Shopping Centre & Retail Security

Centre managers need a security partner who understands that every incident affects tenants and footfall. Our role on a shopping centre contract typically covers:

• officers at main entrances and in walkways during trading hours;
• patrols of parking areas, ramps and pedestrian routes to and from cars;
• control of service entrances, loading bays and refuse areas;
• after-hours guarding and alarm response once tenants have locked up;
• support during cash collections at tenant stores where arranged.

Officers are briefed to be helpful to shoppers, from directions to lost children procedures, while staying alert.

Many crimes linked to shopping centres take place in or near the parking area: theft from vehicles, vehicle theft and people being followed from the centre. Visible patrols on foot or with patrol vehicles, coordinated with CCTV coverage of entrances and exits, help deter this and give shoppers someone to approach.

We look at lighting, blind areas and pedestrian routes during the assessment and make practical recommendations to centre management.

Individual retailers face their own losses. Alongside the centre contract, or for standalone stores, we offer loss control officers and store detectives, and plain-clothes undercover officers where internal theft is suspected.

Centre officers can be briefed to respond to a tenant's call for assistance, help with a suspected shoplifter until SAPS arrives, and record incidents so trends across the centre are visible to management.

Busy periods such as month-end, school holidays and the festive season bring larger crowds and more opportunistic crime. We can add officers for peak days and centre promotions, and provide event security for activations or concerts held at the centre.

Officers are trained on your emergency plan, including evacuations, and work with centre management and emergency services during incidents. All personnel are PSIRA-registered, screened and supervised, with incident reports provided to centre management. Contract terms and staffing levels are confirmed after a site assessment.