Maryland Business Crime Prevention

Crime, burglary, robbery, and vandalism can be particularly devastating to a businesses in terms of money, customers, and employee safety. Through crime prevention, business owners can protect their assets as well as their employees.

Laying a Foundation for Prevention

Business owners should take a hard look at their businesses in areas such as physical layout, number of employees, hiring practices, and overall security to determine vulnerability to various kinds of crime, from burglary to embezzlement. Once this step has been taken, crime prevention measures can then be implemented.

• Provide training for all employees including cleaning staff so they are familiar with security procedures and know expectations.
• Provide training for all employees on security procedures and performance expectations.
• Use good locks, safes, and alarm systems.
• Keep detailed, up-to-date records and store back-up copies off premises to provide useful information for law enforcement investigations quickly.
• Establish and enforce clear policies about employee theft, employee substance abuse, crime reporting, opening and closing the business, and other security proce¬dures.
• Consider the cost of each security improvements made against the potential savings through loss reduction.

Since crimes against businesses are usually crimes of opportunity, failure to take good security precautions invites crime into a business.