With so many pro-active partnerships now actively preventing and deterring crime in their own town or city, more and more teams of retail thieves are travelling extensively across the country to avoid detection and prosecution, Anne Tate of the North East Retail Crime Partnership (NERCP) reports.
The NERCP has been monitoring the most prolific teams operating in the North East, and beyond, for a number of years. Many will add in new team members to throw security and retail staff off the scent that a team is in the area. By exchanging information, we become more and more aware of highly organised teams who travel from town to town and city to city, their methods of operation and the goods and stores they are targeting. It is by exchanging information and intelligence that we keep one step ahead of these offenders and add value to all town and city centre partnerships.
Midlands initiative
The Midlands Regional Crime Initiative (MRCI) has been bringing together more than 50 town and city centre partnerships to do just this; this has been mirrored in the North East for the last 18 months, with police, retailers and town/city crime reduction partnerships to get results. In June 2005, the MRCI and NERCP joined forces with Retailers Against Crime Scotland to pilot the first joint intelligence sharing meeting for the whole of the north of England. Such was the success of this meeting that it agreed to extend this meeting to include other national and regional partners, resulting in the first meeting of the Northern Intelligence Pool at The Light in Leeds on March 7; 120 attended. The meeting was opened by Brian Oakley, Deputy Manager of The Light. Mick Chambers, Deputy Director from Government Office for Yorkshire and the Humber added his welcome, and Fiona Pembroke, Head of the Business Crime Team at the Home Office outlined the Home Office initiatives and current statistics on business crime. This was followed by an intelligence-sharing session, led by Ian Smith, seconded Police Officer with the NERCP, plus guest speakers from the different organisations who attended.
Doing enough?
As well as the intelligence sharing session, those present took part in an interactive debate to discuss "Are retailers doing enough to police themselves?" NERCP brought together members and police at a meeting at Cleveland Police headquarters in March 2005. Retailers complained that they spent a lot of time putting together packages on offenders to take to the police. These were either picked up for prosecution, but lenient sentences given; or the police force involved did not have manpower or budget to take on the case; or retailers were asked to pay towards the investigation and prosecution costs. Police agreed to get together senior CID officers and heads of intelligence to discuss the issues involved in cross-border case prosecution, and this meeting took place last year.. Police said that they needed clear direction from the Home Office before any changes were made, felt that retailers were looking for solutions to issues too quickly, and that the criminal justice system needed to be fully on board in realising the organised nature of retail crime and to pass sentences that are truly effective in deterring offenders. Most worryingly, they felt that retailers were not doing enough to look after their own interests – hence the debate, which interestingly was also raised at the BRC crime conference in 2005.
Panel
Recently retired chief constable, Crispian Strachan, now Executive Director for Public Services Development for Outsource Specialists, led a panel of speakers. It included Ian Harley, Security Advisor to the Argos Retail Group Board; Clint Reid, Profit Protection Controller for Marks and Spencer; and Paul Smedley, Chief Executive, MRCI. Crispian said: "This session raised an opportunity for the audience to hear some collaged points of view after the wide and useful range of presentations they had heard, and an opportunity to ask some questions too. At a discussion between the speakers to prepare for this session, we decided unanimously that the scheduled title "are retailers doing enough to police themselves" had been overtaken by "joined up thinking."
Small, medium joiners?
Paul Smedley from MRCI opened: "Of the 50 or more partnerships in his area, there was a widespread failure to identify, and perhaps standardise, the membership of schemes, especially in respect of solicitors, accountants and other non-retail occupiers of town and city centres, who benefit equally from the work done. If this happened, then the benefits of crime reduction would spread across the whole town centre, making it a nicer and more vibrant place to be. Many small and medium sized businesses, including retail companies, should join in with schemes which are being led by big retailers", Clint Reid added: "We have reached where we are today by sharing best practice, and today we had seen some inspiring examples. Equally important, we need to admit lessons can be learned from less successful activities."
‘Hard centre to results’
Ian Harley said that he "would value a closer focus on one aspect of the benefits of partnerships against crime – whatever the benefits for crime and policing purposes, there needs to be a hard centre to the results produced and shown to businesses, who are constrained by budgets and need to see clear and demonstratable benefits. The criminal justice system, especially the police, need to remember that those who work in business are members of the public too, to be protected by all the promises made about the public in general. If the police, or any other agency, is seen to be uninterested in crime and victims of crime, then disillusionment and disappointment could be widely felt in communities." Ian Smith, seconded police officer with the NERCP, said: "Following the meeting, Yorkshire and the Humber are bringing together their own partner organisations to discuss how to replicate this intelligence sharing function in their own area. It is intended to hold regular meetings of the Northern Intelligence Pool, circulating to towns and cities. There was a very loud and clear message from everyone – let’s keep talking about all the issues involved, let’s pool resources and let’s be ahead of the criminals – joined up thinking is indeed the way forward."
For more about NERCP: visit the Northumbria Coalition Against Crime website
