‘When they have to come in and have to pay to get in, they’re buying something.’ ‘I think (the fee) really acts as a deterrent to some of the more reckless elements of society,’ she said. The second reason, according to Ferman, is that the casino’s $10 entrance fee acts as a preventive measure for crime and general hooliganism. ‘That has allowed the environment to be maintained in a very safe and comfortable way,’ she said. ‘Overall, I would just say they’ve done an impeccable job at delivering a preventive law enforcement response and a reactive law enforcement response to the casino environment,’ she said. ‘One is that the casino itself along with the Pennsylvania State Police have done an outstanding job of developing a system of security and monitoring for the facility that has really allowed them to monitor and stop things before they happen,’ she said.Ĭasino security and the state police are extremely proactive and make use of electronic surveillance, she said.

There are two primary reasons for the less than expected crime rate at the casino, Ferman said. It shows the casino staff and law enforcement on site are attuned to what their patrons are doing and making sure that the focus is on safety, she said. ‘The reason for that is the casino staff is very well-trained to flag people before they are ever allowed to go out to get into a car when they’ve been drinking too much,’ Ferman said. Police have been giving out more citations for public drunkenness, she said, but she attributed that to the staff’s ability to cut people off and prevent them from driving home. ‘I would say that there is no notable increase in any sort criminal activity, either in or around the casinos,’ she said. When determining how the casino affected the area, she said, she broke the idea down into two sections – crime inside the casino and crime just outside in the parking lot area. ‘I found exactly the opposite of what I expected.’ I had expectations that crime had increased and certain types of crime had increased,’ Ferman said. ‘When the first person asked me these questions, my reaction was I’m going to go talk to the people in the field who are dealing with this. NORRISTOWN – When Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Ferman first looked into the crime rate in Upper Merion a year after the Valley Forge Casino Resort came to town, she expected the worst.

Valley forge casino security