Tips for Burglary Prevention as Professionals ‘Return to Work’

New York—As stores nationwide continue to reopen and perhaps even extend their hours, the Jewelers’ Security Alliance is urging retailers to review the safeguards they have in place to prevent burglaries.

In its weekly bulletin sent out Thursday, JSA shared a dozen recommendations for preventing burglaries or, at least, mitigating losses.

They included the following.

— Respond to all alarm signals promptly, and examine every possible point of entry—the doors, windows, roof and walls, including those that are shared with neighboring premises.

— Electrical junction boxes also need to be examined since some gangs cut or disconnect the power to disable alarm systems and cameras.

— Don’t leave merchandise out in showcases overnight and don’t cover them; it is safer if potential burglars can see that a store’s showcases are empty. Even less expensive merchandise needs to be put away out of sight, even if it’s just in a closet or drawer.

— Use some interior lighting when the store is closed so criminals who might be casing the store can see the showcases are empty, and police will be better able to spot any intruders.

— Don’t put the store’s safe or safes on an outside wall or a wall that’s shared with a neighboring business. Burglars break through walls to access them.

— Keep surveillance camera images stored on the cloud or in another remote location in the event burglars remove the surveillance equipment when leaving the store.

The tips came as JSA reported an uptick in burglaries as “professionals”—meaning criminals with more sophisticated tools and know-how—have begun to hit jewelry stores after a period of dormancy the organization believes was COVID-19 related.

Over the past two years, burglaries involving significant losses have been “especially frequent,” JSA President John J. Kennedy told National Jeweler on Thursday.

At the beginning of the year, before COVID-19 became widespread in the United States, JSA warned jewelers about a spate of rooftop burglaries that happened in late December through mid-January.

Kennedy said at the time rooftop burglaries had more than doubled from 2018 to 2019, while safe attacks in 2019 totaled 25, up from 13 in 2018, an increase that looked like it was set to continue into 2020.

But the coronavirus pandemic curtailed that activity, just like it did almost everything else.

“During COVID, stores were closed and merchandise locked away at night. There were fewer people on the streets