Independent opticals and small local or regional chains are owned by optometrists or opticians, who lack basic retail security knowledge. They, like their corporate counterparts, fail to put security measures into place, not out of a lack of concern, but because of ignorance. On the whole, optical personnel are not in tune with the business realities of today. When it comes to security, they don't even know where to begin asking the right questions, and they are paying the price for it.

As the deterrent measures taken by some retailers such as the banks and the financial sector take effect, criminals are forced to focus their attention on "softer" targets such as chemists and opticians.

Opticians are considered to be softer targets because we have failed to keep up with the deterrent measures taken by others. At the same time, the nature and value of opticians' goods has significantly changed over the last decade - as has consumer perceptions of eyewear.

Designer frames and sunspectacles are now stocked in greater volumes than before, to satisfy increased public demand for branded "fashion" goods.

Opticians are now high profile targets.

A burgeoning trend that hasn't yet come to light in the form of a formal report, but is being recognized at the ground level is that organized retail crime plays a huge part in the funding of terrorist activities. Shoplifting and burglary crews target optical goods, among others, and feed the rings of fences that funnel the profits into terrorist organizations.

According to CIS Robert W. Nolen, a lead trainer in a course developed with Bureau of Justice Assistance grant money called "Understanding, Combating and Surviving Terrorism," one of the niches exploited by many criminals from terrorist "countries of interest" is the resale of stolen consumer goods.