{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/protective-service-workers-all-other/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Protective Service Workers, All Other", "soc_code": "33-9099", "category": "Protective Service", "us_employment": 81500, "median_annual_wage": 42540 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 48, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 12, "embodiment": 15, "liability_shield": 4, "trust_premium": 8, "judgment_accountability": 9 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Walking a stairwell at 2am to check that a fire door actually latched, or talking an agitated visitor back out of a lobby, is not something a fixed camera does — but the other half of the shift (watching monitors, writing incident logs, checking badge swipes, filing shift reports) is already handled by video analytics and access-control software in the buildings that have budget for it, which is what puts this at 12 and not 16.", "embodiment": "The post is a physical post: foot patrols across parking structures and grounds, fire watch standing next to a disabled sprinkler riser, animal control working a loose dog in a stranger's yard, court aides screening bags and hands-on wanding — all in weather, at night, in spaces nobody controls, and it lands at 15 rather than 18 only because much of a shift is spent stationary at a desk or gate.", "liability_shield": "Most of these jobs need a state guard registration or a short certification card at most — fire watch training, animal control certification, a background check — and it is the property owner, the hospital, the university, or the contracting security firm that carries the liability when something goes wrong; nothing is signed in your name.", "trust_premium": "Being the recognized face on a campus or in a courthouse — the person staff will actually flag a problem to, who knows which student is having a bad week and which door always sticks — has real value, but posts rotate, contracts flip vendors, and clients buy coverage hours rather than you specifically, so this sits at 8.", "judgment_accountability": "You decide in the moment whether a situation is a conversation, a call to the desk, or a 911 call, and that call has consequences — but standing orders, post orders, and the explicit instruction to observe-and-report rather than intervene mean the hard calls are escalated to sworn officers or facility management, which caps this at 9." }, "rationale": "This is a catch-all bucket — campus safety monitors, fire watch and life-safety attendants, court and facility security aides, animal control and park protection staff — and the modal worker is an unarmed, on-foot presence who patrols, observes, logs, and escalates. The physical presence and the ability to walk into an unscripted human situation (an agitated visitor, an unlocked door, a smoke alarm at 2am) are genuinely hard to automate; the observation-and-reporting half is exactly what camera analytics, badge systems, and automated incident logging are already eating. Little licensure and modest formal authority mean the job is protected by bodies-in-buildings economics, not by law.", "outlook": "Headcount holds roughly flat but shifts: pure monitoring posts thin out as analytics consolidate multiple sites into one remote console, while embodied response, de-escalation, and regulated fire/court/behavioral-health watch roles keep hiring.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State-level guard-card expansion to currently exempt roles: several states (California BSIS, New York's Security Guard Act, Texas DPS PSB) already license contract guards but exempt in-house/proprietary campus and facility staff. If a state closes the proprietary-employee exemption — or if fire-watch attendants are brought under NFPA 601 / local fire-marshal certification with a named certified individual signing the fire-watch log during impairment of a sprinkler or alarm system — a specific human becomes the accountable, personally sanctionable signer for hot-work and system-outage watches.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Insurer and AHJ practice: property carriers (FM Global, Zurich) already condition coverage during sprinkler impairment on a documented human fire watch with signed rounds. If carriers explicitly refuse to accept camera/thermal analytics as a substitute for the signed watch, the requirement hardens into a contractual mandate rather than a staffing preference.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Task-mix shift plus formal escalation authority: as analytics absorb the log-and-observe tier, what remains is the decision to evacuate, restrain, deny entry, or invoke a duty-to-warn. Codified in policy — e.g. campus Clery Act timely-warning authority or a behavioral-threat-assessment team seat where the officer's judgment triggers the alert — the role owns a consequential ambiguous call rather than relaying one.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Two-tier split is real here: the routine tier (camera monitoring, badge checks, patrol logs) automates, leaving unscripted human de-escalation, physical intervention, and alarm verification. Formal crisis-intervention/mental-health-response certification (CIT-style, already spreading to campus and transit safety staff) makes the residual tier the whole job.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Court-rule and statutory in-person presence: state court security standards and ADA/Title IX escort provisions that name a physical attendant — e.g. court rules requiring a human bailiff or security aide present during proceedings with a witness or juror — keep the body in the building regardless of sensor coverage.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Trust premium has no realistic route: buyers of unarmed patrol coverage are procurement departments buying hours at the lowest compliant price, not clients paying for a named human. Even with every lever above, the bucket stays a wage-floor occupation whose headcount tracks square footage and insurance terms, and the licensure gains would apply unevenly across a catch-all SOC — animal control and park staff would not benefit from fire-watch or court rules at all." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 135390, "wage": 30240 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 141790, "wage": 30720 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 100110, "wage": 38210 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 93840, "wage": 36460 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 82500, "wage": 39360 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 83110, "wage": 41600 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 81500, "wage": 42540 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -39.8, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "first-line-supervisors-of-correctional-officers", "title": "First-Line Supervisors of Correctional Officers", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 68, "median_wage": 77970, "overlap": 71, "skills_to_close": [ "Coordination", "Management of Personnel Resources", "Negotiation", "Persuasion" ] }, { "slug": "transit-and-railroad-police", "title": "Transit and Railroad Police", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 73, "median_wage": 90230, "overlap": 66, "skills_to_close": [ "Complex Problem Solving", "Operation and Control", "Active Listening", "Operations Analysis" ] }, { "slug": "police-and-sheriff-s-patrol-officers", "title": "Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 82, "median_wage": 76210, "overlap": 66, "skills_to_close": [ "Persuasion", "Reading Comprehension", "Social Perceptiveness", "Active Listening" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }