Unarmed Security Guard Requirements For Hawaii

Security Guard & Officer Legal Requirements In Hawaii

Here on SecurityGuardTraining.io we want to provide you with all of the information you need to successfully become an Unarmed security guard in the state of Hawaii!

Dog the Bounty Hunter didn’t do Hawaii any favors. Because the eponymous Duane Chapman’s antics by definition involved the island chain’s seedier side, the world got to watch him prowling and posturing through all its nastier neighborhoods. And believe me, there are nasty neighborhoods aplenty. The Westside ghettos - Kaneohe, Makaha, Nanakuli - and Waianae and Waimanalo and Waipahu, Chinatown and Kalihi, all in Honolulu, are dens of depravity. Not a beach bar or restaurant or store opens without some form of security.

The same is true of every big commercial player in Paradise. Medical centers and hospitals, banks, cargo handling facilities and hospitality conglomerates are all massive employers of uniformed and discrete guards, patrols and advanced special operations providers. Hawaiian Electric, Matson, University of Hawaii, Kaiser Permanente, Servco, Aloha Petroleum all maintain private armies of security personnel.

But that’s pretty generic information, common to most cities across the USA. The Hawaiian islands are a land unto themselves, despite statehood, thus their issues and opportunities tend toward the unusual, also.

Princeville, on the north shore of the island of Kauai, is a prime example. Surrounded by the Wyndham Bali Hai Villas, the St. Regis, the Westin, the Woods and Ocean Nine golf courses, and the Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge, wealthy tourists in their thousands profile through every day. In response, burglaries ramped up 100 percent in 2012 alone.

The islands aren’t all about Honolulu, obviously enough, but it is the biggest center of population by far. It therefore welcomes the most tourism, the most business HQs, the most corporate facilities and the most leisure spending. All this means it creates the biggest opportunities for security professionals.

Hawaii’s crime index is six percent above the national average, and according to Friends of Narconon: “Crystal methamphetamine (ice) is the drug of choice in Hawaii... per capita, Hawaii has the highest population of ice users in the nation.” Worse, then, than Camden, New Jersey or downtown Detroit.

But at least it has palm trees.

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Of course, Dog Chapman arrived in Hawaii as an apparently reformed thug. He was then (and remains) a convicted first-degree murderer. What he knows, though, is that despite its distance, Hawaii is a state; a part of the USA. Any legal North American resident can move here, seek employment here, and indeed take up a career in law enforcement here.

If you have a felony conviction, you can’t be a cop and you can’t carry a firearm, but you sure can be a bail bondsman, a bounty hunter, or a private security guard.

Must be at least 18 years old
High school diploma, G.E.D or equivalent certificate

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The cost of living in Hawaii can be ridiculous, though. Because almost all food is imported 2,400 miles from the closest mainland, pretty much everything - from hamburger buns and a gallon of milk to an occasional treat - is priced at around double what you’re used to.

For residents, housing, job opportunities and cost-of-living outlays become progressively worse with every passing day. People working three part-time jobs barely scrape by, while they watch wealthy communities and corporate CEOs flood into timeshares, hotels and extravagant homes.

The gap between regular people and the wealthy widens; disharmony and despair increases; crime skyrockets. The need for private security does the same.

This creates an odd disparity with the image. In 2013, the New York Daily News reported on Gallup’s annual survey of the happiest states in the nation: “The Aloha State ranked No. 1 for the fifth consecutive year in the... Index, which looks at residents’ health, work environment, access to resources and their own feelings.” North Dakota came first in ‘14, but... you know... who cares about North Dakota? Cold and oily, and Lawrence Welk was born there.

In that latest poll, though, Hawaii was still only two percentage points below the Flickertail State, and who’d want to move to the “Flickertail State,” when “Paradise - The Islands of Aloha” is on offer?

That disparity, though...

Traffic here is soul-crushing, with Honolulu coming in at number two nationally, second only to Los Angeles; the average Oahuan commuter enjoys jams for 58 hours annually. Add that to the crumbling streets, endless potholes and the agonizing monotony of radio stations (months behind the mainland, playing the same five songs every hour, on every local station), and everything contributes to turnover here being terrific. I don’t mean the pineapple upside-down cake offered at Liliha Bakery on North Kuakini Street.

Job openings, if you have any sort of skill to sell, are ceaseless.

The U.S. Census Bureau records in excess of 22,000 former Oahu inhabitants hopping the island chain every year (primarily for South Carolina, oddly enough; at least it isn’t North Dakota). That’s largely because things ain’t what they used to be.

Joni Mitchell - the folk-era goddess once hot enough to sleep with Mick Jagger and James Taylor at the same time, but who now looks like an ancient Indian medicine man on meth - had this to say about writing her biggest hit: “I wrote 'Big Yellow Taxi' on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi to the hotel and when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart... this blight on paradise.”

Well, yes, they are laying down a lot of parking spaces, and that means there are a lot of businesses and tourist attractions going up. The disenfranchised local population gets sticky fingers, and their victims protest by employing private security guards. Apparently bad news is good for us.

Third-world poverty has one other odd effect (less expected than everyone leaching off anyone with a job): Rock-bottom poverty has spawned a significant epidemic of stolen houses - literally!

When affluent islanders absent their semis for more than a couple hours, they have to hire a house sitter. If they don’t, very little will be left when they come home. Serious teams take essentially entire buildings, except for the walls, and sometimes even them. Every inch of carpeting, cabinetry, windows and frames, toilet bowls and faucets, all the light fixtures will be gone. They’ll take the safe, too, obviously enough, and everything in it.

And lest we forget, each year millions of tourists wander around with credit cards and cameras, wedding bands and bundles of cash. Most of them want to hang on to all that affluence, which can be a bit of a challenge unassisted. This is great news for private security. Personal protection (hiring what those not in the know still call a bodyguard) is a thriving, incrementally expanding market. These guys also want to hit the nightlife. Those going to the gay bars and red light district (along Kuhio Avenue, in case you were hypothetically interested) aren’t the only ones under threat. Quoting research from Trulia: “abuse of predatory drugs... is increasing among Hawaii’s youth and the large military population stationed in Hawaii.” Predatory drugs - "date rape" drugs - are used to facilitated sexual assault. The Waikiki strand is one of the world’s best clubbing destinations, and one of the most dangerous. Unique opportunities abound for private security professionals in Hawaii, many in the most apparently unlikely places.

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