Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Ken McCall: Convenience stores need more deterrents for robberies

"YOU SORT OF cut your teeth on convenience stores.

"They're in the neighborhood. Your mom sends you there for milk when you're a little kid. You start taking things like gum and candy, and later on, you start taking cigarettes. Then you just sort of graduate into robbing them because, well, you're familiar with them."

--- A convenience store robber in a Washington state prison.

* Not everyone makes the leap from buying milk for your mother to holding up a store at gunpoint, but a study released this week of 310 armed robbers in 20 prisons across the country offers a rare look into the minds of those who do.

The 1995 study, entitled "Armed Robbers and their Crimes," found:

* 83 percent of the imprisoned robbers said they didn't think they would get caught, despite the fact that half of them had served time before.

* Convenience stores were the second most popular target, outranked only by street robberies.

* 55 percent were high on drugs or alcohol when they committed the crime that put them in prison.

* While money is an important reason for a holdup, the main consideration, robbers said, is a good escape route.

* Almost a quarter, 22 percent, said they didn't rob for money or drugs, but for the thrill or the feeling of power or because they were angry.

That last finding was the most startling to the study's author, sociologist and security consultant Rosemary Erickson.

"Those who rob for the thrill, the rush, the power," Erickson said this week, "how do you deter that?"

Deterrence is a big issue for Erickson and the Southland Corp., which franchises 7-Eleven convenience stores and helped pay for the study.

Of course, it's hard to deter robberies when 83 percent of the robbers don't expect to be caught.

But their fearlessness isn't exactly irrational: According to FBI statistics, only 26 percent of all robberies are solved.

The only way to change that ratio and the robbers' perception, Erickson said, is to catch more of them.

Erickson and Southland are hoping -- perhaps irrationally -- that surveillance cameras will help.

The company is spending millions to install surveillance equipment even though the study showed that cameras were one of the last things the robbers worried about. Erickson said they hope the cameras will help catch more robbers and eventually make them think twice about committing crimes on video.

Cameras, however, haven't done anything to slow the number of bank robberies, which rose 42 percent between 1989 and 1993, according to FBI statistics.

Several measures, though, have been shown to deter convenience store robberies. Since Erickson began her work with the company 20 years ago, the stores have been redesigned to make the cash register easily visible from the street.

7-Elevens also use a cash-drop system that limits the money in the register to $50 during the day and $30 at night.

Inexplicably, Erickson's study found that the robbers expect to get $200 from a convenience store.

Perhaps, she said, it's because some stores keep more money on hand.

The finding that robbers are worried about their escape routes suggests some steps to Erickson, including fencing around the store, speed bumps in the parking lot, perhaps even turnstyles by the door. Anything, she said, to slow the robber's escape.

"You don't want to trap them in the store with you," she said, "but you want them to assess" the difficulty of their getaway.

"They're very nervous."

Perhaps the most ominous finding of the study, though, was the new generation of robbers.

"These older robbers are saying they're afraid of these younger robbers, because they'll kill for no reason," Erickson said. "And if those robbers are scared, you can imagine how bad it is.

"The wardens and the guards say that also. It's a much different (prison) population than we had 10 years ago."

As for advice from the robbers to clerks or anyone else during robbery, Erickson summarized it this way:

"Give up your money freely, keep your hands in sight, don't make any sudden moves, don't talk and don't stare. Above all, don't try to be a hero."

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