As a Bureau of Security and Investigative Services (BSIS)-approved security guard trainer in San Diego, I’ve spent years helping working professionals get the training they need at prices they can actually afford. Our 32-hour security officer skills course currently costs just $79 when taken online.
Senate Bill 1203 threatens to destroy that reality.
This bill, which was amended on May 19 and is now on Senate Third Reading, sounds like it’s about “improving standards.” In practice, it will dramatically raise costs, reduce access to training, harm the private security industry, and inject racial politics into use-of-force incidents under the false flag of fighting bias.
The Training Requirements Are Simply Absurd
SB 1203 increases the initial security officer skills training from 32 hours to 42 hours and mandates that every single hour must be delivered through traditional in-person classroom instruction. No online. No hybrid. No on-duty training allowed. Employers (or prospective employers) must pay for this time.
Here’s what that means in the real world:
- Our current online course: $79
- Projected in-person cost with instructors, classroom rental, insurance, materials, and California overhead: $4,200+ per student
That’s not a typo. A 5,200%+ increase.
The security industry already has extremely high turnover (often over 100% per year) and razor-thin profit margins because contracts go to the lowest bidder. Most guards cannot afford thousands of dollars for training, and most companies cannot absorb these costs while staying competitive.
In practice today, a significant percentage of security guards do not complete the full initial training or the required annual continuing education. Many do not stay in the job long enough to finish it, and the state has never strictly enforced these requirements. When training costs skyrocket under SB 1203, compliance will collapse even further and California is highly unlikely to devote resources to enforcement given its ongoing budget crisis. The largest security companies MIGHT offer in-house training, which will likely amount to little more than guards watching videos for 42 hours.
The result? Fewer trained guards, fewer training providers like mine, many small- to medium-sized security companies driven out of business, and a rise in unlicensed, untrained providers working for cut-rate prices. This does not improve public safety.
The Racial Reporting Provisions Are Even More Troubling
Beyond the training mandates, SB 1203 requires security officers and their employers to report the “apparent race and gender” of any member of the public involved in a firearm discharge or physical altercation. The Bureau of Security and Investigative Services must then publish annual county-level reports breaking down this data by race.
This is not about improving training or accountability. It’s about creating racial narratives.
Requiring race reporting in self-defense or defense-of-others situations turns legitimate use-of-force incidents into political ammunition. We’ve seen how this approach has played out in policing: selective outrage, protests, and public pressure that ignore the actual facts of the encounter.
Claiming to fight “racial bias” while mandating racial categorization of assailants is a dangerous contradiction. It risks making security professionals second-guess justified force out of fear of becoming the next viral headline. This provision does not make anyone safer. It politicizes self-defense.
The Bigger Picture: Driving Another Industry Out of California
California already leads the nation in security training requirements. SB 1203 goes far beyond what is reasonable or evidence-based. Combined with the state’s massive budget deficit, the idea that government or community colleges will somehow absorb these costs once the private training industry collapses is fantasy.
If this bill passes:
- Independent trainers will exit the market.
- Security companies will struggle to hire and retain staff.
- Clients (businesses, schools, housing providers, hospitals) will pay more or turn to cameras, AI, and robots instead of human guards.
- Public safety will suffer from fewer trained professionals on the ground.
We support high professional standards. What we oppose is legislation that makes quality training unaffordable and turns a critical industry into a political football.
Call to Action: If you are a security professional, company owner, or concerned California resident, contact your State Senator and Assemblymember today and urge them to oppose SB 1203.
You can find your legislators at: https://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov
At Practical Defense Systems, we will continue fighting for realistic, accessible, and effective training that actually prepares guards for the real world without bankrupting small businesses or injecting racial politics into self-defense.
