Control Access to Places Where Offenders Don't Belong

Blocking Off Concealed Parking Areas

A convenience store in the Little General Stores chain was being robbed on average about once every 90 days since it opened in 1973. The company had a robbery prevention program and made a large number of safety modifications in 1979. But robbery still continued to be a serious problem in this store. In 1981, a reassessment of the safety features of the store was done.

This time, it was noticed that there was a large parking area behind the store. It had exits in two directions and was a good spot for robbers to park their get-away cars. The company installed a six-foot high chain link fence between this parking lot and the store. This made it much harder for robbers to escape into that parking lot and then drive away. Since the fence was installed, there was one robbery six months later, then none for at least three more years.

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Look at the area around your business and think like a criminal. Are there good escape routes? What can you do to block these routes?

Click here for a New Jersey example of blocking off areas to certain people.