Airport security
You know, 9/11 started through Logan Airport, so you'd figure that Logan would be particularly conscious of security. I work as part of the company tasked with installing and managing the new security measures, so I'm intimately aware of what's going on. Let me tell you that Logan Airport is one of the most lax major airports I've ever seen.
At Philly, the state police actually move cars that have been sitting at the arrivals side for more than a minute. Here, at Logan, the state police stand around and do practically nothing! Occasionally they may wave cars on or have a squad car buzz them onward, but cars simply move down the road a little bit, park in a No Parking area, and are then completely ignored by the state trooper standing less than 100ft. away. Amazing!
Also, today we find out that there are TSA agents that don't have access to Terminal A operating the exit slider doors for that terminal. Basically, their supervisors turn on the controls for them, then leave them alone to operate the door. Talk about a security breach!
posted by Craptacular @ 10:21 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
What incentives do airport security people (both the TSA and the state police) have to perform their jobs well? I would think that the risk of a terrorist event happening on their watch is low enough that most people who work these jobs could really just care less, so you need to motivate them in other ways.
Just to be clear with you -- I don't disagree with you about the state of airport security. But what is the fix? More surprise gov't inspections? (These don't really work in any industry that is regulated, and they are expensive.) Have higher quality security people? (Also expensive.) An interesting question, and one that might be answered by looking at the differences between airports with good security and those with bad.
Well, what incentive do you have to do a good job? Or me, for that matter? What more incentives does a police officer need to do a good job other than defending citizens from harm?
The job isn't particularly difficult. For the cop on traffic detail, it's simply to keep the traffic flowing. They make a lot of money doing it, too.
I don't see how much different the situation is for state troopers in Boston than in Philly. Traffic is traffic, yet the Staties at Logan just don't do their jobs.
So, what is the fix? I would imagine it would be a carrot-and-stick method. You break the rotted culture by firing people who don't do their job. You increase the salaries and benefits of those who do. Of course, in order to do that, you must implement inspections. For the staties, all you'd need is their own management to swing by, so the increased cost would be minimal. For the TSA agents, more training and more inspections. Yes, it would be more expensive, but even as a fiscal conservative, I'd put this under defending our country; a cause for which I'd actually want to give my tax dollars.
My incentives to do my job well are:
1) money
2) prestige/pride
3) personal satisfaction
4) knowledge that if I did a sh*tty job, then I'd get penalized somehow.
To say that police officers should do their job well purely out of the kindness of their heart implies to me that you don't actually believe that Economic Man is a good model of individual behavior. I'd say that's a surprising attitude for a so-called fiscal conservative to have.
I would say that the reason that Logan security don't do their job well is because they get paid the same amount, regardless of "job performance."
The difference between Philly and Boston? Here's a wild guess: there's a huge backlash against police corruption in Philly, but not in Boston. Dude, Whitey Bulger's brother is allowed to be president of a university here! Boston's municipal workers are clearly beneficiaries of nepotism and graft.
And finally, as something of fiscal conservative myself, I ask you this question: would you rather spend $1,000,000 to prevent a bad event with a 0.0001% probability, or $1,000,000 to prevent an equally bad event with a 1% probability? Cuz that's why anti-terror measures ultimately don't get any money: deep down inside, policymakers/politicians (and the American peoeple?) don't believe that security is at the top of the list of potential dangers to the US. It's just a firecracker, similar to abortion or gay marriage, to ignite the masses come election time.
You're right, but Staties make a lot of money. They work overtime, sometimes getting doubletime or even more. This is the only state, after all, that requires a police presence at road construction sites, instead of just flagpersons.
And you're right about corruption in Boston and Massachusetts. It's often been a source of annoyance for me. There is no real political competition with no significant Republican presence in Massachusetts.
That said, I expect people who agree to a contract to fulfill their obligations. Part of law enforcement's job is to protect the public and enforce the law. That's their core function. If they can't do that, they should be fired. People get good raises for doing a good job, i.e., doing more than what's simply required. What's required is to move cars or check bags. They aren't even meeting their required duties.
Anyway...good to see you're browsing my blog! What's yours again?
oops, Sorry for the late response (I was hiking this weekend). I don't really have a blog -- I think I sent you a link to a livejournal last year that I never really maintained. My current project is on blogger (which you can see in my profile) -- a knitting and crocheting blog -- but apparently I don't have the motivation to be a great blogger :/
Back to Staties: I think we actually agree on this more than we disagree. But I'd look at this more as a systems problem, rather than a problem of lazy individuals. I.e., how to you change the system so that you get good State Troopers actually doing their jobs? You need to provide incentives for the troopers to work well, but you ALSO need to provide incentives to the higher-ups to do *their* job well, too. And if you follow the chain of command back to the top, you come to the real root of the "problem" -- Massachusetts voters don't care about how State Troopers run their business, partially because they don't think terrorism in airports is as big an issue as others.
Look at New York City, for example. That city was a cesspool in the 1980s, but not until Rudy Giuliani tapped into latent voter angst about corruption/crime/police accountability did things actually start to change. Does that voter angst exist in MA, waiting for someone to tap into it to change the system? I just don't know...
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