is a database-driven information management system for tracking the status of client assets, locations, personnel movements, incidents, and field logistics. By consolidating this information in one integrated system with continuous updating by experienced command center operators, CIS commanders have immediate and up-to-date access to information about critical activities in the field. In addition to significantly enhancing the effectiveness of our command and logistical activities, EDICTS also provides our clients located away from the disaster zone with direct access to real-time information about the status of their facilities and personnel.