SECURITY AND SAFETY Essay

1.0. Introduction: Safety and security are both key issues in most industries today. They have long been considered as separate issues and dealt by different communities. It is also an idea whose political significance, like the senses of the word “security,” has changed continually over time. Security and safety may seem to be similar, but their specification can turn out to be incompatible in some cases. However both safety and security focus on the issues of hazards as their possible relations. This easy therefore will discuss the concept of safety and security in different paradigm as out lined by scholars of different discipline, differences between safety and security, the similarities between safety and security, then conclusion.

2.0. Security: Buzan described security as ‘an underdeveloped concept’ and noted the lack of conceptual literature on security. Recent surveys of security studies, for example, did not bother to define security, rather on the concept of national security (Baldwin, 1997). Stone as cited in Buzan argued that, Security is taken to be about the pursuit of freedom from threat and the ability of states and societies to maintain their independent identity and their functional integrity against forces of change, which they see as hostile.

The bottom line of security is survival, but it also reasonably includes a substantial range of concerns about the conditions of existence. Quite where this range of concerns ceases to merit the urgency of the security label (which identifies threats as significant enough to warrant emergency action and exceptional measures including the use of force) and becomes part of everyday uncertainties of life is one of the difficulties of the concept. (Stone, 2009) The new Oxford dictionary of English (Pearsall and Hanks, 2001) describes security as the state of being free from danger or threat. Lawrence Krause and Joseph Nye (1975) define security, as the absence of acute threats to the minimal acceptable levels of the basic values that a people consider essential to its survival, Similarly, David Baldwin has defined security shrewdly as a low probability of damage to acquired values, (Baldwin. 1997). Security is the protection against deliberate accidents such as attacks from criminals. (Jackson-Preece, 2011). For example, all the residents of very important persons (VIP) are guarded by security personnel who are heavily armed to ensure their protection from such deliberate accidents. On the other hand (Albrechtsen, 2003) define security as a condition of being protected against planned, malicious and criminal incidents from a wide range of threats, where what is protected is all kinds of values to an organization/individual and incidents happen due to the wish for a wanted output/consequence for the attacker.3.0. Safety: Unlike security, Oxford dictionary defines safety as the condition of being protected from or unlikely to cause danger, risk or injury. (Pearsall and Hanks, 2001). On the other hand safety entails protection from accident. (Albrechtsen, 2003). As short as the expression is, attract a number of activities into the safety field. Safety simply denotes something designed to prevent harm or damage. (Albrechtsen, 2003) For example in the Malawian context, in the working places such as mine industries there are safety procedures that are involved to safeguard employees working on different machines. We say someone is safe as far as he is protected against danger or risk, and he is not likely to be harmed or lost. The employees are advised to put on protective clothes such as helmet and boots against such dangers or risks.4.0. DistinctionsSecurity and safety can have different meanings depending on the context. Their signification can even swap from one industry to the other or merge in certain languages (Nordland, 2007). Safety and security can be defined in two paradigms. The first classification can be based on the system vs. environment (Nordland, 2007), the second one as malicious and accidental. (Firesmith, 2003) As system vs. environment Safety is characterized as the inability of the system to have an undesired effect on its environment, for examples, failure of the system to control fumes from the industries which can lead to air pollution. On the other hand as malicious and accidental, Safety designates the degree to which accidental harm is prevented, detected and reacted to. As system vs. environment Security denotes the inability of the environment to have an undesired effect on the system. On the other hand as malicious and accidental, Security designates the degree to which malicious harm is prevented, detected and reacted to. Albrechtsen, 2003 argues that a slight difference seems to be that security is related to criminal acts (e.g. espionage, theft, terrorism) and that safety is related to the risk of injury of humans. He also said that Safety is protection against hazards, while security is protection against threats. According to Albrechtsen, (2003) the difference between security and safety can be seen based on the causes, surroundings, and relevance. He argued that on the issue of security an incident is most often a result of one person or a group’s will, often planned actions, Criminal acts, mainly deliberate acts with a wish of a wanted. Contrary to safety, an incident is most often a result of human behavior in combination with the environment, often unplanned, criminal acts (Working environment acts) (Albrechtsen, 2003). He also argued that security, Reflects the state of society through its structures, economic situation, law- abidingness and moral. Unlike safety,which includes physical and environmental conditions- not only human and society (Albrechtsen, 2003). Finally, Albrechtsen (2003) further argued that security is relevant for a wide range of companies, contrary to safety which is more relevant for industry and transport sector. 5.0. Similarities: A first common point between security and safety, regardless of the considered paradigm, is that they are both articulated around the notion of risk. In both cases, risk is defined by the macro-formula: (Deleuze,G. et al 2008) Another significant similarity is that neither security nor safety are directly compos able or cumulative. (N. Pham et , M. Riguidel,2007)6.0. Conclusion:Though safety and security can be used interchangeably, but they are different words. However their relations are that both articulated around the notion of hazard or risk.

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