As an introduction to an upcoming short series on business crime reduction partnerships (BCRPs), Mark Rowe sees some parallels with public realm CCTV.
Among the thing that BCRPs and local government public space CCTV have in common: theyโve been around since at least the 1990s, and have taken off, risen and fallen, in various ways across the country. Any funding from central government has been fitful. Also lacking, intermittent, or only arriving after many years, has been national direction and standards setting. BCRP coverage is diverse โ or more bluntly, patchy โ nationally. Whether thatโs good or bad depends on how necessary you rate BCRPs โ should they be as widespread as fortnightly collection of household bins, or a fire engine or police response when you call 999; or greater or lesser depending on a town or districtโs social and economic make-up, or appetite for partnership working?
We can categorise BCRPs โ by size; a city may have more than one, London will have many, reflecting that itโs not one place in terms of shopping. But as in Birmingham, offenders and anti-social beggars may travel into the city centre from the outskirts, besides making a nuisance in their local high street. A partnership may cover a county, such as Pabcis in Staffordshire; or multiple towns where it makes sense if offenders travel, such as along the south coast (Chichester, pictured, Hastings and Eastbourne). A BCRP may be stand-alone, as all were once, or be part of the services offered by a business improvement district (BID). If stand-alone, a BCRP may be in (undeclared) competition with a local BID.
Whatever sort, thereโs no avoiding that a BCRP needs money to fund the basics โ someone to do the admin of managing exclusion orders and bans, and which stores or pubs need a new radio or staff training for shop floor new starters. A partnership thrives or finds itself in the doldrums often depending on the organising ability and personality of individuals. Who are they? Maybe they are working in loss prevention; or theyโre shop managers or owners. Either way, they feel strongly enough about their community to put in voluntary work besides their job. Or theyโre paid employees of the BCRP. That money, and the retail radios and intelligence gathering software, have to come from somewhere. Partnerships are always bedevilled by free-loaders โ businesses that donโt pay to join a BCRP will share the same benefits (shop thieves deterred, banned or even jailed) as those more public-spirited that do pay. Hence the appeal of a BID, that all businesses in a set area have to pay towards; except that a district may vote against forming or renewing a BID, which brings you back to the same requirement for a cadre of people willing to make efforts beyond the everyday.
As for the police, at force level, a town or city command, or nationally, they have so many other priorities besides crime against businesses, even though many priorities touch shop theft (such as violence against women, if retail staff are largely female). You suspect that police would gladly leave the lead on business crime, or the subject entirely, to businesses. As for retailers, the September edition of Professional Security Magazine airs the complaint that retail could do more to โtarget hardenโ their stores against theft, and do the necessary minimum to aid police towards prosecuting known offenders. A retail chain may make the calculation that it makes sense in terms of cost to protect their own people and places; and to not take time (which costs money, if employees have to leave the shop floor to make a witness statement, upload CCTV evidence of a theft, and so on) over partnership working. Or, retailers are agreeable to paying to join and supporting BCRPs, if the partnerships will show metrics, in a word; what the retailer can expect for its spend. That may not be in criminal justice โoutcomesโ โ itโs very much the exception that anyone will go to jail for stealing from a shop. A retailer can track the difference between stock loss before and during membership of a BCRP, and count stock recoveries from thieves. More intangible is the feeling of safety of staff; though this, too, can be expressed financially, if staff are off sick less through stress arising from abusive or threatening customers, or leave the job altogether (which creates costs in hiring).
