National week of action to tackle business crime launches for third year
Police and partners across the country are taking part in a national week of action targeting business and retail crime in their communities.
Launched on Monday (October 14), this is the third annual Safer Business Action (SaBA) Week organised by the National Business Crime Centre (NBCC) and will involve every police force in England and Wales.
Forces will work with Business Crime Reduction Partnerships, Business Improvement Districts, private security partners and other crime prevention groups, to carry out targeted operations, engagement events and high visibility patrols to tackle local crimes and issues facing retailers and other local businesses.
As part of the initiative, police and partners will be holding Safer Business Action Days throughout the week and visiting local retailers and other businesses to understand more about the issues they are facing on a daily basis.
NBCC lead, Superintendent Patrick Holdaway, said: “When we launched the national week of action three-years ago, we never anticipated it would have such widespread support from policing and partners. Only this year in March we ran a SaBA month of action which resulted in hundreds of arrests.
“However, it is as much about engaging with businesses and the public as it is about identifying and catching prolific offenders.
“Last year’s week of action saw some fantastic results in targeting those who cause the most harm to businesses and also in building ongoing relationships between business, partners and the police.
“This is a great opportunity to shine a light on some of the current issues businesses face and also to highlight the ongoing work that police and partners are doing, supported by the NBCC, to tackle the problems that matter to local retailers and other businesses.”
Tom Ironside, director of business and regulation at the British Retail Consortium, added: “Retail theft cost retailers and their customers over £1.8 billion last year, money that would be better spent lowering prices and improving the customer experience.
“We welcome the support of the NBCC and their Safer Business Action Week, which focuses on retail crime; police engagement at a local level is key to ensuring incidents are reported by retailers and prioritised by local policing.”
Association of Police and Crime Commissioners joint business and retail crime leads, Katy Bourne OBE and Andy Dunbobbin, said this year’s Safer Business Action Week is “more important than ever before”.
“After witnessing the impact of violence and disorder this summer on businesses, independent retailers and high streets, it is vital that we highlight the critical role that businesses play in our local communities through employment, services and leisure,” they said.
“Police and crime commissioners, police, fire and crime commissioners and deputy mayors play an important role in tackling business and retail crime, ensuring that shop workers and business owners feel safe in their workplace and customers are not witnesses to, or even subjected to, violence and crime in stores.
“We work closely with our local business community to address barriers such as ease of reporting, sharing of vital evidence and the police response. We also fund interventions to tackle the root causes of this crime and services to ensure victims get the right support to cope and recover.
“At a national level, we are working closely with retailers and policing through our Pegasus/OPAL partnership to make significant improvements in both understanding and tackling retail crime.
“Using advanced technology and standing up specialist police resources, we are now mapping and targeting organised retail crime groups more effectively than ever before.
“We want to retain our high streets and shops as pleasant and safe places to work, shop and visit and this week provides an excellent opportunity to highlight the important work being undertaken by policing and partners to achieve this.”