City Watch
In April of this year, Auckland City awarded Global Security the contract to facilitate the “City Watch” project. The Global Security officers patrol the central city 24/7 keeping a watch on general security and any anti-social behaviours. Our officers have been educated in the by-laws of the city and are tasked with enforcing these, particularly in relation to window washers, beggars, street vendors, buskers etc. We also act as ambassadors giving advice and directions to out of town visitors. They are armed with clever technology which enables them to create a job, take a photo and write a report which can then be emailed to appropriate parties with GPS co-ordinates and a link for the recipient to open the photo and escalate or take further action if required. This data capture also enables the tracking of trends in the city providing valuable insight and the ability to adapt to changes pro-actively. Just in the month of November, our officers logged 723 jobs ranging from moving vagrants on to advice on shops and shopping hours to overseas visitors.
As a result of the great results achieved, we now also provide a mobile response Region-wide for Anti-Social Behaviour.
Retail Watch and Bar Watch
These initiatives were developed as a joint venture between the Police and the Auckland City Business Association “Heart of the City”. Global Security is proud to have been chosen as the facilitating partner for these projects. Retail watch is a free to the retailer initiative funded by Heart of the City which allows retailers to alert us to known shoplifters in the area or any trouble makers coming onto their premises. We then have the communication platform for our operators to distribute this information to all prescribed retailers in the city. This service used to be administered by a community constable on the beat in Queen Street. The service was only available when she was on duty. With Global Security and Heart of the City providing the service, it’s now a 7 days per week service utilised by around 100 retailers including Smith & Caughey and Whitcoulls.
Bar Watch is a mayoral task force initiative which stemmed from Len Browns walk about in the CBD at 3am one morning. The display of aggressive and anti social behaviours caused by intoxicated people gave rise to the idea of Bar Watch. Once again, Heart of the City appointed Global Security to facilitate this service on their behalf. Global Security provides the communication platform which allows the participating bars and clubs to communicate with each other, our communication centre, The Police alcohol harm reduction team and the Police CCTV operators that Police Command Centre. The purpose of the initiative is to identify and circulate information regarding underage drinkers and unruly anti-social behaviours. The security staff of the bars and clubs that sign up are provided with a mobile communication device which has a push to talk application centrally managed by Global Security. The motto of the project is: “Barred from one, barred from all”.
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