By Kendall Worth
For regular readers, you know that I write about raising the rates, but also about other issues that arise for people living in poverty. Over the last year I wrote about another major issue that needs to be addressed. On March 14th, I wrote:
“issue of people in poverty, with mental health issues, getting harassed by police and private security guards when all they are doing is “Just sitting or standing – Just minding their business – not causing trouble – and keeping to themselves”, basically giving the public no reason for them to complain or for police or security guards to approach them”
My most recent story on the subject is about being approached by private security and spoken to in an uncalled for, stigmatizing, and judgmental manner about their inappropriate body language, making others feel uncomfortable. Following that I wrote an open letter to individual employers of private security guards, asking about training. So far I have not heard from any of them. What I seemed to learn myself, is that it appears that Nova Scotia is the only province that does not require mandatory, third party training and provincial testing? The feeling in the air, is we may be grossly out of step, and the community of people living in poverty; at least the ones contacting me, agree 100%.
Some people contacted me, after the open letter was published, suggesting that I should write a follow up, asking the Nova Scotia government to introduce a bill, (or a private members bill from an opposition MLA?), in the next sitting of the house, to require private security guards to have 3rd party training and provincial testing, in-order to be employed as private security guards, in Nova Scotia. This Bill should include a requirement for those employing security guards – that they ensure that those they hire and deploy have this training.
So folks from my community agree that security guards should have this training , but, they ask should other steps also be taken to curb the uncalled for, stigmatizing, and judgmental behaviour of private security when dealing with complaints about inappropriate body language?
I have written a number of posts about the fact that we have to look at the why of those actions/behaviours. It is not one thing, but different for everyone. Those behaviours, outlined here, include: Behaviours like fidgeting, staring at people, behaviour interpreted as intoxication even though they have not been drinking. They are also accused of giving mismatched verbal and nonverbal messages/communication. we have to look at these behaviours from different perspectives. Why are people getting this attention and/or why are they behaving this way
Some people who saw my open letter to security firms, suggest that although every case is different, maybe something needs to be addressed in our mental health system in order to prevent the whole issue. Private security guards should not be approaching people with mental health issues, and speaking to them about complaints from other people, that the guard received, while the individual was just minding their own business and not causing trouble. In other situations, it is the people complaining who need to adjust THEIR attitude.
Lets push MLA’s to get a bill like this introduced in the upcoming spring sitting of the legislature. Let’s make training private security guards including mental health education, a requirement
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