The 4 Sections Your Incident Reporting Form Should Include
If you want high-quality incident reports, it helps to create an effective incident report form for security officers to fill out when unusual activity occurs.
The ASIS International Protection of Assets manuals provide a few sample incident report form guides that practitioners can use as a template for creating their own.
These guides recommend including data sets in four sections.
Topline Information
Think of this as the heading for your incident report—making it easy to tell when, where, and who made the report. It could include:
- Date of the report
- Date and time of the incident
- Report number
- Person reporting the incident
- Time reported
- Location description, such as the building address
- The type of incident
- Access denial
- Accidents or automobile damage
- Assaults, including physical or verbal
- Bomb threats
- Disorderly conduct
- Perimeter alarm
- Illegal weapon
- Facility or structural damage
- Fire alarm
- Medical emergency
- Personal injuries
- Sexual assault or exposure
- Suspicious activities
- Stuck elevator
- Thefts
- Trespassing
- Unauthorized entry
- Unleashed animals
- Vandalism
- Domestic
- Other
Incident Information
The next section should include the names of the parties involved in the incident, if available, along with other details that the security officer observed. This might include:
- Names of the people involved
- Home and work addresses of the above
- Home and work phone numbers of the above
- If injuries were sustained
- The cause of sustained injuries
- If medical services were contacted
Another subsection should include:
- Name of the reporting security officer and his or her signature
- Supervisor of the reporting security officer
- Name of police officer if involved in responding to the incident
- Badge number of the responding police officer
- A narrative of the incident
- Actions taken in response to the incident
Suspect Information
For criminal incidents, such as an assault or trespassing, incident reports should have a section for suspect information. This could include:
- Names of the suspect
- Address of the suspect
- Physical description of the suspect
- Additional information about the suspect
Witness Information
Some incidents may have witnesses—such as employees in the lobby who observe an act of vandalism at the front of the building. This section of the incident report could include:
- Name of the witness
- If the witness provided a written statement
- Witness home and work address
- Witness home and work phone numbers
For more guidance about incident reporting and response, see Appendix 1A in the Investigations volume of the Protection of Assets.
Megan Gates is senior editor at Security Management. Connect with her at [email protected] or on LinkedIn.