Workplace offenses apply in many signifiers and if a company or organisation or whoever trades with bar desire effectual consequences, should use a comprehensive offense bar program. This program should reflect the changeless changing nature of possible menaces and a thorough hazard appraisal among with rating techniques have to be applied.
Crime in the workplace is a phenomenon that although may non in world be more prevailing, consciousness of it, is.
As a consequence it has become platitude to use security directors to supervise the workplace environment in an effort to battle workplace offense. However, it has to be argued that workplace offense is an highly wide capable country as non merely can crimes be committed by the staff, direction, managers, proprietors and even the security directors themselves, they can besides be committed by a myriad of external histrion ‘s such as boosters, vandals, cybercriminals, white-collar workers, fraudsters, defalcator ‘s or agents of wellness and safety in the workplace who turn a blind oculus to disagreements in return for a hard currency payoff and or easy acquired money.
Crime committed by those busying a powerful place is the focal point of extremist criminologists such as Steven Box ( 1989: 1 ) . The function of security directors is every bit unstable as their responsibilities can run from observation and surveillance, to ‘designing out offense ‘ or being armed guards both visibly in uniformed garb or anonymously in field apparels or behind the scenes.
For the intents of this essay the application of criminological theories by security directors of workplace offense will be conceptualised within the context of commercial robbery. This will be achieved by pulling on quantitative and qualitative research findings, media representations, authorities commissioned research that inform Home Office and British Crime Survey statistics and popular civilization which has arguably romanticised the offense of robbery in the yesteryear.
The decision of this essay will happen that security directors would derive from a mainstream theory of offense and criminalism if one such theory existed.
However, because the offense bar schemes used are ‘situational ‘ and ‘social ‘ they fork in two separate political strands of left and right pragmatism with their ain separate accounts of understanding offense.
As a consequence, criminologists produces a overplus of complex, conflicting, overlapping and contradictory paradigms that could go forth peculiar societal groups vulnerable to use, subjectiveness, guess, premise and fondness taking to the uneven and undue targeting of guiltless stereotypes as already proven by jurisprudence enforcement histrions and policy shapers. Despite that, this essay will supply grounds to exemplify that security directors can and should use criminological theories to the direction of offense and criminalism within the workplace peculiarly refering robbery in relation to pre-empting offense and recognizing displacements in the environmental, societal and political landscape in which such offense is likely to happen.
The dominant definition of robbery harmonizing to the 1968 Theft Act is as follows
‘A individual is guilty of robbery if he steals and instantly before or at the clip of making so, and in order to make so, he uses force on any individual or puts or seeks to set any individual in fright of being so and at that place subjected to coerce ‘
The maximal sentence of life imprisonment provided by the 1968 Theft Act indicates the badness of the offense.
Therefore the usage of force or at least force alongside larceny, distinguish robbery from larceny and burglary ( The Theft Act, 1968: S.8 ( 1 ) ) .
Security nevertheless is an arbitrary and equivocal term, the significance of which is capable to much challenge and controversy although the popular definition is that ‘Security is diversely defined as a status of safety, freedom from danger, worry or anxiousness. Security is besides the name given to the aggregation of steps people and administrations can take to accomplish that province of freedom from danger, peculiarly freedom from the hazard of condemnable exploitation ‘ ( Department of Criminology, 2010 ) .
The British ‘bank robber ‘ is typically under 30, white and missing any makings or employment accomplishments ( Borzycki 2006, as cited in Willis, 2006: 2 ) .
In contrast, in the US the robber is likely to be an Afro-american which is attributed to the high prevalence of crack-cocaine ( Erickson 1996, Wright and Decker 1997, as cited in Willis, 2006: 2 ) .
There are really few factors sing offense and offense bar that have a individual significance, as significances are unstable and dynamic within this context.
Criminology is besides non easy defined, as it comprises a multiplicity of different viing subjects that sit anxiously within the myriad of paradigms.
The political right adopts neo-classic and neoconservative doctrines alongside single positivism which forks into two strands of biological and psychological positivism. It is the root from which the two century-long argument that the felon is born and non made emerged ( Lombroso, 1911: nine ) .
