Rigid adherence to a compliance approach not only be unsafe, but leave you liable.
When people think of robbery, their initial thoughts may turn to banks, the traditional guardians of our hard earned dollars. This transparent position made banks a popular target for robbery. However over the years, banks well developed security protective measures have made them amongst the most difficult targets of all for robbery. That’s great for banks and those who work in or are customers of banks, as it has significantly reduced the frequency and likelihood of an attack. It has however, also meant that when robbery does occur in a banking environment, it most commonly involved weapons, with firearms statistically more prevalent in bank robbery than in any other robbery setting. It has also meant that many more robberies take place against organisations that are perceived as less protected/easier targets, and many more against individuals in public places.
More than a hundred thousand incidents of robbery have occurred in Australia over the last two decades, and in that time a predominant response strategy has emerged… the strategy of ‘compliance’. There has been a common belief amongst safety and security experts that compliance is the best way to survive a critical incident such as robbery, and as such, training aimed to help people develop the knowledge and skills they needed to survive robbery focused on compliance related skills.
The strategy was built upon the premise that whilst robbery is a confrontational crime of violence, it is first and foremost a crime of theft in which financial gain is the core objective, and violence therefore simply part of a method used to induce victims to not resist. The logic being; that submissive, non-threatening and compliant behaviour will, in all probability, afford you the greatest opportunity of survival. This belief is primarily based upon anecdotal evidence of the connection between victim resistance and victim harm, combined with what therefore appears to be a good common sense approach…Click HERE to read full article.
