Authors
Hendricks-SA; Landsittel-DP; Amadus-HE; Malcan-J; Bell-J
Source
J Occup Environ Med 1999 Nov; 41(11):995-1004
Abstract
Convenience store clerks have been shown to be at high risk for assault and homicide, mostly owing to robbery or robbery attempts. Although the literature consistently indicates that at least some environmental designs are effective deterrents of robbery, the significance of individual interventions and policies has differed across past studies. To address these issues, a matched case-control study of 400 convenience store robberies in three metropolitan areas of Virginia was conducted. Conditional logistic regression was implemented to evaluate the significance of various environmental designs and other factors possibly related to convenience store robbery. Findings indicate that numerous characteristics of the surrounding environment and population were significantly associated with convenience store robbery. Results also showed that, on a univariate level, most crime prevention factors were significantly associated with a lower risk for robbery. Using a forward selection process, a multivariate model, which included cash handling policy, bullet-resistant shielding, and numerous characteristics of the surrounding area and population, was identified. This study addressed numerous limitations of the previous literature by prospectively collecting extensive data on a large sample of diverse convenience stores and directly addressing the current theory on the robbers' selection of a target store through a matched case-control design.
Keywords
Environmental-factors; Statistical-analysis; Humans; Risk-factors; Mortality-data; Mortality-rates; Retail-workers; Case-studies
Contact
Scott Hendricks, MS, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 1095 Willowdale Road, M/S P1133, Morgantown, WV 26505
Document Type
Journal Article
Source Name
Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine