The Victimisation of Petrol Service Stations: Crime Patterns and Implications
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The Victimisation of Petrol Service Stations: Crime Patterns and Implications Neil Chakraborti, Martin Gill, Andrew Willis, Jerry Hart and Polly Smith1 Whilst the recent growth of research on retail crime has to some degree raised awareness of the considerable impacts of such crime, there remain a number of areas that have yet to be explored. One prime example is the victimisation of petrol service stations. By investigating the nature and extent of crime committed against petrol retail outlets in the UK, the present study was designed to encourage greater understanding of the problem and to assist in the development of preventive measures. The paper focuses on the key crime patterns identified in this research, which highlight the wide range and number of offences committed and their serious financial consequences for petrol retailers. In addition, the research has shown that service stations are vulnerable targets for criminal activity in both urban and rural parts of the country, and at all times of the day, week and year. These findings have serious implications for petrol retailers, and suggest that both improved security measures and increased police intervention are needed to reduce crime and increase safety in service stations across the country. Key Words: Petrol service stations; retail crime; victimisation; crime patterns; security Introduction Until recently, criminologists have tended to regard the victimisation of businesses as a marginal concern (Gill, 1994). In neglecting to recognise the business environment as the setting for a multiplicity of offences, criminologists may have failed to realise the effects of such crime on members of the business itself, as well as its wider implications for the community at large: as noted by several authors (see, for example, Gill, 1996; Felson and Clarke, 1997), crimes committed against businesses have serious consequences, such as the victimisation of workers, contractors and customers, or increased consumer and social costs, all of which must be taken into consideration when formulating an appropriate response. This oversight has been offset to an extent by a number of recent studies, which have highlighted that crime poses a particularly large problem for the retail sector. For example, the 1994 Commercial Victimisation Survey illustrated that retail premises were far more vulnerable than domestic premises to a wide range of offences (MirrleesBlack and Ross, 1995), whilst the British Retail Crime Survey 2000 estimated the full impact of retail crime to be as high as £2.044 billion, with retail crime prevention expenditure increasing by 13 per cent from the previous year (British Retail Consortium, 2001). Allied to the large volume of crime suffered by the retail sector as a whole is the scale of the crime problem for the petrol retail industry. A 1998 study conducted in Australia explored this issue, finding that petrol service stations in that country experienced more than 19 per cent of all retail robberies and more than ten per cent of retail thefts (Barr
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