SSN News Poll examines security solutions to retail crimes

YARMOUTH, Maine – Just in time for the holiday shopping season, Security Systems News (SSN) asked readers about retail security, and their responses reflect changing attitudes toward current security trends.

Our first poll question asked readers if robotic security guards (i.e. Astro and Knightscope) are the future of retail security or if traditional human guards were superior. Absolutely no reader indicated that they believe that robots will be the endgame for retail security, and only 8.33% believed that human guards alone were sufficient. 66.67% believed that both were the answer to current problems with retail theft, and 25% of responses believe that neither can resolve the problem.

“The court systems need to step up and become more of a deterrent to criminals,” one reader wrote in response.

Next, we asked readers whether concerns facing the largest retailers at the moment with regards to price hikes were better laid at the feet of rising crime, or things like inflation and global unrest. 41.67% of respondents believe that thefts are having a disproportionately adverse effect on sales. As opposed to 33.33% who believe that inflation, global supply chain, and international politics are bigger concerns. 25% of the responses again said that they weren’t sure if crime was responsible for the rising cost of goods and services.

Working off that we asked readers, in light of rising mass theft and violent crimes, what are the best methods to deal with it? Only 8.33% of readers believe that preventative measures are the answer to solve this crime wave. 16.67% said that Post-crime methods like using security cameras to track and prosecute criminals was the answer.

“The solutions necessary to address this issue should ultimately involve robots- integrated into the existing (and already integrated) retail security systems,” one reader wrote. “Hopefully (human) guards will be eliminated and only needed to run and monitor the traditional and robot security systems.”

An overwhelming 75% of readers stated that both preventative and post-crime action is required to deal with crime.

That’s it for this month’s News Poll. Our next poll asks readers to look back on 2023 as we make predictions about trends in 2024.