Criminals – not just the Enrons, WorldComs and Bre-Xs of the world – can be very entrepreneurial about they way they do business.

And as more Alberta companies face everything from sophisticated scam artists to common petty delinquents, they become vulnerable to a wide range of offences including counterfeiting, confidence scams, shoplifting, internal thefts and break-and-enters.

To thwart these kinds of crimes, stronger ties are being forged between the police and private sectors in Calgary and Edmonton.

“The criminal element does a risk assessment that’s very similar to any business going into a venture,” says Calgary Police Const. Tej Cheema. “A business, before it invests, will do its research and then come up with a probability of success, and the criminal element is no different.”

Larry MacDougal, Business Edge
Calgary business owner Greg Kozolowsky, right, speaks with city police business liaison program volunteer Carolyn Nelson as she walks her beat.

For this reason, it is important for businesses to make themselves unattractive targets for crime, just as a company will swallow a poison pill to stave off a hostile takeover.

It is Cheema’s job, as head of Calgary’s District 1 business liaison program, to transform businesses in the downtown core into “hard targets” that will deter the bad guys.

“If you become a hard target, then the criminals are going to look somewhere else,” he says. “That’s what every business should be thinking about.”

Crime statistics to mid-October show break-and-enters among Calgary businesses rose in 2004 to 3,444 from 2,986 for the same period in 2003, while home break-ins for that period dropped by 836 to 2,547. Calgary businesses reported that they lost $8.16 million to break-ins during 2003.

In Edmonton, meanwhile, the number of businesses victimized by break-ins between January and August actually decreased to 1,622 this year compared to 1,937 during the same period in 2003.

Jim Taylor, president and CEO of the Downtown Business Association of Edmonton, says crime in Canada’s downtown areas is a reality. “It’s not a matter of eradicating crime, it’s one of mitigating it,” through initiatives that see the business community, police and City Hall work together.

An association committee in Edmonton that looks at security issues includes police members as well as aldermen, which allows downtown businesspeople to voice their concerns directly to the city and police service, Taylor says.

In Calgary, the police department’s business liaison program was developed to establish and maintain regular contact between the business community and police by addressing crime prevention and safety needs. It was set in motion in the run-up to the 2002 G-8 Summit as police approached downtown businesses to discuss security issues.

Cheema says the response from local entrepreneurs was so positive that officials decided to keep the program going and expand it.

One of the program’s unique features is the use of volunteers to liaise with downtown entrepreneurs. About 35 volunteers pound the pavement, going from storefront to storefront to distribute information about upcoming crime-prevention seminars, the latest scams and crime trends, along with other bits that can help make a business a safer and more secure place.

The program gives merchants an opportunity to bring forward information about goings-on around their workplace – data that are then passed on to Cheema by the volunteers.

“It’s a little like the days of the beat cop,” he says. “They’re checking with the businesses on a regular basis, and although they’re not police officers, they hear things, report them to me, and then I can direct our officers to the problem.”

There are practical motives behind this. As the sole officer assigned to the downtown business beat, Cheema is responsible for more than 1,500 companies.

Carolyn Nelson stumbled across the liaison program while surfing the Calgary Police Service website. She liked what she saw, and now once a month, Nelson visits 70 businesses that line the south side of Inglewood’s 9th Avenue (another volunteer handles the north side) to hand out information, discuss security issues, or just share a bit of gossip.

Break-and-enters are the biggest problem Nelson hears about from Inglewood merchants, as well as panhandling and loitering by transients who frequent the area.

“I think the businesses appreciate having a direct contact to the police service, someone they can talk to face-to-face and not just something that’s done by phone or by e-mail,” she says.

Greg Kozolowsky is one of the merchants on Nelson’s beat. He and wife Lisa own Frameswest Inc., which sells fine art and furniture. Kozolowsky was instrumental in bringing the business liaison program to Inglewood last year.

“In January, I realized there was no involvement between the local police with the businesses in Inglewood,” says Kozolowsky, who had been involved with the program when he owned an outlet in Bridgeland. “There were a lot of break-ins happening and there was no follow-up by the police, so on my initiative we got them involved.”

Kozolowsky says he is happy with the liaison program, and especially Nelson, who he notes “really seems to care.”

However, he would like to see uniformed officers involved with the liaison program take a more active role by stopping and chatting with store owners, or participating in local Business Revitalization Zone meetings.

In Edmonton, new security measures at one downtown building are making a real difference. Like other office towers in the city centre, Commerce Place, a two-tower office and retail complex, has experienced its share of crime. But greater co-operation between neighbouring buildings is proving to be successful in combating trouble, says Greg Smith, head of security for Great West Life Realty Advisers, owners of Commerce Place.

Security personnel in different office towers and shopping centres communicate via two-way radios, which allows them to co-ordinate if they are pursuing someone from one building to another, or in any number of other scenarios.

“Usually we’re fighting each other for business, but now we’re working together, because if you make the downtown safer, business is better for everybody,” Smith says.

Simply changing the environmental design in and around buildings can make a difference. Smith tells how adding more lights and a little bit of paint helped Commerce Place reduce the number of stolen automobiles from the building’s parkade from 12 during 1999 to none, so far, in 2004.

This reduction was accomplished not by turning the parkade into a fortress, but by merely brightening the space, using a lighter colour scheme on the walls, adding a few surveillance cameras, and working with building tenants and customers.

“Criminals love the darkness and the shadows because they don’t want to be seen,” Smith explains. “Whereas if you have a well-lit facility, the chances of being seen and identified increase dramatically – and that’s a deterrent.”

Const. Terry Jordan of the Edmonton Police Service agrees that changing the environmental design – known as crime prevention through environmental design, or CEPTD – coupled with other prevention programs can dramatically improve security and safety in businesses.

The key, he insists, is that the companies be proactive in crime prevention either through business associations or directly through the police. Too often, security is the last thing entrepreneurs consider.

“Many people say, ‘It won’t happen to me,’ and then when it does, they ask, ‘Why me?’” Jordan says. “Taking steps isn’t an absolute guarantee that a business won’t be victimized, but it’ll sure give them a better chance.”

(John Ludwick can be reached at jludwick@businessedge.ca)