New security measures are needed to curb the number of armed robberies at shopping malls, the South African Council of Shopping Centres (SACSC) said on Friday.
”It is too late to stop armed robbers from attacking when they are already inside a shopping centre,” SACSC Gauteng security committee chairperson Sim de Wet said.
”The only way to curb these attacks is by being proactive and stopping the robbers when they do their reconnaissance missions.
”These robbers are very professional and would never conduct these robberies without scouting out the centres to see what they are up against.”
He said shopping centres needed to work together, improve their security and improve communication between themselves about security.
”It is important for the tenants, management and service providers in a centre to work together as a team in combating crime.
”Often tenants identify suspicious people because they see the same person coming into their shop a couple of times without buying anything or asking for help,” De Wet said.
”We need to ensure that shopping centres become too hard to penetrate so that criminals will steer clear of attacking them.
”One major deterrent is to ensure it is too difficult for armed robbers to get in and out fast.”
He said guards needed to know what to look for, how to approach the suspects and steer them away from the centre.
If the assailants were already in the centre ”armed and ready to attack”, the security had failed and the guards could do nothing more to stop the robbery.
De Wet did not believe that giving security guards weapons was the answer to preventing shopping centre attacks.
”This definitely leads to shoot-outs and innocent people getting hurt, and that is what we are trying to avoid.”
He said it was time to consider reintroducing increased security controls at centre entrances, with walk-through metal and hand-held metal detectors, and parcel and bag searches.
However, he was concerned that shopping centre management might be afraid of how shoppers and tenants would react to the introduction of this type of security.
”Unfortunately security levels with an associated measure of inconvenience cannot be divorced. The reintroduction of such measures need not be permanent and can be removed when the situation changes.” — Sapa