Summer hasn’t officially started, and Tennessee is already heating up in the worst possible way.
Memphis is on pace for its deadliest year ever. Nashville’s entertainment district is roaring back to life with all the security headaches that follow. Knoxville retailers are dealing with organized theft rings that have gotten bolder since the pandemic. Across the state, violent crime and property crime are running ahead of last year’s numbers, and last year was already terrible.
If you own or manage a business in Tennessee, the next four months are going to test your security posture. The combination of extreme heat, increased foot traffic, longer daylight hours, and a firearms market that’s put more guns on the street than at any point in recent history creates conditions where crime thrives.
I’ve spent the past month collecting practical, tested strategies from security professionals, property managers, and law enforcement contacts across Tennessee. This isn’t theory. These are steps that businesses are actually taking right now, and that you can implement before the summer peak hits.
Start With Your Property: The Physical Basics
Before you call a security company or buy a camera system, walk your property at night. Not at 5 PM when the sun is still up. At 11 PM, when your business is closed and the parking lot is dark.
What do you see? More importantly, what can’t you see?
Lighting is the single most cost-effective crime deterrent available to a business owner. Criminals prefer darkness. They choose targets where they can approach, act, and leave without being seen. A well-lit parking lot, building perimeter, and entrance area eliminates that advantage.
Tennessee summers mean daylight until 8:30 or 9 PM, which helps during evening hours. The problem is the overnight period, from 10 PM to 5 AM, when most commercial burglaries and vehicle break-ins occur.
Walk your property and identify dead zones. Areas where existing lights don’t reach. Corners of parking lots. Loading dock areas. Dumpster enclosures. Alleys between buildings. Every one of these is a potential staging area for a criminal, and every one of them can be addressed with a $200 LED floodlight on a motion sensor.
A Chattanooga property manager I spoke with told me he reduced after-hours incidents at a strip mall by 60% simply by adding eight motion-activated lights around the perimeter. “I spent $1,600 on lights and installation. My insurance deductible on the last break-in was $5,000. The math was obvious.”
Camera Systems: What Actually Works
Every business should have cameras. That’s not debatable in 2021. The question is what kind, where to place them, and whether anyone is actually watching the footage.
The most common mistake I see is cameras pointed at the wrong things. A camera covering the front door captures people entering and exiting, which is useful for identification after an incident. A camera covering the parking lot approach captures the vehicle a suspect arrived in, which is often more useful for investigation than a face shot.
Placement priorities for a Tennessee business:
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Every entrance and exit. Doors, loading docks, emergency exits. Capture faces at entry points, full body at a distance.
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Parking lot perimeter. Cover the approaches. You want to see vehicles entering and leaving, including plate numbers. This means cameras positioned at entry/exit points of the lot, not just general coverage.
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Point of sale areas. If you’re a retailer, every register needs a camera. Employee theft accounts for a significant percentage of retail losses in Tennessee, and cameras serve as both deterrent and documentation.
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Blind spots identified during your night walk. If you found dark corners during your property assessment, those need camera coverage even after you’ve added lighting.
The technology conversation has shifted significantly in the past two years. Cloud-based camera systems with remote monitoring capability are now affordable for small businesses. A four-camera system with cloud storage and smartphone access can be installed for $1,500 to $3,000, depending on the vendor and the complexity of the installation.
Remote video monitoring takes cameras a step further. Instead of recording footage that nobody watches until after a crime occurs, remote monitoring services have trained operators watching live feeds during overnight hours. When an operator spots suspicious activity, they can activate an audio warning through on-site speakers, contact local police, or dispatch a mobile patrol. Monthly costs for remote monitoring typically run $300 to $800 per site, depending on the number of cameras and the hours of coverage.
Guard Presence: When and Where It Matters
A uniformed security guard is still the most visible and most immediate crime deterrent available. The challenge in Tennessee right now is finding guards, as the industry’s staffing crisis has been well documented on these pages. If you can secure a guard contract, here’s how to deploy that resource effectively.
Prioritize high-traffic, high-risk hours. For most Tennessee retail businesses, that’s Friday and Saturday evenings, from about 5 PM to close. For restaurants and bars, it’s Thursday through Saturday nights. For apartment complexes, it’s overnight, from 10 PM to 6 AM.
