Interviews

Violence: part three

by Mark Rowe

We wrap up a trio of articles about violence against business assets – buildings and people – by looking to the future. We know what works to get to the roots of violence; a public health, not a criminal justice, approach; so why don’t we do it more, or at all?

Something readily admitted but seldom followed through to its practical and even philosophical conclusions is displacement of crime. Simply put, if a householder on a street has an intruder alarm with visible bell-box installed, besides what the product does, it also sends out a message to the law-abiding and criminal on reconnaissance alike; this property is more secured than others without the security device, and so go elsewhere, to steal from a property without such security. It can lead to an ‘arms race’ as in South Africa; in his recently-published book Client Confidential, Sean Hartnett noted that ‘an intruder alarm system is simply not enough’. South African householders have also gates and steel bars on doors and windows, and panic alarms, that when activated bring ‘a heavily armed security patrol … these patrols do not hold back; they shoot first and ask questions later’. Despite such levels and aggression in private security not yet seen in the British Isles, robberies and home invasions continue to soar in South Africa; driven, Hartnett added, by extreme poverty.

As that implies, security – including gated communities – can only serve the buyers so far. Every wall has to have a door. The Association of Convenience Stores’ recent crime seminar heard that theft of mobile phones in stores – ideal for shop thieves, as mobiles are portable, and desirable – might prompt retailers to fit more physical protection, at a counter. Yet thieves may simply use more force to pull or tear the phones away, causing more damage. As with sales of beer and disposable razors, retailers balance ease of pick-up by law-abiding customers with making it harder for the criminal to abuse that convenience, and run out the store with goods.

One retail attender of the ACS seminar offered the insight that he does face armed robberies in parts of London where (on-street) CCTV is not good. Where CCTV is plentiful, and of good quality, in city centres – that is, making it more likely that thieves will be identified and sooner or later caught by police, he does not get any robberies. Another insight was that convenience store staff in suburban or estate communities will recognise more of their customers, meaning they’re less likely to break the law where they’re known; in a more anonymous city centre, shop thieves may feel more able to steal.

The bleak final words of Exterminate All The Brutes by the Swedish writer Sven Lindquist are: “It is not knowledge we lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we know and draw conclusions.” In the case of violence against shop staff, retail loss prevention people, like police and magistrates, who have taken the trouble to really get to know the sector and its problems understand that you cannot arrest your way out. The ‘system’ gives criminals many, many chances as the sanctions gradually rise, from cautions and fines to community sentences and (eventually) prison, first suspended and at the very end actual jail. None of it works – the prison door is a revolving one – unless the people doing crimes want to change their behaviour.

There are ways to address that; such as restorative justice, showing criminals, especially first time offenders, the consequences of their actions, that there are victims, people local to them, much like them and people they know. Such schemes have cropped up over the years, but have faded, usually because they are set up by those deeper-thinking, more experienced, more savvy and with a social conscience – whatever the motivation – people, who however move jobs; get promoted; the initiative is personal, not bureaucratic.

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