From these emerged a battalion of theories sing offense and criminalism which have been contested and challenged over and once more ( Garland, 1997: 29 ) .
Garland argues that a new subject emerged that focused on the felon type which for Lombroso was any 1 with little skulls, peculiarly adult females, to evil the wicked who can non assist themselves ( Wilson, 1975: 233 ) . Within the right realist theoretical account of idea, bank robbers are ‘rational ‘ and move on ‘free will ‘ when taking to perpetrate the offense and in instance of robbery, the act is meticulously planned ( Wilson, 1975: 233 ) .
For illustration, Wilson ( 1975: 233 ) , that in a scenario whereby a immature adult male who witnesses an aged lady coming out of the Post Office holding merely drawn out her pension is excessively much enticement to bear peculiarly as the street is empty with no looker-ons and the mark is entirely.
Besides he argues that the immature adult male decides with easiness to prehend the chance and steal that money from her utilizing threatening or violent behavior ( Wilson, 1975: 233 ) .
Wilson ( 1975:118 ) considers that the immature adult male may non make so if there was an effectual adequate hindrance in topographic point such as a really long tutelary sentence of at least twenty old ages in prison.
However, the deficiency of consciousness is a major unfavorable judgment by societal theoreticians who argue it is imperative to understand the causes of offense such as Lea and Young ‘s comparative want and Merton ‘s strain theories ( Merton, 1938 ; Lea and Young, 1984 ) . Felson ( 2000: 205 ) agrees that socialization, socioeconomic position, gender and age are lending factors to criminalism.
Besides it can be noted, that right realists are mostly atheoretical as evidenced by Clarke ‘s neglect of the felon ‘s temperament when claiming that felons are timeserving and hence act on the ‘normal human urges of selfishness and greed ‘ ( Garland, 2000 as cited in Clarke, 2005: 40-41 ) .
He besides argues that even conformists that deficiency any condemnable temperament are vulnerable to perpetrating specific offenses when faced with a overplus of chances ( Clarke, 2005: 42 ) .
In contrast, it is argued that ‘amateur ‘ robbers are motivated by despair as poorness or ill wellness or a deficiency of life opportunities which have provided the obstructions that force people into criminalism when upward societal mobility is impossible which fits into the societal accounts for criminalism ( Willis, 2006: 4 ) . This is illustrated as being at one terminal of the readying spectrum whereby armed robbers pass small clip planning, do non mask themselves, neglect to be after an flight path and chooses their mark in a ‘perceived province of despair ‘ ( Willis, 2006: 4 ) . For illustration, Durkheim argued that offense is inevitable in alienated societies when following rapid societal alteration such as crisis in the economic clime of a state, leads to a offense moving ridge as the despairing hapless strive for endurance ( Reiner, 2007 ) . In Greece of 2011 we can happen Durkheim ‘s theory since the current economic clime have boosted dramatically all offenses, particularly robberies, harmonizing to the intelligence broadcasted by all available Television channels.
Similarly, Merton ‘s strain theory physiques on the theory of anomy when asseverating that the societal construction sets ends which everyone strives to run into ( Department of Criminology, 2010 ) .
However, the societal construction fails to supply universally the tools required in order to accomplish such ends lawfully ( Merton et al. , 1959:465 ) .
Those excluded from the indispensable agencies are forced to happen alternate agencies of accomplishment which are so defined as pervert and criminalised ( Merton et al. , 1959:465 ) .
This theoretical account of sociological positivism underlies left pragmatism which argues external forces are drivers for criminalism therefore bar should be focused on the issues at beginning such as dependences and hapless instruction ( Currie, 1991 as cited in McLaughlin, Muncie and Hughes, 2003:369 ) .
Left realist such as Lea and Young argue that offense is ‘action and reaction ‘ and ‘rule-makers and rule-breakers ‘ which serves to except some and non others normally on evidences of category, age, race and gender ( 1984: 75 ) .
For illustration, unemployment ‘leads to discontent ‘ which leads people to experience the unfairness of their state of affairs peculiarly in visible radiation of the stuff and economic wealth of others which later leads to feeling of ‘relative want ‘ ( Lea and Young, 1984: 75 ) .
