How to stop bank robberies

Bank robbery has become a familiar scene in Jordan, with last year alone experiencing eight such robberies. There was a bank robbery this year already, when the Housing Bank for Trade and Finance, located in the Manara neighbourhood of Amman, was hit on Sunday by a lone robber who stole JD10,000.

This is a strange phenomenon in Jordan, which has no such history of bank robbery till recent times. True, seven of the bank robbers were apprehended in due course, but one remains at large with a loot of JD105,000.

Police diligence is credited with such a high rate of success in apprehending robbers, but the mere fact that such cases of robbery are taking place in the country is a cause for alarm.

One does not need to dig deep into the causes of this type of robbery in Jordan to reach the conclusion that poverty could be the main culprit. Jordan's fragile economic condition, compounded by inflation and high unemployment, must have a lot to do with the rise of this kind of criminality.

Police officers can now be seen guarding banks from attacks, but they do not seem to succeed in deterring robbers all the time. This leads to one conclusion: Banks themselves must improve their own anti-robbery measures, while the police are encouraged to enhance their protection techniques of banks.

It is going to take specially-trained policemen to guard banks, who are extra attentive and on their toes at all times to frustrate bank robbers. Banks, on the other hand, need to deploy their own, more sophisticated, security measures to protect themselves from robbers.

There are banks in some countries, Italy for example, which control the opening and closing of their doors by putting them under surveillance. No person can enter or leave a bank without control by a security system deployed by banks. These extra security measures could be costly but they are effective in stopping this bank robbery phenomenon.