The Good Sec Thread(tm)

[Coolguye]

When its not a life or death situation, be polite and give someone a chance to explain themselves and or come in quietly first.

The problem being, on the ground? This never happens. EVER. If you, as an Officer, catch someone doing something they shouldn't and you try to be polite and talk to them first, they're either going to rabbit (and most likely get away, causing the Sophie's choice of chasing or letting them go) or attack the officer, who now has conceded the advantage to their suspect.

The overwhelming majority of suspects I've arrested that are resistant, abusive, and shitty are non-antags. Honestly the last 7 times I've arrested someone who just admits to crimes I caught them performing like a sane person, they've been a traitor or changeling. I end up wishing the guy I'm arresting is secretly an antagonist so I can just give them the brig time and a free blunt and move on. A lot of the problems I see between normal crew members and Sec stem specifically from unrealistic expectations like this. An officer who's afraid of offending people, plain and simple, is either an empty red suit or a loot pinata.

People are a hell of a lot more cooperative towards a nice officer than a total dick who bucklecuffs you and feeds you Dan's for slipping them up on a banana.

See, these are the sorts of extremes that I'm hoping to clarify here. There's a lot of behaviors in between ineffectually spooking suspects and being That Guy That Made Shitcurity A Thing. We've got altogether too many fucking examples of extreme rhetoric as it is.

So the question becomes, what is a fair balance between being forceful enough to be effective, and gentle enough to not be a dickhead? The way I personally do it is that I will flash/cuff/pull someone to keep them from running away, THEN ask them what the fuck they were doing. If they can explain what the hell is going on, I'll release them with an apology. I also try to keep a scooby snack of some sort on hand that I can give to people I've wrongfully arrested. The one I like most is Tricord pills, which you can get from Chemistry if they're paying attention. Other times I just grab a donut from the Sec office.

One big thing I never see Security do is communictae with the crew.

So would you like to see security do a radio announcement when they arrest someone, or set Beepsky after someone via the Sec computer? If so that's fine, I'm just trying to clarify to specifics.