Observe and report

Definition

The floor of what an officer may do, which is what any private person may do.

Why It Matters

Post orders describe the job and this prices the tail risk, and the two are often in conflict on one site. An unarmed contract officer holds no police power. California lets a private person arrest for an offense committed in their presence or on reasonable cause that a felony occurred, and Ohio's rule is narrower still, reaching felonies alone. Anything above that floor is borrowed from the client: a merchant's privilege lets a merchant or its agent detain on probable cause, in a reasonable manner, for a reasonable time, using nondeadly force. Every one of those words is a defense a jury weighs after the company has already been sued. So a book carrying retail detentions, hospital restraint or venue work has a different loss history from an observe-and-report book at the same revenue, and sellers rarely separate the two. Read the post orders against the client contracts, ask whether the officer is named the client's agent, and count how many incident reports in three years describe hands on a person.