SafetyRankBlog

Are Dye Packs Worth It?

2007-07-25T10:32:38-07:00

The core tenet we at Raptor International had when we developed Griffin-BR™ for bank robbery risk assessment and mitigation web-services was simple: to help bank managers optimize the ROI on their security spend.

As part of a major study we are doing for a client we are beginning to seriously question the economic return dye packs, especially in terms of return on investment. We know that they are a long held value by the bank and retail security communities. However, while our study is in the early stages, we are having a difficult time finding a measurable ROI on the use of dye packs.

Let’s look at a subset of the data for Northern Georgia (see *Reference below). There were 117 bank robberies with a total of $1,585,319 stolen in this area during the 12 month period ending March of 2007. Dye packs were dispensed in 20 of those robberies, three of which led to the recovery of cash. So, of the total of $232,062 recovered from the all117 robberies, the cumulative amount recovered through the use of the dye packs came to only $5,762. That doesn’t even cover the average cost maintaining a dye-pack at a branch. That begs the question, are dye packs worth it?

		Bank Robberies	% of Total	Incidents Where Case Was Recovered	% of Category	Total Amount of Cash Recovered
Dye Pack Not Given Out		97	83%	7	7%	$226,300
Dye Pack Given Out		20	17%	3	15%	$5,762
	Totals	117		10		$232,062

Because of the demographics of the Northern Georgia area we used for the above data it is a good representative for the rest of the country excluding Los Angeles and New York City. (LA and NYC’s size and density make it non-meaningful to extrapolate national trends.)

With our clients permission we will bring you more excerpts of this research.

More source data and a map is located at http://www.branchsafety.com/Georgia_Extract_Report.pdf

*Reference: Bartow, Bibb, Chatham, Clarke, Clayton, Cobb, Colquitt, Columbia, Coweta, Dekalb, Dougherty, Douglas, Fayette, Fulton, Gwinnett, Hall, Henry, Jackson, Lincoln, Lowndes, Muscogee, Polk, Richmond, Rockdale, Talbot, Towns, Walker and Walton Counties

Customer Friendly Banks -- Are They Riskier?

2007-05-24T15:24:51-07:00

I was interviewed by several Chicago news outlets regarding the recent horrific shooting at the Illinois-Service Federal Savings & Loan on Chicago’s South Side. Our Griffin Bank Security Suite software had that branch at 7 times the national average for bank robbery.

As I spoke with the reporters it was apparent that this branch, in a neighborhood that is recognized as being revitalized, has made extraordinary efforts to be a customer-friendly branch with an open feel. I am not going to try to hide my socially liberal bias here – I think it is great when community banks serve neighborhoods that probably do not get the amount of financial services they warrant.

The challenge that this incident demonstrates is how to protect customers and employees when a lot of potential bank robbers live in near-by neighborhoods, and in an urban environment where there are multiple high speed egresses from a robbery scene. That was the case here, and those two factors figure heavily in this branch having such a high risk level in the Griffin model. I think it is time that banks seriously consider installing teller cash dispenser (TCD’s). Not only as a way to optimize their human resources and to speed the closing process – but to remove the cash drawer, and the subsequent risk it brings. TCD’s are like high tech ATM’s that allow the teller to interface with customers and the cash is always in secure location.

They are offered by many companies and with variable features sets by companies like as De La Rue, Diebold or Stanley’s Frisco Bay Division.

We have just begun analysis, but the results seem interesting – branches that have CDM’s are experiencing fewer robberies than banks with similar risk indicators. I expect that the data will soon catch up to the common sense as we collect more relevant data and conduct more analysis.

About This Blog and BranchSafety.com

2006-12-29T10:00:08-08:00

BranchSafety.com was developed by the team that built The Griffin ™ The Bank Security Suite. Griffin is a web service that provides bankers and security industry professionals with in-depth analysis including predictive capabilities regarding bank robberies. Griffin analysis is used for assisting in branch site selection, determining the effectiveness of robbery deterrence equipment and assessing overall risk levels for senior financial institution managers. Griffin reports are also available to law enforcement personnel and attorneys who are working on premise liability cases.

The team that conducted the research and model development that went into Griffin ™ noticed several very interesting trends around the safety of bank, thrift and credit union branches. Some of this data will be made available on this site, information will be limited to ensure none of Griffin’s analysis is used by individuals with criminal intent.

Prior to its launch as a web service Griffin ™ was a project of great interest to the management, software developers and analysts at Raptor International. Based on exploratory work done in South Africa, where Raptor was founded, the development team of Raptor knew that their flagship product, RapAnalyst was capable of developing a highly accurate model to identify a branch’s risk of being robbed. Using data from 2004 and 2005 Raptor developed a model in June of 2006 that predicted slightly better than 70% of the bank robberies in the US that occurred between January 1^st and June 30^th. Several variables where added to the model and by September the model was indicating that 80% of the banks that had been robbed year to date met Griffins rating of Elevated Risk or Significant Risk.

Holiday Bank Robberies -- Preventable?

2006-12-29T09:01:38-08:00

Two tragic holiday season bank robberies, both of which occurred in Arkansas, served to crystallize, in period of a few days and in one state, some trends we have seen nationally in 2006 in bank robberies.

The first trend is that both robberies could have been prevented by the use of entrance control devices such as those provided by Hamilton Safe, Nova Comm and others. These systems have proven time and again to be a very cost effective means ensuring armed robbers cannot enter a branch. In the case of the recent robbery at the First Western Bank in Caulksville (Fort Smith), Arkansas it would have prevented the robber from pistol-whipping a client as reported in The Morning News and on KCTV5 News the Kansas City CBS affiliate. In the more tragic shooting death of 25 year old James Garrison at the Metropolitan National Bank branch at 10300 Rodney Parham, Little Rock, Arkansas full story from Fox News affiliate an access control doorway would have saved a life.

The second trend that these incidents bring to light is that bank robbers are usually serial criminals and quite often bank robbery recidivists. This was clearly the case in the First Western robbery full story from KCFM. The father/son team had robbed a bank in Jane, Missouri on two separate occasions NWANews.com Original Story. If that bank, a branch of Hometown Bank had used bait money with an embedded radio device such as those provided by Spectrum Management's Electronic Tracking Service (ETS) or 3SI Security Systems law enforcement officials may have been able to prevent the bank customer from being assaulted. The capture and recovery rate for financial institutions that have upgraded from traditional dye-packs to the electronic tracking solutions is significant.

Fortunately it seems that a team comprised of local police, county sheriffs and Arkansas State Police where able to capture the father and son before anyone else was hurt. As so often is the case with bank robberies, they are the work of serial criminals. In this case the father/son team not only robbed other banks, and committed assault; they stole cars to commit their crimes.