In the last eight years, University City's Commerce Bank has been robbed 10 times.
The bank, located at 3731 Walnut St., was most recently robbed on Jan. 15, and was robbed twice in one week last April.
The bank attempted to increase its security after the spring robberies by posting an unarmed Allied Security guard inside the lobby. After the recent robbery, though, an armed Penn Police officer has taken the place of the Allied Security guard.
But despite any measures that it has taken, and any analyses that have been done, the bank has not reached any concrete conclusions about how to best prevent future robberies.
Officials at Commerce Bank would not comment on the current situation, and referred all questions to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI handles all bank robbery investigations.
The police officers "may only be a temporary measure," Allied Security spokesman Larry Rubin said. "In other [branches] they are using off-duty officers."
According to professor Lawrence Sherman, director of the Fels Institute of Government and the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology, the sheer volume of transactions handled at the location may be a key reason for the repeated crimes.
"There is an enormous variability in how busy branches are," he said. "The most robbed are those with the most transactions."
Rubin disagreed, however, emphasizing the importance of physical deterrents such as glass screens and higher counters to create some distance between customers and tellers. Yet Sherman said that the "bandit barriers" -- large plastic screens that bank employees sit behind -- could actually be detrimental to security.
"There's no evidence that bandit barriers reduce robbery," said Sherman, who also serves as a crime analysis consultant for Commerce Bank. He added that the use of these barriers in post offices in Britain had only led to more criminals holding up the location with a gun.
The Commerce Bank in University City is not the only branch to suffer a number of robberies. Last year, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg criticized banks for their high rate of robbery, and a NYC police report in April showed that the Manhattan Commerce Bank branches were robbed 10 times in 2003, according to The New York Times.
How to effectively combat bank robberies is a matter of contentious debate. The presence of security guards, though obvious, is not a foolproof method.
An Allied Security officer's "task is to be vigilant, pay attention ... serve as a deterrent," Rubin said. "Of course, bank robbers ... find ways to get around systems. They try to be unobtrusive in what they do."
Hiring armed security guards is a possibility, but Sherman was wary of increasing the chances of casualties.
The more important question is "how you prevent injury, how do you prevent death," Sherman said. "Would you rather have money taken [or] have a shootout?"
Rubin advocated all-around stronger security, utilizing electronic means such as surveillance cameras and double door entrances that automatically lock, so a robber becomes trapped in the vestibule. Security officials, he said, are also necessary.
"Generally someone in the bank is a deterrent," Rubin said. He added that as long as an armed officer has proper training and knows how to handle a robber who reveals a lethal weapon, civilians and bank employees would not be at greater risk.