Visible placement matters. A guard sitting in a back office watching cameras isn’t deterring anyone. Position your guard at or near the primary entrance where customers and potential criminals both see them. The visual presence of a uniformed officer, armed or unarmed, changes behavior.
Mobile patrols for multi-site coverage. If you manage multiple properties and can’t afford a dedicated guard at each, consider mobile patrol services. A marked vehicle that visits each property on an unpredictable schedule, checking doors, scanning parking lots, and making its presence known, provides coverage across multiple sites at a fraction of the cost of static posts.
One Memphis retail chain manager told me his company switched from full-time static guards at three locations to mobile patrols covering five locations. “We’re spending about the same money and covering more ground. The key is the unpredictability. Criminals watch patterns. If the patrol car shows up at random times, they can’t plan around it.”
Employee Training: Your Cheapest Security Investment
Your employees are on-site more hours than any guard or camera. Training them to be aware of their surroundings, recognize suspicious behavior, and respond appropriately to threats is the cheapest security investment a Tennessee business can make.
The training doesn’t need to be elaborate. A 30-minute session covering these fundamentals makes a real difference:
Situational awareness. Teach employees to notice things that are out of place: a vehicle circling the parking lot, someone lingering near an exit without entering, a person wearing heavy clothing in June heat (potential concealment of weapons or stolen merchandise).
Reporting protocols. Employees need to know exactly what to do when they see something suspicious. Who do they call? What information should they provide? Do they confront the person or maintain distance? The answer to that last question should almost always be: maintain distance. Employee confrontations with criminals lead to injuries, lawsuits, and workers’ comp claims.
Active threat response. Tennessee businesses should train employees on Run-Hide-Fight, the Department of Homeland Security’s recommended response to active shooter situations. This isn’t fearmongering. It’s preparation. Given the prevalence of firearms in Tennessee and the increase in workplace violence nationally, every business should have employees who know what to do if someone enters with a weapon.
Cash handling. Retail businesses should minimize cash on hand, especially during evening hours. Regular drops to a time-lock safe reduce the reward for a robbery. If a business handles significant cash, armored car service for deposits eliminates the risk of employees carrying large amounts to a bank.
Nashville: Lower Broadway is Back, and So Are the Problems
Nashville’s entertainment district is rebounding fast. Lower Broadway, which sat eerily quiet through much of 2020, is once again packed with tourists, bachelorette parties, and live music crowds. The honky-tonks are full. The rooftop bars are overflowing. And the security problems that come with tens of thousands of intoxicated people crowded into a few blocks are returning with them.
Bar owners and property managers on Broadway are ramping up security for summer 2021. Several have added door staff, increased ID check protocols, and installed additional exterior cameras. The Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp has been working with downtown businesses on a coordinated security approach, though the details remain somewhat vague.
For businesses near Lower Broadway, even those not in the entertainment sector, the return of tourism means more foot traffic, more vehicle traffic, and more crime. Parking lot break-ins near the downtown core have already ticked up. Panhandling and aggressive solicitation, which dropped during the pandemic, have returned.
Businesses in the Gulch, SoBro, and East Nashville should expect spillover effects as the summer progresses. More visitors means more opportunity for property crime, and Nashville’s police department, like Memphis’s, is dealing with its own staffing shortages.
Memphis: The Deadliest Summer Yet?
Memphis is bracing for what could be its most violent summer in history. The city’s homicide count through May is running ahead of 2020’s record pace. Carjackings have surged to the point where local news stations have dedicated segments to the phenomenon. Armed robberies at gas stations, convenience stores, and fast-food restaurants have become so frequent that some businesses have modified their hours or added bulletproof barriers.
For Memphis businesses, summer crime prevention isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a survival strategy.
Specific steps for Memphis properties:
Gas stations and convenience stores should install bulletproof transaction windows if they haven’t already. The cost, typically $3,000 to $8,000 per window depending on the level of protection, is a fraction of what an armed robbery costs in lost revenue, employee trauma, insurance increases, and potential lawsuits. Night-time staffing should be minimized to reduce potential victims.
