Building a better Jackson: Understanding business break-ins

Municipal survival depends on curbing business break-ins, which scare off businesses and customers.

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The issue

The question of business break-ins' connection to economic growth has persisted through multiple mayoral administrations, police chiefs, studies and reports: How can the city make its businesses feel secure to the point they won't leave for the suburbs? Is it a more visible police presence? Is it data-driven crime-fighting? Is it prevention programs? Is it all of those? Keeping the existing tax base in place is the main criterion for growing it. Repeated break-ins and their expensive headaches are the quickest way to destroy it.

Why it's important

Municipal survival depends on it. Tax revenue businesses and their customers generate pay for roads, bridges, police and fire protection, schools — every city function that costs money is, at least in part, dependent upon taxes from restaurants, grocery stores, clothiers, hardware stores, auto repair shops and the like. When that revenue goes down, so does the number of police and fire personnel it pays for. And business break-ins that initially hurt just that entrepreneur become a public safety concern that affects everybody.

The prognosis

Good and bad news. The good news: Law enforcement and businesses have gotten good at adapting. The bad news: They've been dealing with business break-ins so long that they've gotten good at adapting. Technology has made expecting and preventing break-ins more of a science and less of a guessing game. Lessons learned (often the hard way) have taught law enforcement and business owners what works and what does not. Curbing break-ins requires effectively employing each.

Businesses must work together, be proactive

Crime is not just one business' problem; it's a community problem.

All of the times we have had a problem — mostly with car break-ins — it's not just happening to our customers at Martin's Restaurant & Bar. It's also happening to our neighbors, as well.

A simple, common-sense approach has served us well in working to deter thieves from our business and our customers. Know your neighbors and talk to them often when something happens.

Thieves will continue to come back until stopped, and a unified front on crime is the first step in getting them gone and keeping them gone.

Get involved.

When we have had issues in the past, our involvement with the Jackson Police Department, Downtown Jackson Partners, Securitas as well as our neighbors was crucial in working to catch and put thieves where they belong, behind bars.

Watch the harmless panhandler or bum. Some, not all, of these drifters will scope out your business/home and tell the actual thieves what your patterns are.

Keep them away and at arm's length at all times. Be nice, but direct and stern. If they really want help, it's not hard to find.

Step back and look at your business from a different perspective, that of a thief. Lighting, cameras — which are very affordable now — and signs letting them know you are watching will keep the crooks out and at the same time make your customers feel safe.

Most of the camera systems now are very flexible and economical.

Do whatever you can afford initially, and you can always add additional cameras after the fact.

Martin's installed security cameras last summer, but before they were installed we put up signs telling the world that we had them.

At that time, we had a few car break-ins, one of them even being my own vehicle. After the signs went up and the cameras followed a month after, we stopped having problems.

I don't think it was just because of the cameras; it was everything we had been doing, working together to prevent theft.

Martin's Restaurant & Bar is committed to downtown Jackson and has been operating downtown since 1953.

Crime will not keep us from operating, force us to move or hinder our growth.

Crime is just something you have to deal with no matter where you are located — Madison, Reservoir, Fondren or anywhere else in the United States, for that matter.

In my opinion, downtown is one of the safest parts of Jackson. We are here to stay and open for business.

Joseph Stodghill is the owner of Martin's Restaurant & Bar in Jackson.

5 questions with Bill Latham

Q:How would you describe your experience with break-ins at your businesses?

A:We've had some issues here and there, especially when I was involved with Char. It was nothing more than just car break-ins, but it got to be an issue eventually.

Q: How did you work through it?

A:We ended up hiring security. I can't remember if it was a Hinds County deputy or if it was private security, but we had to have a presence in our parking lot. It's not cheap, but it's cheaper than the alternative.

Q: How did the extra expense affect the restaurant?

A:We did pretty good business there, so it wasn't something that was that big a deal. Obviously every time you have an additional expense it takes away from something like a raise for your employees, but it's just part of doing business sometimes.

Q: Did it help?

A:It helped, but I'm not going to say that it completely solved it. It certainly slowed it down, which was good. We shared it with (adjacent restaurants) Bravo! and Julep. That person pretty much covered that entire side of Highland Village that faced I-55, especially after dark. We have security now that is provided by the landlord. We haven't seen much of a problem — and it may be because we've had security — but I haven't heard any issues from other people in the area.

Q: Did the break-ins prevent any sort of expansion or something similar you had planned?

A: Not really. We addressed the problem and went from there. I think it has gotten better. It could be that the economy's doing better. And I think that I've seen a lot more police presence not only at my businesses but in my neighborhood. Just that presence is a good thing. I think the city as a whole is doing a better job. I don't know our mayor, haven't met him, but I've heard positive things.

Bill Latham, founder of the Eat Here Brands restaurants, answers questions about how business break-ins affect Jackson's economic growth.

Solutions and Obstacles

Solution: Hiring private security to watch the business and its parking lot.

Obstacle: Perception and expense. An off-duty law enforcement officer patrolling your premises on a golf cart will no doubt get a would-be burglar's attention. For better or worse, it also gets the attention of customers, some of whom may skip the feeling of safety and go straight to asking themselves why security is needed in the first place. It could be a pricey deterrent. The Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, based at the State University of New York, recommends designing an effective response by figuring out what kinds of offenders are involved, what kinds of stores they target, how they gain access, how they deal with security measures and how they dispose of stolen goods.

Solution: Taking advantage of anti-crime technology.

Obstacle: Expense. Again, entrepreneurs have to weigh the cost of surveillance cameras and similar equipment versus reinvesting that money into their business. A thief caught on camera is often a thief who ends up in front of a sentencing judge. Likewise, is a chunk of profit better spent on anti-break-in technology or a new employee or piece of equipment? There's no way to know for sure beforehand which would better serve a business, and getting it wrong can mean the inability to keep the lights on.

Solution: Deploying more police.

Obstacle: The politics of increasing revenue. There aren't many honest places where an expanded law enforcement presence would be unwelcome. Where it becomes a problem is the mechanism to pay for it. Raising taxes, even in a mostly liberal city like Jackson, hand-delivers a platform and a set of talking points to those looking for any reason to unseat an incumbent. Tax increases end political careers. Period. For officials hyper-focused on their next election, it's the biggest no-no there is.

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