Crime in the U.S. retail jewelry industry for the first nine months of 2007 dropped about 20 percent in both dollars and the number of incidents, compared to the same period in 2006, John Kennedy, president of the Jewelers Security Alliance, has told JCK. The JSA tracks crime in the jewelry industry on an ongoing basis.

Robberies declined from 204 in 2006 to 121 this year, with the dollars lost “declining an astonishing 71 percent,” Kennedy said.

No jeweler has been killed during a crime against a jewelry business since March 2006. Ten or fifteen years ago, he noted, 20 or more jewelers were killed annually in the U.S. That dreadful statistic “has been on a steady decrease since,” he said.