If yesterday’s yesterday business crime conference in Blackpool by Lanpac (Lancashire Partnership Against Crime) and Retailers Against Crime (RAC) had a message – and those attending had lots of useful knowledge and networking to take away – it was, writes Mark Rowe, that businesses and even the police cannot take on crime alone. Hence the good examples of partnership working described to the event at the Winter Gardens (pictured).
Chief Insp Chris Abbott and Insp John Bent of Lancashire Police related Operation Marano, a ‘partnership approach to tackling and preventing anti-social behaviour and criminality’ such as damage and arson in the town of Skelmersdale. A particularly intriguing part of the work by police – who partnered with the local cinema and retail, schools and housing association, the guarding contractor Bidvest Noonan, and Wigan Athletic’s charitable arm among others – was with a branch of McDonald’s, which like other quick service restaurants (QSRs) had found that young people in the early evening on were using the QSR as a kind of ‘youth club’, without paying for any food. The commercial effect (as in other places) was that other diners might find the place off-putting.
Hence the QSR ‘removed the cool stuff’, in the words of the police; the wi-fi was turned off by a ‘kill switch’ at 6pm, and the restaurant played classical music (which young people did not want to hang around listening to). The restaurant also made changes to policy such as ‘no food, no stay’. The benefits were general: the restaurant made fewer calls for police assistance, staff morale was better, and the restaurant was turning over more. Marano is Lancashire Police’s entry into the annual Tilley Awards for ‘problem-oriented policing’ (POP).
Talking of the Tilley Awards, Operation Vulcan was the 2023 national winner, by Greater Manchester Police (GMP), to do away with ‘Counterfeit Street’, the 40-year-old retail ecosystem of storage and retail of counterfeit goods in inner-city Cheetham Hill. GMP Det Chief Insp Jen Kelly talked through Operation Vulcan, whereby numerous agencies, and business bodies such as the Anti-Counterfeiting Group (ACG) combined, to make life too difficult for the organised criminals running businesses. The police are now taking the Vulcan approach into Manchester city centre to apply it to the varied nuisances and crime in Piccadilly Gardens.
Who was there?
The audience was varied – local; from Blackpool’s business improvement district (BID) and attractions such as the Houndshill shopping centre, the Pleasure Beach, and Coral Island; from retailers such as the Coop, Asda and Iceland; and from the police, including the regional organised crime unit (ROCU), besides the former cop now Lancashire deputy police and crime commissioner Andrew Pratt, who introduced the event. From further afield was, among the speakers, Supt Patrick Holdaway, of the National Business Crime Centre, who gave an overview of policing and public policy around crime against business; and Sophie Jordan, manager of the NABCP (National Association of Business Crime partnerships).
Arguably the most telling exchange was while criminologist Sylvia Chenery was on stage with the former offender Jamie Barnes. From the floor, business crime reduction partnership man Andy Sharman, asked Jamie if there was one thing that Jamie – with his ex-offender’s perspective – would put to government. Jamie replied: “More funding into trauma-informed services, to get to the root causes that offenders are actually facing. It’s got to start with that. That’s the real way to get people away from offending.”
More in the April print edition of Professional Security Magazine.
