BERG v. ALLIED SECURITY INC. et al.

In Berg v. Allied Security Inc. et al. case, Joan Berg, who was the plaintiff in the case filed a petition against the Allied Security Inc. and Podolsky & Associates Inc. in the Circuit Court of Cook County. The petition was for personal injury act that Berg Inc. et al. had effected on the plaintiff. The Circuit court, on 4th September 1996, gave a ruling judgment that was in favor of the two defendants. After exactly one month, which was on 4th October the same year, the plaintiff moved back to the Circuit court to seek reconsideration and therefore requested the court for a leave to amend. The Circuit court, on the 15th of October, denied the plaintiff the leave to amend. The plaintiff decided to file a notice of appeal which she did after five days, which was on 26th November.

After the filing of the appeal, the defendant, in the Appellate court argued that the notice of appeal by the plaintiff was untimely. In spite of the appeal being filed after only one week after disposal by the Circuit court, the defendants argued that the Appellate court lacked the jurisdiction to hear the appeal by saying that the plaintiff’s motion did not qualify to present the motion as per section 2-1203 of the 735 ILCS 5/2-1203 (West 1998) code of civil procedure (Clinton, 791). The appellate court, however, disregarded the jurisdiction challenge by the defendants and consequently addressed the appeal by the plaintiff. Citing the existence of material facts on the issue, the appellate court held that the summary judgment was improper. The summary judgment granted in favor of the defendants by the Circuit court was put aside by the Appellate court and the case was to proceed in the Circuit court.

After the judgment, the two defendants sought for a leave in the Supreme Court. Just as they had done in the Circuit court, the defendants, in the supreme court the defendants argued that the post-judgment motion by the plaintiff lacked the sufficiency to toll the filing time since the filing was done 30 days after the Circuit court’s ruling and added still that the appellate court lacked jurisdiction to hear the plaintiff’s appeal (Clinton, 791). The Supreme Court of Illinois gave both the defendants leave to appeal. Noting that the plaintiff had presented her case 42 days after the denial of her motion by the circuit court, the Supreme Court of Illinois vacated the court of appeals decision and thus dismissing the appeal. Under rule 303(a) of the Supreme Court, an appeal notice should be filed within the first 30 days of the judgment (Marshall, 497).

The plaintiff, Joan Berg, on the 27th of March 1992, was attacked by a man who held a solid metal bar in his hand in a parking lot as she was getting back to her workplace for the 2 p.m. to 12 a. m. shift. She had gone to pick some pizzas for her fellow workers. The plaintiff was hit in the back of her head as she stepped out of the car. She was repeatedly struck using the metal rod after being pushed into the front seat of the car. The attacker only fled after Joan Berg sounded the horn. According to existing records, this was the first case of violent attack although there were about 20 cases of automobile and property damage and one case of fondling of a woman’s buttock.

On matters security, there was a lease between the plaintiff’s employer and Podolsky, who was the landlord. Some security rights that landlord is reserved to is installation, operation and maintenance of security systems in buildings that monitor, via the use of CCTV cameras or any other means, all the people leaving an entering the building. Incidentally, Podolsky had an already put in place monitoring system and in addition, he had hired Allied to offer a 24 hours security on his premises. There was some mutual agreement between Podolsky and Allied where the contractor (Allied) would be responsible for the furnishing of security personnel. Allied, therefore, issued its guards with the following orders:

1. Keeping unauthorized persons from the premises so that to lessen risks of assault, theft, and vandalism.
2. Assisting the employees and the visitors to have access control of the premises environments.
3. Lessening threats of property damage due to flooding, fire and equipment failure among other causes.

To achieve this, they were charged with the duties of maintaining visibility of very high level, effectively dealing with the arising situations such as equipment failure or unauthorized visitors, relentless alertness and reporting of suspicious cases such as loiterers and also seeking for appropriate assistance in critical situations (George, 15). Having done this, Podolsky made an advertisement to all his tenants, the plaintiff’s employer included, that there will be a 24 hours security including patrols at the parking lot. It was Podolsky’s decision of how many guards will be needed in his premises. On top of having Allied to provide the security, there were 20 installed CCTV cameras all over the premises and connected to four monitors. The Guards were charged with controlling where the cameras viewed at any given time. At the time the plaintiff was attacked, the camera that was to view the parking lot was off and therefore would not scan. Podolsky fired the Allied security nine months after the attack and hired a new security team to offer the security services.