However it must be noted that they refute any claim that poorness is a causal factor of offense. They provide grounds of this as rooted in the deficiency of a offense moving ridge throughout the interwar old ages of the 1930 ‘s depression ( Lea and Young, 1984: 75 ) .
Clarke pioneered theories of situational offense bar amid the statement that ‘opportunity ( for offense ) makes the stealer ‘ ( Felson and Clarke, 1998 ) .
This belief sing the rational felon has catapulted situational offense bar to the most dominant place in security steps to the point where it has become synonymous with offense decrease ( Clarke, 2005: 39 ) . Crime bar is ‘the sum of all policies, steps and techniques outside the boundaries of the condemnable justness system ‘ ( van Dijk, 1990: 205 as cited in Gilling 2011: 12 ) .
To day of the month at that place exists 25 classified situational bar emanating from the strengths of research in offense decrease and offense supplanting which has evaluated attacks to criminalism, lending factors, responses to offenses and how peculiar schemes work against the chance of hazard factors ( Clarke, 2005: 39 ) .
Such schemes in offense bar in broader footings have evolved to maximize surveillance both natural every bit good as via CCTV, mark hardening by commanding entree to do the benefits of criminalism more of an attempt, put ining environmental changes that disorientate wrongdoers, taking or restricting the tools required for perpetrating offense, cut downing the benefits of offense, understating equal force per unit area and taking the ‘weight of alibis ‘ by implementing clear ordinances ( Clarke, 2005: 40 ) .
As a consequence it is claimed to be turning faster than any other offense control scheme ( Clarke, 2005: 40 ) .
In contrast, Gill and Matthews attack offense bar from a more societal position when reasoning that ‘target indurating ‘ by agencies of planing out offense through changing the environment to do criminalism less possible and less tempting has enjoyed minimum success in relation to cut downing the happening of robberies ( 1994: 26 ) .
For illustration, Gill and Matthews survey revealed that 55 per cent of convicted robbers in their sample had a really low perceptual experience of being caught despite 80 per cent holding old strong beliefs ( 1994: 15 ) . Again this juxtaposes rational pick and cost-benefit analysis because the former harmonizing to Cornish and Clark ( 1986 ) claims that felons are rational and therefore merely commit offense they believe will be successful. In contrast, the latter draws on bio-psychological arguments that claim that the societal mechanisms that quell the unprompted latent traits of striplings fail to trip at ripening therefore rendering the condemnable unable to weigh up the long term costs of the offense such as a tutelary sentence, against the short term benefits of their actions such as the poke full of used notes ( Hirschi and Gottfredson, 1994: 2 ) .
However, Clarke ‘s theoretical account has been criticised for a figure of valid grounds runing from being atheoretical to simply displacing offense from one topographic point to another where marks lack care which serves to victimize the less privileged first misconception is the claim that situational offense bar is atheoretical ( 2005: 40 ) . Clarke argues that theories of ‘rational pick ‘ , ‘crime forms ‘ and ‘routine activity theory ‘ underpins situational offense bar theories ( Cornish and Clarke, 1986, Brantingham and Brantingham 1993, Felson, 2000, in Clarke, 2005: 40-41 ) . Clarke besides argues that these are situated at all three degrees of macro, meso and micro-level society and therefore topographic points ‘routine activity ‘ at the macro-level that informs people on how to maintain safe and security directors on preventive steps ( 2005: 41 ) . Opportunities for offense arise within the ‘patterns ‘ of mundane community-life which occurs at the community meso-level while ‘rational pick ‘ informs criminalism at the micro-level ( Clarke, 2005: 40-41 ) .
Felson ‘s everyday activity theory asserts that the condemnable act depends upon a triangulation of constituent parts which involve a ‘suitable mark ‘ such as the bank, the off licence, gasoline station or Post Office, the ‘opportunistic felon ‘ ( in this instance the bank robber ) and the ‘absence of care ‘ intending the deficiency of any signifier of security forces ( Felson, 2000: 210 ) . The absence of any of these standards renders the act of robbery as impossible ( Felson, 2000: 210 ) .
