NCJ Number
89323
Date Published
1983
Length
302 pages
Annotation
This text describes the legal rights available to security officers, corporations, partnerships, and individually owned businesses for the protection of their property from employees theft, customers, and criminals.
Abstract
Initial chapters focus on the laws of arrest and search and seizure as they apply to police officers, security officers, and private citizens. They also review the legal consequences of an illegal arrest or search, the contractual release of a false arrest claim, and the owner's basic right to regain personal property. The text then examines laws governing temporary detention of employees and customers by security officers, as well as interrogation of suspects. The discussion of scientific investigations focuses on employees, describing fingerprint, handwriting, typewriting, and tool mark identification, lock-picking evidence, dyes on anticipated objects of thievery, electronic devices, and polygraphs. Other chapters address legal privileges and limitations affecting security surveillance of customers and employees, the merchant's right to eject persons from the premises, and the right to unionize or protest at business establishments. The text identifies sources of information on an individual's dishonesty or criminality that are available to employers and explores laws governing employer use of psychological tests to ascertain a person's proclivity toward criminality or dishonesty. The final sections survey the criminal justice system from criminal law principles through arrest and trial, with attention to a security officer's preparing a burglary or robbery case for prosecution and his or her demeanor as a witness. References accompany each chapter. The book provides a survey of State statutes of concern to merchants and security officers and an index.