In such a case, the plaintiff had to provide sufficient facts to show that there existed a duty to the plaintiff by the defendant, show a breach of the duty and a proximately resulting injury from the breach. According to White (11), landlords are not required by law to protect a person from criminal activities perpetrated by a third party on their property unless there is an existing special relationship between the parties. A Landowner may, however, voluntarily, decide to provide security in their promises (George, 31). Nevertheless, when the landlord agrees to provide some specified security services to his tenants, a duty arises and he is therefore required by the law to provide the services, of which he should not breach the duty (White, 11). In the case of Berg v Allied et. al., Allied and Podolsky voluntarily decided to get into a contract.

In this case, there was a voluntary agreement for one party to protect the other and therefore it was a legal duty for Podolsky to protect the plaintiff against a criminal act (White, 10). The court also recognized the fact that although the defendant had a duty to protect the plaintiff, it was not construed to absolute protection just like an insurance. In the case, Allied argued that its duties of providing security were limited to the building only and did not include security at the parking lot. Allied added that it did not have authority over the parking lot and in the case of the attack, it would not intervene since it did not have the authority to do so. On his side, Podolsky argued that the attack was unforeseeable since it was the first case of a violent attack on his premises.

Although Podolsky had put up some security measures to curb any unforeseen challenges of security, the protection system was not able to meet its intended purpose. When evaluating and analyzing a Physical Protection System (PPS) design, it is mandatory to first understand and review the protection objectives that the design is meant to accomplish (Valera & Sergio, 200). A PPS integrates procedures, equipment, and people for protection for protection of property and facilities against human attacks, sabotage, and thefts. PPS developers, when installing their IP/CCTV monitors, should ensure that the facilities are in good working conditions ((Valera & Sergio, 200). With this, it is also possible to ensure that the facilities will learn within the specified time. To formulate the objectives of the PPS, the designer should follow three procedural concepts. To begin with, he should characterize the facility conditions and operations. Secondly, he should define all the probable threats and finally, he ought to identify the major targets (Valera & Sergio, 200).

Some guidelines should be observed when designing the PPS systems. The systems work best when detections are far from their targets and delays near to the target (Valera & Sergio, 200). Similarly, there are very close associations between the exterior detections and interior assessment. Without assessment, detection is not detection since it has no use. Additionally, detection devices should be well interlinked with the assessment devices (Valera & Sergio, 200). By the installation of 20 CCTV cameras all around the premises, Podolsky had well designed the detection system to cater for any emerging insecurities in the building. On top of that, he had installed four monitors to cater for the assessment part of the security. In addition, he had put in place some security guards to observe the monitors for any possible detections. It is therefore easy to note that the design and evaluation of the CCTV cameras were effective if they were to be adhered to by the persons responsible for operating them (Seo, 93). However, there are still some limitations that the PPS had. At the time the plaintiff was attacked, the CCTV camera that was installed to detect any unauthorized persons was not in scan mode. The fact that the camera was not in scan mode would suggest different things. First, it would be probable that the system was not functioning properly (Ray & Herting, 19). This would be against the PPS design and assessment criteria. Secondly, it would suggest that there was negligence on the part of the security team who was charged with the mandate of ensuring that there was a 24-hour security on the premises.

According to Cozens, Paul, Greg, and David (340), Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is a general concept that explains how crimes can be contained in the natural environment. It is influenced by the layout of the environment which includes how buildings are laid out, and the ease or difficulty of accessing a particular premise. The basic strategy of CPTED is natural surveillance, natural access control and territorial enforcement (Cozens et. al., 74). In natural surveillance, facilities are designed in such a way that makes intruders in a particular environment to be observed by the tenants and employees. Natural access control is the design that facilitates the flow of movements which are naturally controlled by building features and sites (Cozens et. al., 341).

