At the request of the City of Gainesville (Fla.) and the Gainesville Police Department, Richard M. Swanson, then a forensic psychologist at the University of Florida and attorney, began studying convenience store crimes to shed light on a rash of robberies in the mid- '80s.

After interviewing perpetrators and victims and examining convenience store characteristics, he discovered certain patterns of vulnerability. Offenders liked isolated stores with no customers, easy getaway routes and one clerk on duty. They tended to avoid stores in their own neighborhoods or where they might be recognized. They also stayed away from crowded establishments, places with surveillance cameras, time-released safes and multiple clerks. Clerks who had been robbed indicated that 92 percent of the time they were the only staff members on duty when the crime occurred.

Though Swanson's results seem intuitive, they continue to generate controversy. Swanson, who today is a visiting psychology professor at Metro State, recommended at the time that Gainesville establish an ordinance requiring well-lit stores, time-released safes, surveillance cameras, signs indicating the lack of available cash and more than one clerk on duty. Unhappy about having to increase staffing, the convenience store industry tried unsuccessfully to block the ordinance. But two years after the ordinance passed, statistics showed a 70 percent reduction in convenience store robbery rates. The state of Florida also implemented these strategies, but backed off the second clerk requirement in certain cases, Swanson said, because of industry pressure.

The sticking point in Swanson's work remains the second night clerk. In 1998, the U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recommended a host of prevention strategies for late-night retail establishments, based in part on Swanson's research, that included increased night staffing. Recently, however, the second clerk recommendation was removed.

The Petroleum Marketing Association, which lobbies for the industry, has done its own studies of criminals and demonstrated that perpetrators say they can handle as many as 10 employees when committing a robbery. "Ask any specialist in criminal psychology," Swanson observes, "they'll tell you, offenders don't want to appear weak (in the context of prison). You never ask a confrontational question. You ask, `What makes a store more desirable?'"

Critics also point out that Swanson's Florida study can't be generalized across the country, an allegation, which may spur Swanson to repeat his convenience store research in Colorado. Swanson, who has served as the chief of mental health diagnostics for the Colorado Department of Corrections, as chair of law and mental health for the University of South Florida, professor and chairman of criminal justice at the University of Florida and as research director for the Center for the Study of Crime Delinquency and Corrections at Southern Illinois University, says his research and the testimony he gives before state legislatures and OSHA boards, allows him to "test the principles I teach and share that outside experience with students."