By Kelly Ross
Jewellery store robberies have been escalating in frequency for years, with 2023 joining the ranks as one of the busiest years for robbery crime.
Drawing from their history of dealing with robberies and robbers, police often provide recommendations and security tips to help jewellers stay safe. Although certain retail crime prevention guidelines are commonly espoused by law enforcement, safety instructions are not always described in the same manner across police agencies—contributing to confusion when retailers face two seemingly different security tips that hold the same meaning.
Further, unless you rehearse robbery prevention tips regularly, it may be difficult to remember them. Especially during a robbery event, where stress can confound your ability to recall crucial safety guidelines.
So, how can you remember crucial safety guidelines during a robbery event? Taking the most important general retail crime-prevention guidelines, Jewellers Vigilance Canada (JVC) has crafted a mnemonic that parallels a knowledge base that every jeweller knows—the four Cs. As you have likely memorized the four Cs of diamond grading already, just knowing there are also four Cs of robbery protection can make it easier to remember safety tips at any time, let alone during a robbery.
1) Calm
Stay calm.
2) Compliant
Be compliant with the robber, obey commands, do not argue, fight, chase, or follow.
3) Collect
Collect details, descriptions, and evidence.
4) Catalogue
Write down anything and everything you can think of in regard to the robbery. Make notes of what happened—number of suspects, suspect descriptions, vehicles, direction the suspects travelled to/ from, time of event, potential evidence, names of customers and staff present during event, etc.
You must know how to conduct yourself during and after a robbery event. Coping with these events involves knowing what to expect and how to react. Although the four Cs of robbery protection are simple to remember, they need to be rehearsed on a regular basis. This means repeating “Calm, Compliant, Collect, Catalogue” out loud to reinforce. To help prepare your business in the event of a robbery, include recital of the new four Cs as part of your in-store security briefing and mandatory new personnel training.
A comprehensive detailing of the four Cs of robbery protection and other security measures can be found in the Jewellers Vigilance Canada retail security manual. For more information, visit www.jewellerycrimecanada.ca.