Territorial reinforcement involves the design that makes the residents of a place feel secure and a place that discourages intruders (Cozens et. al., 341). In his premises, Podolsky had not well integrated the CPTED concept as he had only concentrated on the employment of security guards and monitoring CCTV cameras to secure the place. The guards were required to patrol the areas all around the premises to ensure that they man the environment and raise alarm in case of any criminal activities. On the contrary, the security persons were negligent on their duties as they disregarded the parking area where the plaintiff was attacked. According to the plaintiff’s petition, she was brutalized and there was not even a single guard in the vicinity who appeared to rescue her. It was not until she sounded the horn when the criminal fled. Still, no guard appeared to see what was happening in the parking lot and therefore the perpetrator of the crime was not identified.

According to the Berg v. Allied Security Inc. et al. case, it is easy to note that there was no mention of the alarm systems as one of the many security installations that Podolsky had installed. The fact that the culprit of the assault was neither arrested nor identified means that the alarm security system and the display were not well developed (George, 87)). After sounding the horn by the plaintiff, there ought to have been some other workers or security guards who heard the alarm alert and sounded other alarms for an instant reaction to capture the perpetrator of the crime (George, 87). Since nobody else sounded the alarm, it is probable that the alarm display system was not very effective on the premises.

Conclusively, Joan Berg, who was the plaintiff is seen to have lost in a great way since her case did not have the opportunity to be heard since the Supreme Court ruled in the favor of the two defendants. On his side, besides winning the case since it did not proceed—as he pleaded, he is seen to have gone an extra mile of protecting his tenants as he had hired some security agents to provide security services. Additionally, he had also installed 20 CCTV cameras and four monitors. All these shows that he had done a great deal of providing security in his premises although there was a case of violent assault which was unforeseeable.

Works cited

Cozens, Paul Michael, Greg Saville, and David Hillier. “Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED): a review and modern bibliography.” Property management 23.5 (2005): 328-356.

Clinton, Robert N. “A Mandatory View of Federal Court Jurisdiction: A Guided Quest for the Original Understanding of Article III.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 132.4 (1984): 741-866.

George, James P., and Anna K. Teller. “Conflict of Laws (2007).” SMU Law Review 60 (2007): 817.

Marshall, Thomas R. “Policymaking and the Modern Court: When Do Supreme Court Rulings Prevail?” Western Political Quarterly 42.4 (1989): 493-507.

Ray, David L., and Christopher A. Hertig. “The future of security.” Security supervision and management: Theory and practice of asset protection (2008): 11-20.

Seo, Tae-Woong “An analysis of vulnerabilities and performance on the CCTV security monitoring and control.” Journal of Korea Multimedia Society 15.1 (2012): 93-100.

White, Jonathan Randall. Defending the homeland: Domestic intelligence, law enforcement, and security. Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2004.

Valera, Maria, and Sergio A. Velastin. “Intelligent distributed surveillance systems: A review.” IEE Proceedings-Vision, Image and Signal Processing 152.2 (2005): 192-204.

Practicum Experience

Over the course of my study, the practicum experience has been the most challenging one yet. Despite the exposure to real-life work and application of the various school material in the said environment, this experience has had its ups and downs. However, all of these shifts have been learning situations that have facilitated the accumulation of knowledge, experience as well as self-improvement to take place.  Accordingly, during the practicum, I have witnessed the benefits, challenges, and the role of leadership in the changing circumstances of the workplace.

During my everyday observation of the institution, it has become increasingly clear that leadership plays a vital role in the translation of evidence into practice. Accordingly, honing my management skill has morphed into an urgent necessity. It is the only way I will translate anything I have learned into practice. I foresee the importance of understanding the institution’s culture and attitudes towards leadership and change. The only way I can utilize any research there is through carefully navigating these hurdles and cultivating relationships between the general research utilization, beliefs and attitudes and the respective roles (Squires et al., 2011). These are integral components of the culture at the organization. Furthermore, I need to acquire a few extra traits to accomplish my goal. I have to put increased value on research, benchmarking evidence-based care, supporting changes in traditional practice, give out feedback, and to work on my communication skills. Therefore, I foresee that working ion these areas gives me a better chance of successfully translating the evidence into practice.

