On Crime

Neighbourhood Crime

Having almost every property – and certainly every street - visited at least once, and in many cases twice a day by teams of local employees is a wonderful opportunity to improve our neighbourhoods.
The delivery staff – who almost all live in the area they serve – not only know the area intimately but also care about it. They are therefore ideally suited to notice and report any problem – whether it be a window left open where they know someone is away; some new graffiti; a new pot-hole in the road or a suspicious stranger loitering outside the nursery school.

Employee Crime

Every company suffers from bad apples in its workforce. We occasionally hear in the paper about postmen who steal letters, who horde or throw letters away to avoid having to deliver them. Any shop, whether stationary or working from the back of a van will suffer losses from dishonest employees who will pocket payments instead of processing them.
None of us like being watched all the time but whenever someone is alone and unsupervised there will be a temptation to try and clear that credit card debt a little faster by siphoning off some cash or goods when no-one is looking.
Localnet deliveries are naturally made by a two man team. This is not only a better working environment but it also means that, even without having a surveillance camera on them at all times, there is a second pair of eyes and, more importantly, a second conscience on hand to counsel against taking an easy option to make some money on the side or illegally.
The system is also highly mechanised and automated. Discrepancies will be picked up much more quickly and accurately than in today’s delivery systems. Boxes are locked shut until they are delivered – taking temptation out of people’s way. At least a proportion of boxes can be tracked worldwide so why take the risk of stealing one.

Security of Deliveries

Today’s delivery services are not immune to crime. Post vans can be held up; delivery trucks stolen but serious criminals are after serious amounts of money or large volumes of valuable products – such as cigarettes.
Localnet deliveries are, by definition, a complete mix of products. There might be some cash in some of the PaperBoxes but you’re going to have to carry away the entire neighbourhood’s morning papers and breakfasts before you can sit down and start laboriously sawing open the PaperBoxes.
The opportunities for casual crime are also reduced. With a two or three man delivery team working from a van which only releases its iron (literally) grip on the boxes as its recognised staff member walks up to it there is no opportunity, as there is today, for a teenager to reach inside a post van and grab a sack of mail while the postman walks down a long driveway, having neglected to lock his cab.
If an organised gang does want to empty a van by threatening its crew with sawn off shotguns and ordering them to put the boxes in their getaway vehicle, they’re out of luck. The delivery van will not present boxes to the hatches for removal until it has been parked outside the property they’re destined for. Not too many thieves would be happy following a van around for an hour while slowly emptying it of contents. In fact, even this scenario is easy to foil. If the containers removed from the van do not appear in the DeliveryPoint they are intended to, the van will simply stop giving out any more.
The technology around the system makes it easy to counter all of the scenarios I can envisage bar. For example, even if the van is hijacked, it would refuse to move without its crew on board. Stealing the crew’s identification cards or tablets would overcome this but these vans only go at twenty miles an hour. That doesn’t make for a terribly exciting or successful getaway vehicle. Furthermore, the vans’ location is known to within a few feet and the anti-joy ride system in it will immediately shut the motor down if it strays far from its planned route. If the crew need to divert around a roadblock they can override this but only if the central control allows it.

Impersonation

Criminals can impersonate delivery men today – or, more commonly, meter readers or the like in an attempt to enter a house. The elderly are particularly susceptible to this form of deception and can find their house has been cleaned out of jewellery and cash while making a cup of tea for their unexpected visitor.
With localnet providing all of these services the householder is very likely to know all six, say, of the staff who deliver to their street. These people become trusted friends because they are seen so often up and down the street – even if the delivery to this house is totally automatic via a delivery bay. New staff members can be introduced to the householder by those they already know – in fact, this should become a standard part of induction training. New staff members should be encourage to meet and greet all of the residents – being given a target of five a day for example until they have met 80% or more then taking the opportunity to meet others as it arises.
The new staff member’s mentor on the team just has to shout across the garden wall from next door: “Hi Mrs Jones, say hello to Charles who’s just joined the team”. This is a far nicer way of verifying someone’s identity and authority to deliver to you than trying to read a possibly forged identity card without your glasses handy.

Unauthorised Entry

Access via delivery bays is blocked in several ways.  Short of first breaking open the shutters then spending an hour cutting through the welded metal frame the only people that could be hiding in your delivery bay are those who can fit inside a 500mm x 400mm x 430mm space. Luckily such toddlers struggle to get enough leverage on a crowbar to break open the shutters so it will take a dedicated parent and child team to gain access this way. Oh… but of course the delivery bay will alert the control centre if it opened unexpectedly so the police should be on the scene well before the toddler emerges from your kitchen drawer.

Stranger Danger

Whilst not implying that delivery drivers are any less honest than the population as a whole, it is inevitable that with a large number of people criss-crossing a wide area, opportunities for crime will arise. Who would not be tempted to recount, down the pub to one’s mates, that “the chap in the big house by the garage in Little Snoring has just got himself a smashing new ride-on mower – and he leaves it outside the back door all day when no-one’s home. Can you believe it?” Who is to say how far down the bar the tale is overheard.