Retail centers along major corridors (Poplar, Winchester, Germantown Parkway, Summer Avenue) should coordinate security with neighboring businesses. Shared mobile patrols and coordinated camera coverage create a security zone that’s more effective than isolated efforts at individual stores.
Apartment complexes should verify that access control systems are functioning, that gate codes are changed regularly, and that lighting in parking areas and breezeways is adequate. Property managers should establish clear protocols with their security providers for handling trespassers, unauthorized vehicles, and noise complaints that could escalate to violence.
Healthcare facilities face a specific challenge in Memphis: emergency room violence. Fights, armed individuals, and agitated family members create a security environment in hospital ERs that requires trained, often armed, security officers. Hospitals that haven’t already done so should assess their ER security staffing for the summer months, when trauma volumes increase with the temperature.
Knoxville: Retail Theft Gets Organized
Knoxville’s crime profile differs from Memphis and Nashville, and its summer security challenges reflect that difference. The city’s most pressing issue for businesses is organized retail theft.
ORC (organized retail crime) groups have been increasingly active in the Knoxville metro, targeting big-box retailers, pharmacies, and specialty stores in shopping centers along Kingston Pike, Cedar Bluff, and in the Turkey Creek area. These aren’t shoplifters pocketing candy bars. These are coordinated groups, sometimes five or six people, who enter a store simultaneously, overwhelm loss prevention staff, grab high-value merchandise, and leave in waiting vehicles within minutes.
Knoxville Police Department has a property crimes unit that investigates ORC, yet the volume of incidents exceeds what the unit can handle. Retailers are responding by increasing loss prevention staffing, adding camera coverage at exits, and in some cases hiring uniformed security officers to stand at store entrances during peak shopping hours.
For Knoxville businesses outside of retail, the summer concerns are more typical: vehicle break-ins at office complexes, construction site theft (Knoxville’s building boom has created targets rich in tools and materials), and evening-hours property crime in commercial areas.
Statewide: Heat, Guns, and Opportunity
Tennessee’s summer heat contributes to crime in ways that aren’t always intuitive. Obviously, more people outdoors means more interpersonal conflict. Bars and patios are full. Community pools and parks draw crowds. Teenagers are out of school with unstructured time.
Less obviously, the heat affects building security. Businesses prop open doors for ventilation, creating unsecured entry points. Employees take breaks outside, leaving interior areas unmonitored. Delivery schedules shift to early morning hours, and loading docks that are supervised during daytime may be unattended at 5 AM.
The firearms factor can’t be ignored. Tennessee enacted a permitless carry law that took effect July 1, 2021, allowing adults 21 and older to carry a handgun, openly or concealed, without a permit. Regardless of your position on the policy, the practical effect for businesses is that more people are carrying firearms in public. This increases the lethality of any confrontation and raises the stakes for security guards and employees who interact with the public.
Businesses that prohibit firearms on their premises need clear, legally compliant signage. Tennessee law requires specific language and placement for no-firearms postings to be legally enforceable. Consult with an attorney who specializes in Tennessee firearms law to ensure your signage meets the requirements.
Build Your Plan Now
Summer crime prevention isn’t something you can implement on July 1. The time to act is now, in early June, before the temperature and the crime rate hit their peaks.
Here’s a prioritized action list for Tennessee business owners:
- Walk your property at night. Identify lighting gaps, camera blind spots, and unsecured access points.
- Fix the lighting first. It’s cheap and it works.
- Audit your camera system. Are cameras positioned correctly? Is footage being recorded and stored? Can you access it remotely?
- Train your employees. Thirty minutes on situational awareness and reporting protocols.
- Contact security providers. If you need guards or mobile patrols, start the conversation now. Staffing is tight, and companies that wait until July will find themselves on waiting lists.
- Review your insurance. Talk to your carrier about what security measures they recommend or require. Some carriers offer premium discounts for specific security investments.
- Connect with local police. Attend your precinct’s community meetings. Introduce yourself to the community liaison officer. Get your property into the department’s awareness.
None of these steps are expensive. All of them reduce risk. In a Tennessee summer that’s shaping up to be the most dangerous in years, doing nothing isn’t an option.