The practicum environment was running fairly smoothly. However, I noticed one traditional practice in nursing that was still being utilized. Several hospitals still perform the instillation of 5 to 10 ML of normal saline before endotracheal suction is done (Rauen et al., 2008). This practice is a common component of managing artificial airways although there is virtually no evidence to support the benefits of the exercise. Advocates of the procedure argue that it helps in oxygenation, thinning, and removal of secretions (Rauen et al., 2008). All of these claims have been proven to be fallacies by the respective specialists. Furthermore, instillation of has been found to expose patients to bacterial contaminations resulting in cases such as hospital-acquired pneumonia and so forth. Therefore, from my practicum, I can conclude that institution needs to change its saline installation practice.

The practicum setting needs to implement change to avoid outdated practices that are not evidence-based. Such change would entail the AHRQ mode; for knowledge transfer (Titler, 2008). This model is pillared on three key practices; creation and distillation of knowledge, diffusion and dissemination, organizational adaptation and management. Knowledge creation and distillation entails researching while accounting for expected variations in readiness in health care delivery (Titler, 2008). The findings are packaged in a way that they can be translated into evidence-based practice within the organization.  End users should inform the process of distilling the information. The next step involves gathering the professional opinion of leaders and healthcare organizations to work together in the sharing of information that can be the basis of action. Such partnerships make it easy for the horizontal transfer of data that can improve patient safety. Lastly, the organization can transition to end-user adoption and instrumentations (Titler, 2008).

In essence, practitioners from one organization can get research findings from another and utilize them. This phase of the process involves getting the entire organization to implement a particular evidence-based practice. It is during this stage that good leadership proves essential as it is often characterized by transitions within the organization. Therefore, the most appropriate change to propose in the practicum setting is the adoption of a system to translate evidence into practice in the organization.

Leaders have a role in guiding the entire change process. Change, despite how small, can be scary and even disorienting in any institution. Hence, it is important to note the facilitators of the planned change. In this case, it would be a long-term change implementation hence it should be driven by agents of long-term perspective (Ghasemy & Hussin, 2015). The leader should also put into account the four change interventions to enable him to achieve the desired outcome. These are commanding, engineering, planning teaching, and socializing (Ghasemy & Hussin, 2015). On the other hand, resistance to change promises to be the greatest inhibitor to the implementation process. Based on my leadership style, transformational leadership, I see several opportunities and challenges in the practicum. The main opportunity is that this style encourages people to adopt new policies and procedures due to the trust and confidence built (Ghasemy & Hussin, 2015). Such outcomes would be extremely beneficial for the organization. Regarding the anticipated challenges, not every leader in the practicum environment uses transformation to lead. As a result, there might be friction from such leaders during the process.

Indeed, the practicum experience has been a challenging as well as a learning platform. I learned that leadership plays a central role in the translation of evidence into practice in the organization. Accordingly, I worked on honing my skills as a leader for the very same purpose. Based on my observations the practicum environment appeared relatively okay. However, practices such as the instillation of normal saline during endotracheal suction could use a change per evidence-based practice. For the institution to ensure that it is constantly translating evidence into practice, they could adopt the AHRQ mode. This adoption will require transformational leadership to be successful.

References

Ghasemy, M., & Hussin, S. (2015). Change, leadership and change- oriented leadership theories in   higher education: A review.

Rauen, C. A., Chulay, M., Bridges, E., Vollman, K. & Arbour, R. (2008). Seven evidence-based practice habits: putting some sacred cows out to pasture. Critical Care Nurse, 28(2), 98-123.

Squires, J. E., Estabrooks, C. A., Gustavsson, P., & Wallin, L. (2011). Individual determinants of research utilization by nurses: a systematic review update. Implement Sci, 6(1). .

Titler, M. G. (2008). Chapter 7 the evidence for evidence-based practice implementation. Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses, (7).

Racism in America

Racism is one the most pressing social issues in America, among many others. From the beginning of the country, up until the present day, racism has been a part of American society, and it has negatively impacted the lives of many minority groups throughout its history. While the situation has gotten better over the years, it is still a major problem, and, because of this, many scholars and academics have studied the issue trying to explain its root causes. In particular, psychologists have determined three explanations for racism in America. Therefore, what follows below is a brief discussion of racism in America, along with a look at three psychological theories that help explain it: socialization, prejudice, and stereotypes.

