During the holidays, soft targets require your attention — and vigilance

This holiday season, many of us will be shopping in malls, joining holiday gatherings at entertainment venues, frequenting restaurants for holiday events and attending services in houses of worship. All these events have one thing in common: they will be held in public places, often with easy access by anyone. What they also have in common is that they are soft targets.

Soft targets are public locations that do not have any obvious security protections in place. This is in contrast to hard targets, which are well guarded and fortified. Airports fall within the group of hard targets, with the Transportation Security Administration overseeing airport checkpoints to ensure the security of the air system. 

The TSA uses sophisticated technologies to prevent and deter threat items like explosives and firearms from entering the secure side of airports. Given that there are limited entry portals into the air system, the TSA can focus their attention in a manner that allows them to screen all passengers to detect prohibited items and limit who enters.

Soft targets are different. These locations often have multiple points of entry, and most people can enter without being screened, although some, like stadiums holding sporting events, will require a ticket. 

Soft targets offer little or no protection against bad actors entering and inflicting harm and damage. This was most recently seen when a shooter in Maine entered a bowling alley and a restaurant, killing 18 people. These soft target venues offer little organized resistance, for a number of reasons.

First, providing security would be prohibitively expensive, with the cost ultimately paid for by the patrons in higher prices. Second, soft targets, though vulnerable, have very low risk of being attacked. Given that there are hundreds of thousands of such venues in the nation, the likelihood that any particular location will be targeted on any particular day at any particular time is exceedingly small. Third, it is not clear how protections should be implemented to be effective.

The upshot of such challenges is that some venues may hire security guards who provide a presence to deter possible attacks. This is common in malls, like the Mall of America, which offers a full gamut of security personnel and measures to ensure the safety of shoppers. 

The open structure of soft targets makes airport security–style screening impractical and inappropriate. 

Soft targets are labeled as such because the cost and inconvenience of hardening them is prohibitive. Security cameras provide a mechanism to monitor such venues. Yet discerning between benign and potentially egregious threats is difficult, which instigates false alarms that disturb attendees and participants, risking pushing them to other places to spend their money.

So what can be done to protect soft targets? Or — the more salient question — what can visitors do when visiting soft targets to protect themselves? 

Whenever a person enters a soft target, looking for “option B” ways to depart is an important first step. For example, an active shooter may position themselves near a primary mall entrance/exit that offers a high volume of targets. What are other options that are less used but provide an alternative pathway to safety? 

The same can be said about places of worship, with most attendees using the same entrance and exit. Where are the alternatives? How easily can they be accessed? 

This discussion is not meant to sour one’s holiday spirit or keep people from enjoying the full range of celebratory events. What it does is point out is that planning for the unexpected — no matter how rare it may be — may save your life and the lives of your loved ones. 

Keep in mind that the sheer volume of soft targets means that no single site is likely at risk. The risks at certain schools, places of worship or entertainment venues may become slightly higher due to worldwide events. During such times and in such circumstances, short-term security measures may be implemented.

However, keep in mind that a soft target is labeled as such because its risk is sufficiently low to not warrant it being “hardened.” No one wants to enter a mall with armed guards at the entrance. At the same time, no one wants to be unnecessarily placed in a risky and vulnerable situation. 

The best protection we all have is good judgment and smart awareness. As the adage goes, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Using such ounces wisely can make every soft target that much safer for you and your loved ones.

Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He applies his expertise in data-driven risk-based decision-making to evaluate and inform public policy. He has studied aviation security for over 25 years, providing the technical foundations for risk-based security that informed the design of TSA PreCheck.