20-Year Prospect
Well, it's hard to believe mall security will cease to exist so long as malls continue to exist. But therein lies the problem. The alarmists who sound alarms about such things are alarmed at the rate of shopping mall closures in the country. If there are no longer malls for the guards to guard, there won't be any more mall cops.
Of course, a certain portion of that worry is a bit over the top. Overly anxious people who believe that online shopping is going to rampage through shopping malls, burning the clothes and looting Santa's Village on the way towards record Cyber Monday numbers, can rest easy.
Buying stuff online is growing in popularity, but it's hard to believe that brick-and-mortar shopping establishments will disappear. And as long as stores exist, larger collections of stores (also known as "malls") will almost certainly exist too.
So as long as we have malls, we should have mall cops. Keep that in mind if, for some reason, this is the career you've singled out as the right one for you. But as you focus your energy on your end goal of the security kiosk and the stealthy Segway, keep an eye on the economic forecast for malls. The job might not hold up as well as you'd like it to.