Suburban Patrol

I was recently consulted by the owner of a gas station/convenience store in Massachusetts who wanted to know why his store kept getting robbed. The owner was unsure if there was something unique to his store that made him the target of this type of crime. Plus, he wanted to know what he could do to minimize his attraction to robbers. So, the first thing I did was review the crime statistics for his community the neighborhood as well as other surrounding communities to see if it was just the store location that was the problem. It appeared that the crime rate in his neighborhood was consistent with crime rates in surrounding towns. Then I looked at a map to determine whether there were any major roads or highways that would attract a quick get away for a criminal; however this was not the case. There were no quick get away routes from his store. Next was my site visit. I got in the mindset of a criminal and as a robber, did I see anything about his physical store that attracted me. Bam!