However, harmonizing to Gill and Matthews ( 1994 ) , bank robbers that use ‘suitable marks ‘ are far from timeserving as such marks are the preserve of the calling felons as the differentiations between amateur and calling felons ‘correlate really by and large with the degree of planning, the type of arm used, the degree of mobility, the type of mark selected, and how the robbery is carried out ‘ ( in Matthews, 1996: 37 ) . They argue that such robberies are distinct from most ill planned bank robberies which by contrast illuminate the opportune nature of ‘desperate ‘ wrongdoers such as those combating with intoxicant or substance abuse who approach unsuitable marks in order to raise financess for their wonts ( Matthews, 1996: 43 ) .
Indeed, Gill and Matthews sample of convicted bank robbers, 28.8 % claimed that drugs was a incentive and 18.8 % were motivated by intoxicant ( 1994: 13 ) .
Evidence of this came to visible radiation in survey by which found that 48 of the 110 interviewees convicted of bank robbery had consumed intoxicant or drugs merely an hr before perpetrating the offense ( Nugent et al, 1989: 55 ) . It could be argued hence that this typology of condemnable driven by what Castells ( 1996 ) conceptualised as a ‘culture of urgency ‘ are loose cannons in footings of their capriciousness and haphazard attack to robbery ( in Muncie and McLaughlin, 2003: 525 ) . In contrast, many bank robbers use schemes that involve meticulously be aftering with motorized entree to Bankss which are frequently situated on street corners and intersections with other streets therefore which keeps the options open for legion pickup paths ( Weisel, 2007: 18 ) . Indeed, many of the bank robbers interviewed considered Bankss an easy mark ( Weisel, 2007: 8-9 ) . Consequently, the likeliness of repeatedly aiming the same mercantile establishment is non uncommon for calling felons although non adequate repetition robberies occur to help in analyzing the temporal and spacial behavior of calling felons to explicate a ‘pattern ‘ ( Weisel, 2007: 21 ) .
However, a survey expanded from Matthews ( 1996 ) revealed that repeated and non-repeated robberies were identical when analyzing constabulary informations ( Matthews, Pease and Pease, 2001: 155 ) . Therefore understanding the behavioral forms of bank robbers is every bit debatable particularly for security directors ( Matthews, Pease and Pease, 2001: 163 ) .
It is besides argued that mark indurating fails to cut down offense because it is displaced elsewhere ( Clarke, 2005: 40 ) . However Clarke argues that there is a overplus of grounds to propose it does work with small supplanting of offense ( Clarke, 2005: 40 ) . Clarke and Felson argued that ‘even offense which is displaced can be directed off from the worst marks, times or topographic points ‘ ( 1998: six ) . However, this has effects as supplanting comes in multiple signifiers in footings of the alterations in offense types, temporal changes, geographical displacements in marks and tactics ( Reppetto, 1976 ; Gabor, 1990 as cited in Matthews, 1996: 7 ) . For illustration, Cornish and Clarke ( 1987 ) argue that when armed robbery is displaced from Bankss and edifice societies it targets ‘softer ‘ marks where the security is weak and the staff poorly-trained such as stores and Post Offices ( Matthews, 1996: 7 ) . The major concatenation shops and Bankss can react efficaciously to the go oning technological promotions of situational offense bar schemes whereas smaller retail mercantile establishments are limited by fiscal restraints and therefore going the ‘softer ‘ marks and victims of offense ( Matthews 1996: 43 ) .
Similarly, despite the claims that target indurating via environmental alterations to Bankss and edifice societies insides such as security screens, ‘double security doors, soundless and hearable dismaies ‘ have made robbing such premises debatable, it is clearly apparent that robbers believe they are immune from being caught ( Matthews, 1996: 7 ) . The bank robbers ‘ interviewed appeared to universally be in denial that cameras even existed which once more can be argued to exemplify Hirschi and Gottfredson claim to an inability to detect the cost-benefit analysis ( Hirschi and Gottfredson, 1994: 6 ) . However, CCTV security cameras that are fitted as criterion in Bankss have proven to be an uneffective hindrance, as they can be disabled, diverted via a deep-rooted steerer deigned to misdirect security, covered or merely cut off ( Weisel, 2007: 11 ) . Furthermore, befoging individuality via balaclavas and helmets rendered CCTV useless in 55 % of robberies ( Matthews, 1996: 15 ) .
