How to Safeguard your Business with Corporate Security Services
Businesses that do not make use of corporate security services may leave their company vulnerable. Theft and other threats to your business can easily be committed without anybody there to thwart such plans. Relying on the police, no matter how efficient they may be, is not as good as having people who are working on the premises to prevent any malicious or harmful event from taking place. By hiring corporate security services, you will be assured that qualified individuals with the right equipment are looking after your business interests and its premises, even after-hours, weekends, and on holidays.
Hiring corporate security services can give you three main advantages for your business:
Constant Property and Personnel Surveillance
By having personnel for corporate security services, you will know that there are people looking after your employees, business properties, and other forms of business interests. Your employees can work without worries, knowing that they are safe from external threats, thanks to the security you hired. In turn, your business’ belongings are safe from theft because constant surveillance is working even if your employees are out of the office.
Round-the-clock Building Security
Businesses that occupy a respectable amount of space need personnel for corporate security services to prevent loss of office equipment and to keep unauthorized personnel from entering the premises. They can also help you avoid dangerous items such as guns and knives from being smuggled into the building that may be used to threaten or harm your employees.
Advanced Monitoring with CCTV and Web-based Monitoring Systems
Although having security personnel on your business’ premises will help you put your mind at ease, you may still want to have access to seeing what is happening on your premises. It is best to hire corporate security services that can give you access to web-based monitoring systems where you can check on your property, employees, and security personnel yourself. See if everyone is doing his or her job well even if you are not around by simply making use of this surveillance-incorporated software.
Corporate security services keeps harm away from your business and you can continue thinking about your ventures without worrying about anything else. Avoid theft, loss of precious company data, trespassing of unauthorized personnel, and harm to your properties and your employees by hiring qualified people who can give you the safety that your business requires.
Shoplifting is on the rise in the mid-Hudson region
Tough times tied to more theft
By Nathan Brown
Times Herald-Record
Published: 2:00 AM – 12/19/11
KINGSTON — A 55-year-old woman unwraps $50 worth of jewelry at Sears, pockets the goods and leaves.
A Tivoli man slips a $29.99 watch into his coat pocket and walks out of the store.
A woman in her early 20s drops medication into her shopping bag at Walmart. She ignores paying the $16.12, just like she skipped paying for two pair of UGGS boots valued at $359.98 at a different store weeks earlier, according to police.
Busted.
Busted.
Busted, all of them, in the last month.
They are among the more than 2,500 people reported to have shoplifted last year in the region, and more than 9,000 who did so from 2006 to 2010. The numbers jumped 59 percent over that half-decade.
And even more are taking a five-finger discount this year, according to a check of police departments which cover the biggest shopping areas in the mid-Hudson.
Some blame shoplifting on greed or the thrill of it. Others link the increase to the poor economy, which tanked in 2008 and has been slow to recover, leaving thousands without jobs.
Most of the reports come from towns with large malls or shopping areas — the towns of Wallkill, Woodbury, Newburgh and Monroe in Orange County, and the Town of Ulster in Ulster County. That is according to statistics from the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.
Orange County has seen a moderate increase over the past few years, which could be due to the economy, as well as more stores opening, said Assistant District Attorney Rich Ruggeri.
There have been 314 shoplifting reports, and 198 arrests, in the Town of Wallkill this year, an increase over 228 reports and 149 arrests in 2010, said police Chief Robert Hertman.
In Woodbury, the number also seems to be up this year, said Town Justice David Levinson.
Ulster police Chief Matthew Taggard said there has been a gradual increase in shoplifting and arrests in general over the past few years, which he attributes to the growth of the town’s commercial district.
Three main categories
Several local police agencies and judges say they have seen increases in the number of young people shoplifting.
In Ulster, at least, there has also been a jump in the number of older offenders, Taggard said.
An employee at the ShopRite there also said they have seen more older people stealing medicines and other small items, a sign of tough times economically.
Hertman said the offenders tend to fall into three categories: young people, who steal things such as cosmetics, clothing and electronics; adults, often drug addicts or people with money problems, who steal but aren’t professionals; and professionals who go for in-demand items they can sell, like baby formula, razor blades and designer clothes.
The pros’ techniques can be elaborate.
Once, Hertman said, they even arrested thieves who had what looked like a stack of picture frames, but with a false bottom to conceal items.
Although professionals can cause more financial damage, most shoplifters are “opportunistic” and don’t commit other crimes, said Barbara Staib, spokeswoman for the Long Island-based National Association for Shoplifting Prevention.
“If you lost a $20 bill, they’d pick it up and chase you down the street to give it back to you,” she said. “They’d recognize “it’d hurt you” (to lose the money).
However, Staib said, many shoplifters convince themselves their stealing doesn’t hurt anyone.
They started as teenagers, didn’t get caught, got a rush from it and continued. Some stop on their own, but others continue doing it into adulthood.
Online course for offenders
In Orange County, first-time, usually younger offenders can get the charges dismissed if they take a six-hour online course that NASP provides, and then stay out of trouble for six months.
“A lot of younger kids don’t realize the effect on the community, like when you steal, the prices of everything go up,” said Assistant District Attorney Lara Morrison, who handles cases in Wallkill. “That’s something the program teaches them.”
It started in 2005, and has had over 2,000 participants. Ruggeri said the feedback has been “phenomenal,” and that hardly any of the participants get re-arrested for shoplifting.
Loss prevention
Reducing shoplifting is a big part of loss prevention. One of the best ways stores can do this, said Bill Alford, a loss-prevention expert and president of the International Lighthouse Group, is good customer service. That means training employees to greet customers, walk up to them and offer to help.
“Theft can be deterred by giving the bad guys the attention they do not want,” Alford said.
In Wallkill, representatives from different stores have been meeting with police and each other four times a year, sharing information such as thieves’ descriptions, and techniques and trends in what they steal.
The police started to organize these meetings about two years ago, after observing that many retailers were running into the same problems, said Detective Michael Donaldson.
“It’s really opened up the communication between all the stores,” he said.
Reporter John Sullivan contributed to this report.
nbrown@th-record.com