Use of Force and Detention Procedures
Force and detention questions test judgment under pressure. The governing principle is proportionality: force must be reasonable, necessary, and matched to the threat, and it must stop when the threat stops. Guards should be able to name the force continuum-presence, verbal direction, soft empty-hand control, hard empty-hand control, intermediate tools, and lethal force-and explain that each step is justified only when the one below it has failed or is clearly inadequate.
For detention, the concepts are: a brief investigative stop based on specific, articulable facts; a reasonable duration; the guard's duty to identify themselves and state the reason; and the limits of physical restraint-no chokeholds, no restraint in a way that risks positional asphyxia, no leaving a restrained person unattended. For use of force, know the defense-of-self-and-others standard, the duty to retreat where it applies, and the rule that force may never be used to punish, retaliate, or recover property from a fleeing person when human safety is at stake.
Traps: treating a shoplifting suspicion as license to tackle; continuing to hold someone after the reason for detention has evaporated; handcuffing as routine rather than as a response to a specific risk; and using a tool (baton, spray) without training or warning where feasible. Questions also probe documentation-force must be reported promptly and factually.
Worked example: A subject shoves a guard and walks toward the exit. The guard steps back, gives clear verbal commands, and calls police. This is correct: the shove is over, the threat has ended, and force to stop the exit would be retaliation for a past act. Rule of thumb: force answers an ongoing threat, never a finished one.