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SECURITY AT PLACES OF WORSHIP: MORE THAN A MATTER OF FAITH

By Scott Stewart and Fred Burton

In
recent months, several high-profile incidents have raised awareness of
the threat posed by individuals and small groups operating under the
principles of leaderless resistance. These incidents have included lone
wolf attacks against a doctor who performed abortions in Kansas, an
armed forces recruitment center in Arkansas and the U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Additionally, a grassroots jihadist
cell was arrested for attempting to bomb Jewish targets in the Bronx
and planning to shoot down a military aircraft at an Air National Guard
base in Newburgh, N.Y.

In addition to pointing out the threat
posed by grassroots cells and lone wolf operatives, another common
factor in all of these incidents is the threat of violence to houses of
worship. The cell arrested in New York left what they thought to be
active improvised explosive devices outside the Riverdale Temple and
the Riverdale Jewish Community Center. Dr. George Tiller was shot and
killed in the lobby of the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita.
Although Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad conducted his attacks against a
Little Rock recruiting center, he had conducted preoperational
surveillance and research on targets that included Jewish organizations
and a Baptist church in places as far away as Atlanta and Philadelphia.
And while James von Brunn attacked the Holocaust Museum, he had a list
of other potential targets in his vehicle that included the National
Cathedral.

In light of this common thread, it might be
instructive to take a more detailed look at the issue of providing
security for places of worship.

Awareness: The First Step

Until
there is awareness of the threat, little can be done to counter it. In
many parts of the world, such as Iraq, India and Pakistan, attacks
against places of worship occur fairly frequently. It is not difficult
for religious leaders and members of their congregations in such places
to be acutely aware of the dangers facing them and to have measures
already in place to deal with those perils. This is not always the case
in the United States, however, where many people tend to have an “it
can't happen here” mindset, believing that violence in or directed
against places of worship is something that happens only to other
people elsewhere.

This mindset is particularly pervasive among
predominantly white American Protestant and Roman Catholic
congregations. Jews, Mormons, Muslims and black Christians, and others
who have been targeted by violence in the past, tend to be far more
aware of the threat and are far more likely to have security plans and
measures in place to counter it. The Jewish community has very
well-developed and professional organizations such as the Secure
Community Network (SCN) and the Anti-Defamation League that are
dedicated to monitoring threats and providing education about the
threats and advice regarding security. The Council on American-Islamic
Relations has taken on a similar role for the Muslim community and has
produced a “Muslim community safety kit” for local mosques. The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) also has a very organized
and well-connected security department that provides information and
security advice and assistance to LDS congregations worldwide.

There
are no functional equivalents to the SCN or the LDS security
departments in the larger Catholic, evangelical Protestant and mainline
Protestant communities, though there are some organizations such as the
recently established Christian Security Network that have been
attempting to fill the void.

Following an incident, awareness of
the threat seems to rise for a time, and some houses of worship will
put some security measures in place, but for the most part such
incidents are seen as events that take place elsewhere, and the
security measures are abandoned after a short time.

Permanent
security measures are usually not put in place until there has been an
incident of some sort at a specific house of worship, and while the
triggering incident is sometimes something that merely provides a good
scare, other times it is a violent action that results in tragedy. Even
when no one is hurt in the incident, the emotional damage caused to a
community by an act of vandalism or arson at a house of worship can be
devastating.

It is important to note here that not all threats
to places of worship will emanate from external actors. In the midst of
any given religious congregation, there are, by percentages, people
suffering from serious mental illnesses, people engaged in bitter
child-custody disputes, domestic violence situations and messy
divorces. Internal disputes in the congregation can also lead to feuds
and violence. Any of these situations can (and have) led to acts of
violence inside houses of worship.

Security Means More than Alarms and Locks

An
effective security program is more than just having physical security
measures in place. Like any man-made constructs, physical security
measures — closed-circuit television (CCTV), alarms, cipher locks and
so forth — have finite utility. They serve a valuable purpose in
institutional security programs, but an effective security program
cannot be limited to these things. Devices cannot think or evaluate.
They are static and can be observed, learned and even fooled. Also,
because some systems frequently produce false alarms, warnings in real
danger situations may be brushed aside. Given these shortcomings, it is
quite possible for anyone planning an act of violence to map out,
quantify and then defeat or bypass physical security devices. However,
elaborate planning is not always necessary. Consider the common
scenario of a heavy metal door with very good locks that is propped
open with a trashcan or a door wedge. In such a scenario, an otherwise
“secure” door is defeated by an internal security lapse.

However,
even in situations where there is a high degree of threat awareness,
there is a tendency to place too much trust in physical security
measures, which can become a kind of crutch — and, ironically, an
obstacle to effective security.

In fact, to be effective,
physical security devices always require human interaction. An alarm is
useless if no one responds to it, or if it is not turned on; a lock is
ineffective if it is not engaged. CCTV cameras are used extensively in
corporate office buildings and some houses of worship, but any
competent security manager will tell you that, in reality, they are far
more useful in terms of investigating a theft or act of violence after
the fact than in preventing one (although physical security devices can
sometimes cause an attacker to divert to an easier target).

No
matter what kinds of physical security measures may be in place at a
facility, they are far less likely to be effective if a potential
assailant feels free to conduct preoperational surveillance, and is
free to observe and map those physical security measures. The more at
ease someone feels as they set about identifying and quantifying the
physical security systems and procedures in place, the higher the odds
they will find ways to beat the system.

