Checkpoint: Definition and What It Means for Your Property

Two meanings, one idea

“Checkpoint” can mean a staffed control point, the place where a gate officer stops each vehicle, or a stop on a patrol route. Both are places where a specific check is made and recorded. On this site the patrol meaning is the common one: the list of points an officer visits on each round, in the order the post orders set, with the check to make at each. A pool checkpoint means test the gate latch and look for swimmers after hours. A dock checkpoint means confirm the doors are down and the trailers sealed.

How checkpoints are chosen

They come from the walk-through, not from a map. When Price Protection sets up a patrol post, a supervisor walks the property with the manager and asks where the problems have been: which stairwell attracts loiterers, which gate is left open, which lot loses catalytic converters, which vacant unit was broken into. Those places become checkpoints. So do the places the client is obliged to check, such as a pool at closing or a fire door that must stay unlocked. A garden-style apartment community typically ends up with somewhere between ten and twenty; a warehouse yard with six to ten; a fire watch with every floor or every hot-work area.

Recording the check

Each checkpoint visit is recorded with a time, by a scan where the property has a guard tour system and by a log entry always. The record is part of the daily activity report every client receives, and it is what the supervisor reads when reviewing the shift. Checkpoints are also revisited: after a quarter, the ones that never produce a finding are questioned and the ones that produce findings every week are given more attention or a fixed post. The patrol round article walks through what an officer actually does at each stop.