Public safety is everybody’s responsibility when it comes to protecting the country and community as a whole. However, dedicated professionals are needed to work in the public safety sector, with increased levels of responsibility when it comes to keeping people safe. Working in public safety is often a career type that most people who work within consider to be a vocation rather than simply a means of paying the bills. Working in public safety is an interesting, rewarding, and multifaceted career with various ethical and moral obligations. In these roles, others will rely on you to protect them, improve their safety, and prevent dangerous situations from occurring.
What Does the Public Safety Industry Involve?
Public safety is a broad term that can be divided into several large categories. These include counteracting crime, emergency management, compromised driving, national security, and border strategies. In addition, the global COVID19 pandemic has led to further public safety needs in recent times including sanitization, healthcare, vaccination against coronavirus, crime scene clean up and putting safety measures in place to prevent its spread such as social distancing.
What Do Public Safety Careers Focus On?
The sector of public safety refers to a broad term, encompassing a range of challenging and fascinating avenues for professionals to pursue. There are lots of different public safety career choices to consider, particularly when it comes to careers in law enforcement, national security, and upholding human resources, law, and administration within the industry. Program officer roles in public safety involve management and organization of the government’s response to national emergencies, including both ongoing and potential threats.
Education Needed to Work in Public Safety
Public safety is a complex and specialized career path with various roles to consider and a wide range of potential benefits to be gained by gaining a qualification in this field. Successfully completing a degree program such as the public safety management degree from Wilfred Laurier University will help you get to a place where you have the knowledge, skills and expertise needed to deal with the challenges and stresses of your chosen role, helping you stand out from the crowd as an applicant.
Careers and Progression Within Public Safety
When it comes to working within the industry of public safety, there is a huge choice of careers that have their own set of challenges, excitement, and rewards. Many of the public safety career options that you can pursue also offer a range of progression and advancement opportunities for those who are highly capable and passionate about making a difference in this sector. Due to the COVID19 pandemic, good public safety professionals are in higher demand than ever across the globe as the world grapples with a highly infectious disease and the measures that need to be put in place to control it and ensure that citizens are kept safe and healthy.
Public safety roles include both behind the scenes and front-line work. Some individuals might be interested in working in law enforcement, for example, where they can enjoy a role that allows them to play a part in ensuring the security and safety of their country and its citizens. Another popular public safety career choice is emergency management or disaster management, where professionals can focus their energy and commitment on both responding to and preventing emergencies and disasters. Higher ranking public safety roles that you may consider include national security roles such as secret service agents and intelligence officers, security analysts, and response and recovery program managers.
Public Safety Management and Administration
Public safety administration and management involves protecting citizens from every type of crime including cybercrimes and terrorism, disasters, emergencies, and other potential or actual threats that we face that may have a negative impact on the wellbeing and general safety of the public. The field of public safety management and administration involves a wide range of different roles including police officers and other law enforcement professionals, frontline healthcare professionals in disasters, firefighters, security analysts, and many other career areas.
Current Public Safety Concerns
Right now, the world is dealing with a higher number of public safety concerns than has ever been seen before. Because of this, there is a higher need for government resources, time, money, and public dedication to be invested in public safety. In today’s world, cybercrime has become one of the main public safety issues to be concerned about, with an increasing number of citizens exposed to the realities of cyberattacks around the world each year. Across the globe, international governments are taking cybercrime threats very seriously, with huge efforts now in place to break down organized cybercrime groups.
The constantly present threat of terrorism across the world is another very relevant public safety issue that we are dealing with right now. Across the Western world in particular, the threat of terrorism is quite high, and governments and intelligence agencies need to work closely with each other to gain information on potential terrorist threats and incidents to help the country build more resilience against this type of threat.
Strengths and Qualities Needed for a Public Safety Role
With so many different roles available in the field of public safety, there is a role for every type of unique individual with the set of skills and qualities that they possess. Many skills are beneficial and applicable to a range of public safety careers. However, some of the main qualities that employers in this field tend to look out for include good communication skills, excellent organizational and time management skills, analysis and research skills, ability to make decisions under pressure, and a clear and strong sense of purpose when it comes to making the world a safer place. While it is not essential, some roles in public safety will also be a better fit for people who are more extroverted and enjoy working with others from all walks of life. This is particularly true of front-line roles, where you’ll be helping the general public directly.
A public safety career can be more than just a job; many working in this field view it as a highly satisfying and rewarding vocational role.