A truly “hard” target is
one that couples physical security measures with an aggressive, alert
attitude and sense of awareness. An effective security program is
proactive — looking outward to where most real threats are lurking –
rather than inward, where the only choice is to react once an attack
has begun to unfold. We refer to this process of proactively looking
for threats as protective intelligence.

The human interaction
required to make physical security measures effective, and to transform
a security program into a proactive protective intelligence program,
can come in the form of designated security personnel. In fact, many
large houses of worship do utilize off-duty police officers, private
security guards, volunteer security guards or even a dedicated security
staff to provide this coverage. In smaller congregations, security
personnel can be members of the congregation who have been provided
some level of training.

However, even in cases where there are
specially designated security personnel, such officers have only so
many eyes and can only be in a limited number of places at any one
time. Thus, proactive security programs should also work to foster a
broad sense of security awareness among the members of the congregation
and community, and use them as additional resources.

Unfortunately,
in many cases, there is often a sense in the religious community that
security is bad for the image of a particular institution, or that it
will somehow scare people away from houses of worship. Because of this,
security measures, if employed, are often hidden or concealed from the
congregation. In such cases, security managers are deprived of many
sets of eyes and ears. Certainly, there may be certain facets of a
security plan that not everyone in the congregation needs to know
about, but in general, an educated and aware congregation and community
can be a very valuable security asset.

Training

In
order for a congregation to maintain a sense of heightened awareness it
must learn how to effectively do that. This training should not leave
people scared or paranoid — just more observant. People need to be
trained to look for individuals who are out of place, which can be
somewhat counterintuitive. By nature, houses of worship are open to
outsiders and seek to welcome strangers. They frequently have a steady
turnover of new faces. This causes many to believe that, in houses of
worship, there is a natural antagonism between security and openness,
but this does not have to be the case. A house of worship can have both
a steady stream of visitors and good security, especially if that
security is based upon situational awareness.

At its heart,
situational awareness is about studying people, and such scrutiny will
allow an observer to pick up on demeanor mistakes that might indicate
someone is conducting surveillance. Practicing awareness and paying
attention to the people approaching or inside a house of worship can
also open up a whole new world of ministry opportunities, as people
“tune in” to others and begin to perceive things they would otherwise
miss if they were self-absorbed or simply not paying attention. In
other words, practicing situational awareness provides an excellent
opportunity for the members of a congregation to focus on the needs and
burdens of other people.

It is important to remember that every
attack cycle follows the same general steps. All criminals — whether
they are stalkers, thieves, lone wolves or terrorist groups — engage
in preoperational surveillance (sometimes called “casing,” in the
criminal lexicon). Perhaps the most crucial point to be made about
preoperational surveillance is that it is the phase when someone with
hostile intentions is most apt to be detected — and the point in the
attack cycle when potential violence can be most easily disrupted or
prevented.

The second most critical point to emphasize about
surveillance is that most criminals are not that good at it. They often
have terrible surveillance tradecraft and are frequently very obvious.
Most often, the only reason they succeed in conducting surveillance
without being detected is because nobody is looking for them. Because
of this, even ordinary people, if properly instructed, can note
surveillance activity.

It is also critically important to teach
people — including security personnel and members of the congregation
– what to do if they see something suspicious and whom to call to
report it. Unfortunately, a lot of critical intelligence is missed
because it is not reported in a timely manner — or not reported at all
– mainly because untrained people have a habit of not trusting their
judgment and dismissing unusual activity. People need to be encouraged
to report what they see.

Additionally, people who have been
threatened, are undergoing nasty child-custody disputes or have active
restraining orders protecting them against potentially violent people
need to be encouraged to report unusual activity to their appropriate
points of contact.

As a part of their security training, houses
of worship should also instruct their staff and congregation members on
procedures to follow if a shooter enters the building and creates what
is called an active-shooter situation. These “shooter” drills should be
practiced regularly — just like fire, tornado or earthquake drills.
The teachers of children's classes and nursery workers must also be
trained in how to react.

Liaison

One of the things
the SCN and ADL do very well is foster security liaison among Jewish
congregations within a community and between those congregations and
local, state and federal law enforcement organizations. This is
something that houses of worship from other faiths should attempt to
duplicate as part of their security plans.

While having a local
cop in a congregation is a benefit, contacting the local police
department should be the first step. It is very important to establish
this contact before there is a crisis in order to help expedite any law
enforcement response. Some police departments even have dedicated
community liaison officers, who are good points of initial contact.
There are other specific points of contact that should also be
cultivated within the local department, such as the SWAT team and the
bomb squad.

Local SWAT teams often appreciate the chance to do a
walk-through of a house of worship so that they can learn the layout of
the building in case they are ever called to respond to an emergency
there. They also like the opportunity to use different and challenging
buildings for training exercises (something that can be conducted
discreetly after hours). Congregations with gyms and weight rooms will
often open them up for local police officers to exercise in, and some
congregations will also offer police officers a cup of coffee and a
desk where they can sit and type their reports during evening hours.

But
the local police department is not the only agency with which liaison
should be established. Depending on the location of the house of
worship, the state police, state intelligence fusion center or local
joint terrorism task force should also be contacted. By working through
state and federal channels, houses of worship in specific locations may
even be eligible for grants to help underwrite security through
programs such as the Department of Homeland Security's Urban Areas
Security Initiative Nonprofit Security Grant Program.

The world
is a dangerous place and attacks against houses of worship will
continue to occur. But there are proactive security measures that can
be taken to identify attackers before they strike and help prevent
attacks from happening or mitigate their effects when they do.

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Copyright 2009 Stratfor.