It besides has to be noted that camouflages and guns play a important function in doing the robbers to look terrorizing for their victims and accordingly doing the subsequently more compliant.
In contrast, some surveies indicate that hindrance values are present in objects that are either perceived as obstructions or are existent physical obstructions although this was non the instance sing the installing of ‘bandit barriers ‘ in either the US or Germany ( Weisel, 2007: 44-45 ) . Quite the opposite consequences occurred as although ‘Bandit ‘ screens are typical anti-crime steps utilised in most Bankss and Post Offices today, they really serve to protect the armed robber as it disables the likeliness of ‘have-a-go-heroes ‘ tellers trying to foil the robbery ( Matthews, 1996: 7 ) .
As one robber stated ‘It was of import for my safety every bit good as people working behind the counter. I felt safe at that place, and it cut down the hazard of say, person jumping over the counter ‘ ( Gill and Matthews, 1994: 19 ) . Another stated that he did non rob mercantile establishments where the screens did non make the ceiling ( Gill and Matthews, 1994: 19 ) .
In contrast nevertheless, the degree of force used is frequently escalated where ‘physical steps ‘ are in topographic point ( Gill and Matthews, 1994: 19 ) . In add-on, staff are compliant to the demands of robbers as the offense is happening which can be over within three proceedingss and because it is seldom seeable to the public really frequently unbeknown to the clients and other staff ( Gill and Matthews, 1994: 19 ) . Nevertheless, brigand screens are barely a failsafe offense bar scheme as they do non ever move as a hindrance against robbery ( Gill and Matthews, 1994: 19 ) .
However, in footings of robbery, managerialism taking to increased policing as implemented in the Metropolitan Police District appears to discourage robberies unlike in South Yorkshire where a minimum constabulary presence had the opposite consequence ( Matthews, 1996 ) . In this context, it is the Metropolitan constabularies and non security forces that are the defender ‘s that guarantee the mark is unsuitable thereby taking the chance to perpetrate from the possible robber ( Matthews, 1996: 18 ) .
However, this consequence was gleaned from a sudden bead in bank robberies in 1994 ( Matthews, 1996: 43 ) .
It is therefore argued alternatively that bank robbers diversified to the modernised get-rich-quick strategy of the drugs trade ( Matthews, 1996: 8 ) .
In decision it is apparent following a critical analysis of the arguments above that security directors could profit from criminological theories in footings of environmental offense sing the layout, surveillance and protectionist steps in topographic point within the workplace in ways that provide immediate protection for consumers and staff.
It is besides apparent in theory that security directors could profit from an apprehension of theoretical models sing causality and incentives for offense such as the political economic and societal background of a society at any given minute.
However, in pattern this is debatable on a figure of degrees.
First, as criminologists can non hold on a individual theory of offense, this can merely function as confounding a state of affairs that is already fraught with danger.
Ultimately, when a gun is indicating at a teller and an anon. voice is demanding money, what importance is the robbers ‘ motive for the offense?
Even if that were established, the boundaries between left and right pragmatism are excessively blurred to do any positive differentiation because while a calling condemnable tantrums with the right school of idea, the original motive for the pick of going a calling felon in the first topographic point has to be considered most likely tantrums with the left realist theoretical account which is driven by external societal forces.
In contrast, at the opposite and of the spectrum, the drug addicted robber looking for a hole is besides ‘opportunistic ‘ and therefore rational albeit unable to weigh up the short term benefits against the long term costs.
As infinite analyses by faculty members well-versed in criminological theories have revealed, it is more frequently than non impossible to separate between robberies committed by either type of robber ( Professional or Amateur ) after the event therefore much more research is required to determine whether theories would be an plus to security directors in footings of enabling them to measure chance, forecasters and preventive steps before the event.
