EXPERTS’ SISTEMI BANKAR FORUM
Bank robberies and psychosocial risk Robbery risk assessment is an important and necessary process, as it affects one of employer’s main goals, typically protecting the employees’ psychosocial integrity.
by Roland TASHI Vice Chairman AAB Bank Security Committee
A
ssessing robbery risk and other acts of criminal nature in our banking system is not defined as a legal requirement for the employer, yet. This is so, because the legislation, especially the banking one, does not stipulate any clauses in this regard. Notwithstanding this, robbery and theft risk assessment should be listed as one of key responsibilities of banks’ managing structures, given the environment where banks conduct their activity, statistics from law-enforcement agencies, severity of event, as well as abusive and criminal behaviors against bank staff. Robbery risk assessment is an important and necessary process, as it affects one of employer’s main goals, typically protecting the employees’ psychosocial integrity. Banks or other financial institutions’ robbery is considered a criminal act, and it is accompanied with psychophysical consequencies, which are not limited to bank employees and clients, being present at the crime scene, because the event hassles and affects all employees in the banking system. Robbey’s precedent is therefore created “involuntarily”, since is driven by the nature of banking activity, where the
input and product is solely MONEY. The phenomenon and its psycologial consequences caused by robbery are known pretty well by psychologists, social workers and special structures, that’s why we are still a bit distant from an accurate definition for the level of trauma and damage done. Different people’s characters have different perceptions on robbery, theft and other abusive acts; so a precise assessment of robbery consequences, from an individual to another, needs specific medical analysis and diagnosis. The topic at hand needs a funda-
Trauma and stress level is related not only to gravity and type of experienced event, but also with other elements, like: personality characteristics, elements of social nature, ability to cope with grave incidents, etc.
mental discussion and commitment by security specialists and psychologists, therefore the most obvious fact is, that those which suffer most the psychological damages are individuals who are part of a “crime scene” and simultaneously “characters”, where criminals use firearms and violence; so the event is accompanied by injuries, wounding or even fatalities. Our statistics show that, criminals use firearms in most bank robbery cases to exert psychological pressure on those individuals who are not obeying their “orders”; otherwise the will get hurt, as the robbery must be accomplished within the shortest possible time span. Stress and anxiety are commonly developed with those individuals, following the first trauma. There are three main group of symptoms, signs and post traumatic shocks: (1) re-experiencing the event and trauma, by recalling the most difficult moments and the possibility of occurrence, (2) persistence to bypass and avert event-linked drivers, by staying away from activities, people and places, accompanied with it, and (3) disturbances which trigger insomnia, lack of attention, unjustified nervousness, etc. A countable number of individuals may experience and be present at grave criminal events, but not everyone suffers consequences and stress. With regard to psychological trauma of the robbery, caused to individu-
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