Racism can be commonly defined as the idea that all members of a race have the same defining characteristics, either positive or negative. This comes in many forms, some obvious and easy to label as racist and others more subtle, requiring detailed analysis. For example, subtle forms of racism include members of a race not being hired at the rates as others, communities that are predominantly one race being designed so that they have less access to services, schools of predominantly one race being less funded, and countless other examples. These types of examples can be found throughout American society, where the victims are often African Americans and Hispanics and the perpetrators are often white, although it can happen between any two ethnic groups. Because of how widespread it is, it is important that the causes and the effects of racism be studied so that maybe that can be combated.

Racism in America is revealed in the data. For example, African Americans make up 12.7% of the population, yet they are arrested for 37% of violent crimes such as murder and assault and 29% of robberies. This shows that the law enforcement and judicial system is biased towards African Americans, in that they are more likely to be arrest and convict African Americans. Furthermore, according to the Harvard Business Review, African Americans are hired at less rates than other demographics. The study in question looked at hiring rates over many years, involving almost 43,000 applications for almost 21,000 positions. The researchers determined that there was little change in the rates that African Americans were hired, suggesting that this form of racism has not changed since 1990, the earliest the data was collected (Quillian, 2017). Statistics like this show that racism is sown into the fabric of American society, forcing some to have less opportunity, even today. Therefore, it is hard to argue against the fact that racism is still prevalent in American and a continually negative force in the lives of many Americans.

To explain why racism like this happens, not just in America, but all over the world and throughout history, the field of human psychology needs to be employed. First of all, the concept of socialization needs to be addressed. This can be defined as a person adopting the values and beliefs of the society in which they raised. Regarding racism, if a society is predominantly one race and this race is racist then these negative ideas get perpetuated as children grow up witnessing it and learning it. This happens in many ways, including many that are imperceptible, such as how races are depicted in advertising or in movies. According to one paper the way a child watches their parents has an effect later in life. They claim, “an adolescent’s perception of their parent’s racial socialization practices is a dynamic influence on the relationship between racism and racial identity expressions of African American school-aged youth” (Stevenson, 2009). This demonstrates that the environment that children grow up in effects how they perceive race and racial identity. Therefore, one of the major causes of racism is the socialization of children in America, in that other races are negatively portrayed in everything from how their parents talk to how they seen elsewhere.

Furthermore, prejudice is, of course, an important factor in racism in America. This can be defined as the incorrect perception of an individual based on their inclusion in a certain group. Psychologically speaking, prejudice comes from the need for people to fit in with a group and the social norms defined by a society. That is, people naturally gravitate towards groups and for the sake of social cohesion, people adopt the values and beliefs of that group. Moreover, a society dictates what is acceptable and what is not by the social norms. These are what people have collectively decided are the values and beliefs of the larger group. Furthermore, Brown suggests that prejudice is a necessary part of survival, as people need to make quick judgements about everything, as an in depth analysis is just not feasible (Brown, 1995). Therefore, people apply these psychological principles to other people, which helps explain the origin of racism.

Lastly, stereotypes are another major factor. These can be defined as the solidification of prejudice built up over time. That is, prejudices that have existed for a long become part of the collective belief system regarding another group of people. Stereotypes can be positive or negative, but they form the basis for the prejudice against another group of people. Regarding racism, people use negative stereotypes to judge other races of people based on an incorrect assumption about the group they belong to (“Race, Ethnicity”, 2007). Therefore, stereotypes help perpetuate racism as it makes it easier to be prejudice.

Reference

Brown, R. (1995). Prejudice: Its Social Psychology. Blackwell Publishing.

Quillian, L. (2017, October). Hiring Discrimination Against Black Americans Hasn’t Declined in 25 Years.

Race, Ethnicity, and the Criminal Justice System. (2007). AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION.

Stevenson, H. C. (2009). Racial/Ethnic Socialization Mediates Perceived Racism and the Racial Identity of African American Adolescents. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology,15(2), 125-136.