DALLAS -- A handful of convenience-store retailers are among the first to experiment with a new twist in their efforts to deter petty crime: Using an authoritative, yet disembodied, voice to irritate would-be wrongdoers or warn them to leave, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
Retailers long have blared classical or country music to discourage loiterers from congregating in front of their stores. But a new service being tested by 7-Eleven, Valero Energy and others takes that effort a step further by emitting, with a clerk's push [image-nocss] of a button, messages from overhead speakers that address potential miscreants directly.
One example of a message that can be broadcast in a stern male voice to loiterers or potential shoplifters inside or outside a store: "Attention please: You are on private property. No loitering or illegal activities are allowed at this location. All activities are being monitored and recorded. You must leave the premises immediately or the police will be called."
The service, named Message on Demand (MOD), was conceived by long-time retail-security consultant Rosemary Erickson of Athena Research Corp. and produced by a tiny South Dakota company operated by her niece and nephew. So far, the MOD system is being used in 10 stores operated by 7-Eleven Inc.; two Valero Energy Corp. gas stations in Kansas City, Mo.; and a grocery store in Minnesota operated by Supervalu Inc., according to the report.
For the retailers, the MOD system achieves several goals. It frees clerks from the dangerous task of directly confronting potentially violent patrons. And it gives retailers a tool to help them comply with increasingly stringent nuisance-abatement efforts in various cities. Cities such as Dallas and Denver are stepping up efforts to take actions in civil court including closing down stores if retailers and other property owners fail to enact measures to deter crime at their sites.
"We are finding more cities that are using nuisance-abatement ordinances to put the onus on the retailer or to get them more actively involved" in deterring petty crime, Scot Lins, director of corporate loss prevention at Dallas-based 7-Eleven told the WSJ.
Behind the nuisance-abatement push is a theory espousing the deterrence of petty crime as a means of preventing larger crimes. The so-called broken-window theory encourages law-enforcement agencies to combat minor crimes, such as graffiti, loitering, petty theft and property damage, so as to eliminate the environment that fosters larger crimes such as robbery and assault.
For 7-Eleven, the catalyst for implementing the MOD system came when Denver authorities threatened to close a troublesome store near the city's downtown because it had become a haven for drug dealing, according to the article. 7-Eleven opted to close the store on its own in 2004 and look into methods to keep other stores from deteriorating to the same condition. The retailer now uses the MOD system in four stores in Denver, four in Dallas, one in Philadelphia and one in Portsmouth, Va.
Denver police say the MOD system appears to have benefited 7-Eleven at Denver sites where it is in use. However, they add that clerks must be willing to take the final step if troublemakers do not respond to MOD messages. "Sometimes, you have to follow through and then call the police, not just make a vacant threat," Denver police commander Deborah Dilley said.
That's rarely necessary with the MOD system, said Samuel Mudumala, who operates the two Valero stations using the system in Kansas City, Mo. He had tussled with the city for years about homeless people that congregated at his Valero station near downtown. After the station began playing MOD messages for loiterers earlier this year, Mudumala found that the loiterers often yelled profanities at the store but then wandered off. "They really don't want to walk away, but they do," he told the newspaper.
The company that produces the MOD system, Message on Demand LLC, designed it to deliver a range of messages. It can play music intended to irritate loiterers, including dueling fiddles or a World War II march. It also can deliver messages in different languages, including Spanish and Hmong. And it can produce reports detailing how often messages are played at a given store, at what time and when police are summoned.
The MOD system's creators charge $7,500 for a full-blown version of the system, and $3,000 for a slimmed-down version without Internet capability or report production.
Estimates of the potential market for the MOD system vary. 7-Eleven's Lins predicts that 50 to 100 of his company's 5,800 U.S. and Canadian stores might eventually use the system. Erickson, the retail-security consultant who brainstormed the idea for the MOD system, sees a larger market. "We estimate for any chain that about 10% of the stores have nuisance-abatement issues," she said.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.