Police Foundation calls for police/private sector partnerships to tackle crime

The report, which draws on key examples of public/private partnerships ranging from commercially operated property registers to industry funded police units and data sharing partnerships, also calls for the establishment of a clear policy framework.

The authors conclude that police/private sector partnerships can operate in the public interest and are in fact necessary given the changing nature of theft and fraud and constraints on the public purse.

The three forms of public-private partnership arrangements were found to have the following benefits:

• Property registers, where owners of high value items can register their property make re-sale markets less conducive to crime and keep insurance premiums low. The dividends can be shared between the police, the public purse, insurers and retailers.
• Industry funded police units tackling insurance and payment card fraud provide a service that could never be prioritised by the police given their demand pressures and tight resources.
• Data sharing partnerships enabling the finance sector and the police to work together to tackle fraud demonstrate how essential the data assets of private companies are to fighting these forms of crime.

The report also examines the barriers to introducing public private partnerships. These include:

• The risk of commodifying policing, where private security can be bought and sold, challenging the model of democratic policing.
• Concerns about the fragmentation of data between private companies, hampering risk management.
• The police relationship with commercial entities such as property registers, which can fall outside regular procurement processes, can be ambiguous.

While recognising the legitimacy of these concerns, the report concludes that they should not prevent the policing from fully capitalising on the vital skills, data, resources and innovation that these arrangements can provide. With the clear policy framework risks surrounding these arrangements can be addressed.

Blair Gibbs, Director of the Police Foundation, said: “We are calling for a clear policy framework for how the private sector can support the core public policing model, especially for a range of theft offences which would otherwise not be given sufficient priority. We acknowledge the valuable role that private sector initiatives already play, and we now need to look for opportunities to expand them and stop pretending that the police can do it all on their own.

There are already many examples of how we are harnessing the innovation and digital expertise of the private sector in direct support of certain police investigations and to support recovery of stolen items and prevention efforts. Given the changing nature of acquisitive crime and current demands on our police, we should be encouraging more such partnerships under the right light-touch regulation.”

Julian Radcliffe OBE, Chairman, The Art Loss Register, commented: “Public confidence in the police is essential to an orderly society and is easily lost if the police are seen to be unresponsive to the public’s reasonable demands – whatever the resource or other constraints. This lack of confidence may lead to a dangerous spiral of failure to report crime in the belief that no action will be taken, a reduction in intelligence and cooperation, citizens taking the law into their own hands, and a reduction in society’s confidence in legitimate government; law and order being the state’s first and overriding priority. To prevent this, it is essential that the police have the capability to respond to lower priority, nonviolent crimes such as theft and fraud, even if the response is not wholly their own.”