Thank you for bringing attention to credit union robberies in David Morrison's story in the Aug. 15 issue. We had six different robberies at our branches from 2005-06 and decided that we needed to do something about it. I was surprised that Mr. Michael Petrone of CUMIS said, "It's not like there is a set of eight or nine things that we can tell credit unions to do that will prevent all robberies or even almost all robberies."

In fact a credit union can do a great deal to prevent robberies. At SAFE we took the following steps:

1. We surveyed all branches and risk rated them in terms of robbery risk. The risk factors included local police crime ratings for the neighborhood around the branch; the ease of escape from the branch after a robbery; the prior robbery history of the branch; the number of bank robberies in the area; the number of entrances to the branch; and management's judgment of how likely the branch is to be robbed. After we prioritized the branches for robbery risk we then began investing in anti-robbery features.