Bonsai Security
At one of the last board meetings we talked about an article for the newsletter pertaining to bonsai security. Having had been a police officer and detective for thirty years I have had some rather unique insight into the “criminal mind” and how it works. During my career part of my duties included conducting security analysis and evaluations of businesses and their physical structure. When I went to burglary investigation school one of our homework assignments was to go out into the community as three-man teams and act as though we were a burglary crew. We were to pick a business and conduct an analysis of it, taking into account the potential profit, the layout of the structure and the security systems in place. We would develop a plan of action and report back to the class with a briefing on our plans. Some of the presentations were very well thought out, with great detail given to dates, times, personnel, tools to be used, etc. When I went back to work in my community this is the same approach, I would take with the businesses I would conduct security analysis for as part of my Community Policing strategies. In other words, I would think like a would-be burglar. I am asking you to do the same thing to help secure your bonsai – think like a would-be thief who wants to steal your trees.
With the primary focus being making profits, one of the last things that is taken into consideration by businesses is the security of their physical premises. Security is an afterthought until it becomes an issue, and they wind up loosing money as a result of their lack of foresight and planning. They don’t take into account the seven P’s: “Proper Prior Planning Prevents P** Poor Performance”. This article therefore is about proper planning. As soon as you think it won’t happen to you, you’re going to find out otherwise. I know there are members of our club who have had some of their trees stolen. Hopefully this information will help you to secure your collection and avoid a loss.
Community Policing involves developing strategies to reduce the incidence of crime within the community by way of “target hardening”, which is making potential targets of crime more resistant or unattractive to criminals. The million-dollar question is how to do that. The following three elements are the key to target hardening and consists of reducing the criminal’s access to as many of the three as possible: 1) The Means to commit the crime; 2) The Motive to commit the crime; and 3) The Opportunity to commit the crime. You may think of this as the criminal triangle. Remembering these three things and eliminating or reducing as many as possible will help to reduce the likelihood of being a victim of any crime.
One of the biggest problems business has, especially retail businesses, is shrinkage, which is loss through theft. It is well known in the retail industry that a good deal of that shrinkage is due to employee theft. When you think in terms of means, motive and opportunity in relation to any potential target it helps you to understand why this is so. Employees in retail have the means and opportunities to commit theft while they are at work – after all, they have access to the business. The only thing an employee would be
missing is the motive to commit a theft. With a criminal, motives may be very easy to come by by way of rationalization, i.e. “The boss is a jerk and I’m short on money for my bills this month. I deserve to be treated better”, etc.
Retail business, in their efforts to reduce the incidence of theft, target hardens by way of implementing strategies like video security camera surveillance. Just the thought that they may be caught on video tape stealing something is a big deterrent to many people. Banks and gambling casinos are big in regard to their video surveillance. As a detective, when I was called to the scene of a bank robbery many times, we were not able to get a good picture of a suspect because of the way the cameras were positioned. I discovered that was because the cameras were positioned to watch the teller, not the customer. In other words, the losses they experience due to employee theft was much more significant than the losses they would experience from the occasional fraud or robbery. If it were, otherwise, they would be pointed in a different direction.
In regard to bonsai security, you should also take means, motive and opportunity into account when determining what you can do to help target harden your trees. Think in the same way I was taught to investigate burglaries – think like a thief! What can you do to reduce the means to commit a theft of your trees? This could be a security fence that hides your collection from view and is difficult to scale or enter because the gates are locked. It’s tough to carry a tree while climbing over a fence.
What can you do to reduce the motive to steal your trees? This one is a biggie since you can’t read someone’s mind. When you think in terms of motive for stealing a bonsai, think in terms of why they would want to steal it? I don’t have empirical evidence of this, but I can take a reasonably educated stab at it and go out on a short limb (gratuitous bonsai humor here) by theorizing that most bonsai are stolen from someone’s back yard because the thief liked a tree they saw when walking by the yard where they were on display for anyone to see with relative ease from the street or sidewalk. Monetary Profit in the sense of a stolen bonsai taken from someone’s backyard more than likely is not the motive. Ours is a specialized art form for which a market outside of bonsai circles is difficult to come by. Something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, but you still have to find someone who would be willing to pay for it. What does that leave in terms of motive? More than likely, somebody who found the tree to be beautiful and/ or novel. If you are a Taoist and lose a tree to someone who stole it because it would bring beauty into their life, you would be happy for the person who stole it that they were able to experience that beauty. My guess is most of you are not Taoists? In that case take heart that the stupid S.O.B. will probably kill it because they haven’t got a clue how to take care of it. Their karma most likely will be shot and they will come back as the toad they are in their next life.
What can be done to reduce the opportunity to steal your trees? This could be something as simple as owning a dog that would alert you (and the thief) to the presence of someone outside and would therefore take away the time they would have to steal a tree. There is nothing better than a 100 lb. German Shepherd snarling and barking to act as a deterrent.
Written by Jim Keith
