When I was 16 years old, I began my journey into the working world. My first job was at a well-known 24/7 convenience store and gas station on the East Coast. The location of the store was extremely busy during the day and rarely populated at night. I went through multiple hours of training, which included robbery training. One night, while I was brewing fresh coffee, a man approached me. He began small talk with me, asking me mundane questions about how my day was going. He then began to ask me questions about the store and its layout. His line of questioning raised a red flag, and I began to feel more and more uncomfortable as time progressed. After I was vague with my responses, he began asking me about the security of the store. Within seconds of asking his first security question, the music playing throughout the building cut off and an announcement came over the loudspeaker of the store. On the other end of the loudspeaker was a member of the corporate security team. She explained to the man that security is watching the store 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and, if he was done conducting his business, he was to leave the store. The man left his cup of coffee that he poured on the countertop and walked out of the door immediately. Directly after the end of the audio transmission, a screen capture of his face was taken and sent to my manager.
This story had me thinking about what makes a store more vulnerable to robbery than another? This involves the theory of defensible space (Gruman, 2016). This theory states that instances of crime will lessen and individuals within those spaces will feel more protected if specific elements of building layout and interior designs are implemented (Gruman, 2016). A model called the Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) explains that, by changing aspects of a poor design layout of a business, the susceptibility of a business to robbery can be significantly diminished (Casteel, 2000). Access control, activity support, natural surveillance, and territoriality are the features of the CPTED model (Casteel, 2000). I have used that model to investigate the building layout and interior design of my store and to evaluate how susceptible my store was for a robbery.
I believe that the access control (flow of customer traffic in relation to outside doors of the building and their locations) in my store was of good quality (Casteel, 2000). In customer view, there were only two doors on either side of the building that the customer can come in or out of and a security door in the back of the building that cannot be opened from the outside and can only be opened inside with a code to keep the alarm from sounding off. The doors were positioned in a way that the customer can come in one door, conduct their business, and exit from the door on the other side and the customer can be easily seen from many angles.
The activity support (steps that are taken to ensure that a store is populated with happy customers) of the store was also positive (Casteel, 2000). While we were not busy at night, we were very busy during the day and there were many regular customers who would visit multiple times a day and were loyal to our store. As employees, we would build that rapport with our customers and the police force in our area. The more police you have visiting your establishment, the less criminals you have coming around.
The natural surveillance (cash register location, illumination inside the building, and transparency of the store from the outside) had some issues (Casteel, 2000). Our cash registers were located on either side of the doors to and from the building. The cash registers should have been placed further away from the entrances and exits of the building so that the surveillance cameras would have a better chance of capturing an image of a suspected criminal. That would also cause the perpetrator to potentially be seen by other customers or workers within the building before they could reach the register. The illumination within the building and the ability to see inside of the store from the outside were acceptable due to bright lights and large windows that make up the walls of the building.
Finally, the territoriality (the separation between customer and employee, where the store is sited and how populated that area is at any given time, and marketing strategies in the area surrounding the store) had its good points and its bad points (Casteel, 2000). The store is in a very populated area off a major highway. The area is not as populated at 3:00am, but there are a few regular customers who frequent the store at nighttime. There are billboards and bright signage advertising the store both on and off the highway, so it is well known that the store exists to the public. The separation between customer and employee could be adjusted. The cash registers are located at one end of the building and were manned by one or two employees. The rest of the workers are at the other end of the building to make food orders. I think that the cash register area and the food preparation area should be connected to better ensure employee security (safety in numbers!).
Ultimately, that man never came back into the store and we never had any issues with him. However, that was not the last I heard of him. The police came into my store a few weeks later, holding a printed out criminal line up. The officer asked me if I could identify the man who entered my store that day and was asking me questions. I was able to positively identify him for the officer, so he thanked me and left. A few days after that, I read in the newspaper that he had robbed another convenience store down the street from mine. Thanks to the creation of a defensible space (and the vigilance of corporate security) I did not have to experience such a terrifying ordeal.
References
Casteel, C., & Peek-Asa, C. (2000, April 28). Effectiveness of crime prevention through environmental Design (CPTED) in Reducing robberies. Retrieved February 08, 2021, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074937970000146X
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com
“An Evaluation of Defensible Space” is clearly not the blog I intended to comment on… my apologies!
Though I am sure your ponderance as to whether you were “[that] bad of a kid” is partly facetious given the context, I assure you that the examples you provided lean more toward normative adolescent behavior than toward genuine risk adult malfeasance or anti-environmental sentiment.
Social norms theory and the individual perception of others is certainly a large contributing factor toward individual conservational behaviors (Sevillano and Olivos. 2019. p. 1). When individuals perceive their effort as fleeting, such as going taking the time to drag the recycling out to the curb despite being the only cans or bins out in the whole neighborhood, they may get the impression that a similar sample throughout their local, state/provincial, national, or global population are doing the same. In perceiving their purview’s sample as normative for the population, the recycler may start to doubt the impact and return on investment of their recycling efforts. “If almost no one else is doing it, what is my effort really accomplishing,” the individual may think. Maybe it is true, and for each step forward an individual takes toward the environment the population as a whole takes 99 steps back. However, it is likely that the normative anti-recycling behavior that the individual perceives in their own neighborhood is not likely to be true of the greater population. For that reason, and just the same for the neighbors who already fail to make attempts to recycle due to perceptions that no else is doing it, social norms theory can address the social psychological blocks that inhibit or influence behavior based on incorrect perceptions of what are truly normative.
One social psychology theory that you did not address in regards to your own adolescent disobedience and growth into a pro-environmentalist is one that I believe afflicts everyone in regards to the environment at one point or another, cognitive dissonance. In an age when satellite images can depict a giant garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean, and almost universal belief that fossil fuels are finite and their consumption to be at the behest of our environment and human health, many humans continue to practice less-than-pro-environmental and conservationist behaviors despite evidence that we are damaging our own planet. Some may continue to commit harmful behaviors due to financial, convenience, or other reasons attributed to inability to affect mass change (with its ties to social norms theory). Such dissonant behavior is not likely to be generally malicious, but is nonetheless dissonant in regards to environmental impact as whole, in cases where the individual understands the impact of their behavior but seeks to justify it (Gruman, Schneider & Coutts. 2016. p 465).
I would be remise not to acknowledge the sentiment you used to close out your post, and would like to add the often misquoted words attributed to Mahatma Gandhi (Morton. 2011), to “be the change you wish to see in the world” regardless of social norms or cognitive dissonance.
References
Gruman, J., Schneider, F., & Coutts, L. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com. p 465
Morton, B. (2011). Falser Words Were Never Spoken. Opinion. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/30/opinion/falser-words-were-never-spoken.html
Secillano, V. and Olivos, P. (2019). Social Behavior and Environment: The Influence of Social Norms on Environmental Behavior. Papeles del psicologo. Retrieved from http://www.papelesdelpsicologo.es/English/2898.pdf. p 1