Thursday, May 22, 2008

[shopping malls] safety issues and crime profiles

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel collected data on more than 22,000 crimes reported at 13 South Florida malls from 2003-2007.

The vast majority of crimes involved shoplifting and petty thefts inside malls and car thefts and break-ins in parking lots. There were at least 508 violent crimes — mostly robberies, followed by aggravated assaults and batteries and a handful of sexual assaults and homicides.

Check out the video first and then some questions arise:



My most immediate thought is that potential attackers are going to avoid camera areas for sure. I read that many carry guns - how? Clearly no check on entry for fear of losing custom. Also - how empty was the mall? Seemed not many people shopping.

Even with cameras in most places, how trained are staff to know what to look for, as they said? Even then, how can the attack be prevented if security are not armed? One more thing - did you see the bit of the video which caught the two youths casing the place? Did you notice the ethnicity?

Seems to me that after a certain period of time, from the stats, a certain profile of criminals - ethnicity, gender, age, socio-economic status, general appearance - would have to emerge. Human rights advocates would say this is outrageous to profile this way but if there is a clear pattern [and I'm not saying there is] then what does one do?

Ignore the stats?

3 comments:

  1. Disturbing!
    In Egypt, there is always check on entry. All malls and hotels fear terrorists.

    It seems to me that criminals come from within a community as well.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Disturbing!
    In Egypt, there is always check on entry. All malls and hotels fear terrorists.

    It seems to me that criminals come from within a community as well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete

Comments need a moniker of your choosing before or after ... no moniker, not posted, sorry.