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SafeCatch
The SafeCatch program was created by Special Agent Larry Carr of the Seattle Division of the FBI. According to Larry, the SafeCatch program is easy to understand, but takes a life time to master. In other words each security manager will have to adopt it into their environment. The institution should adopt it wholesale, but some will only want a piece or two.
From Larry's own post in the BOL threads, here is the story and statistics on this program: In the State of Washington, from 1996 through 2006, we had just over 3,000 bank robberies. The vast majority occurred in the Puget Sound area. This, of course, means an average of 300 a year with 352 as our high water mark. Unfortunately, these numbers ranked our area as one of the most robbed in the United States.
Year after year, the alarm is activated, we respond, investigate and you reopen until they hit again. A clear delineation of bank and cop, not a partnership.
Four years ago I approached the banking community to see if things could change. We needed to become a team and put banks more in line with the effort. The thinking had to become, "every bank robbery is every bank's problem."
There are many environmental reasons we have so many robberies in Washington state, we can't control those. What we can control is how we manage the problem. What I discovered was the banks philosophical mind set was to "do nothing." We are banks not cops, let the cops do their job. I agree in part but this mind set went way to far to the "do nothing" side.
The key is that we don't have 300 bank robbers committing 300 bank robberies a year. We have 30, in fact in 2006 we had 285 and 14 people committed half of those.
In response to this, the SafeCatch program was created, safety still the overriding principle but a call to action. The mind set has to become, and is the mantra of SafeCatch, "Empower employee's to take control of their environment and safety by giving them tools to use and permission to use them."
We now have 35 bank's and CU's participating, with almost 400 branches trained.
THE RESULTS
After three years of a soft role out, in 2007 we had our first national bank willing to test the program. In the spring of 2007, in partnership with the security managers of this bank, we trained 90 of their branches in the core areas where they were robbed the most. This bank had been the most robbed bank in the state for the last 17 years, averaging 50 robberies a year. In 2007 they finished the year with 15, and went from the most robbed bank in the state to the least (of the five national banks) and yet still have the most branches.
When you break down the raw numbers into % (which is how you should look at your robbery numbers, "what % of robberies does my bank account for in a given area") this bank accounted for 17% of all robberies in the state from 1996 to 2006. For 2007 they dropped to 8%, the other four national banks had record number of % share of robberies for 2007.
This tells us without a doubt that the preventive measures in the program are working. This bank is displacing robbers onto other's not using the program.
On a broad scale, not since 1987 has the State of Washington recorded under 200 robberies for a year. In 2007 we had 176, the most robberies attributed to any one robber was 8, proving the effectiveness of the Catch phase.
Currently, this national bank has had only two robberies in the first quarter of 2008, its nearest competitor is being robbed at 3 times their normal rate.
From this data it seems the program is not only working but incredibly so. Granted, we only have a year's worth of data and will need four more to really make a statement, however, nothing leads me to believe that things will revert back to our days of old.
This program includes:
- PowerPoint Training presentation
- SafeCatch Study (background and research)
- SafeCatchTrainers Manual
- SafeCatch Tellers Guide
For ease in use and review, these documents are available in bot PDF and their native, Word and PowerPoint forms. Right-click a link to save the document to your computer.
10-01-08
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