Una Riley meets Mike Schuck, whose work on retail crime at the British Retail Consortium led to him becoming chief executive of Action Against Business Crime (AABC).
Among his responsibilities at the BRC included the consortium’s annual retail crime survey, liaising with government departments and leading campaigns to raise public awareness of retail crime. Mike was also responsible for developing Retail Crime Partnerships in towns and cities which have expanded to now over 200 Business Crime Partnerships working to reduce crime by sharing information on current crime and criminals, communicating via radio and CCTV, and excluding wrong-doers from shops and other businesses. As a result of the success of this initiative the Home Office provided funding to create a national organisation for Business Crime Reduction Partnerships, AABC, of which Michael is Chief Executive. I asked, what prepared you most for your present role, your police service or experience in the retail environment? Mike replied: "My experience as Head of Security with a major retailer was the experience that gave me the edge. I think that the police knowledge helped because it trains you to have an overall appreciation and awareness of organisation, systems and loyalty etc. However, if I had to choose it would be my retail experience as an insider that has helped the most." As CEO of AABC Mike uses those skills to liaise closely with business, police, government, local councils, and other organisations to take forward the concept of BCRPs (British Crime Reduction Partnerships). To aid best practice, AABC have developed the Safer Business Awards as the ‘National Partnership Accreditation Standard’ to ensure that partnerships are compliant with the Data Protection Act 1998 and are managed professionally.
Not invisible
There is also the ‘Safer Socialising Award’ to improve standards and promote good practice in the evening economy. Along with the awards there is another scheme that has been introduced and caused quite a stir! AABC has not only helped to develop the National Business Information System which enables partnerships and retailers to share information about criminals nationally, it has also championed the cause to reduce losses attributed to staff dishonesty. Internal theft and fraud cost the retail industry an average annual loss of £497m. However, contrary to popular belief this is not an invisible crime – it is the consumer that ultimately pays, or in plain terms the people that pay for their purchases instead of stealing them! This type of theft has been a massive problem for many years and the retailer has come under pressure to do something about it.
On the register
AABC has been working to develop a national register of staff who have been dismissed for dishonesty. he NSDR (National Staff Dismissal Register) is supported by a number of key retailers. The register has been developed to hold details of individuals who have been dismissed or have left employment whilst under investigation for acts of dishonesty toward the company including theft of money or merchandise, falsification or forgery of documents and causing damage to company property. This information is shared with other members of the register who are able to access the national system to search for details of an applicant, ensuring cost saving through reduction in losses, and aiding in a more efficient recruitment process. I asked Mike if he felt this was an effective tool to help combat crime for AABC members. Mike said: "We look forward to providing an increasingly valuable service to help retailers reduce losses by dishonest staff. With the increasing sophistication of internal dishonesty, we need to ensure the industry has the most effective tools at its disposal to help reduce losses.”
Business crime
We went on to discuss the many areas that Mike has been involved in within the retail security sector and I asked him. about your personal ambitions within the BRC and the AABC. Mike replied: "If you look at the report that the Government Office did on crime 18 months to two years ago it stated that 22 per cent of Metropolitan Police reported crime, was business crime … and of that 22pc …. 92pc was recorded as taking place on retail premises or entertaining premises (pubs and clubs), where people can just walk in off the street … so to answer the question I would like to make AABC the National Crime Reduction Organisation." Was AABC your idea? I asked. Mike replied: "It was a fairly long time scale … a colleague of mine who then worked for Marks & Spencer and I started looking at how the retail industry dealt with external dishonesty … basically shoplifting. We did this in the light of several things, first of all that the police were beginning to be less responsive and take less interest in retail crime. We started to look at the retail business and understand that the people that stole from one particular store would also steal from many other stores within a town or city. It was obvious that unless we came together in some way and shared information about our common problems we would always be caught on the hop. So that’s really what led us to form what we called at the start ‘Retail Crime Operations’ to bring the retailers in a particular location together … in those days it was Marks & Spencer that were the main drivers. We brought together the retailers and communicated directly with them by saying, ‘look these are your common problems, here are some photographs and here is some information. If you see particular individuals in your store then it is likely that they are going to be there for in an illegal purpose. So it was about trying to get ahead of the game and to have more intelligence about who the enemy was. That is how we started … we gradually moved it forward and part of that process was to campaign with the Home Office to publicise the work we were doing. We did this through the BRC and through a joint Home Office Committee called the ‘Crime Reduction Action Team’. We tried to demonstrate to the Home Office that as an industry we were doing a tremendous amount of work ourselves to prevent crime and reduce crime. Therefore, the Home Office really ought to support that effort in a more tangible way. After campaigning for a number of years the Home Office did recognise the work that had been done and provided some ‘start-up funding’ for AABC in 2004.”
No more laws
Is it a charity, I asked. Mike replied: "No, it is a not-for-profit organisation." We went on to chat further and I randomly asked Mike ‘If you were the Home Secretary for the day what new law would you introduce pertaining to the reduction of retail crime? Mike smiled and said: "I don’t think that there are any new laws I would bring in.” We both laughed and agreed there are more than enough already. Mike added: "There needs to be recognition of factors effecting not only retail crime but crime in general. One of these is an increasing amount of organised high value crime. For example sophisticated fraud in both the public and private sectors, businesses in many cases are not best placed to manage that type of crime on their own. I think that for the government not to provide some practical support to industry is missing out on part of their duty to the business community.” So what exactly would you do, I asked. "I would like to see a ‘Business Crime Reduction Advisor’ and ancillary staff in every police force. Whilst it is OK saying to businesses ‘you must do this and you must do that’, there has to be the ability to go in to those businesses and work with them in relation to the identification of crime and who is performing the criminal acts on their premises. Retailers are not crime prevention experts. They will do what they can and what they have to do … but they need help. We have tried to assist in the ‘retail and evening economy’ to alert the retailer that crime affects their business.”
Realistic
Another issue is that retail crime has to be taken more seriously. We need to be much more realistic as to why people commit crime against business. It is because it is relatively easy and if you get caught the penalties are not as great as being a drug dealer or a robber. Many of our problems now relate to drug addiction and I really think we have to look at this issue as a medical problem and not as a criminal problem. All we are doing is creating a massive crime problem.” This is a huge emotive subject in itself and whilst we debated it at length, we went on to police performance and their attitude to various areas of crime which resulted in low service delivery toward the public … but that is for another day. I had time to ask Mike one more; what is your main aim on the police and their performance relating to retail crime? Mike replied: "We want to get business crime on the agenda … I think that business needs to roll up its sleeves regarding the crime that is happening against it … it’s time for us all to work together.”
