The thin purple line, proposed for security officers.

Police have the thin blue line, now placed as a stripe in the American flag. Firefighters/emergency services have the red line. But what about security officers? A thin purple line is the proposed color, according to a story in Security Magazine:

But how is the security profession, both public and private, symbolized? At present, security professionals don’t have their own “Thin Line” color. That may be changing.

According to Tom Conley of The Conley Group, who has been a long-time supporter of skilled, well-trained and highly compensated security officers:

“Security personnel in the public and private sectors form an essential part of the protective apparatus of most nations. Globally, there are an estimated 20 million private security workers. In the United States, the U.S. Department of Labor statistics states there are more than 1.1 million private security guards in the U.S. compared to 666,000 police officers."

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"More importantly is this number only reflects those security personnel who are employed in the private sector. Add to this the tens of thousands of security personnel who are employees of the U.S. government, and it becomes clear that security personnel in the United States alone outnumber their law enforcement counterparts by nearly two to one."

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"Law enforcement is not alone in its numbers being fewer than security. According to the NFPA, there are 1,160,450 local firefighters in the U.S. Of the total number of firefighters 345,600 (30%) were career firefighters and 814,850 (70%) were volunteer firefighters. What these numbers demonstrate is security personnel in the private and public sectors are a major force in protecting people, property and information. Because security personnel are a key part of the protection system, they too deserve to have their own ‘Thin Line’ color.”

The ASIS Law Enforcement Liaison Council (LELC) voted on July 11, 2018, unanimously to recommend the color purple (Velvet Purple [Pantone 2612]) be adopted as the official “Thin Line” color for the security profession.

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