The Association of Business Crime Partnerships has held its annual conference in Coventry.
The chief executive of ABCP, Richard Barron, in a speech suggested that crime partnerships under-sell what they do ‘in quite a big way’. Theft from shops still blights shopping centres, he said, and the recent official review of high street retail by Mary Portas emphasised that high streets need to be safe and pleasant places to shop – and need to be seen as safe. He stressed that town centres were the lifeblood of communities, and that business crime partnerships were on the front line. Savings on stock loss justified the cost of partnerships, he suggested. He gave the recent visit by Home Office minister Lord Henley to Chester’s crime reduction partnership as a sign that partnerships were being recognised as the only way to tackle business crime. He said: “If we are to make any progress on level two crime [across police force boundaries] we must make use of intelligence.” With many shop thefts now dealt with in-store, police often failed to have the full picture of offending behaviour, ‘and this is a serious impediment’.
