Protecting Customers From Crime - Draft Standards With Commentary for Determining the Foreseeability of Crime and the Adequacy of Security on Premises Open to the Public

• NCJ Number: 97115
• Author(s): L W Sherman
• Date Published: 1984
• Length: 67 pages
• Corporate Author: Security Law Institute
• Publication Format: Document
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The standards presented aim to reduce the risk of crime against customers and others on public premises as well as to delineate parameters of civil liability pertaining to owners' and operators' failure to prevent such crimes.

Abstract

The standards resulted from discussions with security professionals at meetings focusing on industrial security, campus law enforcement, security in fast-food restaurants, and parking lot security. These standards are acknowledged to be the opinions of the author, a criminologist; they are not the standards of the security industry nor of any trade association. An examination of background issues focuses on the growth of crimes against persons, the growth of the private security industry, a rise in personal injury litigation, and the victims' rights movement. The proposed standards rest on an acceptance of trends in case law, the belief that standards should be applicable to all sizes of organizations, and the assumptions that they must apply to premises which are diverse in physical layout and uses and to a wide variety of communities. Operators of premises open to the public are advised to recognize a duty to take reasonable steps to reduce the risk of reasonably foreseeable types of crimes committed by strangers or employees against members of the public. Definitions of reasonableness and recommended communications with the local police are included, as are broad standards regarding the adequacy of security. Footnotes are supplied.