The Criminal Reporting Integrated Information Sharing Platform or CR:IISP for short is a live information sharing platform that allows retailers, crime reduction partnerships and the police to share data on known offenders in real-time.
It has been developed says retail security contractor Cardinal because for too long retailers have under-reported crime and police have consequently not provided the appropriate resource due to a lack of meaningful data. Researched and developed over a number years by Cardinal Integrated Solutions – CIS the technology division of the Cardinal Group, CR:IISP aims to change that by allowing instant data capture, the loading and sharing of intelligence plus up-to-date images of known and unknown offenders as well as providing detailed reporting in myriad formats to suit the user.
It is a web-based solution that links crime reduction policies and loss prevention techniques, and operates within the confines of the Data Protection Act. Executive Director of CIS, Colin Culleton, the former head of loss prevention at HMV, says: “CR:IISP works at a macro level providing information on trends and types of crime affecting the users that may be used to influence the national debate. More importantly on a micro level, it allows businesses, security personnel and crime partnerships to upload and disseminate crime data, intelligence and images of known offenders and persons linked to criminal activity with a view to helping a variety of organisations – retailers, town and shopping centre management, the hospitality industry and the ‘night time economy’ keep one step ahead of the individuals and gangs that prey upon them, prevent them committing further offences and, where appropriate work with the police to arrest them and or, local authorities to exclude them from the areas they are targeting.”
CR:IISP is endorsed by RAC (Retailers Against Crime), the organisation funded by retailers to help identify and thwart the activities of organised criminals and gangs in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Cumbria and North East of England. Maxine Fraser National Executive of RAC, says: “Since its inception, RAC has relied on the circulation of bulletins and information by post monthly to members, but we recognised that to increase effectiveness in tracking retail offenders, information received required to be circulated as soon as possible to members. Now with CR:IISP, stores can upload images and view urgent bulletins instantly in real-time which has really captured the imagination of our members around the country.”
It is also the mechanism that will help RAC establish new footholds throughout the UK over the next few years as CR:IISP becomes the collection point for meaningful data capture that can be shared with the statutory bodies. Culleton adds: “ CR:IISP is a unique product that will revolutionise information sharing via the Internet, it can be set up to send instant SMS text messages and emails alerting users to a new incident on the system. In turn, this can then be accessed directly from the web-enabled phone, the new generation PTT device, or any pc/laptop – allowing users to have a real-time view of incidents within their area. It is a proactive tool that is easy to use, requires little manual intervention other than the arbitration process that is required to maintain the integrity of the data recorded, and replaces old, cumbersome data sharing methods that often ran the gauntlet of the Data Protection Act.”
The Home Office National Support Framework document, information sharing for community safety April 2010, lays out the need for excellent information and intelligence sharing and offers guidance to CSPs (community safety partnerships) to improve their information sharing to improve their confidence and decision making.
“The vision has always been to make a difference and to change business thinking from a model of data holding to one of data sharing. The information helps individual stakeholders such as retailers and police, but it is a far more potent tool when the information is shared. We now have a situation in many of the partnerships where crimes that previously were not reported to the police for fear of nothing being done, are all being entered onto CR:IISP. That has to be good news as it provides a more accurate picture of the crime landscape,” adds Culleton.
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