The fear of crime has risen over the past couple of years. For jewelers—retailers in particular—there is a pervasive sense that they are on the front lines. “I’ve never seen jewelers as nervous as they are now about crime,” says John Kennedy, president of Jewelers’ Security Alliance (JSA) in New York City. This perception is borne out by the numbers, Kennedy adds. Historically, crime figures for the jewelry industry have usually been stable on a year-to-year basis. The total annual crime count documented by JSA would generally range between 1,300 and 1,600. But last year saw a remarkable—and alarming—shift. “There was a 27% increase from 2021 to 2022 in the number of crimes the U.S. industry experienced,” Kennedy says. “In 2022, there were 2,141 total incidents. We’d neve