Arrests of two major smash-and-grab robbery gangs help bring theft rate down in 2015.
The Jewelers’ Security Alliance has released its 2015 Annual Crime Report covering crime against the jewelry industry in the U.S, which offers some pretty encouraging facts and figures.
The report says that the total number of crimes dipped from 1,381 in 2014 to 1,177 in 2015, marking a decrease of 14.7 percent. Total dollar losses also decreased from $77.8 million in 2014 to $69.3 million in 2015, a decrease of 10.9 percent.
In a release announcing the report, the JSA credits these declines to information sharing and the work of the FBI and local law enforcement agencies, pointing to the arrests of two major smash-and-grab robbery gangs in the first half of 2015. As a result of these arrests, there were half as many smash-and-grab robberies in the second half of 2015 (24) as in the first half of 2015 (48). For the full year 2015, smash-and-grab robberies numbered 72 compared to 110 in 2014.
“While the diamond, jewelry and watch industry is still a dangerous business, nevertheless, the long-term trend in jewelry crime is still firmly down,” says JSA President John Kennedy. “The significant decline that JSA has seen in crime is due to the greater sharing of crime information within the industry and with law enforcement, and from the terrific cooperation that the industry receives from the FBI and local law enforcement agencies.”
Check out JSA’s full report here.